Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen

Sims, founder of a high-end “lifestyle concierge” firm, delivers a slim guide to achieving life goals and success, with a hearty dose of self-aggrandizement thrown in. Sims’s company, Bluefish, works to check off bucket-list items for his wealthy clients, such as getting married at the Vatican or receiving a private serenade from Andrea Bocelli. While pumping readers up with stories of his firm’s successes, he guides readers through how they can develop a mind-set that will allow them to achieve similar triumphs. This mind-set involves a focus on personal branding, methods for achieving “win-wins,” developing comfort with failure, making your business personal, and a host of cutesy tactics that likely work well but that add up to a magazine article at best rather than a full book. While some of the conversation about mind-set is solid and thought-provoking (for example, his advice for staving off the “twin devils” of fear and embarrassment), Sims’s book has the feeling of a book-length ad for his business. Although Sims constantly refers to his company’s activities, the connection between these stories and his energetic get-past-your-fear advice is tenuous at best. (Oct.)