What You Can Learn From...

Each year, a new crop of business books dispenses tips on how to take your enterprise to the next level. But business inspiration can be found in more unexpected places, too: in stories of tragedy and triumph on the evening news, a basketball player's drive down the court, a hit TV show or movie, or the success of a hot new band.

We scanned recent events and found a dozen unusual sources of powerful business advice. We're hoping our choices and the lessons they offer entrepreneurs will help you view each day's news with fresh eyes.

Valentino Achak Deng

What you can learn: Even when the obstacles seem insurmountable, keep your goals in mind and persevere. 

In Dave Eggers' riveting biographic novel What Is the What, readers follow the travails of Deng, a "lost boy" of Sudan. Deng is separated from his family and dodges enemy soldiers and man-eating lions on his journey to safety. Despite this, Deng never loses hope, keeping to his commitment to speak out about his country's plight and educate his countrymen, eventually building an education center back in his hometown with his What profits.

"I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don't want to listen," Deng says, "to people who seek me out and to those who run."

Tina Fey

What you can learn: Always keep your eye out for a new opportunity, even if you're really busy.

Former Saturday Night Live player Fey had her hands full writing and starring in the savagely funny behind-the-scenes TV comedy 30 Rock, which took home seven Emmys last year, including writing and acting nods for Fey. But when a real once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself last fall—to impersonate Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on SNL—Fey cleared her calendar.

Her uncanny resemblance to the Alaska governor and dead-on impressions of Palin made her sketches hot YouTube viewing, upping Fey's name recognition and leading to multiple return engagements.

To top it off, her efforts to discredit the Republican ticket seem to have worked. Is it possible her Palin parodies persuaded some of those key swing-state voters to switch to Obama? We'll never know for sure, but for Fey, it's got to be a pretty sweet cherry on the already tasty sundae of her comedy career.

Radiohead

What you can learn: Innovation can bring you through tough times.

The internet era has had an undeniably huge impact on business, but it's been a bane to some. One unlucky victim: the music industry. The dilemma is so critical that, in 2007, music industry moguls met in Reykjavik, Iceland, for a conference titled "Who is in control?" to discuss the future of their dying industry.

So what do you do if you're a groundbreaking alt rock band with millions of fans? If you're Radiohead, you offer up a download of your latest album and let fans choose their own price--only to release an $81 deluxe two-CD/vinyl box set to hardcore fans. Some might say the band gave in to the pressures of a rapidly changing music industry, but Radiohead and its string of followers know better. As of October 2008, the aforementioned album had sold 3 million copies.

And as if offering up their album as a freebie wasn't innovative enough, Radiohead also ran a series of remix contests attracting thousands of remixers and even more thousands of voters, followed by a music-video contest on animation site AniBoom.com.

In 2008, music moguls, including representatives for Radiohead, reconvened in Reykjavik for another conference, this time titled "You are in control."

Dr. Drew

What you can learn: Tackling a controversy can get you a lot of attention.