Jane Pollak spoke at Wilton Library Monday night, sharing a few lessons of success.

Photo Credit: Anthony Buzzeo

Jane Pollak shared a few of her lessons of success at the Wilton Library Monday night.

Photo Credit: Anthony Buzzeo

Jane Pollak found business inspiration in an egg and Monday night at the Wilton Library she passed some of it along. Pollak, who built a successful egg decorating business and authored the book "Soul Proprietor: 101 Lessons from a Lifestyle Entrepreneur" uses personal anecdotes to drive home her points.

"People learn from the stories of others," Pollak, a former high school teacher, told the 40 people who turned out for her talk.

The Westporter got them involved by handing out a list of 28 lessons offered in her book. With each lesson the audience got an entertaining anecdote from Pollak's life, as well as a valuable strategy for success.

One lesson was "Trust your gut," where Pollak described being in a store and noticing that the designs on purses matched the designs of her eggs. Her gut feeling was that she had to do something, but she chose not to. Then friends told her about purses with her designs on them and that's when she hired a lawyer and eventually got the purses removed from stores.

"I had to take a stand for what is right," the entrepreneur/author said.

Some of the lessons are drawn from Pollak's life experiences, not her business experiences. When explaining "How to pick a role model," she related that one of her daughters did not know what she wanted to do after graduating, so Pollak asked her who her role model was, and why. Then she helped her daughter shape her goals to be like that person.

"Don't cherrypick," Pollak said, "Pick a real person."