The Bigger You Think: 70 Years of Entrepreneurial Success in Business, Philanthropy, Love, and Life

Sheldon Adelson’s posthumous memoir is a fitting tribute to an outsized personality: an inspirational guide to success in business, politics, philanthropy—and life.

Born in 1933 to immigrant parents in a rough-and-tumble Boston neighborhood where he literally had to fight his way to school, Sheldon was imbued from the beginning with a strong Jewish identity, self-reliance, pragmatism, and deep loyalty to family and friends. Using money scraped together selling papers, he launched a series of small businesses that taught him the fundamentals of entrepreneurship even before he knew the word. At every step, he innovated, approaching each new venture with an inveterate outsider’s perspective that enabled him to see opportunities where others could only see obstacles.

Though frequently described as a casino mogul, Sheldon actually backed into the business through a successful career as a tour packager, conventioneer, and hotel builder, along the way developing a unique resort concept that combined business travel with luxury accommodation, shopping, entertainment and gambling. In the process he transformed Las Vegas and went on to reshape the skylines of Macau and Singapore.

Few business memoirs convey as this one does the sheer exuberance of using one’s creative gifts to build, expand and innovate. It also shows a warm, human side of the hard-driving businessman that few have seen. Above all, it is a touching love story that celebrates the unique partnership he formed with his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, who helped him expand his philanthropic activities to include medical research and support for Israel.