Diana KanderBy Lindsay Bell

Ok. Look.

Blah blah blah holidays.

Yadda yadda yadda shopping.

Yakety yakety yak Christmas!

Are you all fed up to the teeth of hearing about it yet?

I KNOW! ME NEITHER!

I’ve have been seriously in the Christmas spirit this year.

I even shared a little window into the Bell-Wheeler family’s Christmas traditions, and some olden-days Christmas memories with you all last week!

Call me crazy, but I think I looked pretty darn cute in that set of footy-pyjamas.

This will probably be the last real week of work for most of you out there, and I know you must be insanely busy wrapping up last minute projects, but you absolutely must make time for today’s Author Q&A, with Diana Kander, and her book All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line.

It’s the last one of 2014!

December Fun

December wrapped up our year of themed monthly content on the blog, and we decided to have some fun. Heck, we even did a live, Reddit-style ‘Ask Gini Anything’ webinar, which was a hoot! If you missed it, you can download it here for a few laughs.

And what could be more fun than a book that’s part novel, part business, and includes a “mysterious mentor with a revolutionary approach to entrepreneurship”?

The story follows Owen Chase, faced with the demise of his company, and Samantha, the aforementioned “mysterious mentor,” and something tells me there’s a love affair mixed in there as well!

In fact, I think Jay Baer summed it up quite nicely in his Amazon review:

If more books were like All In Startup, the business world would be much better off, and significantly more entertaining. This is a delightfully fresh take on what it requires to follow your passion—even against the odds. Highly recommended!

All In Startup

Today at noon ET, our author Q&A features New York Times best-selling scribe Diana Kander, and her book All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line.

Kander is no fair-weather entrepreneur! From her arrival from the Soviet Union as a refugee at the age of eight, to her skills selling flea market goods to classmates at a markup, to her current life as a successful entrepreneur, attorney, author, and Senior Fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, she knows what it means to start at the bottom, and use your smarts to claw your way to the top!

She’s pretty much the epitome of “American Dream”—work hard and aim high!

What You Will Learn

All In Startup shows how four counterintuitive principles are what separate successful entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs, those who bounce from idea to idea, unable to generate real revenue or success.

Being an entrepreneur is terrifying. You are going to go “all in” in on an idea: Quit your job, talk your spouse into letting you drain the savings account, and follow your dream.

All In Startup prepares you for that “all in” moment, and teaches you how to only push those chips into the middle when the odds are in your favor. It holds the keys to help make your success seem almost lucky.

Today’s Author Q&A with Diana Kander

At noon ET (that’s 11:00 CT, 10:00 MT, and 9:00 PT for those of you who can’t do time zones), Diana will be here to answer any and all of your questions.

In order to participate, all you have to do is:

  • Make sure you have a Livefyre account or be ready to sign in with one of your social networks.
  • Set a reminder for noon ET today.
  • Order All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line so you can support Diana and get your learn on.
  • Create a list of questions.
  • Come back here, scroll to the bottom, and write a comment in the form of a question. As soon as you hit “post comment,” Diana will see it and reply to you. You can even join the conversation around questions others are asking, if you like.

We’ll be here for an hour so you can join us the entire time or step in and out during the hour. It’s entirely up to you; just make sure you’re here before 12:59.

Win a Copy

Those of you who participate in today’s author Q&A (even if you’re late to the party, but not if you’re an Arment Dietrich employee) will be entered into a random drawing for a free copy of the book.

Don’t forget—you have to actually leave a comment, ask a question, or participate in the chat to be entered in the drawing. Otherwise we won’t know you were here.

Get ready with your questions and join the conversation. And don’t fear! If you missed the live portion of this, we’ll keep the drawing open until midnight PT so you still have time to get in your questions.

Former Guests and Who’s Next

For former guests, check out Margie ClaymanSarah RobinsonMark StoryBeth HaydenSarah EvansStanford SmithChris BroganC.C. ChapmanMitch JoelDanny BrownChuck HemannMichael BritoDJ WaldowTom MartinAhava LeibtagJay BaerShel IsraelMark SchaeferGini DietrichRob BiesenbachSteve McKeeNeal SchafferEd Zitron, Ann Handley, Tim FrickTom Martin, and Paul Roetzer.

And following are the dates for the next few months, so mark your calendars!

Same bat time, same bat channel.

  • January 21 – Jeremy Miller, with Sticky Branding
  • February 18 – Hessie Jones, with Marketing as You Know it is Dead

Lindsay Bell

Lindsay Bell is the content director at V3 Marketing, and works in Toronto. A former TV producer, she’s a strong advocate of three minutes or less of video content. She has a cool kid, a patient husband, two annoying cats, and Hank Dawge, a Vizsla/Foxhound/moose hybrid. Ok, maybe not moose.

View all posts by Lindsay Bell