Career Memoirs

Diddy, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z lifted themselves from childhood adversity into tycoon territory, amassing levels of fame and wealth that not only outshone all other contemporary hip-hop artists, but with a combined net worth of well over two billion dollars made them the three richest American musicians, period. Yet their fortunes have little to do with selling their own albums: between Diddy's Ciroc vodka, Dre's three billion dollar sale of his Beats headphones to Apple, and Jay-Z's Tidal streaming service and other assets, these artists have transcended pop music fame to become moguls.

An expert on ethical leadership analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices - from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and jeans-maker Levi Strauss to such modern-day entrepreneurs Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell.

A spiritual guidebook for the modern woman stepping into the unknown, Wholeness Within follows author and spiritual career coach Emily Smith on her journey from fear and victimhood to rapturous self-acceptance. Throughout, Emily shares her personal experiences of battling grief, burnout, anxiety, career dissatisfaction, addiction, and depression, which ultimately led her to a personal rebuilding and the development of a breakthrough coaching method that can help women everywhere shed negative self-images, create a career they actually love, and reclaim their narratives.

The original American entrepreneur! One of the great historical business leaders shares his observations on making money. A must-listen for anyone interested in business.

When Ted Turner started out in business, he owned a small billboard company in rural Georgia. Over the decades, he built a multi-billion empire that included CNN, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), MGM studios, and the Atlanta Braves. Risk-taking, careful planning, and steely determination are the hallmarks of this brash, outspoken, and wildly successful media mogul. On the other side of the world, his counterpart—Australian-born Rupert Murdoch—began with one small newspaper and parlayed it into more than 100 newspapers and magazines around the globe.

This powerful collection of stories reveals how the world's leading women in business have overcome some of life's biggest challenges to reach the top of their professions. This is an audiobook written for every current and aspiring leader, revealing the things that leaders rarely talk about; the behind-the-scenes struggles. The women in these stories are powerful, internationally diverse and have impressive leadership accomplishments.

Having struggled with gut-wrenching depression, a broken back, sexual abuse, a severe eating disorder, attempted suicide, and a brain aneurysm - all before she was 18 - Dawn learned to become a fighter and survivor. Her deepest desire is to turn everyone she meets into their own rock star through her strategy based coaching practice.

In this unprecedented deep dive into inner-city gang life, Mark Bowden takes listeners inside a Baltimore gang, offers an in-depth portrait of its notorious leader, and chronicles the 2016 FBI investigation that landed eight gang members in prison.

Jennifer Romolini started her career as an awkward 27-year-old misfit, navigated her way through New York media, and became a boss - an editor in chief, an editorial director, and a vice president - all within little more than a decade. Her book, Weird in a World That's Not, asserts that being outside the norm and achieving real, high-level success are not mutually exclusive, even if the perception of the business world often seems otherwise, even if it seems like only office-politicking extroverts are set up for reward.

We’ve all had moments of feeling like we didn’t belong, but imagine being born into a world where fitting in was never an option. Michele Sullivan, who has a rare form of dwarfism, shares how her physical posture taught her the most effective relational posture with others, which helped her become one of the most powerful women in philanthropy.

Over 30 different examples of situations and ideas to show you how you can change your approach and change your life. Looking to nail an interview? Want to make a better first impression on a date? Trying to make your money go further? Bet you never thought being a bit more psychopath could be the answer. Time to grab that bulls**t by the horns! Dr. Kevin Dutton studies psychopaths, and his latest subject is SAS hero Andy McNab. Andy’s a bit different; he’s a good psychopath.

Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed "too big to fail" to almost every large corporation in America - to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club - an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs - explains why.

Drawing on interviews with family members, managers, promoters, and the jazz musicians who worked with her, as well as contemporary newspaper articles and reviews, Late Life Jazz tells the unsung story of one of America's finest singers, Rosemary Clooney. Ken Crossland and Malcolm Macfarlane trace Rosemary's life from her hardscrabble beginnings in Maysville Kentucky, through her first performances singing with the Barney Rapp Band in Cincinnati, through her rise to pop stardom in the early 1950s.

In 2003, Cindy Monroe founded Thirty-One Gifts in the basement of her home in Chattanooga, TN, with one goal: to help women by giving them the opportunity to run their own successful businesses. Today, she continues to lead Thirty-One Gifts and build relationships with her consultants all over the country.

What’s Wrong With Your Dad is the true story of what it was like growing up and surviving a family with both alcoholism and Borderline Personality Disorder. It is told in the first person in a very conversational way, like the author and the reader are just sitting over coffee talking. It explains in clear layman’s terms the behaviors of both alcoholism and Borderline Personality Disorder and lets the reader know in no uncertain terms that the behavior was not in any way created by any adult child of either an alcoholic or BPD.

Harry Abrams (Founder and Former Chairman/CEO, Abrams Artists Agency) delivers a detail-oriented blueprint of how to succeed in the talent agency business whether you are just getting started or a seasoned professional. Citing specific examples of how he came to work with greats just as Eddie Albert presenting a commercial spot for The Lipton Tea Company when Harry was just out of the MCA mailroom to household names including Jennifer Lopez and Liam Neeson, Harry presents a step-by-step outline of his experience helping his clients achieve their best.

Few organizations solve as many impossible problems as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and nobody knows more about leading rocket scientists to unlikely breakthroughs than Adam Steltzner. As the phase lead and development manager for EDL (entry, descent, and landing) of the Curiosity rover to Mars, Steltzner spearheaded the creation of one of engineering's wackiest kluges - the sky crane, which allowed the heaviest rover in the history of space exploration to land on Mars unscathed.

Listen to the story everyone is talking about: how a janitor struggling to put food on the table invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in a secret test kitchen, breaking barriers and becoming the first Latino frontline worker promoted to executive at Frito-Lay.

Geared toward women who are considering getting into tech, or those already in a tech job who want to take their career to the next level, this book combines practical career advice and inspiring personal stories from successful female tech professionals Brianna Wu, Angie Chang, Keren Elazari, Katie Cunningham, Miah Johnson, Kristin Toth Smith, and Kamilah Taylor. Written by a female startup CEO and featuring a host of other successful contributors.

In this thought-provoking and heartbreaking memoir, an award-winning writer tells the story of his father, John Stanley Ford, the first Black software engineer at IBM, revealing how racism insidiously affected his father’s view of himself and their relationship.