LUCKY ME

The CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group recounts a life up from the streets and into the big time.

Paul is known in sports circles as the head of Klutch, which has signed more than $3 billion in contracts. There are those from the old neighborhood, to say nothing of rivals, who write off his success to luck, as the title suggests. However, notes the author, “those who call me lucky don’t realize what kind of assembly line I was built on.” That line ran along mean streets where drugs and violence were rampant. Paul learned early on to rely on himself and not expect much from others. Some of the lessons he imparts in chapter-opening principles (“Discipline your approach”; “Build an ecosystem of empathy”) he owes to his father, a storekeeper entrepreneur who tried to keep him from the worst Cleveland had to offer; others were hard-won through experience. In the anecdotal narratives that follow his slogans, Paul builds on his ideas while recounting successes and failures. “Ain’t no stumbling your way through life,” he writes. “Black folks don’t have enough margin of error for that. Most of us have no margin of error at all.” The author adds that even if you possess an abundance of self-discipline, -training, and -control, it behooves you to roll with whatever punches come your way—“you have to plan with intent but always be ready to improvise.” Particularly well taken are Paul’s frequent reminders that the life he knew is not, in the end, so different from the cutthroat world of business, save that “in the business world, it’s harder to see who’s trying to kill you.” Though there’s plenty of braggadocio to go along with his well-intended admonitions, Paul is never too full of himself—and full of good advice.

An aspirational, often funny, and always sharply pointed tale of winning against the odds.