Rise and Grind

Rise and Grind’s content doesn’t match the title. The phrase “rise and grind” is authentic and gully. It’s the antithesis of “Fake It until You Make It.” It means put your nose to the grind and get stuff done. Thus, as an entrepreneur, I was immediately drawn to a book with such a title. However, with respect to Daymond John’s book, the title Rise and Grind is a misnomer.

John managed to interview some successful people but presented his work as a selection of celebrity profiles that fail to extract the subjects’ processes or their philosophies or any information useful to the reader or true to the “rise and grind” theme of the book. John basically presents the life stories of his subjects (e.g., Catherine Zeta-Jones dropped out of high school, and Kyle Maynard was born handicapped, etc.) and says look how successful they are. If they can do it, so can you. Inspirational, perhaps, but not practical. It fails to identify what’s in these successful people and whether it can be learned later in life. How are some people able to keep pressing even after they’ve made their name and their money? How are some people able to grind it out on days when they can’t summon their best talent or keenest focus?

To be fair, John is not a journalist. He probably did not know what questions to ask or how to follow-up if the answer to a question was non-responsive or veered off-track. Perhaps he should have enlisted the help of a journalist because after reading the book, I’m left feeling that the title Rise and Grind was wasted on a book unworthy of the moniker.