Tell to Win is a book that has absolutely no underlying sports agent theme and is actually not about sports at all. However, the lessons learned by reading it could certainly be applied by sports agents and all other people who work in the business of sports.
Tell to Win will officially be released for public consumption tomorrow, but I had the opportunity to review an advance copy and I am telling you right now – go buy it. It is inexpensive and is worth every penny you will spend on it. Truthfully, I did not realize just how important the art of storytelling was until I started turning the pages. After reading it, I doubt I will be able to speak to a group of people, or even a single individual, without first thinking of the vital components of a powerful story and figuring out how I will tell it in the best manner possible.
I first caught wind of Tell to Win when I was asked to put together a contest to increase exposure for the book. We ended up doing a Twitter contest where my followers could enter to win a free copy of Tell to Win by creating a Tweet that included my name and the author’s name. The Tweet had to include a unique story…all in 140 characters or less.
Speaking of the author, Peter Guber is a very fascinating person. In fact, Guber’s background may be the tie to sports that I was looking for at the start of this post. He owns six minor league baseball franchises, owns and is a co-executive of the Golden State Warriors, and has earned approximately 200 Academy Awards during his tenure at the helm of companies such as Columbia, Sony Pictures, Casablanca and Mandalay Entertainment. That kind of background adds quite a bit of credibility to the words written within his book.
The great thing about Tell to Win is that Guber does not just lay out the formula of how to tell a good story to get the results you are looking for. Instead, he explains the process through a plethora of stories he has either told or heard from very impressive individuals. It makes reading the book enjoyable and easy to comprehend. He sort of proves his point that the art of good storytelling is the best way to make others understand what you are trying to convey.
This is not a quick read. Take your time to read it slow, fully grasp the important concepts, and attempt to use them to your advantage in your lives. I used to be guilty of focusing too much on statistics and not enough on the emotion attached to stories. While stats will continue to encompass a major part of my diatribes, I will certainly incorporate stories effectively, and have already seen positive results from the limited number of times that I have applied Guber’s teachings. I am very impressed by Tell to Win and I believe that you will be inspired by it too.
2 replies on “Book Review: Tell To Win”
Thanks for the heads up on the book. I live in a part of the country which holds a national story telling festival and its really great – something I look forward to attending each year. And to your point, story telling has both practical applications in business, but it is also a lost art form. All of our traditions and beliefs were in fact passed down via story telling (verbal or written). And the world needs more talented story tellers (not just stand up comics) who can share a story with passion, compelling visualization, and interesting messages / morals to each story. Thanks again for the article; I plan to pick up the book!
The book is great. Peter also came out with a mini web-TV series of interviews with guests featured in the book such as Magic Johnson, Stephen Curry, and Tony Robbins.
Check it out on the Livestrong YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/livestrong?blend=1&ob=4