Personal Development Leadership

Everyone experiences a moment in life when they need to lead. Sometimes it's a team, sometimes it's a company, a classroom, a patient ward, a family, or simply your own individual self. Based on the leadership lessons she's gathered from her resourceful and resilient life, Captain Sandy, a superyacht captain and star of Bravo's Below Deck Mediterranean, shares the leadership skills and critical thinking inherent to being a captain that can empower anyone to navigate their way to a successful life.

Early Google engineer and personal growth pioneer Chade-Meng Tan first designed Search Inside Yourself as a popular course at Google, intended to transform the work and lives of the best and brightest behind one of the most innovative, successful, and profitable businesses in the world... and now it can do the same for you. Meng has distilled emotional intelligence into a set of practical and proven tools and skills that anyone can learn and develop.

Grant Golliher is what some would call a “horse whisperer”, able to get a wild horse to calmly accept a saddle and a rider in just hours without the use of force. Through training thousands of horses, many traumatized or abused, Golliher was able to learn essential lessons about communication, boundaries, fairness, trust, and respect to foster more fulfilled relationships, and in turn, create a richer life.

Lots of books claim they can change your life. But how many actually teach you how to take the many small steps that lead to success each and every day of your life? Now in Today Matters, motivational teacher and best-selling author John C. Maxwell shows you how to seize the day. In this hands-on and inspiring guide he offers twelve daily practices to help you control your daily agenda, make time for people you love, and find success in your career.

It's comforting to imagine that superstars in their fields were just born better equipped than the rest of us. When a co-worker loses 20 pounds, or a friend runs a marathon while completing a huge project at work, we assume they have more grit, more willpower, more innate talent, and above all, more motivation to see their goals through. But that's not at actually true, as popular Inc.com columnist Jeff Haden proves. "Motivation" as we know it is a myth. Motivation isn't the special sauce that we require at the beginning of any major change.

Master negotiator Herb Cohen has been successfully negotiating everything from insurance claims to hostage releases to his own son's hair length and hundreds of other matters for over five decades. Ever since coining the term win-win in 1963, he has been teaching people the world over how to get what they want in any situation. In clear, accessible steps, he reveals how anyone can use the three crucial variables of power, time, and information to always reach a win-win negotiation.

Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one rises to the occasion under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.

Adversity can often catch you by surprise and leave you struggling with what to do next. What if you could confront any adversity, from the biggest challenges - the loss of your job, divorce, health issues, bankruptcy - to normal daily challenges - a late flight, a disappointing phone call, a missed promotion, a bad day - and not just survive it, but thrive afterwards? Some people move through adversity, and others fall underneath it. Learn how you can be counted among those who will overcome.

In Soar! T. D. Jakes reveals how to build the uniquely personal vision within each of us into our special contribution to the world. Blending the practical business acumen of a successful, global CEO with the dynamic inspiration of a life coach, Soar! provides the tools needed to ignite our imaginations into action and challenges us to embrace our divine purpose as we align our character and creativity with our careers.

People everywhere are proving leadership expert John C. Maxwell right - that talent is never enough. Read the headlines, watch the highlights, or just step out your front door. Some talented people reach their full potential, while others self-destruct or remain trapped in mediocrity. What makes the difference? Maxwell, the go-to guru for business professionals across the globe, insists that the choices people make - not merely the talent they inherit - propel them to greatness. It is what you add to your talent that makes the greatest difference.

We live, say Edgar and Peter Schein, in a culture of “tell". All too often we tell others what we think they need to know or should do. But whether we are leading or following, what matters most is we get to the truth. We have to develop a commitment to sharing vital facts and identifying faulty assumptions - it can mean the difference between success and failure. This is why we need Humble Inquiry more than ever.

It's no secret that we're pushed to the limit. Today's professionals feel rushed, overwhelmed, and perennially behind. How can we break out of the cycle and create the kind of interesting, meaningful lives that we all seek? Just as CEOs who optimize for quarterly profits often fail to make the strategic investments necessary for long-term growth, the same is true in our own personal and professional lives.

Do you find it hard to maintain existing connections, ultimately resulting in lost opportunities? It’s proven that by taking the right daily actions, you can build and strengthen the bonds you need to take you where you want to go. Do you fear losing the people closest to you because of your narcissistic tendencies? That’s where the multi-award-nominated author Lucas Bailey’s book How to Stop Being a Narcissist comes into its own!

In Ask Powerful Questions, Will Wise explains how the questions we traditionally ask are virtually meaningless when it comes to establishing connection. Introducing a set of practical tools for accessing and understanding others by changing the way we ask questions, Will shows how to transform "How are you? I'm fine, thanks" into a conversation that changes not only how you lead, but who you are as a person.

Cara Alwill Leyba's riveting voice and kinship with her audience drove the self-published success of Girl Code, a book that encouraged women to support each other in the business community. Now her many fans are ready to take the next step: building sustainable confidence from the ground up. Most women who are insecure look for the equivalent of a sugar rush, such as telling themselves they're better than other people or changing the way they look. But those tricks won't protect them from losing confidence in the future.

The training to become a fighter pilot is among the most competitive and difficult in the world with less than one-in-a-thousand succeeding. Pushing a cutting-edge jet to its limits at over 1,000 mph means that every split-second decision can have catastrophic consequences. This extreme environment has forged a group of warriors who for the last 50 years have been considered at the apex of decision-making theory and practice. In The Art of Clear Thinking Hasard Lee distills what he’s learned during his career flying some of the Air Force’s most advanced aircraft.

In Whale Done!, Ken Blanchard shows how positive reinforcement and redirection can help increase productivity. These techniques are remarkably easy to master and can be applied equally well at home, allowing listeners to become better parents and more committed spouses and have happier personal lives.

Whether your vision of an ideal career is starting your own business, rising to a different position within your current company, or landing your very first job, Quantum Success will help you make the prosperity and fulfillment of your dreams a reality. Through her accessible, empowering writing, Christy Whitman shares the fundamental principles that she’s discovered after more than 20 years of studying universal forces - such as polarity, alignment, resonance, momentum, and magnetism - and explains how to harness these forces to optimize your wealth and career.

It turns out giving up your "right" to be offended can be one of the most freeing, healthy, simplifying, relaxing, refreshing, stress-relieving, encouraging things you can do. It's a radical, provocative idea: We're not entitled to get offended or stay angry. The idea of our own "righteous anger" is a myth. It is the number one problem in our societies today and, as Dallas Willard says, Christians have not been taught out of it. But what if Christians were the most unoffendable people on the planet?

The World Health Organization estimates that American businesses lose more than $300 billion a year due to stress experienced by employees, and recent research by Harvard Medical School found that more than 95 percent of leaders felt at least somewhat burnt-out. For individuals and organizations who want to thrive in today's high-pressure, 24-7 business environment, working even longer is not the solution. To maximize your performance and well-being over the long-term, you need to work stronger.