Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World


Adam M. Grant - 2016
    How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?   Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt; how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children; and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent. Learn from an entrepreneur who pitches his start-ups by highlighting the reasons not to invest, a woman at Apple who challenged Steve Jobs from three levels below, an analyst who overturned the rule of secrecy at the CIA, a billionaire financial wizard who fires employees for failing to criticize him, and a TV executive who didn’t even work in comedy but saved Seinfeld from the cutting-room floor. The payoff is a set of groundbreaking insights about rejecting conformity and improving the status quo.

Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours


Shirzad Chamine - 2012
    His groundbreaking research exposes ten well-disguised mental Saboteurs. Nearly 95 percent of the executives in his Stanford lectures conclude that these Saboteurs cause “significant harm” to achieving their true potential. With Positive Intelligence, you can learn the secret to defeating these internal foes. Positive Intelligence (PQ)SM measures the percentage of time your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. While your IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) contribute to your maximum potential, it is your PQ that determines how much of that potential you actually achieve.The great news is that you can improve your PQ significantly in as little as 21 days. With higher PQ, teams and professionals ranging from leaders to salespeople perform 30 to 35 percent better on average. Importantly, they also report being far happier and less stressed. The breakthrough tools and techniques in this book have been refined over years of coaching hundreds of CEOs and their executive teams. Shirzad tells many of their remarkable stories, showing how you too can take concrete steps to unleash the vast, untapped powers of your mind.Discover how to•    Identify and conquer your top Saboteurs. Common Saboteurs include the Judge, Controller, Victim, Avoider, and Pleaser.  •    Measure the Positive Intelligence score (PQ) for yourself or your team—and see how close you come to the critical tipping point required for peak performance.•    Increase PQ dramatically in as little as 21 days.•    Develop new brain “muscles,” and access 5 untapped powers with energizing mental “power games.”•    Apply PQ tools and techniques to increase both performance and fulfillment. Applications include team building, mastering workload, working with “difficult” people, improving work/life balance, reducing stress, and selling and persuading.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups


Daniel Coyle - 2017
    An essential book that unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups and provides readers with a toolkit for building a cohesive, innovative culture, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Talent Code

How To Be A Productivity Ninja


Graham Allcott - 2012
    Thankfully there is a better way: The Way of the Productivity Ninja.Using techniques including Ruthlessness, Mindfulness, Zen-like Calm and Stealth & Camouflage you will get your inbox down to zero, make the most of your attention, beat procrastination and learn to work smarter, not harder.Written by one of the UK’s foremost productivity experts, How to be a Productivity Ninja is a fun, accessible and practical guide to staying cool, calm and collected, getting more done, and learning to love your work again.

The Millionaire Mind


Thomas J. Stanley - 2001
    Stanley, Ph.D., answers these questions and provides us with further insight into the thoughts and lives of this wealthy segment of the population in The Millionaire Mind. A follow-up to Stanley's New York Times bestseller, The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind may surprise readers with its findings about the kinds of people that millionaires really are. Interestingly, many millionaires were not straight-A students in high school, nor did they attend prestigious colleges. Instead, they were often told when they were younger that they were not bright and that they would not be successful. These challenges taught them how to surmount obstacles and motivated them to try harder and to take risks to get ahead financially. The major risks that these millionaires have taken and continue to take are financial ones. They must overcome the fear of taking risks, and they must maintain this courage throughout their adult careers. Stanley discovered that many millionaires share similarities in techniques to allay their anxieties and stay on track financially. Some of these include: Believing in myself Counting my blessings every day Countering negativethoughtswith positive ones Sharing concerns with spouse Visualizing success Outworking, outthinking, out-toughing the competition Hiring talented advisors Constantly upgrading my knowledge about my occupation Spending considerable time planning my success Exercising regularly Having strong religious faith Stanley also reveals that millionaires are very often successful in marriage as well as in work (the typical millionaire has been married to the same spouse for over twenty-five years) and that they usually lead relatively frugal, economically productive lifestyles. Perhaps most interesting to readers will be the section that Stanley devotes to how millionaires chose the career in which they would be most likely to succeed. So don't miss out on picking apart and analyzing the thoughts and habits of millionaires with Thomas Stanley and The Millionaire Mind, a book sure to be as brilliantly revealing and fascinating as his previous bestseller on millionaires. Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, and lecturer. He has studied the wealthy for more than 25 years. The Millionaire Next Door, published in 1996, has sold more than one million copies in hardcover and nearly one million in paperback. The book has been on The New York Times Best Sellers list for more than 150 combined weeks. His previous books include Marketing to the Affluent, which Best of Business Quarterly named one of 10 outstanding business books, Selling to the Affluent, and Networking with the Affluent. Dr. Stanley lives in Atlanta. He was a professor of marketing at Georgia State University, where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa Outstanding Professor. He holds his doctorate from the University of Georgia in Athens.

Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way


Richard Branson - 1998
    From the airline business (Virgin Atlantic Airways), to music (Virgin Records and V2), to cola (Virgin Cola), to retail (Virgin Megastores), and nearly a hundred others, ranging from financial services to bridal wear, Branson has a track record second to none.Losing My Virginity is the unusual, frequently outrageous autobiography of one of the great business geniuses of our time. When Richard Branson started his first business, he and his friends decided that "since we're complete virgins at business, let's call it just that: Virgin." Since then, Branson has written his own "rules" for success, creating a group of companies with a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy.Many of Richard Branson's companies--airlines, retailing, and cola are good examples--were started in the face of entrenched competition. The experts said, "Don't do it." But Branson found golden opportunities in markets in which customers have been ripped off or underserved, where confusion reigns, and the competition is complacent. And in this stressed-out, overworked age, Richard Branson gives us a new model: a dynamic, hardworking, successful entrepreneur who lives life to the fullest. Family, friends, fun, and adventure are equally important as business in Branson's life. Losing My Virginity is a portrait of a productive, sane, balanced life, filled with rich and colorful stories: Crash-landing his hot-air balloon in the Algerian desert, yet remaining determined to have another go at being the first to circle the globeSigning the Sex Pistols, Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Boy George, and Phil CollinsFighting back when British Airways took on Virgin Atlantic and successfully suing this pillar of the British business establishmentSwimming two miles to safety during a violent storm off the coast of MexicoSelling Virgin Records to save Virgin AtlanticStaging a rescue flight into Baghdad before the start of the Gulf War . . .And much more. Losing My Virginity is the ultimate tale of personal and business survival from a man who combines the business prowess of Bill Gates and the promotional instincts of P. T. Barnum.

Million Dollar Habits: Practical, Proven, Power Practices to Double and Triple Your Income


Brian Tracy - 1999
    A guide to winning habits in business shows readers how to set and achieve goals quickly, organize their life, manage time, increase income, and tap inner power reserves--all in the service of improved productivity.

The One Minute Manager


Kenneth H. Blanchard - 1981
    These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its employees.The One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. The audio also presents several studies in medicine and the behavioral sciences that clearly explain why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people. By the audio's end you will know how to apply them to your own situation and enjoy the benefits.

The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure


Grant Cardone - 2011
    To reach the next level, you must understand the coveted 4th degree of action. This 4th degree, also known as the 10 X Rule, is that level of action that guarantees companies and individuals realize their goals and dreams.The 10 X Rule unveils the principle of "Massive Action," allowing you to blast through business clichZs and risk-aversion while taking concrete steps to reach your dreams. It also demonstrates why people get stuck in the first three actions and how to move into making the 10X Rule a discipline. Find out exactly where to start, what to do, and how to follow up each action you take with more action to achieve Massive Action results.Learn the "Estimation of Effort" calculation to ensure you exceed your targets Make the Fourth Degree a way of life and defy mediocrity Discover the time management myth Get the exact reasons why people fail and others succeed Know the exact formula to solve problems Extreme success is by definition outside the realm of normal action. Instead of behaving like everybody else and settling for average results, take Massive Action with The 10 X Rule, remove luck and chance from your business equation, and lock in massive success.

Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You


John Warrillow - 2010
    Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency. Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable: * Teachable: focus on products and services that you can teach employees to deliver. * Valuable: avoid price wars by specialising in doing one thing better than anyone else. * Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers have to repurchase often.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't


James C. Collins - 2001
    The findings will surprise many readers and, quite frankly, upset others.The ChallengeBuilt to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The StudyFor years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?The StandardsUsing tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The ComparisonsThe research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? The FindingsThe findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

Efficiency: Get Rich Without Giving Up Your Life


Wall Street Playboys - 2017
    We’ve seen many people become rich… yet they lack social skills (trapped in relationships they desperately want to escape) or… their bodies have seen material physical decay. We’re putting out the framework in this book and you’ll have all of the tools you need to get get rich and have a fun life at the same time.We’re not going to lie and say this is a “guarantee” to become rich. There are no guarantees. Getting rich and winning at life is no different than sports. We can give you every single step to take and how to do it. But. It is up to YOU to execute on the steps. Instead of buying 10 different books at the same time, we’ll give everything out in ten key beneficial points:1) How to get into the top 10% physically with one hour a day of exercise per day. You’re going to be busy and unless you’re a professional athlete, dedicating an hour a day will be enough. This is the first step to become a well rounded individual as a healthy person can work longer hours, has more energy to go out and have fun and extends his life (the most valuable asset in the world: Time)2) How to eat correctly to be in the top 10%. We’ll give you the rough blue print for items to eat on a daily basis. By simply following the framework you won’t need to count calories/macros etc since we’re trying to be efficient with our time. By following the framework, you will have less stress (no longer calculating everything you eat) and you’ll give yourself some wiggle room to go out and drink when you feel like it.3) How to figure out what type of intelligence you have. We give you a process to figure out where your skills are. Everyone has *relative* advantage in at least 2-3 categories. Use this to your advantage and develop your natural talents. We believe talent matters more than passions. Talents are natural to you and if they didn’t exist everyone would be able to make money in the exact same industries or throw a fastball at 100mph. Finding your type of intelligence is the first step to becoming rich.4) How to use this type of intelligence to choose a career and the *right* company: Wall Street, Technology or Sales. We have talked about this in the past and you’ll notice we’re adding a new wrinkle. We’re giving you the tools to figure out what company to join. You’ll have basic mathematical formulas that will tell you if you should join Company A or Company B when the offers come rolling in.5) How to start an online business and sell (the basics and all you need to start). This one is self explanatory. We go into details on how to start an online business and how to sell. The best thing about online businesses? The margin structure. As you’ll see the cost of running a website is practically nothing and you’ll need minimal start up capital to begin today.6) Clear outline of how to create and start an online product business with correct copywriting. You’ll never be an expert in sales. No one is! Why? Every single second invested in learning more about sales will lead to a financial return. The game continues to evolve but we can give you the basic framework to start.7) How to go into affiliate marketing if someone wants to take a stab at the competitive space. We give you both the legitimate affiliate marketing route and the dark side as well. The overnight success stories are “too good to be true” because they are. That said there are legitimate ways to do affiliate marketing as well. If you don’t want to create a product (yet) most people start here and move to starting a Company later (once they learn a specific niche)8) Overview of how affiliate marketing operates and how to do it. Beyond the overview, we also tell you how to do it. Both the legitimate way and the dark side as well. We explain why the legitimate way is better long-term, but we’d be lying if we said everyone is selling on an equal playing field (they are not).9) How to do all of this and maintain a normal social life (avoid choking off your personality). This puts everything together, we give a basic schedule and explain how to improve your social skills and meet new people frequently without losing traction with your business and career. If you’re able to keep your composure and go out twice a week, you’ll see your phone numbers increase and you’ll be much more interesting than the average person who works, sleeps and watches TV all day.10) Common questions and a schedule.We provide a rough schedule on a weekly basis under the assumption that a person is not rich yet. In addition, we answer a large number of common questions and provide good answers to “questions around morality” which essentially says “Break every single rule you can because someone else will, just don’t break the law. Ever.” this is essentially the gray area that you’ll operate in if you’re new to any field.

