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

    Yet women initiate negotiations four times less often than men, resulting in getting less of what they want--promotion opportunities, plum assignments, and higher pay. This book shines a light on the real rules of holding your own and pushing back for what is rightfully yours. Drawing on interviews with high-level leaders, Rezvani offers readers in the first half of their career the unedited truth about how women have asked their way to the top and triumphed--and how you can too.Includes interviews with top business leaders such as Marie Chandoha, CEO of Charles Schwab Investment Management; Cindi Bigelow, President of Bigelow Tea Company; Fizzah Jafri, COO at Morgan Stanley; Rosemary Turner, President at UPS; and Irene Chang Britt, Chief Strategy Officer at Campbell's Soup Offers a reliable and methodic approach to negotiating and navigating tough conversations Highlights compelling facts and research from the world of psychology and leadership Insightful and accessible, Pushback is a timely resource for savvy women who want to leverage their skills, promote themselves effectively, and fast track their careers.

    In this phenomenal bestseller, Dr. Peale demonstrates the power of faith in action. With the practical techniques outlined in this book, you can energize your life -- and give yourself the initiative needed to carry out your ambitions and hopes. You'll learn how to: Expect the best and get it Believe in yourself and in everything you do Develop the power to reach your goals Break the worry habit and achieve a relaxed life Improve your personal and professional relationships Assume control over your circumstances Be kind to yourself

     The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott wants her readers to succeed. To do that, she explains, one must transform everyday conversations employing effective ways to get the message across. In this guide, which includes exercises and tools to take you step by step through the Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations, Scott teaches readers how to: * Overcome barriers to meaningful communication * Expand and enrich conversations with colleagues, friends, and family * Increase clarity and improve understanding * Handle strong emotions-on both sides of the table

    What is it about entrepreneurs or medal-winning athletes that makes them successful? What secrets about their brains could the rest of us benefit from knowing to improve our own careers? This accessible guide explores how successful people think, and how the organizations they work in foster a culture of success.

    Written by Megan Tschannen-Moran--an expert on the topic of trust and schools--Trust Matters is based in solid research. It outlines the five key elements on which individuals base their trust judgments (benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competency) and explores the factors that influence the development of trust. The book explores the leader's role in fostering high quality relationships among teachers, students, and parents and examines examples of positive outcomes of trusting school environments.

    Understanding someone’s pattern of behavior is the key to successful communication. Erikson breaks down the four kinds of behavior types—Reds who are dominant and commanding, Yellows who are social and optimistic, Greens who are laid back and friendly, and Blues who are analytical and precise—and explains how to identify and interact with each type of person. Instead of being bogged down with overly technical categorizations, the simple four color system allows you to speedily identify a friend or coworker and adjust how you speak and share with them.Surrounded by Idiots is full of practical information for interacting with people based on their color, including the strengths and weaknesses of all the profiles, how to give positive and negative feedback to each, and the best way to word an email when writing to someone with a different profile.

    Now, Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose DeWolf offer clear, practical advice and concrete techniques to help you combat selfdefeating thinking and gain greater control of your life, work, and personal relationships. Arm yourself with this one right away.

    Why? In a world where information refreshes endlessly and the workday feels like a race to react to other people's priorities faster, frazzled and distracted has become our default position. But what if the exhaustion of constant busyness wasn't mandatory? What if you could step off the hamster wheel and start taking control of your time and attention? That's what this book is about. As creators of Google Ventures' renowned "design sprint," Jake and John have helped hundreds of teams solve important problems by changing how they work. Building on the success of these sprints and their experience designing ubiquitous tech products from Gmail to YouTube, they spent years experimenting with their own habits and routines, looking for ways to help people optimize their energy, focus, and time. Now they've packaged the most effective tactics into a four-step daily framework that anyone can use to systematically design their days. Make Time is not a one-size-fits-all formula. Instead, it offers a customizable menu of bite-size tips and strategies that can be tailored to individual habits and lifestyles. Make Time isn't about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. Making time isn't about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it's about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction. A must-read for anyone who has ever thought, If only there were more hours in the day..., Make Time will help you stop passively reacting to the demands of the modern world and start intentionally making time for the things that matter.

