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Book Lists

The Career Manifesto

Mike Steib

An action-oriented guide to help anyone find their calling and achieve their goals, inspired by the author's popular blog post with the same title

The Career Manifesto
 presents an inspiring and refreshingly simple approach to finding your passion and purpose and then jumpstarting a dream career to achieve those, by asking three essential questions:

-   What do you want your impact to be?
-   What are the potential pathways that move you towards your purpose?
-   How can you hold yourself accountable for your goals?

Award-winning CEO of XO Group and sought-after speaker, Michael Steib, draws on his own diverse work experience and career highlights as well as powerful anecdotes from other successful business leaders to offer expert guidance, field-tested advice, and interactive exercises that will help you answer these three key questions, envision a goal and then craft and execute a plan to achieve it. For young professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives seeking more purpose and meaning in their work and lives, The Career Manifesto is the essential way to build--and follow through on--an effective plan to excel at whatever job, project or career goal you put your mind to.

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Born for This

Chris Guillebeau

Have you ever met someone with the perfect job?

To the outside observer, it seems like they've won the career lottery—that by some stroke of luck or circumstance they've found the one thing they love so much that it doesn't even feel like work—and they're getting paid well to do it.  

In reality, their good fortune has nothing to do with chance. There’s a method for finding your perfect job, and Chris Guillebeau, the bestselling author of The $100 Startup, has created a practical guide for how to do it—whether within a traditional company or business, or by striking out on your own.

Finding the work you were “born to do” isn’t just about discovering your passion. Doing what brings you joy is great, but if you aren’t earning a living, it’s a hobby, not a career. And those who jump out of bed excited to go to work every morning don’t just have jobs that turn their passions into paychecks. They have jobs where they also can lose themselves for hours in the flow of meaningful work.

This intersection of joy, money, and flow is what Guillebeau will help you find in this book. Through inspiring stories of those who have successfully landed their dream career, as well as actionable tools, exercises, and thought experiments, he’ll guide you through today’s vast menu of career options to discover the work perfectly suited to your unique interests, skills, and experiences.

You’ll learn how to:
• Hack the job of your dreams within a traditional organization by making it work for you
• Find not only your ideal work but also your ideal working conditions
• Create plans that will allow you to take smarter career risks and “beat the house” every time
• Start a profitable “side hustle” and earn extra cash on top of your primary stream of income
• Escape the prison of working for someone else and build a mini-empire as an entrepreneur
• Become a rock star at any creative endeavor by creating a loyal base of fans and followers

Whichever path you choose, this book will show you how to find that one job or career that feels so right, it’s like you were born to do it.

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Do Over

Jon Acuff

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Quitter and Start comes the definitive guide to getting your dream job.

When you don't like your job, Sunday isn't really a weekend day. It's just pre-Monday. But what if you could call a Do Over and actually look forward to Monday?

Starting on the first day you got paid to scoop ice cream or restock shelves, you've had the chance to develop the four elements all great careers have in common: relationships, skills, character, and hustle. You already have each of those, to one degree or another.

Now it's time to amplify them and apply them in a new way, so you can call a Do Over on your career, at any age. You'll need a Do Over because you'll eventually face at least one of these major transitions:

- You'll hit a Career Ceiling and get stuck, requiring sharp skills to free yourself.
- You'll experience a Career Bump and unexpectedly lose your job, requiring strong relationships to survive.
- You'll make a Career Jump to a new role, requiring solid character to push through uncertainty and chaos.
- You'll get a surprise Career Opportunity, requiring dedicated hustle to take advantage of it.

Jon Acuff's unique approach will give you the resources to reinvent your work, get unstuck, and get the job you've always wanted!

 

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Lean In

Sheryl Sandberg

The #1 international best seller

In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg reignited the conversation around women in the workplace.

Sandberg is chief operating officer of Facebook and coauthor of Option B with Adam Grant. In 2010, she gave an electrifying TED talk in which she described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which has been viewed more than six million times, encouraged women to “sit at the table,” seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto.

Lean In continues that conversation, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to change the conversation from what women can’t do to what they can. Sandberg provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career. She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment, and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women both in the workplace and at home.

Written with humor and wisdom, Lean In is a revelatory, inspiring call to action and a blueprint for individual growth that will empower women around the world to achieve their full potential. 
 

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Success Habits

Napoleon Hill

Never-before-published wisdom from famed self-help author Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill, the legendary author of the classic best seller Think and Grow Rich, has been immortalized for his contributions to the self-help genre. In this never-before-published work Hill shares his principles of success, key habits that provide the basis for life-changing success. Success Habits explains the fundamental rules that lead to a prosperous life. From the importance of having Definiteness of Purpose to the inexorable influence of the Cosmic Habit Force, Hill’s principles offer a new way of thinking about intention, self-discipline, and the way we lead our lives.

Originally a series of radio talks delivered in Paris, Missouri, Success Habits is filled with personal anecdotes and stories and is written in an approachable, conversational style. Hill’s insights apply to every facet of life, inspiring readers to leverage his principles to achieve their own aspirations and create the successful lives they have always dreamed of.

