Academic Career

Candid conversations with top leaders around the world on how they approached pivotal moments in their careers.

Tom Bulleit stood on a stage before a thousand people inside a tent the size of a big-top. It was both his 30th wedding anniversary and his birthday. But there was another thing to celebrate: the dedication of the new Bulleit Distillery in Shelbyville, Kentucky. His great-great-grandfather, Augustus, created his first batch of Bulleit Bourbon around 1830. A century and a half later, Tom fulfilled his lifelong dream, revived the old family bourbon recipe, and started Bulleit Distilling Company.

What this book is not: It is not a leadership academic resource, filled with principles, methodologies, laws, or processes – it’s a conversation. It’s like we sat down and shared stories over an ice-cold beer or chilled tequila on a hot, sunny day. It is an unconventional leadership book, an autobiography of lessons learned. By listening to this book, you’ll be taken on a ride with me through my personal leadership story.

Let’s face it: Every entrepreneur isn’t the next Mark Zuckerberg, and every new business isn’t Uber. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be. Venture Forward is a collection of real-world stories from innovative founders of successful businesses gathered in one place. It shows new entrepreneurs that they’re not alone in their endeavors, and they’re not destined to fail (at least, not forever).

Are men poised to dominate the burgeoning cannabis industry business by default? Not if Dr. Leslie Apgar and Gina Dubbé have anything to say about it. These two best friends and businesswomen challenged norms and expectations by opening their own medical cannabis dispensary. And it was anything but easy.

With five successful companies to his name and over $1.2 billion in combined retail sales, serial entrepreneur Jim Markham has made an indelible mark on the hair care industry. Across six decades, he has built a legacy of innovation that has forever changed how people care for their hair. But the path to success wasn't foregone, obvious, or easy. In his early years, nobody would have wagered on his success. Armed only with sheer determination and an unflappable confidence that he was meant for something bigger, Jim fought to make it from the bottom to the top - more than once.

Popular financial advisors and consultants recommend reading or listening to the nonfiction books of successful people to gain insight into their life perspectives and attitudes that were the key foundations of their success. Never Fry Bacon in the Nude allows listeners to see into the mind of successful businessman and entrepreneur Gene Bicknell. This book is a must-listen for entrepreneurs and anyone in business!

Shoes of Prey launched in 2009. It allowed people to design their dream shoes online, get them expertly manufactured, and have them shipped to anywhere in the world within two weeks. The startup broke even at two months, hit multi-million dollar revenues in under two years, raised tens of millions in funding from top-tier investors and shipped to more than 100 countries. All the metrics pointed to huge scalability. To a huge business. To a huge success. But it didn’t succeed. In 2018 the business failed. And this is that story.

Underdog Thinking is real-life business adventure story that follows the journey of an Indian immigrant to the U.S. who was told he “didn’t know a damn thing about American business”. In his new audiobook, Underdog Thinking, Vir inspires listeners to face any challenge that comes their way - with practical business lessons for every step of the journey gleaned from his experience as both an immigrant building a business and as CEO of Equator Appliances for more than 25 years.

It is possible to start your own company and increase your purchasing power so that you can become a billionaire. In this audiobook, you will learn about the most influential billionaires in the world. We will tell you their stories, their background, what they studied, and most important of all, how they became billionaires.

Enter into the life of an entrepreneur - starting up an unthinkably dull business, agonizing as your nightmares and dreams clash inside of your spinning head, dealing with the occasional rogue tortoise...all while watching your savings burst merrily into flames. David MacDean’s The 0.0082% Business is an inspirational real-life account of his experiences, filled with beautiful small victories and laugh-out-loud mistakes.

Arianna Huffington is one of the world's most prominent business leaders in media. As cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, she built the first internet newspaper, which eclipsed the traffic of the New York Times and won the Pulitzer Prize. This concise but richly detailed biography provides an overview of Huffington's life and career, chronicling her journey from Athens to London, New York, Washington and California, across seven decades.

In The Poster Boy, Chad Scott tells the story of a Midwestern kid from Missouri who worked up the nerve to move to Chicago and chase his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. He didn’t have a pile of cash or a bunch of connections - just a great idea and the willpower to see it through to the bitter end. This book is half-memoir and half-guide. Chapters alternate between Chad’s story and practical business lessons designed to take you all the way from a bare concept to a lucrative business.

Ever wonder how a startup comes together - the people, places, skills, failures, and hustle that make it a real business? This is the story of David and David, two entrepreneurs with lots of energy and less of a roadmap than you might think. In 1993, David Cohen and David Brown founded their first company, Pinpoint Technologies, which grew from a basement startup to a successful multinational company with $50 million in annual sales and over 250 employees.

The road to success is rarely linear and never easy. But with courage, hard work, perseverance, and dedication to duty, Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, proves we can achieve the unthinkable. Jim has been called the Godfather of Banking by Forbes Africa. And this should be no surprise. In a time of tension between military and civilian regimes, periods of incredible economic instability, and a decaying infrastructure, Jim founded Zenith Bank in Nigeria.

There are not many successful entrepreneurs who will enthusiastically break off in the middle of a multi-million pound deal to have a huge snowball fight in the car park with their finance director. But then, Mark Mills is not just any successful entrepreneur. Whether organizing one of his infamous summer Christmas parties, flying to New York to find a new business idea, or staying up all night to celebrate a successful deal, Mark Mills has always believed in the absolute importance of having fun in business. And not just for him, but for his employees, customers, and suppliers, too.

Starting and running a small business is hard! These 21 authors have done the hard work and overcome the risks. Their stories will help every listener to empathize with the challenges of being an entrepreneur and to join in and celebrate the victories. The stories provide lessons in grit, determination, and faith. Whether you have "made it" in your business, are still struggling, or have just started thinking about getting into business, these lessons will be useful in motivating you through difficult days or circumstances.

What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Jim Carrey have in common? This deep analysis reveals they all achieved their success using Savanting’s biology-driven modus operandi. This unprecedented protocol exploits how savants outperform their potential - how they achieve incredible feats of genius from deficient brains theoretically incapable of them.

DJ Sbu is not your ordinary entrepreneur. He was born to be great and refuses to settle for less. Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a successful entrepreneur? How they come up with their ground-breaking ideas, how they turn them into flourishing businesses, how they deal with failure, and what drives and motivates them? Billionaires Under Construction answers these questions, and more, as it charts the rise and rise of Sbusiso Leope, one Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurs.

How do you go from hitting your lowest low to living the life of your dreams? Shine tells the story of one entrepreneur’s inspiring journey to rebuild his life, find health, happiness, and become the creator of one of America’s most successful healthy meal delivery companies. At the age of 39, Adam Zbar was 50 pounds overweight, in the middle of a divorce, and stressed out as his start-up ran out of money. Today, in the best shape of his life, Adam helps millions of Americans eat better and live healthier through his company Sun Basket.