New York University Today - 4/1/03
Stern student Simmons launches "success" ebook
4/1/03 - Stern School of Business junior Michael Simmons is on a mission. His goal is to inspire what he calls the “entrepreneurial mindset” among his peers and youths all over the U.S. His latest milestone in reaching this goal is this month’s launch of his ebook, The Success Manifesto.
Michael categorizes The Success Manifesto as both a self-help and business book. It provides young people with the motivation and tools to live an entrepreneurial way of life. He notes in the book’s introduction, “Too often we disassociate ourselves from people who achieve greatness. We forget that everything that lives within them also lies within us.”
Michael hopes to inspire young people not only to launch successful businesses but to help their communities by encouraging them to identify ways in which they can maximize their talents and interests for the greater good.
The book focuses on five different areas: defining extreme entrepreneurism and why it is important in each person’s life; understanding how the philosophy of extreme entrepreneurism can be applied to each person’s life; determining how to make the best decisions to reach success; how to apply the extreme entrepreneurism philosophy to one’s life on a daily basis; and how to build the motivation to start the process.
The Success Manifesto did not happen overnight. Michael’s experience started at age 16, when he and a friend launched Princeton WebSolutions, a firm that provided web development services. The firm won more than 20 clients in its first year and was a tremendous success.
Since then, Michael has focused on the teaching and promotion of the entrepreneurial mindset. He conducts an entrepreneurship class with inner-city youth through the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and he has written articles on entrepreneurship for College Bound Magazine and Entrepreneur.com. In addition, Michael is president of Stern’s Entrepreneurial Exchange Group and is helping organize this year’s All-University Entrepreneurship Conference on Saturday, April 26.
Writing the book required hours of journaling, idea creation, organization, writing, and editing, and Michael worked closely with an editor who has experience with similar books.
To learn more about The Success Manifesto, visit Michael’s web site at www.successmanifesto.com.
-Shana Carroll