Business Professional

Paul Van Doren is the founder of Vans - the shoe company beloved by skateboarders, creatives, and fans everywhere for its laid-back, colorful SoCal vibe, and famous for its people-oriented company culture. How did Van Doren establish a family shoe business that evolved into a globally recognized brand with annual revenue of more than four billion dollars? A blue-collar kid with no higher education and zero retail experience, Van Doren leveraged a knack for numbers, a genius for efficiency, and the know-how to make a great canvas tennis shoe into an all-American success story.

It’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million children around the globe are given a box of LEGO, while up to ten million adults buy sets for themselves. Yet LEGO is much more than a dizzying number of plastic bricks that can be put together and combined in countless ways. LEGO is also a vision of the significance of what play can mean for humanity.

Real estate titan, best-selling author, and TV impresario Donald J. Trump reveals the secrets of his success. Over the years, everyone has urged Trump to write on this subject, but it wasn't until NBC and executive producer Mark Burnett asked him to star in The Apprentice that he realized just how hungry people are to learn how great personal wealth is created and first-class businesses are run.

Only a handful of people embody the legacy of hip-hop and entrepreneurship like Jay Z. A modern-day King Midas, everything he touches - sports bars, streaming services, record labels, and cognac - turns to gold. How exactly did he do it? Forbes senior editor Zack O'Malley Greenburg reveals the story of Jay Z's legendary rise from the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn to stages and corner offices worldwide. He draws on more than 100 interviews with those who knew Jay Z from the beginning.

The CFP Ultimate Exam Prep: Complete Review for the Certified Financial Planner Exam guide is an all-encompassing and carefully developed guidebook aimed at equipping prospective financial planners with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) examination. This definitive resource covers all vital areas of financial planning, presented in a clear, structured, and accessible format.

Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. Ten thousand dollars and countless casino bans later, he was hooked, so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino.

The first thing Sophia Amoruso sold online wasn’t fashion - it was a stolen book. She spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and dumpster diving. By twenty-two, she had resigned herself to employment, but was still broke, directionless, and working a mediocre day job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was there that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay. Eight years later, she is the founder, CEO, and creative director of Nasty Gal, a $100 million plus online fashion retailer with more than 350 employees.

The five Titans of Industry discussed in this series are, without a doubt, the most influential and impactful men in American history. Without any one of them, the entire landscape of the US would be different. They are the founders of the American economy.

Employers consider communication one of the most critical skills for workers today. Written to address the needs of both students entering the workforce and business professionals looking to improve their written communication, Writing for the Workplace is a matter-of-fact how-to guide that provides strategies for effective professional communication.

In 2006, Kristi Coulter left her cozy but dull job for a promising new position at the fast-growing Amazon.com, but she never expected the soul-crushing pressure that would come with it. In no time she found the challenge and excitement she'd been craving—along with seven-day workweeks, lifeboat exercises, widespread burnout, and a culture driven largely by fear. But the chase, the visibility, and, let's face it, the stock options proved intoxicating, and so, for twelve years, she stayed—until she no longer recognized the face in the mirror or the mission she'd signed up for.

At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.

Riveting, character-driven, and filled with jaw-dropping revelations, Extremely Hardcore is the definitive, fly-on-the-wall story of how Elon Musk lit $44 billion on fire and burned down Twitter. It’s the next best thing to being there, and you won’t have to sleep in the Twitter office to get the scoop.

Are you keen to grow a career as a full-time professional speaker? It can be done, and it can be very lucrative, but only if you go about it correctly. You will have to treat it as a serious business. Veteran professional speaker and business author Douglas Kruger helps you to carve years off your learning curve by introducing you to the business end of the speaking profession. In this audiobook, Douglas covers all the how-to of building a successful full-time speaking career.

At twenty-eight, fresh from Stanford’s MBA program and steeped in the move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley, Andy Dunn was on top of the world. He was building a new kind of startup—a digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand—out of his Manhattan apartment. Bonobos was a new-school approach to selling an old-school product: men’s pants. Against all odds, business was booming.

Mission, vision, values, and aspirational statements are meant to be more than decorations and slogans that make organizations look good in the eyes of employees, customers, investors, and stakeholders. When articulated properly, vision and mission statements can be powerful tools and can be positioned as strategic road maps to steer and unite organizations, employees, and stakeholders toward common objectives and goals. In addition, vision and mission statements can help corporations and organizations define their purpose and establish a unique corporate identity.

Since the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater impact on the world than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than Peter Thiel. The billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing countless aspects of our contemporary way of life, from the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington. But despite his power and the ubiquity of his projects, no public figure is quite so mysterious.

Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.

If you’re not getting the respect, the money, or the opportunities you deserve, it’s time to tap into the power of communication. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, these tips will help you master your people skills and rapidly advance your career. And if you’re already a decent communicator, this book will skyrocket your life to the next level. Armed with the right knowledge and techniques, anyone can improve their communication skills, make their work life easier, and fast-track their success.

This is the original interview between Andrew Carnegie and Napoleon Hill. Hill used this interview as the basis of his world famous book Think & Grow Rich.

Practice management is often misunderstood. The Advisor Playbook will take the mystery away. Practice management is how you build an organized toolbox of all your processes - branding, marketing, service activities, core functions - and constantly tune and keep that toolbox efficient and effortless. It's a network of interrelated skills, processes and strategies that build value in a business while making it manageable, scalable, and ensuring the owner runs the business and not the other way around.