A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas


Warren Berger - 2014
    Questioning—deeply, imaginatively, "beautifully"—can help us identify and solve problems, come up with game-changing ideas, and pursue fresh opportunities. So why are we often reluctant to ask "Why?"Berger's surprising findings reveal that even though children start out asking hundreds of questions a day, questioning "falls off a cliff" as kids enter school. In an education and business culture devised to reward rote answers over challenging inquiry, questioning isn't encouraged—and, in fact, is sometimes barely tolerated.And yet, as Berger shows, the most creative, successful people tend to be expert questioners. They've mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking—and finding powerful answers. The author takes us inside red-hot businesses like Google, Netflix, IDEO, and Airbnb to show how questioning is baked into their organizational DNA. He also shares inspiring stories of artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, basement tinkerers, and social activists who changed their lives and the world around them—by starting with a "beautiful question."Berger explores important questions, such as:- Why aren't we nurturing kids' natural ability to question—and what can parents and schools do about that?- Since questioning is a starting point for innovation, how might companies and business leaders begin to encourage and exploit it?- And most important, how can each of us re-ignite that questioning spark—and use inquiry as a powerful means to rethink and reinvent our lives?A More Beautiful Question outlines a practical Why / What If / How system of inquiry that can guide you through the process of innovative questioning—helping you find imaginative, powerful answers to your own "beautiful questions."

The Procrastination Cure: 21 Proven Tactics For Conquering Your Inner Procrastinator, Mastering Your Time, And Boosting Your Productivity!


Damon Zahariades - 2017
     Imagine looking at your to-do list and immediately tackling, completing, and crossing off tasks. Imagine making quick decisions regarding which projects receive your immediate attention. Imagine finishing your work each day with hours to spare! Amazon bestselling author, Damon Zahariades, provides a start-to-finish blueprint for beating your inner procrastinator. He'll show you, step by step, how to overcome your tendency to put off important chores, projects, and activities, and consistently take action that catapults your productivity. You'll receive more than 21 proven tactics for conquering your impulse to procrastinate. You'll also learn the REASONS you procrastinate, along with actionable advice on how to nip them in the bud. In THE PROCRASTINATION CURE , you'll discover: The 13 most common reasons people postpone taking action Why your to-do list might be encouraging you to procrastinate (and what to do about it) How to create an action-prompting reward system tailored to your personal proclivities 4 easy tips for silencing your inner perfectionist and getting to work Surprising advice from Mark Twain on how to beat procrastination The one decision that'll spur you to take action and complete tasks in record time The power of accountability (and how to find the perfect partner) How to prioritize tasks and projects according to your personal goals A 3-step system for tracking your energy levels, and using the data to maximize your productivity How to use Time Chunking to tackle large, daunting projects One of the most common forms of self-sabotage (and how to avoid it) How to muzzle your inner critic and eliminate negative self-talk A curious strategy novelist Victor Hugo successfully used to tame his inner procrastinator And much, much more! Plus, you'll receive 3 BONUS tactics, each of which will prove instrumental in overcoming your inner procrastinator. There's also a BONUS SECTION that includes detailed answers to common questions asked about how to curb the procrastination habit. THE PROCRASTINATION CURE is for anyone who struggles to take action. Whether you're a student, corporate executive, entrepreneur, or stay-at-home parent, the tactics described in this book can set the stage for a personal transformation. Grab your copy of THE PROCRASTINATION CURE today to finally conquer your inner procrastinator and get to work on tasks and projects you're tempted to put off until later! This how-to guide is written in the great self-help, personal development tradition of Cal Newport, David Allen, and S.J. Scott. Scroll to the top of the page and click the "BUY NOW" button!

