The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea at the Right Time


Allen Gannett - 2018
      We have been spoon-fed the notion that creativity is the province of genius -- of those favored, brilliant few whose moments of insight arrive in unpredictable flashes of divine inspiration.  And if we are not a genius, we might as well pack it in and give up. Either we have that gift, or we don’t.  But Allen shows that simply isn’t true.  Recent research has shown that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor, from writing a popular novel to starting up a successful company to creating an effective marketing campaign.    As the world’s most creative people have discovered, we are enticed by the novel and the familiar. By understanding the mechanics of what Gannett calls “the creative curve” – the point of optimal tension between the novel and the familiar – everyone can better engineer mainstream success.    In a thoroughly entertaining book that describes the stories and insights of everyone from the Broadway team behind Dear Evan Hansen, to the founder of Reddit, from the Chief Content Officer of Netflix to Michelin star chefs, Gannett reveals the four laws of creative success and identifies the common patterns behind their achievement.

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.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose


Tony Hsieh - 2010
    You want to learn about the path I took that eventually led me to Zappos, and the lessons I learned along the way. You want to learn from all the mistakes we made at Zappos over the years so that your business can avoid making some of the same ones. You want to figure out the right balance of profits, passion, and purpose in business and in life. You want to build a long-term, enduring business and brand. You want to create a stronger company culture, which will make your employees and coworkers happier and create more employee engagement, leading to higher productivity. You want to deliver a better customer experience, which will make your customers happier and create more customer loyalty, leading to increased profits. You want to build something special. You want to find inspiration and happiness in work and in life. You ran out of firewood for your fireplace. This book makes an excellent fire-starter.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business


Charles Duhigg - 2016
    A new book that explores the science of productivity, and why, in today’s world, managing how you think—rather than what you think—can transform your life.

Who Moved My Cheese?


Spencer Johnson - 1998
    Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life, for example a good job, a loving relationship, money or possessions, health or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organisation you work in, or the family or community you live in. The problem is that the cheese keeps moving.In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change in their search for the cheese. One of them eventually deals with change successfully and writes what he has learned on the maze walls for you to discover.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be


Marshall Goldsmith - 2015
    Triggers shows us how to break that cycle and enact meaningful change.In Triggers, renown executive coach and psychologist Marshall Goldsmith discusses the emotional triggers that set off a reaction or a behavior in us that often works to our detriment. Do you find that at times you suddenly become defensive or enraged by an idle comment from a colleague? Or that your temper rises when another car cuts you off in traffic? Your reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are the result of emotional and psychological triggers that often happen only in specific settings—at meetings, or in competitive situations, or with a specific person who rubs you the wrong way, or when you feel under particular pressure. Being able to recognize those triggers and understand how the environment affects our behavior is key to controlling our responses and managing others at work and in life. Make no mistake—change is hard. And the starting point is the willingness to accept help, and the desire to change. This book will show you how.Over the course of this book, Marshall explores the power of active questions to get us to take responsibility for our actions—and our failure to act. Questions such as “Did I do my best to make progress toward my goal?” “Did I work hard at being fully engaged?” He discusses the importance of structure in effecting permanent change. Because, he points out, change is hard, and without a structure to keep us on track, we inevitably relapse and fall back.Filled with illuminating stories from Marshall’s work with some of the most accomplished executives and leaders in America, Triggers shows readers how to achieve meaningful and sustained change that will allow us to open our imaginations and escape the rigidity of binary thinking.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong


Eric Barker - 2017
    In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success and most importantly, how anyone can achieve it. You’ll learn:• Why valedictorians rarely become millionaires, and how your biggest weakness might actually be your greatest strength • Whether nice guys finish last and why the best lessons about cooperation come from gang members, pirates, and serial killers• Why trying to increase confidence fails and how Buddhist philosophy holds a superior solution• The secret ingredient to “grit” that Navy SEALs and disaster survivors leverage to keep going• How to find work-life balance using the strategy of Genghis Khan, the errors of Albert Einstein, and a little lesson from Spider-ManBy looking at what separates the extremely successful from the rest of us, we learn what we can do to be more like them—and find out in some cases why it’s good that we aren’t. Barking Up the Wrong Tree draws on startling statistics and surprising anecdotes to help you understand what works and what doesn’t so you can stop guessing at success and start living the life you want.

Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done


David Allen - 2003
    Now "the personal productivity guru" (Fast Company) shows readers how to increase their ability to work better, not harder every day. Based on Allen's highly popular e-newsletter, Ready for Anything offers readers 52 ways to immediately clear your head for creativity, focus your attention, create structures that work, and take action to get things moving. With wit, inspiration, and know-how, Allen shows readers how to make things happen with less effort and stress, and lots more energy, creativity, and effectiveness. Ready for Anything is the perfect book for anyone wanting to work and live at his or her very best.

