Ronald M. Shapiro

In his book Dare to Prepare: How to Win Before You Begin Ronald Shapiro gives us the secret, the open secret, to success… You have to do some work for it!

Actually, he makes it that simple. If you wanna win, you have to practice and you have to prepare in advance. And Ronald Shapiro should know. He is a lawyer, an arbitrator, a negotiator and he owns a very successful professional sports agency which has represented major nationally and internationally known athletes. Shapiro gives us the reason to prepare, that thing we don’t want to see… Money, talent, brains? They are all leveled by the guy who puts in the hours in advance. By preparation a lesser athlete, negotiator, businessman, politician, or what have you, becomes the equal or the better of their competitor who doesn’t spend the required effort.

Now that Ronald Shapiro got that through our head he spends the rest of the book giving us illustrations of how we should spend our time preparing and he uses real life examples of businessmen, educators, coaches, journalists, politicians, fire fighters, lawyers, doctors and even priests have made themselves successful by preparation. Each section of Dare to Prepare takes the reader through a phase of preparation that is vital to master in order to obtain the edge. And each of these phases are illustrated with true life examples of the famous and not so famous who are masters of these skills.

What I gained from Dare to Prepare was that preparation isn’t just a planning stage before the game, the presentation, the court case, etc. Preparation is an immersion. There is scripting to be done. Role playing to go through. Time lines to be made and adhered to. And one of the best bits of advice in preparation, which I think is oft overlooked, is that we should seek out those who have succeeded before and learn their lessons. (That seems like the most common sense thing to do? You’d be surprised at how many of us don’t take the time!)

The style of the book was very easy to read but the stories it contained were even easier to grasp – not because of the style per se, but more because these were stories we could relate to. On the one hand there were the people who we have heard of: Charlene Barshefsky, Bob Costas, Shirley Franklin, Ken Singleton, Bill Walton… But these were the minority. Shapiro went out of his way to give us stories of the people who were not so famous but were very successful in their fields due to their prior preparations. These are people who are making a difference in society everyday. Dare to Prepare is an enjoyable read, not just from the writing but rather from the fact that we know it is food for thought is good for the digestion and will help you get past the valleys and plateaus of life to achieve more of the peaks.… (mais)