Success Memoirs

In The Anatomy of a Calling, Lissa Rankin, MD, makes a simple yet revolutionary claim: We are all, every single one of us, heroes. We are all on what Joseph Campbell calls "a hero's journey"; we are all on a mission to step into our true nature and fulfill the assignment our souls were sent to Earth to fulfill. Navigating the hero's journey, Dr. Rankin argues, is one of the cornerstones of living a meaningful, authentic, healthy life.

Renowned as a diversity and inclusion strategist, Michelle Gadsden-Williams held C-Suite positions at major organizations for many years and then took the off-ramp to probe a different career path, launching Ceiling Breakers LLC, with the primary goal to help women and professionals of color reach their full potential. As a woman of color and corporate executive who has worked and traveled the world for several Fortune 500 companies - all while managing a chronic illness - she provides insight into overcoming the barriers facing professionals in today's workplace.

The youngest of her parents’ combined 21 children, Sarah Frey grew up on a struggling farm in southern Illinois, often having to grow, catch, or hunt her own dinner alongside her brothers. She spent much of her early childhood dreaming of running away to the big city - or really anywhere with central heating. At 15, she moved out of her family home and started her own fresh produce delivery business with nothing more than an old pickup truck. Two years later, when the family farm faced inevitable foreclosure, Frey gave up on her dreams of escape and took over the farm.

In Winners Dream, Bill McDermott - the co-CEO of the world’s largest business software company, SAP - chronicles how relentless optimism, hard work, and disciplined execution embolden people and equip organizations to achieve audacious goals. Growing up in working-class Long Island, a sixteen-year-old Bill traded three hourly wage jobs to buy a small deli, which he ran by instinctively applying ideas that would be the seeds for his future success.

Before being named President Trump's Secretary of Commerce in 2017, Wilbur Ross had already earned a reputation as the "King of Bankruptcy" over his fifty-five-year career on Wall Street. Often working on high-profile bankruptcies such as Pan Am and Texaco, Ross helped restructure more than $400 billion in assets, and was named among Bloomberg's fifty most influential people in global finance. After coming to Washington, Ross faced equally tough challenges, yet survived in his post for all four years.

Joy's rise from single mother of three to the nation's most celebrated female inventor is truly what dreams are made of. Full of twists and turns, work and love, obstacles encountered and overcome, Inventing Joy is a binge-worthy book in every aspect. Dive in and be swept along for the ride as she relives her incredible and inspiring journey to joy. But there's more: Throughout her story, Joy points out her very own personal lightbulb moments - lessons she learned the hard way and principles she still relies on today.

The rock star of public speaking. Vusi Thembekwayo has been called many things. Join him in his inspiring journey from the township to the top echelons of South African business, to becoming one of youngest directors of a listed company and CEO of a boutique investment firm. As a Dragons' Den judge and a sought-after public speaker across the globe, Vusi doesn't just talk business - he lives it. Now you can learn the secret of his success and how to shape your own destiny.

Paul McGowan tells all (and then some) in this riotous tale of misbegotten success that’s 99 percent true in all the best ways. From his not-so-innocent youth growing up in the shadow of Disneyland and summer evenings in the innocent 1950s, to his dope-smoking, snake-eating, draft-dodging, loony-bin misadventure through Europe, to his struggles to build a thriving enterprise from a stack of dusty albums - see how the CEO of a worldwide company took 50 years to become an overnight success.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just 16 years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, "A pencil." This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of 24.

Finding Your Leadership Soul is a series of reflections, framed around letters Carlos writes to three young men whom he had the opportunity to teach and mentor. All three of these young men - Josue, Angel and Shawn - have passed; too young and too common for young men of color these days. Thus, Carlos' letters take the form of lessons he wishes he could have shared, impacts he wishes he could have made.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski reveals his personal principles for leadership, from dealing with adversity in life or on the basketball court, to taking responsibility for your actions and learning how to trust your heartfelt instincts in times of trouble. Leading with the Heart is about bringing out the best and demanding the best, from ourselves, from those around us, and from any organization that is playing to win.

The world's largest retailer, Walmart, has moved into Europe, with UK as its next target after Germany. Walmart operates about 3,601 stores, employs more than 910,000 people globally, and last year's sales amounted to $137.6 billion (85.7 billion pounds). This figure no doubt makes the owners of many corner shops and small retail chains shudder. About 90 million customers are being served on a weekly basis.

In The Millionaire Next Door, best selling author Thomas Stanley identified the millionaires around you. In The Millionaire Mind, he told you how they think. Now, he tells you how to get their business.

Joy Behar, comedian and cohost of ABC's The View, offers a follow-up to her Joy Schtick with this compilation written by 100 of her friends, associates, and role models, including Barbara Bush, Donald Trump, and James Earl Jones. Behar asked her celebrity friends to share whatever picks them up when they're down in the dumps, and as each celebrity offers his or her advice on how to cope with the blues, it soon becomes clear that most of us are driven to find solace in similar activities.

National icon Willie Nelson has evolved over the years from country music outlaw swimming against a whiskey river to a Zen-like figure of wisdom and contentment. In this autobiographical collection of life advice, The Tao of Willie, one of America's truest hearts reveals the spiritual and practical lessons learned from decades of hard knocks and good bounces.

Today everyone - whether they know it or not - is in the emotional transportation business. More and more, success is won by creating compelling stories that have the power to move partners, shareholders, customers, and employees to action. Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it. And this book tells you how to do both. Peter Guber, whose executive and entrepreneurial accomplishments have made him a success in multiple industries, has long relied on purposeful story telling to motivate, win over, shape, engage, and sell.

Demi Lovato wakes up each morning and affirms her commitment to herself - to her health, her happiness, her being. Those commitments are the bedrock of her recovery and her work helping other young people dealing with the issues she lives with every single day. Demi is a platinum-selling recording artist whose latest album - DEMI - is already a smash hit.

In this, his final work, finished only weeks before his passing, Peres offers a long-awaited examination of the crucial turning points in Israeli history through the prism of having been a decision maker and eyewitness. Told with the frankness of someone aware this would likely be his final statement, No Room for Small Dreams spans decades and events, but as much as it is about what happened, it is about why it happened.

When Jade unexpectedly suffered from a rare condition which left her paralysed and in a wheelchair at the age of twelve, she never imagined that she'd one day meet her husband John and that together they would take to social media to dispel the stigma surrounding disability, one story at a time. From questions about suffering and sex to family and faith, Jade and John speak honestly and humorously about life as an inter-able couple.