At the time of my arrest, I was a thirty-seven year old Harvard graduate with medical and post-doctoral degrees. I attended one of the finest residency and fellowship training programs in the world at the University of California, San Francisco. I played two sports in college, earned awards at every level of education and training, had wonderful friends and a beautiful three-year-old daughter. Having grown up the son of a restaurant manager and a housewife, I had transcended the humble beginnings of a small Midwestern town to become the quintessential American Dream.Or so I thought. But with my arrest on felony importation charges, everything I had worked so hard for was swept away and the entire trajectory of my life was indelibly altered. I would embark on a three year battle not only for my medical license, but also for my freedom. This journey would lead to intense personal introspection, and in that process, I would discover with ugliness, there was also beauty, and with punishment, mercy.There are many reasons I have written this manuscript, with one of the most important being that I hoped my story would resonate with others who have gone through difficult circumstances as a consequence of a dark side of their personality. With this book, I hope to inspire others to accept and embrace the good and bad, while continually striving for improved self-understanding and acceptance.I have changed names primarily for legal purposes, but the facts are unchanged. Although the events described in the book occurred more than ten years ago, I think about them nearly every day. The shame and humiliation are ever-present. Any simple Google search of my name reveals the truth, and that truth has affected me over and over, despite the years, as it probably should. As the judge told me that day in a federal courtroom, "You have betrayed the public's trust." This is my confessional.

    Creativity For Sale is the story of how Jason took a crazy idea (IWearYourShirt) and turned it into social media marketing empire that generated over $1M in revenue in just a few short years. Whether you work at a 9-5 desk job, currently own your own business, or are an aspiring creative entrepreneur, this book will serve as a practical guide to helping you make money doing what you love. Jason shares his exact strategies, tips, tricks, and processes that have helped him create profitable businesses that get noticed by the likes of The Today Show, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many more media outlets. In Creativity For Sale, Jason shares stories of realigning his values and goals in life to become happier, healthier, and more focused. The world of online marketing and social media are noisy and crowded, this book will help you learn how to stand out from the crowd.

    Enjoy a journey through the eyes of a geek working at one of the most important companies in the world as he walks you through events both large and small. Just don't get caught in the Redmond reality distortion field! What others are saying about "A Microsoft Life": "Any self-respecting geek needs to read this book. Stepto provides an enjoyable and entertaining insight of life inside Microsoft." - Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox LIVE "Anyone who lived through the adolescent years of the computer revolution will alternate between laughing and crying (from laughing) at these great stories from inside the monolith. - Ken Denmead, NYT Bestselling Author, and editor of Geekdad.com

    While microfinance - small loans to impoverished individuals - initially attracted attention in the press, it didn't achieve the scale, scope, and profitability necessary to substantially combat poverty. All that changed with Vikram Akula's creation of SKS Microfinance.In this highly personal narrative, A Fistful of Rice, Akula reveals how he pieced together the best of both philanthropy and (to his surprise) capitalism to help millions of India's poor transition from paupers to customers to business owners.As thoughtful as Barack Obama's personal journey in Dreams from My Father, as harrowing as Paul Farmer's battle against infectious disease in Mountains Beyond Mountains, and as gripping as Greg Mortensen's fight for education in Three Cups of Tea, Akula's story shows how traditional business principles can be brought to bear on global problems in new ways.A Fistful of Rice offers not only inspiration but also lessons for anyone seeking to transform tenacity, creativity, and innovation into potent tools for fighting even the most seemingly intractable human burdens.

    In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path—one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors, and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering. To reverse engineer is to look beyond what is evident on the surface and find a hidden structure. It’s the ability to taste an intoxicating dish and deduce its recipe, to listen to a beautiful song and discern its chord progression, to watch a horror film and grasp its narrative arc. Using eye-opening examples of top performers—from Agatha Christie to Andy Warhol, Barack Obama to Serena Williams—and groundbreaking research on pattern recognition, skill acquisition, and creative genius, Friedman reveals the staggering power of reverse engineering and teaches you how to harness this vital skill for yourself. You’ll learn how to take apart models you admire, pinpoint precisely what makes them work, and apply that knowledge to develop novel ideas, methods, and products that are uniquely your own. Along the way, you’ll meet the culinary detective who exposes top-secret recipes, the burglar who can visit a bank and recreate its blueprints, and the celebrated artist who reverse engineered his way to the top of his profession without any formal education. You don’t have to be a genius to achieve greatness, but you do need a method for getting there. Bursting with unforgettable stories and actionable strategies, Decoding Greatness is an indispensable guide to learning from the best, improving your skills, and sparking breakthrough ideas.

