How to Think Big… when you’re small

"I am not a genius. I am not a prodigy or sensation or phenomenon. I am just like you. At the age of 19, I founded my first company. After graduating from college, I never applied for a job because I already had one. I was the CEO of my own company.
   By my third year, my company was generating over $400,000 in annual revenue.
   Plus, we were doing business with several billion-dollar companies including Coca-Cola, BET, NASCAR, Verizon, Marriott, Heineken and McDonald’s.
   Many people expect complicated answers when they ask me how I was able to do it at such a young age. Really though, I have nothing but simple answers, outlined in what I call the ’24 Keys to Success in Life and in Business.’
   I challenge you to apply these keys to success to your life and business. It doesn’t matter how small you are, you CAN achieve your goals.”
   Though most might refer to Dante Lee as a “brainiac” or a “wunderkind,” the modest media mogul prefers to play down his phenomenal success. At only 24 years of age, this brilliant businessman sits atop Diversity City Media, the umbrella organization dedicated to the dissemination of African-American oriented news, public relations, marketing, networking and wire services via several popular websites.
    But because Mr. Lee is convinced that anyone can emulate him and achieve their goals, he has decided to share both his secrets and his philosophy in a handy self-help guide entitled, “How to Think Big… when you’re small.”
   Half inspirational pep-talk, half practical work book, this invaluable text contains plenty of sage advice from a young man undeniably wise beyond his years.
   For instance, in section with the heading, “Don’t Worry about Legalities,” he suggests that, in starting a business, one ought to delay incorporating, applying for trademarks or other attorney-involving costs until after you are already making money. I happen to have an MBA and a law degree, and agree heartily with this opinion, because unnecessarily incurred legal entanglements can be such a terrible impediment to getting a start-up going.
   How to Think Big is basically broken down into 24 Keys to Success in Life and in Business, as Dante refers them. A chapter is devoted to each “Key,” with a dozen of them focusing on “Life” issues, while the other dozen deal with “Business” concerns.
The subjects range from common sense, such as “Stop Procrastinating” and “Don’t Quit,” to the very insightful, like “Attend Conferences” and “Treat a Business Card Like Gold.” The author clearly knows that it will ultimately be up to his individual readers to do the work necessary to turn any great idea into a thriving business. This is why he asks some very telling questions (What are some things in your life that you can work on? How and when will you make these changes?), and then provides the blank space for immediate answers to them, since there’s no time like the present.
   In his best seller, “How to Get Rich,” Donald Trump never really got around to the nuts-and-bolts of his supposed subject-matter. For this reason, I say that the Average Joe has a far better chance of making a million by following Dante Lee’s step-by-step formula as delineated in the most worthwhile How to Think Big.