Review of Jason Kothari’s book – Irrationally Passionate: My Turnaround from Rebel to Entrepreneur
- Title – Irrationally Passionate: My Turnaround from Rebel to Entrepreneur
- Author – Jason Kothari
- Format – Hardcover
- Print length – 268 pages
- Publisher: Harper Business (11 March 2020)
- Also available in – e-book format
While a college student at Wharton, Jason Kothari scraped together money from family and friends to save his childhood favourite comic book company, Valiant Entertainment, from bankruptcy and bring it back to life. A few years later, he transformed Valiant into the third-largest superhero entertainment company in the world after Marvel and DC Comics and sold it for $100 million.
Jason then became a professional turnaround leader and went on to transform distressed Indian Internet icons Housing.com, FreeCharge and Snapdeal, helping save billions of dollars in value, and advise giants like technology investor Softbank and real estate developer Emaar, who have invested billions of dollars in India.
Irrationally Passionate reveals the inside story of how a rebel, train-wreck kid transformed himself into a successful young entrepreneur and business leader who became one of the top ten paid executives in India while only in his 30s. From getting his first job as an assistant to Jackie Chan in Hong Kong, to learning strategy from champion Muay Thai fighters in Thailand, to tackling huge personal setbacks, to becoming a CEO in 60 seconds, among many other stories – Jason’s inspiring journey across countries, industries and companies has something for everyone, right from students to entrepreneurs to corporate CEOs to even parents of students and entrepreneurs.
Irrationally Passionate is a highly personal, authentic, open and complete account of a young entrepreneur’s life. Brimming with practical advice and philosophical insights, it will force readers to reflect on how they perceive life, work, family and spirituality by giving them a fresh perspective.
I am generally into thrillers and mystery genre but of late I am leaning towards non fiction.I have slowly been adding them to my shelf and this book was the perfect one to add to the collection.
Irrationally Passionate: My Turnaround from Rebel to Entrepreneur is an autobiography of Jason Kothari. In this book he shares with his readers ,his journey and the events that he faced through the various stages of life.
This is not a typical rags to riches type story but rather the author talks of how he came up in life as a successful entrepreneur going past the various struggles and challenges.
The author’s family have lived in several places across the globe and the author has been exposed to various cultures and situations.And through all this he has learnt a lot , not only in terms of business but also in terms of life.
Right from his childhood, his parents had instilled in him a sense of independence and this we can see from how his father asked him to bargain for a chess board when he was just a kid.
From his school days encounters we can also see that he had a hidden talent to make money in a cool way. His idea of selling pizza to the school kids was such a novel idea not to mention the profit he earned from it! He was already thinking like an businessman!!
He also talks about how spirituality helped him stay strong and how he managed to wrestle through the hardships and emotions.
His tone in this book is not authoritative or boastful. He talks in a voice that will let us see his side of the story just the way he had experienced it.
There is a lot you can learn from this book. The author shares instances where failure is not an end but a means to seek a new way to make it successful and turn it around. Also he says he it not a bad thing if things don’t work out well the first time itself. There is always time to go back look at the events that lead to its failure and make changes to lead it though the path of success.
Towards the end of the book, he gives us the 7 golden pillars for an ideal start up that has also been briefly explained. This is a really useful guide for anyone looking to do a start up.
Another thing I liked about this book is the chapter titles. They are crisp and sort of like a proverb / saying that convey the essence of that chapter. Here are a few – ‘Mistakes can be a gift’ , Life and business aren’t linear’ , Nothing worthwhile comes easy’, etc. Aren’t all these true!!
It’s okay if there are failures and disappointments in our life. But it is the will to turn things over that makes us successful . When something happens that does not look like what we expect, one must not just sit and wallow in sorrow but look for ways to get up and make things go on the way we dreamt. Whatever the circumstances one must never quit from the path to our dreams and must looks for ways and means to attain itThis is the takeaway from the book that I felt was something everyone must realize.
Not only that, we get to see a close up account of the life of an entrepreneur which is ridden with up and downs, disappointments and failures and finally how success looks like and how they feel about it!
Last but not the least, the language is very simple and makes it very easy to read and follow. The Hard bind cover makes this book one of my favorites.
If you are someone who is into non fiction, this one will be good read.
And if you are someone who is looking for some inspiration to start a new venture or just about anything new, this book will give the valuable insights that you need.
Not only that, the author also shares his experiences that will help us visualize and utilize the occasion / situation effectively.
While a college student at Wharton, Jason Kothari scraped together money from family and friends to save his childhood favourite comic book company, Valiant Entertainment, from bankruptcy and bring it back to life. A few years later, he transformed Valiant into the third-largest superhero entertainment company in the world after Marvel and DC Comics and sold it for $100 million. Jason then became a professional turnaround leader and went on to transform distressed Indian Internet icons Housing.com, FreeCharge and Snapdeal, helping save billions of dollars in value, and advise giants like technology investor Softbank and real estate developer Emaar, who have invested billions of dollars in India. Irrationally Passionate reveals the inside story of how a rebel, train-wreck kid transformed himself into a successful young entrepreneur and business leader who became one of the top ten paid executives in India while only in his 30s. From getting his first job as an assistant to Jackie Chan in Hong Kong, to learning strategy from champion Muay Thai fighters in Thailand, to tackling huge personal setbacks, to becoming a CEO in 60 seconds, among many other stories – Jason’s inspiring journey across countries, industries and companies has something for everyone, right from students to entrepreneurs to corporate CEOs to even parents of students and entrepreneurs. Irrationally Passionate is a highly personal, authentic, open and complete account of a young entrepreneur’s life. Brimming with practical advice and philosophical insights, it will force readers to reflect on how they perceive life, work, family and spirituality by giving them a fresh perspective.
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