In a previous edition of Words Into Works, we met author Steven Pressfield, who went to extraordinary efforts to write a novel. But we didn’t discuss what happened after—after Pressfield had said no to everything else. One morning over coffee, Pressfield shared with his friend Paul Rink, a fellow author, that he had finally finished his book. […]

Steven Pressfield felt like a fraud. For years, when asked what he did for a living, he told people he was an author. But in truth, he had never finished a book.  It’s not like he hadn’t tried. He had, several times in his life, in fact. But he could never finish what he started. […]

In 1980, Scandinavian Airlines was facing $20 million in losses. To avoid bankruptcy, SAS executives decide to take drastic measures and reposition the airline as “the business traveler’s airline.” [1] The naysayers had their concerns. “What, and sacrifice tourist travelers?!” But the executives won their plea, and the airline was repositioned as planned. In his book, Selling the […]

In 2007, Mohnish Pabrai paid $650,100 to have lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett. During the meal, Pabrai asked Buffet about Buffett’s former business partner, Rick Guerin.  Guerin, a once prolific investor, had worked on several big deals with Warren Buffet and his partner Charlie Munger. But in the 1980s, Guerin all but vanished from […]