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"The problem? 11,000. That is the number of business books published in the United States every year. Placed one atop another, the stack would stand as tall as a ninety-story building.
Recommendations reduce the noise. Suggestions from friends and colleagues are best, because they know you and your circumstances. Reliable media sources that regularly review business books, like The Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek, are also a great source for slimming the pile. Blogs, tweets, and Facebook statuses can be just as valuable. Online booksellers offer customer reviews on their product pages, and physical bookstores have helpful employees who can help you find a book
Worthwhile as they are, recommendations merely reduce the size of the pile. Our next step is to determine which book is right one."
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"If you're under age 45 or so, there's a good chance that you've tried Jgermeister. However the odds are low—quite low—that you actually enjoy the taste. And that's okay. Few people do. Very, very few. I'll wager that most of the people who make Jgermeister don't like the taste of Jgermeister. Yet the brand continues to grow at an astonishing rate. If so many people actively dislike the taste, how does the company manage to sell 83 million bottles a year?
With sales increasing up to 40% per year since 1985, Jgermeister is the most popular drink nobody likes.
Many companies successfully advertise products and services that consumers don't necessarily need (bottled water, luxury cars) or even enjoy (backache pills, oil changes, burial plots). But here's a brand that manages to sell an extraordinary volume—at a premium price point, no less—of a product that people don't even want, and more to the point, actively dislike."
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"I hear people every day offer very valid excuses why they don't try to improve how they communicate. Some people think it's too hard. Others don't know where to go for help. The most repeated excuse from people at work and in their personal lives that could be so much happier with some focused, intentional new habits: 'I don't have time.' Every single one of us can communicate in a way that makes it easier for people to like spending time with us. If you feel shy, nervous, or afraid, you're not crazy, you're not alone, and today is the day you stop letting ugly communication damage your relationships. Authentic communication can become as natural as breathing—when you pay attention to a few essential aspects of what connects people."
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"Most of us are seduced by the idea of overnight success. We want to believe the myth that success is easy to come by. But success in business takes time, energy and hard work—lots of all three.
Personally, I've never met an overnight success. I've met people who've done something well for a long time and were suddenly discovered. Then everyone assumed they came out of nowhere, that their fame happened overnight.
But the real truth is that it takes a long time to be an overnight success."
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"So many of our parents and grandparents have, and unfortunately some still do, sacrifice their innocence as human beings in struggles to defend our very morals and ideals. I believe that it is safe to say that most of us, at some point in our lives, have heard a tale of a soldier fighting for his or her life in a foreign country against an unfamiliar enemy. But the question is: How many of us have actually sat down and truly, completely listened to these soldiers and to their personal accounts?"
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