    Sales manager John Doyle would consider his career a success--he's his company's top revenue driver, and his take-charge attitude gets the job done. However, when he is passed over for promotion--again--after losing two direct reports, who cite his abrasive style as their reason for leaving, John is forced to reassess how he approaches his relationships. With the help of Mac, an expert in the art of Relationship Awareness Theory, John learns the three stages of conflict, and how he reacts in each.Once John recognizes his own values and trigger points, as well those of other people, he becomes able to better navigate terse situations, express his points in a way that resonates for other people, and even avoid conflict altogether. Equipped with this new understanding of how other people interpret and react to conflict, John soon finds all the relationships in his life--both at work and at home--improving.Reveals a practical understanding of how conflict really works Shows how to recognize its initial stages of conflict, how to navigate it better to diffuse a situation, and how to understand the values of the other person to better frame your point for them Provides guidance for moving beyond conflict to enhance relationships Includes a five-step framework (anticipate, prevent, identify, manage, and resolve) and tools for locating conflict triggers in ourselves and others Anyone can profit from the tools in this book to understand and take control over conflict.

    The Power of Understanding People shows you how to establish and develop extremely effective relationships by providing you with techniques to better identify and understand the intrinsic needs of others. As a result, you will achieve better team dynamics, increased sales and client satisfaction, higher levels of employee engagement and performance, and even more satisfying marriages and friendships. This book provides the tools to understand others' unique communication style as well as your own. Get detailed advice on how to adjust to diverse communication styles, develop a unifying language for the organization, and better match motivational techniques to team members. Through storytelling and experiential exercises, author Dave Mitchell helps you gain insight into your own unique interaction style and teaches you how to communicate, motivate, sell, and service more successfully no matter the personality types involved. Offers insight into the behavior cues and questions to ask to better understand someone's interactive preferences Explains how to enhance your sales efforts by better targeting your brand message to the client's style so that your products/services resonate with them more Examines strategies for creating a high performing work environment and achieve greater customer service excellence Contains conflict resolution strategies, including how to effectively work out differences within a team, between work units, with customers, and even in your personal life Armed with the ability to interpret the behavior of the people around you, you will achieve greater levels of success at work and at home while also learning how to better handle the difficult situations involving people in your life.

    Rooted in the two thousand-year-old wisdom of the Tao Te Ching--"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"--Kaizen is the art of making great and lasting change through small, steady increments. Kaizen is the tortoise versus the hare. Kaizen is the eleven Fortune 500 companies that significantly outperformed the market through moderate, step-by-step actions. Kaizen is losing weight not by a crash diet (which more often than not crashes) but by eating one bite less at each meal--then, a month later, eating two bites less. Kaizen is starting a life-changing exercise program by standing--just standing--on a treadmill for one minute a day. Written by an expert on Kaizen--Dr. Robert Maurer, a psychologist on the staff at the UCLA medical school who speaks and consults nationally--"One Small Step" is the gentle but potent way to effect change. Beginning by outlining the all-important role that fear plays in all types of change--and Kaizen's ability to circumvent it--Dr. Maurer then explains the 7 Small Steps: how to Think Small Thoughts, Take Small Actions, Solve Small Problems, and more. He shows how to perform mind sculpture--visualizing virtual change so that real change comes more naturally. Why small rewards motivate better than big rewards. How great discoveries are made by paying attention to the little details most of us overlook. Hundreds of examples of Kaizen at work grace the book, as well as quotes from W. Edwards Deming (who brought Kaizen to Japanese industry), Peter Drucker, coach John Wooden, and others.

    Fred must cleverly convince and enlist key players, such as Louis, the head penguin; Alice, the number two bird; the intractable NoNo the weather expert; and a passle of school-age penguins if he is to save the colony.Their delightfully told journey illuminates in an unforgettable way how to manage the necessary change that surrounds us all. Simple explanatory material following the fable enhances the lasting value of these lessons.Our Iceberg Is Melting is at once charming, accessible and profound; a treat for virtually any reader.

    We're expected to be authentic but not too authentic. Professional but not stiff. Friendly but not an oversharer.As organizational consultants and regular people, we know what it's like to experience uncomfortable emotions at work - everything from mild jealousy and insecurity to panic and rage. Ignoring or suppressing what you feel hurts your health and productivity but so does letting your emotions run wild.In this book we'll help you figure out which emotions to toss, which to keep to yourself, and which to express in order to be both happier and more effective. We'll share the latest research and helpful tips, and reveal the surprising reason why you'll actually be more healthier and focused if you're less passionate about your job.Drawing on what we've learned from behavioural economics, psychology and our own experiences at countless organizations, we'll show you how to bring your best self (and your whole self) to work every day.

    From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced StrengthsFinder in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book ignited a global conversation, while StrengthsFinder helped millions discover their top five talents.In StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular online assessment. With hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, StrengthsFinder 2.0 will change the way you look at yourself and the world forever.