The Prosperous Coach: Increase Income and Impact for You and Your Clients


Steve Chandler - 2013
    Say to your clients what no one else would dare to say. And you will have all the clients you ever desire. Whether you are a new coach or you already have a six-figure coaching practice, The Prosperous Coach will show you how to: • Access a set of tools you can use to begin creating your own clients immediately • Sign clients you love while maintaining your integrity • Match your unique skills and talents with the clients you serve • Develop a system that works for you for referrals and new clients, time after time • Make bold, life-changing proposals • Move beyond the deep-seated beliefs that hold most coaches back from success for themselves and their clients • Overcome—forever—the two levels of fear that coaches face • Move from people-pleasing to powerful service • Be a world-class coach with highly committed clients And so much more... Praise for The Prosperous Coach: "A must-read for every coach. Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler offer a revolutionary approach to creating a career and business that you love. No internet marketing. No email list. Just one great relationship at a time." -- Marci Shimoff, #1 NY Times best-selling author of Happy for No Reason "The sad truth of the coaching industry is that many of the most caring people give up after a time because they can’t make enough money to survive and thrive. Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin are on a mission to give every coach the chance to succeed on their own terms." -- Michael Neill, founder of Supercoach Academy and author of The Inside-Out Revolution "The Prosperous Coach grabs you by the collar in Chapter 1 and doesn’t let go. My heart is still racing. This is one of the most direct, bold, and provocative books I’ve ever read. You are doing your clients a disservice if you don’t finish it and act upon it immediately." -- Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby and author of Anything You Want "Once in awhile a book comes along which gets you to focus on what really matters – human relationships! The Prosperous Coach is one of those rare gems which inspires, challenges, and allows for no excuses. Its contrarian approach may yet change your business and your life for the better. Grab a copy now!" -- Shama Kabani, best-selling author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing "Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler are business thought leaders who count. They shatter the myth that you can’t create wealth whilst making a big impact on people’s lives." -- Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels and author of Peak "In The Prosperous Coach, seasoned pros Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler reveal the secrets that have catapulted them and their clients to outrageous success." -- Mandy Evans, author of Emotional Options "Rich and Steve have written a fantastic field-guide for creating a successful coaching practice." -- Jamie Smart, author of Clarity "Litvin is a rare breed: a world-class coach who is also an expert at understanding the business of coaching." -- Dr. Sean Stephenson, author of Get Off Your BUT "This book will shake you up. It will challenge you. You will have to show up and serve boldly in order to get the results they promise.

Confessions of an Advertising Man


David Ogilvy - 1963
    At the age of 37, he founded the New York-based agency that later merged to form the international company known as Ogilvy & Mather. Regarded as the father of modern advertising, Ogilvy was responsible for some of the most memorable advertising campaigns ever created. Confessions of an Advertising Man is the distillation of all the Ogilvy concepts, tactics, and techniques that made this international best-seller a blueprint for sound business practice. If you aspire to be a good manager in any business, this seminal work is a must-read.

Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual


Jocko Willink - 2020
    In the civilian sector, books offer information on everything from fixing a leaky faucet to developing an effective workout program to cooking a good steak.But what if you are promoted into a new position leading your former peers? What if you don’t get selected for the leadership position you wanted? How do you overcome imposter syndrome, when you aren’t sure you should be leading? As a leader, how do you judiciously dole out punishment? What about reward? How do you build trust with your both your superiors and your subordinates? How do you deliver truthful criticism up and down the chain of command in a tactful and positive way?These are all questions about leadership—the most complex of all human endeavors. And while there are books out there that provide solid leadership principles, books like Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership, there is no leadership field manual that provides a direct, situational, pragmatic how-to guide that anyone can instantly put to use.Until now. Leadership Strategy and Tactics explains how to take leadership theory, quickly translate that theory into applicable strategy, and then put leadership into action at a tactical level. This book is the solution that leaders at every level need—not just to understand the leadership game, but also how to play the leadership game, and win it.

The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas


G. Richard Shell - 2007
    Professors Shell and Moussa offer readers a self-assessment aimed at determining their strengths and weaknesses and to discover which persuasion role fits their personality best.

Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale


Zig Ziglar - 1984
    This new guide by America's #1 professional in the art of persuasion focuses on the most essential part of the sale—how to make them say "Yes, I will!" Zig Ziglar lets you in on the secrets of his own sure-fire, tested methods:Over 100 successful closings for every kind of persuasionOver 700 questions that will open your eyes to new possibilities you may have overlookedHow to paint word pictures and use your imagination to get resultsProfessional tips from America's 100 most succesful salespeopleDo what millions of Americans have already done—open this book and start learning from Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale!

