Small Business Motivation

On the first day of high school, Kristina Ellis' mom - a single, working mother who lost her husband to cancer - informed her that she could not financially support her after graduation. Kristina would need to find her own way to pay for college. As an average student with less-than-impressive test scores, Kristina realized she would have to sell herself to scholarship committees if she wanted to stand out. That's when she devised the plan that led to her receiving over $500,000 in scholarships.

We've combed through the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to help you get up to speed fast on the relevant concepts driving business today. Discover new ideas and sample the latest thinking of our vast array of management experts. Revisit these topics now to make sure your organization is incorporating the best, most up-to-date practices, or keep this book as a reference so you can turn to these memorable pieces when you need them the most.

Ditch the labels and embrace positive, healthy practices for eating, exercising, and living an authentic life - your way! Deciding to improve your health, your consciousness, and the world can seem so overwhelming that you don’t know where to begin. Author and actor Alicia Witt isn’t here to dole out lists of dos and don’ts, but she is here to show how adopting the “small changes philosophy” allows you to find balance, eat healthier, and feel better physically and emotionally.

S.U.M.O. stands for Shut Up, Move On. It's a phrase to say to ourselves (and sometimes others) when we are acting or thinking in a way that is hindering our ability to succeed. It doesn't necessarily mean "get over it" or "pull yourself together" (although there may be occasions when both responses are necessary): "Shut Up" means stop what you're doing, take time out to reflect, let go of baggage and beliefs that hinder your potential; "Move On" means tomorrow can be different from today, look for new possibilities, don't just think about it, take action.

Business, like any adventure, begins with a leap into the unknown. Brian Tracy's first dream was of a journey. Not a leisurely drive to the beach or a weekend campout-a wide open adventure that would take him 17,000 miles from his home on Canada's Pacific Coast all the way to South Africa. His journey - a harrowing series of false starts, long days, and narrow escapes- taught him about "becoming unstoppable," not only in pursuing adventure but in daily life and business as well.

When Marcus Whitney moved to Nashville in 2000, he was a college dropout with a one-year-old and a baby on the way. He waited tables and lived in a week-to-week efficiency hotel. From the outside, Marcus looked like the furthest thing from a budding entrepreneur. But inside, he knew entrepreneurship was his path to a better life. Two decades later, Marcus has founded two innovative companies in the healthcare space, exited a tech marketing company, and co-owns Nashville’s new Major League Soccer team. Marcus walks you through his unlikely journey from waiting tables to building companies.

David's trials and tribulations will deliver valuable insight on how to leave your corporate job and how to navigate your own business once you take the leap. Drawing from inspirational figures like Tony Robbins, Tim Ferriss, and Richard Branson, this audiobook will expand what you considered to be possible and encourage you to reach your full potential.

Confucius said that a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. The same principle applies to becoming a self-made millionaire, except this journey is a little shorter, comprising just 52 common-sense practices. Featuring interviews with a wide-ranging list of self-made millionaires, you will learn how white-collar professionals, blue-collar workers, small business owners, even teenagers alike have joined this million-dollar net worth club by methodically and consistently putting into practice this self-made millionaire game plan.

Companies stumble when they imagine that innovation is mostly about ideas. The reality is that ideas are only beginnings. Indeed, even a company with the world’s best idea still faces a devilish challenge: it must build the business of tomorrow without endangering the business of today. Beyond the Idea is an essential book for any business that recognizes that innovation always has been, and always will be, the key to long term growth and vitality.

Big new ideas rarely make great businesses. Laboring on a business plan can be a waste of time. You are going to need dramatically more start-up money than you think you do. Counterintuitive concepts like these have helped the world's best entrepreneurs succeed. Yet most of us only learn them the hard way. Len Green, an experienced investor, entrepreneur, and business professor, shares inside secrets and proven tactics for launching a business.

Be Quick - But Don't Hurry! tells the story of the friendship between UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and former player-turned-successful television executive Andrew Hill, while sharing the lessons and secrets that hold the key to managing creativity in the idea-driven economy of the 21st century.

Are you feeling lonely, isolated, or withdrawn at work? Putting in too much effort, and all you have is a bunch of data? Do you feel disengaged, distant, or drained? Would you like to meet more nice people? Want to have enjoyable, comfortable conversations with less "heavy lifting" and awkwardness? Stop being a "collector" and become a connector!

Did you ever have a great boss? Everyone should have one, but not enough people do. If you're a boss, or hope to become one, or have a less-than-great boss, then this is the book that could change your career-and your life.

Are you ready to follow your dreams? In this audiobook, success coach and entrepreneur Emily Williams shares her secrets for building a life and business that you love. It's time to stop settling for a life that doesn't light you up, because nothing changes unless you do. This audiobook will show you how to start making those changes and step into the life you were born to live.

Just Make Money! The Entrepreneur's Handbook to Building the Life of Your Dreams, written by the founder and CEO of Fierce Brands, Eric Casaburi, will change the way you define entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. With decades of inspired insight and elbow grease under his belt, Casaburi sheds light on aspects of starting and owning a business they don't teach in college. Listen to Just Make Money! and get pumped.

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur offers overworked and harried entrepreneurs, and anyone who thinks like one, a much-needed guide for tapping into the wisdom that is most relevant to the entrepreneurial life. The book is filled with inspirational meditations that contain the thoughts and writings of notable American authors. Designed as a daily devotional, it is arranged in a calendar format, and features readings of transcendentalist literature and others.

Brian Tracy is one of the world's leading authorities on success and personal achievement, addressing more than 100,000 men and women each year in public and private seminars. In Maximum Achievement, he gives you a powerful, proven system based on 25 years of research and practice that you can apply immediately to get better results in every area of your life.

A one-time flight attendant founds a cybersecurity business. A yoga instructor opens an organic mattress company. A former steel industry executive forms a limousine service. A retired nurse creates an international golf clothing line. Late-Blooming Entrepreneurs introduces these and other contemporary entrepreneurs who started prosperous businesses in their forties, fifties, and later. Just about all of them say they wouldn’t have succeeded if they had started their companies when they were younger.

For as long as she could remember, Jackley, the cofounder of the revolutionary microlending site Kiva, had a singular and urgent ambition: to help alleviate global poverty. She believes that many of the most inspiring entrepreneurs in the world are not focused on high-tech ventures or making a lot of money; instead, they wake up every day and build better lives for themselves, their families and their communities, regardless of the things they lack or the obstacles they encounter.

What if someone could guide you, step-by-step, as you identify, plan, and launch your dream career - in just one year. That's what Ben Arment does in his transformative coaching class, which has helped hundreds of people reinvent their lives to enjoy greater enthusiasm and fulfillment while also making a living. Now he's sharing his best insights, advice, and inspiring true stories in Dream Year. You'll find out how people just like you are discovering (or rediscovering) what they were truly born to do, then following a proven process to make it real.