In this Book Thinkers video, Ryan reviews Michael Hyatt’s short book Entrepreneurs Will Save the World: Why the Best Hope for Our Economy Is You, the Entrepreneur. He frames the book as a “clarion call” – a direct appeal to current and future entrepreneurs to recognize the outsized impact they can have on three pillars of society: government (through tax revenue), community (through jobs and culture), and customers (through products and services). Ryan highlights Hyatt’s concern about the decline of American entrepreneurship and argues that revitalizing it is essential for economic health. He outlines Hyatt’s personal credibility, noting his upbringing with an entrepreneurial father and his own success building a Christian publishing company that reached $250 million in revenue and employed roughly 750‑1,000 people before being sold to HarperCollins. The review also spotlights a vivid historical analogy – the Battle of Dunkirk and the “burn the boats” mindset – to illustrate the decisive, no‑plan‑B attitude entrepreneurs must adopt. Throughout, Ryan emphasizes the book’s concise, action‑packed 96‑page format and urges viewers to read it, sharing its core message that entrepreneurs are vital to the nation’s future.
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What's up, Book Thinkers family? This is Ryan, and I am reviewing today a book by Michael Hyatt called Entrepreneurs Will Save the World: Why the Best Hope for Our Economy Is You, the Entrepreneur. And this is a clarion call. So a clarion call— I had to look it up— is a call to action. And this is a call to action for entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs. It's something that shouldn't be taken lightly. Lightly in a World Where We Have a Decline in American Entrepreneurship. The one thing I loved about this, and I think the reason for the clarion call, is entrepreneurship can impact many different areas of an economy or community. And in this book, Michael is able to pick on 3 that are super important. And this is a good message to learn as an entrepreneur and also be able to share with family, friends, and other entrepreneurs to continue to inspire them. That message is that you can impact government, community, as well as your customer. So let's take a million-dollar small business. That small business is providing— is doing a million dollars in revenue. That means it's probably distributing about, you know, 25 to 30% of that to the government. And the government now has $250,000 that they can now distribute based on whatever it is they desire for the common good of our community, our culture, or our people. That's amazing. The entrepreneur created that $250,000 that's now being redistributed by the government for our own good. That's awesome. Thankful for the entrepreneur. And now the community. The community is now— that million-dollar business has created 10 or 15 jobs. Those jobs are all very different. If the entrepreneur is really good at what he's doing, he's built a great culture, now you have an opportunity to employ 15 people who may may not have already been employed and provide some stability for them, but also maybe give them a job that they love, maybe give them something different than their former employer gave them at their last job, you know, something that they can really, really enjoy, whether it's a new career or just a new boss or a new culture. So a good entrepreneur does a ton for those 10 or 15 people, or maybe it's hundreds of people like Michael's case, in the community. The third aspect is the customer. So that customer is responsible receiving a good or a service that is helping them in their life, whether it's their personal life or their career. So you're benefiting that customer in your business, and you're benefiting probably hundreds of thousands of customers. So that's awesome as well, even if it's small. So the entrepreneur, as you can see, provides great benefit to the community, but sometimes that is either misrepresented or misunderstood or maybe just not fully understood because perspective, that one hasn't actually heard. And Michael, in his Clarion Call, is telling entrepreneurs that, you know, this is something that is really important. The American entrepreneur as we speak is dying. And Michael had the benefit of actually growing up with an entrepreneur as a father. So he had an entrepreneur as a father. His father gave him a lot of these kind of characteristics and traits and this understanding, this perspective that allowed him to go out and become an entrepreneur. to benefit others as well as himself. And Michael himself is a serial author and entrepreneur, and he actually built a Christian publishing company that did $250 million in revenue and employed 750 people at one point. Christian publishing company that did a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue and employed almost 1,000 people. That company ended up selling to HarperCollins, and Michael talks very openly about one of the storms that he faced as a publisher and the huge transformation of going from physical book publishing to the resurgence of digital reading and digital books and the ability to be able to adapt and pivot very quickly with so much at stake. Outside of the awesome statistics that Michael provides in the book, one of the things I love the most was when he talked about the Battle of Dunkirk. And it brings me back to when I— I'm an entrepreneur, I also played college football, and we were We're going to the championship. And our college football coach said to everybody, he said, burn the boats. Burn the boats. We're staying here. We're going out on that field. There is no plan B. There is no looking back. There is no doubting yourself or questioning yourself. Time is now and we're burning the boats. And so in the Battle of Dunkirk, King George at the time, I think it was King George VI, had his prime minister step down, Prime Minister Chamberlain. And he quickly appointed Winston Churchill as the prime minister Minister of Defense. Winston Churchill then had to think on his toes and very rapidly assign someone who was fit to support the strategy, build out the strategy, to then go and recover about 338,000 troops, British and I believe French troops, from Germany who were being held captive to some degree. I'm not a historian. What Winston and the Admiral did is they actually developed a strategy in a very short time where they were able to persevere the challenge that they had, which was a The English Channel is very shallow and I think narrow as well. They were able to persevere that. They used civilians. Instead of saving 10%, they were able to save a very large percent. But just one example of the battles entrepreneurs go through and how awesome and what they're able to provide by going through those battles. And just to be able to share some of those stories with your community. So I love this book and I hope you go check it out. It's 96 pages and it is action-packed. Check out Michael. Entrepreneurs will save the world.
