Booklife Review

Entrepreneur, inventor, and Micro-Ant founder McCarrick shares anecdotal stories from his childhood, life lessons learned from his three brothers, and insights from his business experience to create this personal and relatable guide, showcasing the story of McCarrick’s journey, as he puts it, “from unemployed to Captain of Industry.” Perhaps since nobody keeps one down-to-Earth more than one’s brothers, he immediately amends that phrasing, writing, “Okay, maybe Captain is a stretch, but certainly a seat close to the Captain’s table.” For all the fun, McCarrick builds the narrative around his “4S Transform” assessment tool for measuring one’s own qualities when it comes to establishing a business, demonstrating throughout how principles like “Salability” and “Sensibility” can help offer guidance when embarking on entrepreneurial endeavors.

Filled with humorous stories designated as "life lessons," each paired with a comic illustration and a moral takeaway, Lessons My Brothers Taught Me urges readers to draw on what they’ve already lived, recognizing their strengths and skills, and applying it all to forging a career path. McCarrick recalls searching the internet for principles of business and "boiling it down" to the 4S tool, which is crafted for flexibility. The running message throughout, expressed in direct and inviting language, is to value and use what you already know, expound on it, and implement it in a way that will propel you and your plans. The interactions with his brothers that often illustrate these ideas are relatable and hilarious, while the advice he mines from those stories tends to be fresh and insightful.

Lessons My Brothers Taught Me is an engaging, unpretentious, and often inspiring guide that also reads like a memoir. McCarrick offers clear-eyed advice, applicable to many situations, while sharing unvarnished accounts of the many ways he got it wrong and right, highlighting with welcome transparency the ups and downs of creating a successful business … with brothers watching.

Takeaway: Fresh, engaging life lessons urging entrepreneurs to build on their strengths.

Comparable Titles: Namita Thapar’s The Dolphin and the Shark, Tren Griffin’s A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A