Luck by Design: Certain Success in an Uncertain World

Here's a title you gotta love — "Luck by Design: Certain Success in an Uncertain World." This book is far more than the typical guide to business success. It's actually a handbook for both personal and business success.

This was intriguing because during the holidays we were inundated with TV ads from the stores in our area.

Written by Richard E. Goldman, partner and former executive vice president of Men's Wearhouse, the author tells a compelling story about growing up in the small mining town of Hazleton, Pa. and working in the family store. After high school (he graduated 18th in his class, but the class had only 26 students), he enrolled in Rutgers University in New Jersey, and while there became involved in an independent study of advertising. Returning to Hazleton after college, he went back to work in the family hardware business but soon felt restless. In 1973, he packed up, shoved his bankroll of $300 into his billfold and moved from Hazleton to Houston, convinced his career path lay in advertising.

When he was unable to land a job in his chosen field, he took a job selling advertising for a weekly paper, ultimately taking a job as a salesman with The Men's Wearhouse, then a three-store retail company. After a year with Wearhouse, he got the job of his dreams. But from the first day, Mr. Goldman knew he'd made the wrong decision. Six months later, he accepted owner George Zimmer's offer to make him a partner with an option to buy $3,000 shares of stock and moved back to Wearhouse where he stayed until 2002 when he retired at 52. At that point, sales had reached $1.2 billion from nearly 1,300 stores.

During his tenure at Wearhouse,

Mr. Goldman was general merchandise manager and was not only responsible for overseeing the purchase of all products, as marketing manager he pioneered the company's use of television as the main form of advertising. Today, Men's Wearhouse is the largest men's dress apparel retailer in the United States and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Goldman's book isn't only about business success, but personal success. He points out the major mistakes his generation, the baby boomers, made, but also shares advice with men and women suffering through these difficult economic times as well as high school and college students. His book posits that every human was born for a purpose and that our main goal is to discern that purpose is and then carry it out. Along the way, he advises us to keep open minds and to be flexible as unexpected opportunities arise. He is emphatic that there are solutions to the problems that exist today. These solutions require hard work, careful thought, planning, and consistent effort. The bad news: these solutions require luck. The good news: you can create your own luck and Mr. Goldman tells you how.