No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs: The Ultimate No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Guide to Time Productivity and Sanity


Dan S. Kennedy - 1996
    Dan Kennedy has been called the "Professor of Harsh Reality" because he doesn't deal in glib, pabulum solutions and eye-rolling cliches you've heard incessantly on time management. He takes on the world of cell phones, PDAs, faxes, e-mails, and every other communication device that pervade our lives, suggesting when to tap it, and when to give it the heave-ho. This entrepreneur/consultant/author/speaker has a whirlwind business life, yet manages to fit everything in using a handful of home-brewed time management tools he swears by. He shows how to maximize your time with a fresh take on the mantra that "time is money." It's all about using disciplined productivity strategies Kennedy has devised over 30 years of managing highly-profitable businesses with only minimal help.

Big Things Have Small Beginnings: Learn to Play the Great Game


Wes Berry - 2018
     It’s these small things that have the greatest impact in the long-term.Neglecting small things can be the difference between failure and success.This book is NOT about failing; this book is about preventing, limiting and continually overcoming the small failures and obstacles so that you can achieve great success because when you take care of the small details, the big stuff takes care of itself.Do you find yourself missing the one thing in life that would help you achieve a desired goal, realize a long-held dream, or push you up the ladder to success?Big Things Have Small Beginnings will give you the blueprint you need to achieve those goals and dreams sooner rather than later.Some of what you’ll learn in this book are:•    The common characteristic our great leaders had that you must possess;•    How giving away flowers helped build a $60 million dollar company and go from surviving to thriving;•    The difference between goals and objectives and which one is more important to your overall success;•    How to be intelligently flexible so you can make massive progress;•    Why learning a new language can improve your business aptitude;•    How to grow a business when you don’t have the capital to do so;•    The importance of keeping a high integrity business model;•    And so much more!Wesley Berry started working at his family’s Detroit-based florist shop when he was just a teenager. He quickly demonstrated a strategic style of management that propelled it from a $65K per year business to a $65 million-dollar international business operating in 130 different countries. In 2016, after 40 years in business, he sold it to “retire” and follow other passions.Through the years, he's provided consulting services to over forty businesses and has appeared as a guest on NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Entrepreneur and Time magazines, Fox News, Neil Cavuto, Geraldo Rivera, and John Stossel, to name a just few.Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power:  but they who do not the thing have not the power.” If you want the power and the keys to success, click the BUY NOW button and be the one who wins and has the power.

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?


Seth Godin - 2012
    But he ignored that warning and plunged to his doom. We’ve retold this myth, and many others like it, to generations of kids. All these stories have the same lesson: Play it safe. Obey your parents. Listen to the experts. It was the perfect propaganda for the industrial economy. What boss wouldn’t want employees to believe that obedience and conformity are the keys to success? But there’s another part of the myth that those in power hope you’ll forget. Icarus was also warned not to fly too low, because sea water would ruin the lift in his wings. Flying too low is even more dangerous than flying too high, because it feels deceptively safe.The safety zone has moved. The propaganda has been exposed, and the old promises have been broken: Conformity no longer leads to comfort. But the good news is that creativity is scarce, and more valuable than ever. So is choosing to do something unpredictable and brave: make art.Being an artist isn’t a genetic disposition or a specific talent. It’s an attitude we can all adopt. It’s a hunger to seize new ground, make connections, and work without a map. If you do those things you’re an artist, no matter what it says on your business card.Whether you’re a teacher, engineer, doctor, middle manager, or customer service rep, you can fly higher by bringing your best self to work. You can care about what you’re doing today and how you can improve tomorrow. Godin shows us how it’s possible, and convinces us why it’s essential.