Improbable Mentors & Happy Tangents: How firefighters and poets, truckers and nurses, soldiers and singers, and other improbable individuals can show

New York Times bestselling author, humorist, and speaker Michael Perry delivers real-world lessons on leadership, creativity, resilience, and entrepreneurship.

Entertaining and fundamentally useful no matter the form of art or business you pursue, Improbable Mentors & Happy Tangents is a masterclass in identifying unexpected opportunities and concludes with a chapter titled, "The Most Improbable Mentor Move of All."

This witty and insightful book details how unlikely encounters can shape creativity, business, and life. Brief, punchy, humorous, and packed with memorable characters, it is a powerful read filled with practical wisdom and warm storytelling for readers, entrepreneurs, and dreamers alike.

Raised among farmers, loggers, and cowboys, Michael Perry worked as a registered nurse and emergency medical technician before building a career as a New York Times bestselling author, humorist, and in-demand speaker with over 20 books to his name-all the while navigating the dynamic crossroads of creativity and commerce.

Author's note:

For three decades now I've been my own boss, meeting, working with, advising, and writing about successful, insightful, tenacious, quirky, famous, unknown, and inspirational people of all stripes and stations.

This book grew out of a corporate speech I was asked to prepare describing my unlikeliest mentors and the lessons they taught me about how to thrive and survive where the worlds of art and business overlap.

It's a life that never would have happened without my mentors.

My improbable mentors.

The ones who showed me the way.

The way. Not the path.

The path you gotta make on your own. But when you accumulate advice from a broad range of folks beyond and outside your area of so-called expertise, those folks are showing you the ways things can be done-no matter what you choose to do.

Author: Michael Perry
Publisher: Sneezing Cow Publishing
Published: 09/30/2025
Pages: 132
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.26lbs
Size: 7.00h x 5.00w x 0.31d
ISBN: 9798985663853

About the Author
Perry, Michael: - Michael Perry is a New York Times bestselling author, humorist, corporate speaker, volunteer firefighter/first responder, and amateur snowplow driver. A lifelong resident of the rural Midwest, his "reflective roughneck" takes on life in Middle America have left hundreds of thousands of readers and live audiences laughing, nodding, and sometimes misty. He is the author of over 25 books including Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, The Jesus Cow, Peaceful Persistence, and the novella Forty Acres Deep. Perry, a registered nurse who put himself through college working as a Wyoming cowboy and a roller-skating Snoopy produces the popular audio newsletter "Michael Perry's Voice Mail," performs widely as a humorist and speaker, tours with his band The Long Beds, works as a script writer, voiceover artist and audiobook narrator, and still makes an occasional call with the local volunteer fire and rescue service. "I grew up on the wooden end of a pitchfork," says Perry, "so no matter what I'm doing it's my experience as a Wisconsin farm boy and a Wyoming ranch hand that informs my approach. And none of it-whether it's a television documentary, a song, or a book-happens unless I sit down and write. Fortunately, writing is my favorite thing, and I'm grateful for the improbable mentors and happy tangents that delivered me to this place." Perry lives in rural Wisconsin and can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com.