If there ever was a time for businesspeople to learn the fine art of persuasion, it is now. Gone are the command-and-control days of executives managing by decree. Today businesses are run largely by cross-functional teams of peers and populated by baby boomers and their Generation X offspring, who show little tolerance for unquestioned authority. Electronic communication and globalization have further eroded the traditional hierarchy, as ideas and people flow more freely than ever around organizations and as decisions get made closer to the markets. These fundamental changes, more than a decade in the making but now firmly part of the economic landscape, essentially come down to this: work today gets done in an environment where people don’t just ask What should I do? but Why should I do it? To answer this why question effectively is to persuade. Yet many businesspeople misunderstand persuasion, and more still underutilize it. The reason? [More]

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get rich easily, while others are destined for a life of financial struggle? Is the difference found in their education, intelligence, skills, timing, work habits, contacts, luck, or their choice of jobs, businesses, or investments? Whatever your inward thoughts you accept about yourself, you will ultimately express outwardly in your actions. Because of this, it’s important to monitor what types of thoughts you allow to shape your reality. If you’d ultimately like to be wealthy through real estate, it will help you to understand the difference between how poor people think in comparison to the rich people of this world. [More]

In author Steven Gaffney’s book “Just Be Honest: Authentic Communication Strategies that Get Results and Last a Lifetime,” readers discover that honesty is still not only the best policy; it’s the easiest and most effective way to communicate. You’ll also learn how to be honest with others and how to get them to be honest with you. This book also reveals how you can use honesty as a tool to get immediate and dramatic results with anyone, regardless of their background, needs, personality, or personal agenda. Steven Gaffney also outlines how you can eliminate communication breakdowns and personality conflicts, prevent problems before they occur, and get the bottom-line results you desire--quickly and painlessly. You’ll also discover why the two most commonly used “communication strategies” never work and what you should be doing instead “Just Be Honest” is packed with profound, yet easy-to-implement strategies and expert insight guaranteed to help you start communicating more effectively immediately. No matter how time-impoverished, overworked, understaffed or under-resourced you and the people around you may be, the strategies revealed in this book will enable you to positively influence every dimension of your personal and professional life. [More]

Norman Vincent Peale was a minister and the author of the famous book The Power of Positive Thinking. That book and other works from Peale went on to sell tens of millions of copies. During the depression he, JC Penney and Thomas Watson – of IBM fame – spent time on philantrophy. Peale also had his own radio show for over half a decade. [More]

Scott Fahlman, 26 years ago posted the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University: I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: : – ) Fahlman says he came up with the idea after reading “lengthy diatribes” from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post. With that post, suggesting that funny emails should be marked out, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. Today the emotion+icon combination has spawned a thousand others and rarely is an online conversation complete without one.

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Creator of the popular goal setting guide “YourGoalBook”, Alex Work has been involved in personal development since an early age. A former competitive swimmer holding two National Age Group Records, he has had the opportunity to observe the practices of high-performance athletes up-close. He now works with athletes, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to make lasting change in their lives using the immense power of goal setting. People from all types of background have gone on to achieve success at staggering heights. We’ve all heard this song and dance before; that it doesn’t matter where you are from or what your circumstances were, but rather, where you are going. Since success and background are independent, it begs the question: Why do some people choose success, and why do some people choose not to succeed? 2011 has every reason to be yours this year. The decision is up to you; will you make this year the one where you begin living all of your goals and dreams? Many people will cite a loss of motivation or interest in their goals as the primary reason that they will not complete the resolutions and goals they set for themselves.

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The Richest Man in Babylon is a book which dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set in ancient Babylon. Through their experiences in business and managing household finance, the characters in the parables learn simple lessons in financial wisdom. By basing these parables in ancient times, but involving situations that modern people can understand and identify with, the author presents these lessons as timeless wisdom that is as relevant today as it was back then. The book began in 1926 as a series of informational pamphlets. Banks and insurance companies began to distribute these pamphlets, and the most famous ones were eventually compiled into this book. According to the edition book cover, more than two million copies have been sold.

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