Overcoming Fake Talk explains why we often fail at our most important communications and offers proven advice for turning challenging confrontations into rewarding exchanges that foster collaboration, improve performance, and achieve results. You’ll develop an understanding of the skills for holding a REAL conversation, including both the “said” and the “unsaid” elements present in any conversation; discover the framework for preparing and holding difficult yet meaningful conversations; and learn to no longer avoid the tough conversations they need to have. In Overcoming Fake Talk, business communication guru John R. Stoker offers proven advice for turning challenging confrontations into rewarding exchanges that foster collaboration, improve performance, and achieve results.

Most people spend the majority of their lives at work, and many not happily. Here’s a way to find your inner spirit—what you truly desire to do in life—this audiobook illuminates the path leading you to ultimately achieving your goals. J. P. Hansen will help you get there through exercises such as building a great resume, nailing the interview, and knowing whether or not to accept a particular job offer when it comes along.

Throughout his long and distinguished career, as a naval aviator, a US Congressman, a top aide to four American presidents, a high-level diplomat, a CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, and the only twice-serving Secretary of Defense in American history, Donald Rumsfeld has collected hundreds of pithy, compelling, and often humorous observations about leadership, business, and life. When President Gerald Ford ordered these aphorisms distributed to his White House staff in 1974, the collection became known as “Rumsfeld’s Rules.”

First gathered as three-by-five cards in a shoebox and then typed up and circulated informally over the years, these eminently nonpartisan rules have amused and enlightened presidents, business executives, chiefs of staff, foreign officials, diplomats, and members of Congress. They earned praise from the Wall Street Journal as “required reading,” and from the New York Timeswhich said: “Rumsfeld’s Rules can be profitably read in any organization…The best reading, though, are his sprightly tips on inoculating oneself against that dread White House disease, the inflated ego.”

Meanwhile, the collection continued to grow as Rumsfeld added new rules derived from things he read, heard, or observed in more than eight decades of a remarkable life. Now these legendary rules are made available for the first time to corporate executive. Rumsfeld has selected his most useful and important rules for effective leadership, enhanced with fresh insights and entertaining anecdotes, and discusses them in the blunt and witty style he is known for.

Distilled from a career of unusual breadth and accomplishment, and organized under practical topics like hiring people, running a meeting, and dealing with the press, Rumsfeld’s Rules can benefit people at every stage in their careers and in every walk of life, from aspiring politicos and industrialists to recent college graduates, teachers, and business leaders.

The book provides unprecedented insight into leadership, management, strategy, and life, thinking that not only helped Rumsfeld lead the Pentagon in wartime, but earned him a reputation as one of America’s toughest and most effective CEOs.

In Breaking Out, idea developer and adviser John Butman shows how the methods of today’s most popular “idea entrepreneurs,” including dog psychologist Cesar Millan, French lifestyle guru Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat), TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, and many others can help you take an idea public and build influence for it.

It isn’t easy. Butman argues that the rise of the “ideaplex” (TED, Twitter, YouTube, online learning, and all the rest) has caused such an explosion in the creation and sharing of ideas that it has become much easier to go public, yet much harder to gain influence. But it can be done.

Based on his own experience in advising content experts worldwide, Butman shows how the idea entrepreneur breaks out, by combining personal narrative with rich content, creating many forms of expression (from books to live events), developing real-world practices, and creating “respiration” around the idea such that other people can breathe it in and make it their own. The resulting idea platform can reach many different audience groups and continue to build influence for many years and even decades.

If you have an idea and want to make a difference in your organization, build a change movement in your community, or improve the world in some way, this book will get you started on the journey to idea entrepreneurship.

Birth, death, and conflict—three things you truly can’t avoid. Whether it’s big or small, conflict eats into productivity and makes people feel stuck. Yet solutions exist for even the toughest situations with the most intractable people. The answer lies in better communication—not just using different words but learning to think differently.

