Career Skills

David Kwong has astounded corporate CEOs, TED talk audiences, and thousands of other hyper-rational people, making them see, believe, and even remember what he wants them to. Illusion is an ancient art that centers on control: commanding a room, building anticipation, and appearing to work wonders. Illusion works because the human brain is wired to fill the gap between seeing and believing.

Once upon a time, people wrote fables featuring untrustworthy ravens, wicked wolves, insincere monkeys, and power-hungry lions. Told repeatedly through generations and spread throughout the world, classic stories abound in which noble heroes and heroines matched wits with these typically treacherous beasts. But what's that you say? You feel as though you're surrounded by just these sorts of characters at work? Well, you're not alone.

Every day at work, people do three things: talk, listen, and pretend to listen. That's not surprising when you consider that the average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds. To break through, says high-stakes communications expert Paul Hellman, you need to focus on your audience, be slightly different, and deliver with finesse.

In Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships, FranklinCovey's chief people officer, Todd Davis, explains that an organization's greatest asset isn't its people; rather, it's the relationships between its people that is the greatest predictor of personal effectiveness. In the end, employees' ability to build and sustain great relationships is an organization's ultimate competitive advantage.

Every team has a manager.... But not every team is lucky enough to have a true leader. Get ready to break the mold! Did you know that 82 percent of employees would consider quitting their job because of a bad boss? And it isn’t just that you don’t want to be a bad boss…. You don’t want to be a boss at all – you want to be a leader.

What is great leadership? What separates the merely competent leaders from those rare individuals who leave a lasting impression on everyone around them? As one of the world's most in-demand CEO coaches and top leadership gurus, John Mattone has worked with some of our brightest business minds - Apple's Steve Jobs, Pepsi's Roger Enrico, and Nielsen's Armando Uriegas - and he's identified the key qualities that, together, make up the mindset of great leadership.

Refinement of Manner will set you on a journey to a finer, more elegant lifestyle, while encouraging and challenging you to become the best person you can be in all areas of life. Social, career, financial, home life... you can balance it all with grace, poise, and talent you never thought you had. This is your way to a greater, more fascinating you! This is the book on becoming beyond mannerly to absolutely elegant and refined. Here are the tools to becoming a refined elegant woman of the 21st century.

Best-selling social historian Charles Murray has written a delightfully fussy - and entertaining - book on the hidden rules of the road in the workplace - and in life - from the standpoint of an admonishing, but encouraging, workplace grouch and taskmaster. Why the curmudgeon? The fact is that most older, more senior people in the workplace are closet curmudgeons. In today's politically correct world, they may hide their displeasure over your misuse of grammar or your overly familiar use of their first name without an express invitation. But don't be fooled by their pleasant demeanor....

Have you ever had that sinking feeling that your career’s going nowhere and that if you could only find half the confidence your colleagues seem to have, you could find the success and fulfillment you crave? This clear yet empathetic guide will show you the path towards increasing your confidence at work, arm yourself with the tools you need no matter what chaos is unraveling around you.

Power. It corrupts the best and attracts the worst. Its allure is loved and despised. It brings more pain and less happiness. And yet, men chase it like wild animals. We cannot help ourselves. But not only can we not help ourselves, we are nothing without it. Welcome to Earth, where women are born with value and men are born without it. Us men need to find our value. Women must preserve their deteriorating value, and men must accumulate it. We find it by earning, then providing. Our output is what defines us. And our level of output originates from the personal power we hold.

The working world has changed dramatically in the last twenty years and it's going to continue to transform at an even faster pace. How can the average professional stay afloat in an ocean of constant change and technological revolution? In Future Skills Bernard Marr delivers an engaging and insightful discussion of how you can prepare yourself for the digital future of work. You'll learn which skills will be in the highest demand, why they'll command a premium price, and how to develop them.

One of the nicest ladies I ever met was a school teacher. I think we chatted for about 30 minutes and then I never saw her again. Thirty minutes. I seriously thought that I could trust this lady with all my deepest darkest secrets. After years of observation, I realized that all master small-talkers have a few things in common but the biggest things are the two keys that were shown to me so elegantly by that school teacher. Once I had mastered those, no small talk conversation was a nightmare anymore. In fact, I started to enjoy them.

The secret to giving better feedback isn't what we say - it's what others hear. Too often, people hear about a past they can't control, not a future they can. That changes with "feedforward" - a radical approach to sharing feedback that unleashes the performance and potential of everyone around us.

Meeting strangers at a party, alone in the elevator with the CEO, declining a second date because the first was a disaster - social situations apply a lot of pressure to do and say the right thing. 50 Essential Etiquette Lessons shows you the best way to approach these common challenges with confidence and ease. Never mind putting your pinkies up when you drink tea - this guide is packed with modern examples of how to handle any sticky situation.

Analogies are far more complex than their SAT stereotype and lie at the very core of human cognition and creativity. Once we become aware of this, we start seeing them everywhere - in ads, apps, political debates, legal arguments, logos, and euphemisms, to name just a few. At their very best, analogies inspire new ways of thinking, enable invention, and motivate people to action. Unfortunately, not every analogy that rings true is true. That's why, at their worst, analogies can deceive, manipulate, or mislead us into disaster.

The words you use say a lot about who you are and where you're headed. Whether you want to express yourself clearly to impress a prospective employer during a job interview, or just brush up on those pesky words you encounter every so often reading the newspaper, Kaplan Word Power is the essential tool to help you expand your daily vocabulary.

Unlock the charisma code and learn how to start living life as a more likeable, successful, sociable, and charming person. In this best-selling guide, Tom Anderson and Angelina Williams hand you the step-by-step blueprint to living life as an alluring, fascinating, and engaging person.

Do you want to improve your leadership skills and learn how to bring out the best in your employees, co-workers, or students? Then The Art of Supportive Leadership can help you! Large and small companies of every kind (from well-established industrial corporations to sparkling new tech firms) are using this proven approach to leadership with great success. It has become equally indispensable to the non-profit organizations, schools, and military personnel who also use it.

Much has changed in the world since the original publication of Leading Out Loud, Terry Pearce's book on authentic leadership communication. Now, more than ever, the development of a leader's message is as crucial to success as the delivery of that message. In the third edition of his classic book, Terry Pearce shows leaders in all sectors how to communicate their values and vision to inspire commitment. In this important resource, Pearce continues to broaden the application of core principles, putting the spotlight on everyday, spontaneous communication.

Through his Persuasion Institute, Kurt Mortensen has sought out and studied the Persuasion IQ (PQ) of the world’s top influencers. Now, in this game-changing guide, he’s leveraging his vast knowledge to teach listeners the essential habits, traits, and behaviors necessary to cultivate their natural persuasive abilities. Concentrating on the 10 major Persuasion IQ skills, the book provides listeners an opportunity to assess their own PQ, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and start down a path to enormous success and wealth.