Book excerpt: Being an entrepreneur is risky. USA Today has written that “only 1 out of 5 new businesses survive past their first year of operation.” Even fewer new businesses make it to five or ten years. Those who want to buck the odds must have persistence, resilience, and creativity to survive. An entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience knows all too well what a challenge it can be to start a business and has created a book to help budding entrepreneurs to not only build their business but to thrive. The Entrepreneur’s Survival Handbook covers challenges entrepreneurs face that are not common knowledge—or even discussed. It includes essential topics such as these: • The wisdom of hiring friends and family • The importance of an employee manual • Overcoming the fear of such a big undertaking • How to read a room • Solutions to potential problems The handbook features 52 pointers for entrepreneurs––one for each week of the year––to study and record results. Entrepreneurs can read them one by one or shuffle them like a deck of cards. This one-of-a-kind resource serves as an excellent complement to traditional business school training, allowing entrepreneurs their best chance to achieve success and build their businesses.