The Execution Factor Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: The Execution Factor will show you how to become successful by utilizing the power of vision, passion, action, resilience, and relationships that propelled author Kim Perell from unemployed and broke to a multi-millionaire in just seven years.

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Have you ever fantasized about being your own boss, a multimillionaire, and free to choose your path? That’s exactly the journey that the author, Kim Perell writes about in her inspirational book The Execution Factor: The One Skill that Drives Success

In 2001 Perell found herself broke and unemployed at the young age of 23. Not long later she had made millions of dollars. By 2008, she sold her first company for thirty million and decided she was in a good position to help other people with a vision and aspirations to dream big. 

She became an angel investor, providing investment capital to start-up companies demonstrating promise. She realized the common thread that ran through the more than 70 companies she’d invested was the ability to visualize, execute, and carry out a plan of action.        

This book really highlights five crucial traits that enable you to achieve your goals to success: vision, passion, action, resilience, and relationships.

Here are 3 lessons that are Perell’s roadmap to success:

  1. Pursue a clear vision that meshes well with who you are and prioritize it.
  2. Once you’ve identified your vision act on it by taking small, but deliberate first steps.
  3. Resilience will help you weather the turbulent winds of challenges and setbacks.

Are you ready to see the power that these principles can have to help you become successful? Let’s take a closer look!

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Lesson 1: Test out your vision, remind yourself of it often, and make it a priority.

Whatever vision it is that you’ve chosen to pursue, be sure that it’s one that aligns well with who you are. Even though your ultimate plan is framed on more of a grand scale, test out the waters first on a smaller scale.

An example would be if your vision is to be a professional writer, it might be a good idea to start a blog and begin writing on a set schedule. Be sure the posting frequency is challenging, but not so overwhelming that you can’t meet the commitment. This is a sure way to get discouraged and abandon it altogether.

It might be that writing is not what you really want and by testing the waters and taking on the no-stakes commitment, you can change course and readjust, rather than quitting your full-time gig and end up worse off than when you started. If your vision does align with who you are, that’s great and you can keep taking steps toward that end.

Prioritize those tasks that relate to your vision. This also means you will want to scale back or eliminate completely those activities that detract from your vision. Watching television or gaming time are some optional activities that you might want to de-prioritize in order to devote more focus to your passion.

Lesson 2: Do something, no matter how small, that will take you closer to following your passion and achieving your vision.

Taking action in pursuit of your vision is essential, even if it’s small, incremental steps. You’re like a driver with a destination and a full tank of gas. But if you don’t ever put your foot on the gas pedal, you will never get any closer to your destination. Do something that takes you closer to following your passion and achieving your vision.

So where do you begin? There could be a number of roads that you can take to reach the destination. Overthinking it too much can lead to frustration, paralysis and becoming too overwhelmed can actually lead to inaction. 

So the key is to just do something – anything that will be a step forward. Choose one path and move. This doesn’t mean that you can’t stop, rethink and change your course. 

Maybe begin by keeping your current job and making your vision a side hustle. This is what I, and many other writers are doing. As we pursue our passion as writers, most of us are building something while also working at some other full-time job. 

As we continue to make those incremental investments toward our passion we become better writers and our opportunities expand.

Lesson 3: A resilient person not only withstands the winds of fate but also harnesses them to grow.

Resiliency is an important trait to cultivate when working toward any vision. Think about how a sailor navigates the wind changes – they know that though they can’t control the direction of the wind, they can control the direction the sails are pointing. 

The shifting wind in this example demonstrates the various challenges and setbacks that may come at you while pursuing your vision. Being resilient means not only taking these difficulties in stride but also responding to them in a way that will lead to growth.

One example that Kim Perell uses in the book, is how billionaire Elon Musk encountered multiple setbacks and adversity on his road to success. Today we know him as CEO of Tesla and Space X. He was also co-founder of PayPal. His first business concept of PayPal was a failure and many of his Space X rockets went up in smoke, literally! 

Look at PayPal and Space X today. This is a great example of resiliency in withstanding setbacks and eventually growing through, or in spite of them. So start by turning problems into learning opportunities and begin cultivating your own Elon Musk.

The Execution Factor Review

The Execution Factor has a lot of lessons and great fact-based examples for working your way toward realizing a goal. I’ve practiced many of the lessons myself, even before this book was published. I can personally attest to the opportunities and growth that will come just through making investments and taking small steps toward your goal!

Who would I recommend The Blue Zones Solution summary to?

The 26-year-old shoe salesman who’s dreaming of writing and producing a screenplay. The 35-year-old hairstylist who envisions a revolutionary beauty product, and anyone else who’s ever wanted to change the world and get wealthy at the same time.

Last Updated on August 30, 2022

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Jim Farina

Seeing as he was a longtime reader and writing course student of mine, I was thrilled to see Jim write 20 summaries for us in 2019 and 2020. Hailing from Chicago with a full-time job as a manager and a family, I've watched Jim go from complete writing obscurity to having his work read, improve, and even featured on places like Better Marketing, the magazine I ran on Medium. He's now freelancing part-time, writing great stuff for companies like Best Buy and Bloomingdale's, and his first screenplay, Martin Eden, made quite the splash in several competitions.