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Book Review: Am I Being Too Subtle?

I recently finished “Am I Being Too Subtle”, which is a business book by Sam Zell. He is an American businessman and real estate tycoon.

I quite enjoyed the book. We learn a bit about his parents and upbringing, and then he plunges right into the deals. Some of the details are great (he was able to complete a transaction once because he found out the owner of the property had buried a favorite dog in the backyard, and added a clause to the contract allowing the pet to be exhumed). He addresses his successes (helping professionalize the REIT market, selling the equity group, the loyalty of his employees) and his failures (the bankruptcy of the Tribune company in 2008).

The single biggest lesson that I took away was that to succeed you need to be looking in places that others aren’t and that eventually what worked for you will stop working and you’ll need to change. There are other pieces of wisdom in the book, and it’s less than 250 pages. A great fun read if you enjoy learning about business and deals.