Viralnomics: How to Get People to Want to Talk About You


Jonathan Goodman - 2016
    A must-read for anyone who wants to win at social.” - Jonah Berger (NYT Bestselling author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On) ***Discover how to get the right type of people to talk about you.*** ARE YOU SHARING GREAT WORK, but it seems nobody is listening? Does it seem like you’re at the mercy of social networks’ mysterious algorithms? Do you feel like it is an insurmountable task to understand and leverage social media? In Viralnomics: How to Get People to Want to Talk About You, Jonathan Goodman shows you how to appeal to people’s desires and get them to share your message as an extension of themselves. In this engaging, entertaining, and educational quick read you will discover: Methods to ethically persuade on social media. (pg 105) How to identify and befriend the real influencers (they aren’t who you think they are). (pg 23) A concept buried deep in psychological research that holds the secret to purposeful social sharing. (pg 53) The two keys to creating true power with Internet marketing. (pg 65) How to craft your messages and build your networks. (pg 115) If you desire to use social media marketing to get your product, service, or small business out to the right audience you don’t need to understand what buttons to push, you need to understand and appeal to the people pushing them. This book will help. Don't delay, scroll up and buy your copy today!

The Million Dollar Blog


Natasha Courtenay-Smith - 2016
    In a world where everyone wants to blog and blog posts are ubiquitous, how do you stand out? How do you blog your way from nobody to somebody? How do you, as a business owner, use content to build your brand and drive your success?Blogging has become the ‘it’ career of the modern world and every business knows that blogging should be an integral part of their marketing and success, but it’s actually never been tougher to be shine in the digital storytelling landscape.No matter who are you – a mum at home, a budding fashion blogger or a small business owner –The Million Dollar Blog will be your ultimate guide to starting a successful blog or taking your existing blog to the next level.Through a combination of practical advice and interviews with some of the world’s most famous and successful bloggers, vloggers and content strategists, including Seth Godin, Lily Pebbles, Grant Cardone and Madeleine Shaw, entrepreneur and digital strategist Natasha Courtenay Smith shows you how to build a blog that will increase your profile, create new opportunities, earn money and change your life.

The MacKay MBA of Selling in the Real World


Harvey MacKay - 2011
    The legendary Harvey Mackay is back with the sum total of decades of sales know-how-teaching go-getters how to make the sale and hit the numbers, day in and day out.In his irrepressible and irreverent style, Mackay shares decades of solid-gold selling wisdom, with inspirational lessons such as:Big shots are just little shots who kept shooting Helping someone up won't pull you down-and could very easily pull them to your side Be like the turtle: If he didn't stick his neck out, he wouldn't get anywhere at allCovering everything from how to find the right mentor to earning the loyalty of your customers to overcoming rejection, Mackay delivers road-tested, real-world selling advice that has stood the test of time.In a digital world, the human touch has never been more decisive. And nobody connects with customers, readers, and audiences better than Harvey Mackay.

Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used


Peter Block - 1987
    Using illustrative examples, case studies, and exercises, the author, one of the most important and well known in his field, offers his legendary warmth and insight throughout this much-awaited second edition. Anyone who must communicate in a professional context--and who doesn't?--will use the lessons taught in this book for years to come! "Who would have thought the 'consultant's bible' could be improved upon? Count on Peter Block--the consulting profession's very own revolutionary--to push us to confront and struggle with the paradoxes inherent in our work." --Candace Thompson, organization development consultant, First Chicago NBD--A Bank One Company "Block has distilled years of experience into a wise, down-to-earth, and eminently practical guide to excellence in consulting. If you are new to the practice, Flawless Consulting will chop years off your learning cycle. And even if you're an old pro, Block's insights will elevate you to new levels of effectiveness. Flawless Consulting is not simply about becoming a better consultant; it is about using consulting as a path toward becoming a better person." --Barry Oshry, president, Power & Systems, Inc.; author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems

The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development


Donald G. Reinertsen - 2009
    He explains why invisible and unmanaged queues are the underlying root cause of poor product development performance. He shows why these queues form and how they undermine the speed, quality, and efficiency in product development.

