Arts & Culture Author Interviews Business

High school dropout succeeds shares advice in new book

June 25, 2012 | Jewish TribunecloseAuthor: Jewish Tribune Name: Jewish Tribune
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Victor Green hopes to make a breakthrough in the self-help book industry with his new book How to Succeed in Business by Really Trying!: “Most books don’t actually give you guidance. They [authors] just talk about the success that they’ve had."

Rena Green Tribune Intern

LOS ANGELES-TORONTO – At the tender age of 15, Victor Green had already been a working citizen for two and a half years at a men’s clothing store in London. He made, what some thought, was a drastic decision that would determine the rest of his life.

Fed up with the education system, and seeing no further reason to continue on the academic path, young Green took a leap of faith and dropped out of school.

“I didn’t want to be an academic,” Green recalled in a telephone interview with the Jewish Tribune. “I was one of those people who had a big old head on young shoulders.”

Green has never once regretted his decision.

“When you go into the real world, you go into the University of Life,” he said. “[When] you’re in a class environment…everything is theoretical. It’s when you put that theory into practice, and you [deal with] people of all different ages, different races, different religions, different cultures, different beliefs…that’s when you really learn what life’s all about.”

Landing a job at a publishing company, Green remained a loyal employee as an advertising representative for many years, and eventually worked his way up to become the general manager. After a disagreement within the company however, Green took off and launched his own publishing company.

“My first magazine was called Security Surveyor,” he said. “I had incredible subscriptions and massive amounts of advertising and from then on the magazine expanded and did very well.”

Green then created an additional two similarly styled magazines, as well as putting on the International Fire Security Exhibition and Conference (IFSEC), an international convention.

“I’m very proud of [IFSEC],” Green said. “To think that I started [it] when I had no experience with conventions in 1972 and 40 years later it’s still going strong…means that I’ve built a business that has really stood the test of time.”

With a lifetime of business experience under his belt, Green shares some of his theories on higher education.

“I don’t think education is the be all and end all. It’s a fallacy,” he stated. “People feel that if you get an education, and you get a degree, you’re going to get the job. That’s not true. What you’re going to end up with is a large debt. That’s the only guarantee.”

Recently completing his new book, How to Succeed in Business by Really Trying!, Green hopes to make a breakthrough in the self-help book industry.

“Most books don’t actually give you guidance,” he said. “They just talk about the success that they’ve had, which is wonderful, but it doesn’t actually tell you…the day-to-day things that people want to find out about.”

With a mission to educate and give practical advice to young and struggling business owners, Green’s book is “written simply in a way that [people] can understand. I haven’t made it a mystical type of publication, with statistics and facts and figures. I’ve talked about every day issues.

“It always surprised me how little people knew about the basics of business [and] the simple little things, which everyone assumes people know,” Green said. “[So] I decided to write a book to fill that gap.”

Currently residing in Los Angeles, the now-retired business guru participates in mentor programs at various organizations, gives frequent lectures and spends time with his seven children and two grandchildren.

“Don’t rush into business without fully checking that your idea is viable,” Green offered as his final piece of business advice. “Too many people get an idea and think, ‘Oh, this is it! I’m going to be a billionaire!’ [They] run into it, and then realize they haven’t planned it carefully, and run across so many difficulties and problems. Take an extra month, two months, three months. If you rush into a business quickly, you’ll rush out of it just as quickly.”

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