I Hear You supplies proven techniques for stepping outside one’s point of view and seeing things from other perspectives. Sample dialogues show how this shift in thinking leads to better conversations and greatly improved outcomes. Listeners learn how to:

• Tell the other person’s story, the cornerstone of real engagement
• Look from the outside in and see themselves as others do
• Recognize the role systemic factors play, and transform a conflict into a shared challenge
• Overcome the defense mechanisms that derail dialogue

For anyone trying to negotiate a difficult situation with a boss, colleague, employee, or client, I Hear You changes opposition into understanding and mere talk into real trust.

This nonfiction legal thriller traces the fourteen-year struggle of two lawyers to bring the most powerful coal baron in American history to justice.

Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy since the early 1990s, ran an industry that provides nearly half of America’s electric power. But wealth and influence weren’t enough for Blankenship and his company, as they set about destroying corporate and personal rivals, challenging the Constitution, purchasing the West Virginia judiciary, and willfully disregarding safety standards in the company’s mines—mines in which scores died unnecessarily.

As Blankenship hobnobbed with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice in France, his company polluted the drinking water of hundreds of citizens; he himself fostered baroque vendettas against anyone who dared challenge his sovereignty over coal country. Just about the only thing that stood in the way of Blankenship’s tyranny over a state and an industry was a pair of odd-couple attorneys, Dave Fawcett and Bruce Stanley, who undertook a legal quest to bring justice to this corner of America. From the backwoods courtrooms of West Virginia they pursued their case all the way to the US Supreme Court and to a dramatic decision declaring that the wealthy and powerful are not entitled to purchase their own brand of law.

The Price of Justice is a story of corporate corruption so far-reaching and devastating it could have been written a hundred years ago by Ida Tarbell or Lincoln Steffens. And as Laurence Leamer demonstrates in this captivating tale, because it’s true, it’s scarier than fiction.

In today’s market, playing it safe is not an option. The business world is in flux, and you have to think and act quickly in order to stay competitive. But the last thing you want to do is make reckless business decisions. You have to find the middle ground. You have to take smart risks.

In this groundbreaking audiobook, leadership expert Doug Sundheim explains how to find that precise point between comfort and danger for generating the sustained ability to work at the highest level of performance.

Taking Smart Risks reveals the secrets to discovering, planning for, and acting upon the kind of risks that will move your company forward and ahead of the competition.

The plateau effect is a powerful law of nature that affects everyone. Learn to identify plateaus and break through any stagnancy in your life—from diet and exercise, to work, to relationships.

The Plateau Effect shows how athletes, scientists, therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to break through their plateaus, to turn off the forces that cause people to “get used to” things, and turn on human potential and happiness in ways that seemed impossible. The book identifies three key flattening forces that generate plateaus, two principles to guide listeners in engineering a plateau’s destruction, and three actions to take to achieve peak behavior. It helps us to stop wasting time on things that are no longer of value and to focus on the things that leverage our time and energy in spectacular ways.

Anything you want to do better—play guitar, make friends, communicate with your children, run a business—you can accomplish faster by understanding the plateau effect.

This motivational personal-development and self-help book was inspired by a suggestion from Scottish American businessman Andrew Carnegie. While the title implies that this book deals only with how to achieve monetary wealth, author Napoleon Hill explains that the philosophy taught in these pages can be used to help individuals do or be almost anything they want. For instance, according to sportswriter Jim Murray, Think and Grow Rich was credited for Ken Norton’s boxing upset of Muhammad Ali in 1973. At the time of Hill’s death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold twenty million copies since its publication during the Great Depression in 1937. It remains Hill’s biggest seller and was listed by Businessweek as the sixth best-selling paperback business book seventy years after its publication. It is also on John C. Maxwell’s “Lifetime Must-Read” list.

This audio program is the ideal gift for those who understand the importance of developing leadership skills through daily steps. Take your leadership development to the next level for optimal business growth and a higher quality of life.

