Sound, ethical business advice that young entrepreneurs may find useful in advancing in their own careers and lives.
In Cummings’ autobiography, he intertwines business insights and lessons learned, highlighting how small beginnings, persistence, and ethical leadership can help a company thrive.
Cummings begins by reflecting on his upbringing during the Great Depression, emphasizing how his parents’ frugality and resourcefulness shaped his work ethic. He was a young entrepreneur, selling ice cream and used small motorboats, which helped him develop practical business skills. The book outlines Cummings’ business ventures, particularly the founding and growth of Cummings Properties, which specializes in commercial real estate and has a portfolio of 11 million square feet in the Boston metro area. His strategic approach emphasizes long-term relationships, high occupancy rates, and community integration, rather than focusing solely on maximizing profits. Through thoughtful mentorship (including that of Gorton’s of Gloucester’s late chairman E. Robert Kinney) and leadership development, Cummings ensured the success and sustainability of his own companies. The entrepreneur gradually shifted his goals from accumulating wealth to giving back. He and his wife, Joyce, founded the Cummings Foundation, donating significant portions of their real estate portfolio to support local nonprofits, like Pine Street Inn, a major Boston homeless shelter. The book details their involvement in the Giving Pledge, an organization whose members submit a written pledge to donate at least half of their assets to charitable causes, and their efforts to democratize philanthropy by involving volunteers in the grant-making process.
Throughout his book, Cummings considers the importance of leadership continuity, sharing anecdotes about mentoring young leaders and overcoming setbacks. The unexpected loss of a key colleague taught him about the need for succession planning, which became a priority for both his business and philanthropic endeavors. The author emphasizes the joy found in philanthropy; for example, he turned foundation events into celebrations that uplifted and recognized nonprofit workers. His business philosophy involves ethical workplace practices, mentorship, personal responsibility, community engagement, and thoughtful decision-making. Cummings’ story serves as both a memoir and a guidebook, demonstrating how small ventures can grow into sizable enterprises, and his journey underscores the idea that success isn’t just about wealth accumulation, but also involves using resources to make a lasting positive impact on others. Overall, Cummings lucidly recounts his accomplishments in business ventures and his commitment to facing challenges directly rather than “leaving problems to fester.” However, readers may be disappointed that there is limited exploration of the structural factors (such as systemic racism, gender bias, or economic disparity) that may stymie others from following a similar path. Nonetheless, the experiences shared contain universal lessons that will apply to professionals no matter what stage they are in their career (“It helps to show people that you are on their side before trying to get them on yours”). Finally, the author uses a great deal of warmth when describing the people who supported him through the years, reinforcing a recurring theme throughout Cummings’ stories—appreciate the person rather than their position.
Sound, ethical business advice that young entrepreneurs may find useful in advancing in their own careers and lives.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2018
ISBN: 9780692995464
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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