Principles: Life and Work


Ray Dalio - 2011
    Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success.In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve.Here is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.

The Rules of Work: The Unspoken Truth about Getting Ahead in Business


Richard Templar - 2002
    Arm yourself with these 50 secret rules, and get to the top without breaking a sweat. * Hot book -- 55,000 copies sold in the UK, and 20,000 copies in Canada. * The complete success primer for today's manager: fun, irreverent, and real. * Why some people glide effortlessly past office politics, backstabbing, and unpleasant bosses...and how you can, too.

Choose Yourself: Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream


James Altucher - 2013
    Markets have crashed. Jobs have disappeared. Industries have been disrupted and are being remade before our eyes. Everything we aspired to for “security,” everything we thought was “safe,” no longer is: College. Employment. Retirement. Government. It’s all crumbling down. In every part of society, the middlemen are being pushed out of the picture. No longer is someone coming to hire you, to invest in your company, to sign you, to pick you. It’s on you to make the most important decision in your life: Choose Yourself.New tools and economic forces have emerged to make it possible for individuals to create art, make millions of dollars and change the world without “help.” More and more opportunities are rising out of the ashes of the broken system to generate real inward success (personal happiness and health) and outward success (fulfilling work and wealth).This book will teach you to do just that. With dozens of case studies, interviews and examples–including the author, investor and entrepreneur James Altucher’s own heartbreaking and inspiring story–Choose Yourself illuminates your personal path to building a bright, new world out of the wreckage of the old.

Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of Respect


Paul L. Marciano - 2010
    You can actually open the book to any chapter and gain ideas for immediate implementation. -- Beverly Kaye, coauthor of Love 'Em or Lose 'EmThis book should be in the hands of anyone who has to get work done through other people! It's an invaluable tool for any manager at any level. -- John L. Rice, Vice President Human Resources, Tyco InternationalCarrots and Sticks Don't Work provides a commonsense approach to employee engagement. Dr. Marciano provides great real-world insights, data, and practical examples to truly bring the RESPECT model to life. -- Renee Selman, President, Catalina Health ResourcesThe RESPECT model is one of the most dynamic, engaging, and thought-provoking employee engagement tools that I have seen. Dr. Marciano's work will help you provide meaningful long-term benefits for your employees, for your organization, and for yourself. -- Andy Brantley, President and CEO, College and University Professional Association for Human ResourcesThis book provides clear advice and instruction on how to engage your team members and inspire them to a higher level of productivity, work satisfaction, and enjoyment. I am already utilizing its techniques and finding immediate positive changes. -- Robert Roth, Director, Accounting and Reporting, Colgate Palmolive CompanyThe title says it all: Carrots and Sticks Don't Work.Reward and recognition programs can be costly and inefficient, and they primarily reward employees who are already highly engaged and productive performers. Worse still, these programs actually decrease employee motivation because they can make individual recognition, rather than the overall success of the team, the goal. Yet many businesses turn to these measures first--unaware of a better alternative. So, when it comes to changing your organizational culture, carrots and sticks don't work!What does work is Dr. Paul Marciano's acclaimed RESPECT model, which gives you specific, low-cost, turnkey solutions and action plans-- based on seven key drivers of employee engagement that are proven and supported by decades of research and practice--that will empower you to assess, troubleshoot, and resolve engagement issues in the workplace:Recognition and acknowledgment of employees' contributionsEmpowerment via tools, resources, and information that set employees up to succeedSupportive feedback through ongoing performance coaching and mentoringPartnering to encourage and foster collaborative working relationshipsExpectations that set clear, challenging, and attainable performance goalsConsideration that lets employees know that they are cared aboutTrust in your employees' abilities, skills, and judgmentCarrots and Sticks Don't Work delivers the same proven resources and techniques that have enabled trainers, executives, managers, and owners at operations ranging from branches of the United States government to Fortune 500 corporations to twenty-person outfits to realize demonstrable gains in employee productivity and job satisfaction.When you give a little RESPECT you get a more effective organization, with reduced turnover and absenteeism and employees at all levels who areengaged, focused, and committed to succeed as a team. In short, you get maximum ROI from your organization's most powerful resource: its people!