With morning visualizations you will increase energy and optimize business planning. This guided visualization can help you access your most creative ideas and inspired actions; clarify and own your unique vision; start your day with energy, focus, and enthusiasm; and improve your professional development and results. You should listen and actively engage in the process two to three times a week, write about your realizations, and capitalize on your increased energy by getting into action with your day immediately afterward. Imagine accessing your potential and setting clear daily intentions. These are the kind of consistent baby steps that will catapult your professional life to levels you’ve only imagined.

With the evening relaxation you will rejuvenate, revive, and replenish. Use these techniques on those days when you can’t seem to catch up with yourself. This is for self-care, and as business leaders we all need times when we just lay down and take a few minutes to rejuvenate. Listen to this right before bedtime so you’re guided into a deep, restful sleep while the positive messages are received by your unconscious mind. You’ll wake up feeling refreshed, energized, and ready for whatever’s next.

Personal finance 101—without the homework or quizzes

Most of us graduate high school with a basic understanding of history, math, science, and literature, but when it comes to personal finance—arguably the topic that we use most in our daily lives—we feel lost or overwhelmed. No longer! Cast aside your fear of FICO scores and your confusion about credit cards, because Scott Gamm, founder of HelpSaveMyDollars.com and student at New York University Stern School of Business is here to help.

More Money, Please is a comprehensive, easy-to-understand introduction to money management. Gamm walks readers through the basics of personal finance, from savings accounts to student loans, including:

• The rules for building a budget and sticking with it
• How to pay for college without getting into tons of debt
• Why getting a credit card is a good thing—if you pick the right one
• How to use your smart phone to pay bills on time
• Why it’s important to save for retirement right now

A must-read for college students and recent grads, More Money, Please will show you how to take control of your finances.

How to build trust—and how to keep it.

In this enlightening guide developed from his popular Trust Works! training program, #1 bestselling author and management guru Ken Blanchard turns his vast knowledge and insight to one of the most timely and complex issues that affects all areas of our lives.

Once upon a time, a dog and a cat lived together with other animals and the humans who cared for them. But canine and feline did not trust each other—a situation that led to fighting, backbiting, and sabotaging that soon affected the whole household. Unless their conflict was resolved, all of the pets would lose their home. Fortunately, a wise old parrot stepped in, teaching dog and cat the ABCs of trust. As each became aware of the unconscious behaviors at the root of their hostility, dog and cat discovered how to change their behavior—a mutual transformation that created a happy, productive environment for all.

Ken Blanchard applies this fable to real-life situations to show anyone how to get along better with those around them. He outlines his “ABCD” trust model and uses it to address the factors that lead to discord, including low morale, miscommunication, poor response to problems and issues, and dysfunctional leadership.

In today’s polarized society, building trust—and sustaining it—has never been more important or seemingly elusive. Trust Works! provides a common language and essential skills that can replace dissension with peace and cooperation and help us all work together productively and in harmony.

In her third mini-audiobook, the acclaimed author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast reveals how a few simple changes can make you more productive and fulfilled in your career. 

Plagued by crises and distractions, we work hard all day. But when we go home we’re not much closer to reaching our goals. It doesn’t have to be that way. Vanderkam shows how successful people employ certain daily practices to make sure their work hours are invested, not squandered. Drawing on research and interviews with people as varied as children’s book illustrator LeUyen Pham, productivity guru David Allen, fitness personality Chalene Johnson, and former race car driver Sarah Fisher, Vanderkam shows how to take control of your career by taking control of your nine-to-five.

The world’s most trusted guide for leaders in transition

Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.

In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions—no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today’s increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs.

By walking you through every aspect of the transition scenario, Watkins identifies the most common pitfalls new leaders encounter and provides the tools and strategies you need to avoid them. You’ll learn how to secure critical early wins, an important first step in establishing yourself in your new role. Each chapter also includes checklists, practical tools, and self-assessments to help you assimilate key lessons and apply them to your own situation.

Whether you’re starting a new job, being promoted from within, embarking on an overseas assignment, or being tapped as CEO, how you manage your transition will determine whether you succeed or fail. Use this audiobook as your trusted guide.