Poet and Warrior by Brian Dietmeyer - Book review

Poet and Warrior - Balancing your spirit and professional destiny

A human guide for new and aspiring entrepreneurs

By: Brian Dietmeyer

Published: August 13, 2012
Format: Paperback, 104 pages
ISBN-10: 0985898704
ISBN-13: 978-0985898700
Publisher: Think! Inc.








"This book is intended to be both a business and human manual for moving from thinking about starting your own business to actually doing it", writes entrepreneur and and co-founder of Think! Inc., Brian Dietmeyer, in his deeply personal and contemplative book Poet and Warrior - Balancing your spirit and professional destiny: A human guide for new and aspiring entrepreneurs. The author describes both his own personal journey into entrepreneurship, but shares the common motivations, vision, challenges, and need for balance that is part of every business owner's individual path.

Brian Dietmeyer recognizes that the desire to start and manage one's own company is a deeply seated cultural goal. That same intended meeting with personal destiny is also a leap of faith into the unknown, fraught with challenges and obstacles, both internal and external to the would be entrepreneur. Through the offering of his own personal transition from corporate employee to business owner, Brian Dietmeyer provides important insights into why people take the entrepreneurial plunge, how they avoid external measurements of success that are not in alignment with their own vision, and how that vision becomes a reality through the viewing of the world through fresh eyes as both a poet and a warrior.

Brian Dietmeyer (photo left) understands that entrepreneurs require some ideas and philosophy about what he considers the soft side of entrepreneurship. Far away from the business and marketing plans, spreadsheets, and accounts, the author offers the opportunity for entrepreneurs to ask themselves what will make them personally successful in their own lives. Combining aspects of spiritualism and materialism, into the persona of the poet and the warrior, Brian Dietmeyer invites would be and current entrepreneurs to assess their own personal vision of their ideal life of success.

Brian Dietmeyer presents a complete guide to that very personal and individual entrepreneurial journey. He invites business owners to consider the following aspects of their own vision, actions, and clarity of purpose:

* Who am I to leave a perfectly wonderful life?
* The end is where we start from
* Detox: Purging ourselves of artificial success measurements
* You want to own it...it owns you
* I never take vacations and I don't take weekends off
* Wise choices: Decisions aligned to your own version of success
* It's time to get a Ph.D.
* Poet and warrior
* Meeting triumph and disaster and treating both imposters the same
* Sure, it's easy for you...I didn't sleep last night
* Loving kindness builds profit and brand equity
* Tie it all together
* Heroes

For me, the power of the book is how Brian Dietmeyer goes beyond both the standard personal development and how to run a business books, and takes a more philosophical perspective of the entrepreneurial journey. Utilizing his own business story, and those of other successful entrepreneurs, the author offers an alternative approach to really understanding and recognizing your own personal entrepreneurial vision. That vision is unique to each business owner, and as a result, that clarity of purpose and definition of success must be worked out by each and every entrepreneur.

Brian Dietmeyer doesn't provide his readers with the nuts and bolts aspects of starting and running a company. Instead, the author focuses on the inner life of the entrepreneur, and guides the person to find their own true path. To achieve success, the person must maintain a balance in their lives and business approach, presented in the metaphor of the poet and the warrior, creating a sense of calm and stress free life.

I highly recommend the clarity of vision oriented book Poet and Warrior - Balancing your spirit and professional destiny: A human guide for new and aspiring entrepreneurs by Brian Dietmeyer, to any would be and current entrepreneurs who are seeking guidance in focusing on aligning their personal business vision with their own concept of what success means to them. This book will help the business owner find their own inner poet and warrior, and develop personal balance on their own heroic business journey.