    It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects—even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran. Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next. He chronicles its successes and missteps, and gives readers the most complete assessment anywhere of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the central figure in the company’s remarkable ascent. This is the Facebook story that can be found nowhere else. How did a nineteen-year-old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the Internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the Internet. In the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of our own identity. This is the Facebook Effect.

    In fact, Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom will train you to make this a reality. Although it’s not an easy process, it is a worthwhile one.By making a shift in your approach to leadership, you can become a highly effective leader who enjoys your work and makes the world a better place. The shift is simply a matter of gradually becoming more focused on how you can serve others and increase your capacity to do so.Matt Tenney introduces us to the principles in this book through the story of going from selfish to servant while on his journey from prisoner to monk to social entrepreneur. He also cites numerous business case studies and research that demonstrate how putting serving first results in: - Attracting top talent - Increased engagement and lower turnover - A more innovative team culture - Better customer service - A better ROI on marketing efforts The book also offers practical, actionable guidance for making the shift to becoming an extraordinary leader who is devoted to serving and inspiring greatness in others.All of the author proceeds from the sale of this book are donated to charity.

    Over the past five years, this model has been used in thousands of “finance for non-financial managers” training sessions in more than 30 countries. Now for the first time, it has finally been released in a paperback format.  Accounting is often perceived as being tedious, complicated, and too theoretical. Non-financial managers are less than enthusiastic about accounting. One possible cause is the way business schools teach it.   In a recent study only 46% of respondents had average or higher financial literacy and could understand financial statements.   Stop avoiding financial topics during team meetings. Save your company from making costly mistakes and start maximizing all your valuable opportunities.

    This is not a book just for copywriters and other advertising experts but a book for every business owner, marketing expert or anyone who needs to increase sales.The reason why is because it deals with how to channel the forces in the marketplace which control sales.Put simply, Gene's book addresses the universal problem of all copywriting: How to write a headline — and an ad that follows it — that will open up a whole new market.

    They studied more than 700 business-to-business purchases made by buyers who represented a total of $3.1 billion in annual purchasing power. When they compared the winners to the second-place finishers, they found surprising results.Not only do sales winners sell differently, they sell radically differently, than the second-place finishers. In recent years, buyers have increasingly seen products and services as replaceable. You might think this would mean that the sale goes to the lowest bidder. Not true! A new breed of seller—the insight seller—is winning the sale with strong prices and margins even in the face of increasing competition and commoditization.In Insight Selling, Schultz and Doerr share the surprising results of their research on what sales winners do differently, and outline exactly what you need to do to transform yourself and your team into insight sellers. They introduce a simple three-level model based on what buyers say tip the scales in favor of the winners:Level 1 “Connect.” Winners connect the dots between customer needs and company solutions, while also connecting with buyers as people.Level 2 “Convince.” Winners convince buyers that they can achieve maximum return, that the risks are acceptable, and that the seller is the best choice among all options.Level 3 “Collaborate.” Winners collaborate with buyers by bringing new ideas to the table, delivering new ideas and insights, and working with buyers as a team.They also found that much of the popular and current advice given to sellers can damage sales results. Insight Selling is both a strategic and tactical guide that will separate the good advice from the bad, and teach you how to put the three levels of selling to work to inspire buyers, influence their agendas, and maximize value. If you want to find yourself and your team in the winner’s circle more often, this book is a must-read.

    The book covers the essentials of leadership, talent acquisition and operations, while outlining the creative strategies that propelled a small business into one of the largest and most admired in its industry. This guidebook is full of well-tested ideas that are applicable to someone running a small, medium or large a professional firm—or running any project where people, profit and customers matter.