The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth


Mark Victor Hansen - 2001
    Mark Victor Hansen, cocreator of the phenomenal Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and Robert G. Allen, one of the world’s foremost financial experts, have helped thousands of people become millionaires. Now it’s your turn.Is it possible to make a million dollars in only one minute? The answer just might surprise you. The One Minute Millionaire is an entirely new approach, a life-changing “millionaire system” that will teach you how to:* Create wealth even when you have nothing to start with.* Overcome fears so you can take reasonable risks.* Use the power of leverage to build wealth rapidly.* Use “one minute” habits to build wealth over the long term.The One Minute Millionaire is a revolutionary approach to building wealth and a powerful program for self-discovery as well. Here are two books in one, fiction and nonfiction, designed to address two kinds of learning so that you can fully integrate these life-changing lessons. On the right-hand pages, you will find the fictional story of a woman who has to make a million dollars in ninety days or lose her two children forever. The left-hand pages give the practical, step-by-step nonfiction strategies and techniques that actually work in the real world. You’ll find more than one hundred nuts-and-bolts “Millionaire Minutes,” each one a concise and invaluable lesson with specific techniques for creating wealth. However, the lessons here are not just about becoming a millionaire—they are about becoming an enlightened millionaire and how to ethically make, keep, and share your wealth. Whether your goal is less than a million dollars or that amount many times over, there’s never been a better time to achieve abundance. Let The One Minute Millionaire show you the way.

The Business of the 21st Century


Robert T. Kiyosaki - 2010
    This book lends credibility to multilevel marketing business, and justifies why it is an ideal avenue to make money.

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal


Jim Loehr - 2003
    This groundbreaking New York Times bestseller has helped hundreds of thousands of people at work and at home balance stress and recovery and sustain high performance despite crushing workloads and 24/7 demands on their time. We live in digital time. Our pace is rushed, rapid-fire, and relentless. Facing crushing workloads, we try to cram as much as possible into every day. We're wired up, but we're melting down. Time management is no longer a viable solution. As bestselling authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in this groundbreaking book, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance. The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully both on and off the job by laying out the key training principles and provides a powerful, step-by-step program that will help you to: * Mobilize four key sources of energy * Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal * Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do * Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals to make lasting changes Above all, this book provides a life-changing road map to becoming more fully engaged on and off the job, meaning physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business


Josh Kaufman - 2010
    The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works.Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more.True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.

How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age


Dale Carnegie - 2011
    The only diploma that hangs in Warren Buffett’s office is his certificate from Dale Carnegie Training. Lee Iacocca credits Carnegie for giving him the courage to speak in public. Dilbert creator Scott Adams called Carnegie’s teachings “life-changing.” In today’s world, where more and more of our communication takes place across wires and screens, Carnegie’s lessons have not only lasted but become all the more critical. Though he never could have predicted technology’s trajectory, Carnegie proves a wise and helpful teacher in this digital landscape. To demonstrate the many ways his lessons remain relevant, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., has reimagined his prescriptions and his advice for this difficult digital age. We may communicate today with different tools and with greater speed, but Carnegie’s advice on how to communicate, lead, and work efficiently remains priceless across the ages.

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win


Jocko Willink - 2015
    you teach guys and gals about leadership and you've helped not only military guys but families." - Megyn Kelly"You show in the book how to motivate... thanks for writing the book Extreme Ownership." Bill O'Reilly"[Jocko] is the co-author of an incredible new book - which I've been loving. Trust me. Buy it." - Tim Ferriss"This is a life-learning lesson for everyone... the book is awesome." - Sean HannitySent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.Now, detailing the mind-set and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult missions in combat, Extreme Ownership shows how to apply them to any team, family or organization. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic such as Cover and Move, Decentralized Command, and Leading Up the Chain, explaining what they are, why they are important, and how to implement them in any leadership environment.A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable


Tim S. Grover - 2013
    Now, for the first time in paperback, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire.Fore more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and dozens more—and made them greater. Now, for the first time ever, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire.Direct, blunt, and brutally honest, Grover breaks down what it takes to be unstoppable: you keep going when everyone else is giving up, you thrive under pressure, you never let your emotions make you weak. In “The Relentless 13,” he details the essential traits shared by the most intense competitors and achievers in sports, business, and all walks of life. Relentless shows you how to trust your instincts and get in the Zone; how to control and adapt to any situation; how to find your opponent’s weakness and attack. Grover gives you the same advice he gives his world-class clients—“don’t think”—and shows you that anything is possible. Packed with previously untold stories and unparalleled insight into the psyches of the most successful and accomplished athletes of our time, Relentless shows you how even the best get better . . . and how you can too.