The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World


Chris Guillebeau - 2010
    You'll discover how to live on your own terms by exploring creative self-employment, radical goal-setting, contrarian travel, and embracing life as a constant adventure.Inspired and guided by Chris's own story and those of others who have pursued unconventional lives, you can devise your own plan for world domination-and make the world a better place at the same time.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior


Ori Brafman - 2008
    Sway introduces us to the Harvard Business School professor who got his students to pay $204 for a $20 bill, the head of airline safety whose disregard for his years of training led to the transformation of an entire industry, and the football coach who turned conventional strategy on its head to lead his team to victory. We also learn the curse of the NBA draft, discover why interviews are a terrible way to gauge future job performance, and go inside a session with the Supreme Court to see how the world’s most powerful justices avoid the dangers of group dynamics.Every once in a while, a book comes along that not only challenges our views of the world but changes the way we think. In Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman not only uncover rational explanations for a wide variety of irrational behaviors but also point readers toward ways to avoid succumbing to their pull.

The Art of Work


Jeff Goins - 2015
    This is a book about discovering your life's work, that treasure of immeasurable worth we all long for. Its about the task you were born to do. As Jeff Goins explains, the search begins with passion but does not end there. Only when our interests connect with the needs of the world do we begin living for a larger purpose. Those who experience this intersection experience something exceptional and enviable. Though it is rare, such a life is attainable by anyone brave enough to try. Through personal experience, compelling case studies, and current research on the mysteries of motivation and talent, Jeff shows readers how to find their vocation and what to expect along the way.

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google


Scott Galloway - 2017
    Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong. For all that's been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway.Instead of buying the myths these compa-nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they're almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world's first trillion-dollar company, can anyone chal-lenge them?In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world's most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can't match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career.Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.

Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual


John Z. Sonmez - 2014
    In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez addresses a wide range of important "soft" topics, from career and productivity to personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships, all from a developer-centric viewpoint.For most software developers, coding is the fun part. The hard bits are dealing with clients, peers, and managers, staying productive, achieving financial security, keeping yourself in shape, and finding true love. This book is here to help.Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual is a guide to a well-rounded, satisfying life as a technology professional. In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez offers advice to developers on important "soft" subjects like career and productivity, personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships. Arranged as a collection of 71 short chapters, this fun-to-read book invites you to dip in wherever you like. A Taking Action section at the end of each chapter shows you how to get quick results. Soft Skills will help make you a better programmer, a more valuable employee, and a happier, healthier person.What's InsideBoost your career by building a personal brandJohn's secret ten-step process for learning quicklyFitness advice to turn your geekiness to your advantageUnique strategies for investment and early retirement

Remote: Office Not Required


David Heinemeier Hansson - 2013
    Moms in particular will welcome this trend.  A full 60% wish they had a flexible work option. But companies see advantages too in the way remote work increases their talent pool, reduces turnover, lessens their real estate footprint, and improves the ability to conduct business across multiple time zones, to name just a few advantages.  In Remote, inconoclastic authors Fried and Hansson will convince readers that letting all or part of work teams function remotely is a great idea--and they're going to show precisely how a remote work setup can be accomplished.