How Innovation Works: Serendipity, Energy and the Saving of Time


Matt Ridley - 2020
    Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation itself that explains them and that will itself shape the 21st century for good and ill. Yet innovation remains a mysterious process, poorly understood by policy makers and businessmen, hard to summon into existence to order, yet inevitable and inexorable when it does happen.Matt Ridley argues in this book that we need to change the way we think about innovation, to see it as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange, rather than an orderly, top-down process developing according to a plan. Innovation is crucially different from invention, because it is the turning of inventions into things of practical and affordable use to people. It speeds up in some sectors and slows down in others. It is always a collective, collaborative phenomenon, not a matter of lonely genius. It is gradual, serendipitous, recombinant, inexorable, contagious, experimental and unpredictable. It happens mainly in just a few parts of the world at any one time. It still cannot be modelled properly by economists, but it can easily be discouraged by politicians. Far from there being too much innovation, we may be on the brink of an innovation famine.Ridley derives these and other lessons, not with abstract argument, but from telling the lively stories of scores of innovations, how they started and why they succeeded or in some cases failed. He goes back millions of years and leaps forward into the near future. Some of the innovation stories he tells are about steam engines, jet engines, search engines, airships, coffee, potatoes, vaping, vaccines, cuisine, antibiotics, mosquito nets, turbines, propellers, fertiliser, zero, computers, dogs, farming, fire, genetic engineering, gene editing, container shipping, railways, cars, safety rules, wheeled suitcases, mobile phones, corrugated iron, powered flight, chlorinated water, toilets, vacuum cleaners, shale gas, the telegraph, radio, social media, block chain, the sharing economy, artificial intelligence, fake bomb detectors, phantom games consoles, fraudulent blood tests, faddish diets, hyperloop tubes, herbicides, copyright and even – a biological innovation -- life itself.

Deep Dive


Rich Horwath - 2008
    A recent Wall Street Journal study revealed that the most sought-after executive skill is strategic thinking, but only three out of ten managers have this skill set. Author Rich Horwath explains the three keys to strategic thinking, breaks them down into simple, attainable skills, and gives you practical tools to apply them every day, providing managers with a clear path to mastery of the three disciplines: 1. Acumen-generate critical insights through a step-by-step evaluation of your business and its environment2. Allocation-focus your limited resources through strategic trade-offs 3. Action-implement a system to guarantee effective execution of strategy at all levels of your organization Based on new research with senior executives from 150 companies and the author's experience as a thought-leading strategist, Deep Dive is the first book to focus on the most important level of strategy-you. Armed with this knowledge and dozens of effective tools, you can become a truly strategic leader for your organization.

Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones


Joseph Jaffe - 2010
    In most businesses, it costs roughly five-to-ten times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one, and yet companies continue to disproportionately spend their budgets into the "wrong" end of the funnel - the mass media or awareness side.What we haven't paid enough attention to is the "right" end of the funnel-the word-of-mouth component that essentially acts as a multiplier for future business. The economic impact of an active, engaged and loyal customer is tremendous.And the same is true of the opposite scenario, namely the impact of angry customers and negative word-of-mouth or referrals. It is this thinking that Jaffe has channeled to challenge marketers to "flip the funnel" once and for all. With a renewed focus and energy on customer experience, it is possible to grow your sales, while decreasing your budget - in other words, getting more from less. Engaging a few customers to spread the word to many.Using this new "flipped funnel" model, together with a set of new rules of customer service and a revolutionary customer referral and activation process, you'll learn how to transform your existing customers into your best salespeople. In addition, Jaffe will explain how to best introduce and combine both digital and social media tools to boost your loyalty arsenal, deploy "influencer marketing" and implement word-of-mouth strategies that inspire your loyal, opinionated, and most vocal customers to become credible, persuasive, and influential endorsers of your products and services.Explains how to cut your marketing budget AND grow sales! Illustrates practical ways to use existing customers to reach out to new prospects Outlines the authentic role of social media Demonstrates key ideas with rich, real life examples including Comcast, Apple, The Obama Campaign, Dell, Panasonic, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola and many, many more Written by one of the most sought-after consultants, keynote speakers, and thought-leaders on new marketing change and innovation; renowned blogger and podcaster at Jaffe Juice (www.jaffejuice.com) and host/presenter of web video show, JaffeJuiceTV (www.jaffejuice.tv) Visit www.flipthefunnelnow.com to join the conversation.