    If you could get 1000 True Fans to support you by buying $100 worth of what you create every year, you would earn an income of $100,000 a year. That sounds a bit like a get-rich-quick scheme. 1000 True Fans is not that. It's a get-a-good-income-slowly income model. It requires hard work, but once you’ve built up 1000 True Fans, you are free forever to live as an independent creator earning good money making what you love. Thousands of people are already using this income model that is recommended by Kevin Kelly, Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin and Ramit Sethi. Kevin Kelly invented the term 1000 True Fans in a 2008 blog post. This book shows you how you follow a 1000 True Fans income model. It's ideal for anyone who can create a product or service. If you create music, art, writing, information, knowledge, apps, products you've designed, training courses, or anything else you can think of, you can use this business model to live independently. The books is quick and easy to read, written like a letter from a friend who wants to help you. This book starts you on your journey towards getting 1000 True Fans.

    What failed startups don't have are enough customers.Founders and employees fail to spend time thinking about (and working on) traction in the same way they work on building a product. This shortsighted approach has startups trying random tactics - some ads, a blog post or two - in an unstructured way that's guaranteed to fail. This book changes that. Traction Book provides startup founders and employees with the framework successful companies have used to get traction. It allows you to think about which marketing channels make sense for you, given your industry and company stage. This framework has been used by founders like Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Paul English (Kayak.com), and Alex Pachikov (Evernote) to build some of the biggest companies and organizations in the world. We interviewed each of the above founders - along with 35+ others - and pulled out the repeatable tactics and strategies they used to get traction. We then cover every possible marketing channel you can use to get traction, and show you which channels will be your key to growth. This book shows you how to grow at a time when getting traction is more important than ever. Below are the channels we cover in the book:Viral Marketing Public Relations (PR) Unconventional PR Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Social and Display Ads Offline Ads Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Content Marketing Email Marketing Engineering as Marketing Target Market Blogs Business Development (BD) Sales Affiliate Programs Existing Platforms Trade Shows Offline Events Speaking Engagements Community BuildingThis book draws on interviews with the following individuals: Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of reddit Eric Ries, Author of The Lean Startup Rand Fishkin, Founder of SEOmoz Noah Kagan, Founder of AppSumo Patrick McKenzie, CEO of Bingo Card Creator Sam Yagan, Co-founder of OkCupid Andrew Chen, Investor at 500 Startups Justin Kan, Founder of Justin.tv Mark Cramer, CEO of SurfCanyon Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of Customer.io Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine Chris Fralic, Partner at First Round Paul English, CEO of Kayak.com Rob Walling, Founder of MicroConf Brian Riley, Co-founder of SlidePad Steve Welch, Co-founder of DreamIt Jason Kincaid, Blogger at TechCrunch Nikhil Sethi, Founder of Adaptly Rick Perreault, CEO of Unbounce Alex Pachikov, Co-founder of Evernote David Skok, Partner at Matrix Ashish Kundra, CEO of myZamana David Hauser, Founder of Grasshopper Matt Monahan, CEO of Inflection Jeff Atwood, Co-founder of Discourse Dan Martell, CEO of Clarity.fm Chris McCann, Founder of StartupDigest Ryan Holiday, Exec at American Apparel Todd Vollmer, Enterprise Sales Veteran Sandi MacPherson, Founder of Quibb Andrew Warner, Founder of Mixergy Sean Murphy, Founder of SKMurphy Satish Dharmaraj, Partner at Redpoint Garry Tan, Partner at Y Combinator Steve Barsh, CEO of Packlate Michael Bodekaer, Co-founder of Smart Launch Zack Linford, Founder of Optimozo

    People used to download music for free, then Steve Jobs convinced them to pay. How? By charging 99 cents. That price has a hypnotic effect: the profit margin of the 99 Cents Only store is twice that of Wal-Mart. Why do text messages cost money, while e-mails are free? Why do jars of peanut butter keep getting smaller in order to keep the price the “same”? The answer is simple: prices are a collective hallucination. In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate “fair” prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn’t taken long for marketers to apply these findings. “Price consultants” advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, “sale” ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.