THE MOST UNLIKELY LEADER

Smith recounts his troubled youth and his subsequent rise to the top of an insurance company.

Smith had an eventful childhood—he grew up in New York City in the 1950s and California in the ’60s, a shiftless youth who was repeatedly thrown out of school, financed his life with crime, and spent most of his days in a “drug-induced stupor.” While burglarizing a pawnshop, his friend Greg was fatally shot. He was often homeless and had his first failed marriage at 17. He was married three more times before finding marital happiness on the fifth attempt. An opportunity to work for American Income Life, an insurance company, proved to be transformative. Smith had finally discovered something (legal) for which he had a talent; he eventually become agent of the year. Even after experiencing some real success, however, he continued to drink excessively and use cocaine, painkillers, and crack. “Even as I write this all these years later, I can’t even fathom how I functioned on a day-to-day basis back then. It seems impossible now.” Only after a stint in rehab was the author finally able to turn his life around. He married, started a family, and become the president and CEO of the company.

Smith’s inspiring story mixes elements from three genres; he furnishes a memoir, a kind of motivational self-help guide, as well as an introduction to the insurance industry. The arc of Smith’s life is extraordinary—he managed to become an accomplished businessperson and family man after years of drug-addled purposelessness. His candor is also remarkable—he spares no punches when it comes to self-judgment and chronicles his foibles in granular detail. However, his life story remains a familiar one—a rags-to-riches triumph that constitutes a literary genre. The author dwells at great length on the internal machinations of the insurance business, a commentary that is predictably dry and often presented with excruciating specificity. Moreover, the author pivots at one juncture in his remembrance to furnish professional counsel, presumably directed to other insurance salesman, and this section of the book offers nothing new, rehearsing the usual tropes of any book that dispenses career instruction. Also, the author’s writing abounds with clichés, an inclination he all but announces early in the book when he warns the reader to “buckle up.” He describes crack as “cocaine on steroids” and proclaims his love of motivational mantras like “think big,” “opportunity unlimited,” and “step up so others can step in.” Consider this description of New York City in the 1950s, not utterly false but without nuance and clearly exaggerated; still, some may appreciate the straightforward characterization: “The city was rampant with drugs, murders, prostitution, homelessness, and every vice you can think of. Everyone chain-smoked. Everyone acted like assholes.” Smith has lived a memorable life, one almost certainly more gripping than its expression in this volume, and it should be a delightful read for those who know and love him.

A memoir for those interested in a personal account of the insurance industry or the author himself.