The CEO's Secret Weapon: How Great Leaders and Their Assistants Maximize Productivity and Effectiveness


Jan Jones - 2015
    That solutions-oriented individual who adds value by enhancing the executive's productivity, elevating their performance and functioning as their indispensible business partner and 'right arm.'As you read this book, you will discover the genesis of the formidable talents that are the hallmark of exeptional assistants, and understand the value they can bring to you. Throughout the book you will hear from dozens of executives and close to one hundred assistants, who gave the author a candid look into their day-to-day activities, the expectations and demands on the executive-assistant relationship, as well as their advice for how executives and assistants can work successfully and productively together. As you read about these assistants, you will begin to understand why you should not settle for anything less than a stellar assistant who knows what you need and how to give it to you, who will smooth out your life and make your workday a rewarding experience.This book provides not only the inspiration to achieve a successful business partnership, but also provides know-how and practical tools to recruit, train and work on a day-to-day basis with an exceptional assistant, showing you how to put their exemplary talents to good use. Part 1 explores the relationships between successful executives and their assistants and defines what an 'exceptional executive assistant' is. In Part 2, Jones describes the crucial characteristics that all exceptional executive assistants epitomize, and how they are critical to not only your day-to-day routine, but to your success as an executive or entrepreneur.Part 3 of this book will explore the processes, resources and skills that you will need to hire an exceptional assistant. Part 4 takes a deeper dive into the executive and assistant relationship and offers a guide to setting up a successful partnership. As with any business collaboration, it is a two-way street. In order to solidify the partnership, the executive must reciprocate. With examples throughout from successful CEOs and entrepreneurs, this book will help you create a robust, dynamic and productive partnership with your executive assistant.

Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life


Ozan Varol - 2020
    A former rocket scientist reveals the habits, ideas, and strategies that will empower you to turn the seemingly impossible into the possible. Rocket science is often celebrated as the ultimate triumph of technology. But it's not. Rather, it's the apex of a certain thought process -- a way to imagine the unimaginable and solve the unsolvable. It's the same thought process that enabled Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind, that allows spacecraft to travel millions of miles through outer space and land on a precise spot, and that brings us closer to colonizing other planets. Fortunately, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to think like one. In this accessible and practical book, Ozan Varol reveals nine simple strategies from rocket science that you can use to make your own giant leaps in work and life -- whether it's landing your dream job, accelerating your business, learning a new skill, or creating the next breakthrough product. Today, thinking like a rocket scientist is a necessity. We all encounter complex and unfamiliar problems in our lives. Those who can tackle these problems -- without clear guidelines and with the clock ticking -- enjoy an extraordinary advantage. Think Like a Rocket Scientist will inspire you to take your own moonshot and enable you to achieve liftoff.

Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead


Laszlo Bock - 2015
    "We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. This insight is the heart of WORK RULES!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including:Take away managers' power over employeesLearn from your best employees-and your worstHire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find themPay unfairly (it's more fair!)Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the futureDefault to open-be transparent and welcome feedbackIf you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, WORK RULES! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. WORK RULES! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from above; read it to reawaken your joy in what you do.

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long


David Rock - 2009
    Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task.In this book, we travel inside Emily and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works-and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the reader, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work environment but succeed in it-and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.YOUR BRAIN AT WORK explores issues such as:- why our brains feel so taxed, and how to maximize our mental resources- why it's so hard to focus, and how to better manage distractions- how to maximize your chance of finding insights that can solve seemingly insurmountable problems- how to keep your cool in any situation, so that you can make the best decisions possible- how to collaborate more effectively with others- why providing feedback is so difficult, and how to make it easier- how to be more effective at changing other people's behavior

Dig Your Well before You're Thirsty: The only networking book you'll ever need


Harvey MacKay - 1997
    Bestselling author Harvey Mackay reveals his techniques for the most essential tool in business--networking, the indispensable art of building contacts.Now in paperback, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is Harvey Mackay's last word on how to get what you want from the world through networking.  For everyone from the sales rep facing a career-making deal to the entrepreneur in search of capital, Dig Your Well explains how meeting these needs should be no more than a few calls away.  This shrewdly practical book distills Mackay's wisdom gleaned from years of "swimming with sharks," including: What kinds of networks exist How to start a network, and how to wring the most from it The smart way to downsize your list--who to keep, who to dump How to keep track of favors done and favors owed--Is it my lunch or yours? What you can do if you are not good at small talkDig Your Well Before You're Thirsty is a must for anyone who wants to get ahead by reaching out.