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It’s Not Rocket
Science
by Mary Spio
c.2015, Perigee
$24.95 / $27.95 Canada
244 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The TruthContributor
Your father always told you to reach for the stars.
Be the best you can be, he said. Never let obstacles get in
your way. Strive for success and challenge yourself – all
excellent advice, but how can you harness astronomical
success in this, or any economy? In the new book It’s
Not Rocket Science by Mary Spio, you’ll find some
stellar ideas.
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Back when you graduated from high school or college, you
were expected to find a job, work hard, and move up the
ladder until it was time to retire. The “new dream,” though,
is to find work that will allow you to create “a lifestyle
of freedom by defining success your way…”
Mary Spio, as it turns out, lives that statement.
Born in Syracuse, New York, Spio’s family moved back to
their native Ghana when she was a little girl. She grew up
hearing her father’s urge to reach for the stars and she
took that advice to heart: as a teenager, she came back
Stateside, finished high school, joined the Air Force and
went to work for NASA. Her passion, however, lay elsewhere
and she’s now a serial entrepreneur and “Game Changer.”
Game Changers are a new “tribe” of businessperson, says Spio.
They “change our world in some way… by altering the way we
think… work or the way we live.” Not only do Game Changers
ignore the rules, but they ignore conventional, old-school
advice, too. Think Copernicus, says Spio, Bill Gates, or
Oprah. They share “seven key traits” with all Game Changers.
A big imagination is at the top of the list of Game Changer
attributes. Imagination leads to inquisitiveness, creativity
and ideas, and “curiosity drives action.”
Game Changers have a deep passion for their work, and they
live that passion in their everyday lives. Their compassion
drives them, and their days are spent “doing something
meaningful.” They possess laser-focus in their actions and
their “relentless hustle.” Game Changers are audacious, they
make friends with risk and fear, and they have “pit bull
tenacity.” Above all, they leave a “mark on the world.”
Lately, it seems, the math is simple: idea + passion +
desire for change = success. And with It’s Not Rocket
Science, that adds up nicely.
At first, though, on the surface, it doesn’t appear that
there’s much new here. Author Mary Spio essentially
reiterates a lot of what you’ll find inside similar books.
We’re encouraged to follow blueprints comparable to what
other volumes espouse… but look closer. The twist is in
illustrative stories Spio uses: they’re different, more
approachable, more common-man in their scope. Here,
impossibly high-positioned, super-famous CEOs are not held
up as the only examples of achievement. That gives readers a
sense that, indeed, mega-success truly is attainable
by anyone.
In the end, I liked this book quite a bit because of the
above and because it makes entrepreneurship sound fun again.
And if that’s the kind of approach you need to become the
next sensation, then It’s Not Rocket Science is out
of this world. |
