Rarely do I read a business book that resonates with the way I view business activity. That is often because the books are all about managing people, which is important but only a part of the business world. Others focus on finance or the economy, which are also important but often dry and academic.

Most of the business people I know do not invest much time into the things the most business books are discussing. That’s because most of the businesses I know are mom and pop endeavors. They are led by entrepreneurs who love what they do and are not interested in being part of the Fortune 500.

So when I picked up The Intelligent Entrepreneur by Bill Murphy Jr., and I saw that it was about three graduates of the Harvard Business School, and from their three stories the author was identifying ten rules for successful entrepreneurship … I had my doubts. You don’t find a lot of HBS graduates in the world where I work. And when you do, they tend to be cautious banker types telling a hard working small business owner why they don’t qualify for a loan (and I’m being diplomatic when I use that language). I do know some HBS graduates who are doing some great things with their companies … but I’m not sure I’d use them as examples of idealized entrepreneurship.

To my surprise, I loved this book. The stories of the three people featured might not be realistic for most folks (all became multi-millionaires at young ages), but they do model the traits of good entrepreneurship. The author does a good job of using real world examples (though with a lot more zeroes in the numbers than most of us are use to dealing with) and identifying the entrepreneurial traits that are being practiced.

The list of “10 rules of entrepreneurship” is, of course, subjective. One could make a list of five, twelve, or forty-two. But it’s a good workable list that touches on most of the main points.

Really enjoyed this, and even though it’s about a bunch of highly educated overachieving never got a B in their lives Harvard students, it has a lot of application to the small business world that I work in.