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Job Interview Tips for Overcoming Red Flags

Ronald L. Krannich

Most people have one or two red flags in their background - some minor and embarrassing, others major job killers. Given today's high-tech world, with its rapid communication and instant background checks, your red flags may follow you wherever you go. For employers, they become major objections to hiring and the bases for firing. While most interview books are designed for the perfect job seeker - the well-educated, credentialed, goal-oriented, skilled, enthusiastic, and accomplished - this book addresses those who struggle to get ahead because of their less than stellar backgrounds. Many of them make poor education and career choices, frequently change jobs, get into trouble, and experience bad luck.They are risky hires. That's the subject of this unique book for job seekers - how to best handle red flags during the job interview. It's all about convincing reluctant employers to hire you -- speaking truth to power, turning weaknesses into strengths, scrubbing a sketchy background, preparing for sensitive interviews, and knowing what to say and do when confronted with red flag issues. Jam-packed with seasoned insights and solid job interview advice for people with not-so-hot backgrounds, this book examines: - What employers really want and look for in great candidates- Major red flags that consistently derail thousands of job seekers- Ways to identify your red flags and transform them into green lights- 101 questions asked at most job interviews by subject category- Key nonverbal behaviors, from dress and handshakes to eye contact- Great ways to impress interviewers with compelling examples and stories- 35 common interview errors you must never commit- Best ways to address 10 red flags that come up during many interviews- Expert follow up and salary negotiation techniques that work wonders- Key resources -- from books to blogs - that keep you focused on the prize- Ways to scrub and repair online red flags and reputation issues Filled with interview strategies, examples, stories, quizzes, questions, sample Q&A dialogues, and advice, this is the perfect interview book for anyone with a spotted background who is also highly motivated to move ahead with their career.

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Great at Work

Morten T. Hansen

The Wall Street Journal bestseller—a Financial Times Business Book of the Month and named by The Washington Post as “One of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018”—is “a refreshingly data-based, clearheaded guide” (Publishers Weekly) to individual performance, based on a groundbreaking study.

Why do some people perform better at work than others? This deceptively simple question continues to confound professionals in all sectors of the workforce. Now, after a unique, five-year study of more than 5,000 managers and employees, Morten Hansen reveals the answers in his “Seven Work Smarter Practices” that can be applied by anyone looking to maximize their time and performance.

Each of Hansen’s seven practices is highlighted by inspiring stories from individuals in his comprehensive study. You’ll meet a high school principal who engineered a dramatic turnaround of his failing high school; a rural Indian farmer determined to establish a better way of life for women in his village; and a sushi chef, whose simple preparation has led to his unassuming restaurant being awarded the maximum of three Michelin stars. Hansen also explains how the way Alfred Hitchcock filmed Psycho and the 1911 race to become the first explorer to reach the South Pole both illustrate the use of his seven practices.

Each chapter “is intended to inspire people to be better workers…and improve their own work performance” (Booklist) with questions and key insights to allow you to assess your own performance and figure out your work strengths, as well as your weaknesses. Once you understand your individual style, there are mini-quizzes, questionnaires, and clear tips to assist you focus on a strategy to become a more productive worker. Extensive, accessible, and friendly, Great at Work will help us “reengineer our work lives, reduce burnout, and improve performance and job satisfaction” (Psychology Today).

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Designing Your Work Life

Bill Burnett

When Designing Your Life was published in 2016, Stanford’s Bill Burnett and Dave Evans taught readers how to use design thinking to build meaningful, fulfilling lives (“Life has questions. They have answers.” –The New York Times). The book struck a chord, becoming an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Now, in DESIGNING YOUR WORK LIFE: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness at Work they apply that transformative thinking to the place we spend more time than anywhere else: work.
 
DESIGNING YOUR WORK LIFE teaches readers how to create the job they want—without necessarily leaving the job they already have.
 
“Increasingly, it’s up to workers to define their own happiness and success in this ever-moving landscape,” they write, and chapter by chapter, they demonstrate how to build positive change, wherever you are in your career. Whether you want to stay in your job and make it a more meaningful experience, or if you decide it’s time to move on, Evans and Burnett show you how to visualize and build a work-life that is productive, engaged, meaningful, and more fun.

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What Color Is Your Parachute? 2020

Richard N. Bolles

With more than 10 million copies sold in 28 countries, the world's most popular job-search book is updated for 2020, tailoring Richard Bolles's long-trusted guidance with up-to-the-minute information and advice for today's job-hunters and career-changers.

NAMED ONE OF THE ALL-TIME 100 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS BY TIME

What Color Is Your Parachute? is the world’s most popular job-hunting guide, revised and updated annually with more than ten million copies sold. This newly streamlined edition features the latest resources, case studies, and perspectives on today’s job market, revealing surprising advice on what works—and what doesn’t—so you can focus your efforts on tactics that yield results.

At its core is Richard N. Bolles’s famed Flower Exercise, a unique self-inventory that helps you design your career—and your life—around your key passions, transferable skills, traits, and more.

This practical manual also provides essential tips for writing impressive resumes and cover letters, networking effectively, interviewing with confidence, and negotiating the best salary possible.

Whether you’re searching for your first job, were recently laid off, or are dreaming of a career change, What Color Is Your Parachute? will guide you toward a fulfilling and prosperous life’s work.

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