Leslie Odom Jr., burst on the scene in 2015, originating the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway musical phenomenon Hamilton. Since then, he has performed for sold-out audiences, sung for the Obamas at the White House, and won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. But before he landed the role of a lifetime in one of the biggest musicals of all time, Odom put in years of hard work as a singer and an actor. With personal stories from his life, Odom asks the questions that will help you unlock your true potential and achieve your goals even when they seem impossible. What work did you put in today that will help you improve tomorrow? How do you surround yourself with people who will care about your dreams as much as you do? How do you know when to play it safe and when to risk it all for something bigger and better? These stories will inspire you, motivate you, and empower you for the greatness that lies ahead, whether you’re graduating from college, starting a new job, or just looking to live each day to the fullest.

"When I think of failure, I like to think of it as a hurdle on a race track. It is up ahead of myself (the runner) and I need to calculate when to change my direction upwards. Is my hurdle (failure) the end of the road? No, it's just an obstacle in the way I need to overcome in order to cross the finish line. That explains what this book is about in a nut shell." ~ Benjamin A. Chapin Failure is a part of every great success we have in life. Instead of having fear, we need to embrace failure firmly, look for the signs and learn every time we face it. Failure is not a burden and offers incredible value if we know how to approach it. This book was written to help people embrace that concept. At the end of this book, you will have a firm understanding of failure and how to use it to your benefit. What You Will Learn• Control the fears of failure in your mind • Discover what failure looks like and how to handle it • Learn from the failures of the past • Experience the joy of helping others through their own failures Does failure hold you back?Do you dwell on thoughts of failure in the areas you are trying to progress in? Do you attempt to avoid failure at all costs? Does it seem you just keep failing at every turn? Do you want to better your life? Do you have a desire to help others through their own failures? If you answered "Yes" to some or all of these questions, you will benefit from this book. Failure will happen in life with everything we attempt to do. At some point, you are going to fail and you have to recognize that failure when it happens so you can pivot your direction and continue upwards toward your success.

The author offers anecdotes and experiences with failure in his own life to help readers reconsider how they view past mistakes and to use past failures to overcome hardship and succeed later in life.

“Clever, surprisingly fast-paced, and enlightening.” —Forbes Most new products fail. So do most businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? What separates those who keep treading water from those who harness the lessons from their mistakes? One of our most popular business bloggers, Megan McArdle takes insights from emergency room doctors, kindergarten teachers, bankruptcy judges, and venture capitalists to teach us how to reinvent ourselves in the face of failure. The Up Side of Down is a book that just might change the way you lead your life.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Jon Fitch takes you back to the early days of mixed martial arts by sharing his old journal entries and reflecting on them. Follow along as he goes from struggling Division 1 wrestler to MMA super star. See firsthand what it was like back in the Wild West early days of the sport. Back before the sport was regulated and there were no guarantees that you would even get paid. See for yourself how the sport evolved, how AKA evolved and how Jon Fitch the fighter and the man evolved. The journal entries start while Jon is still in college wrestling for the Purdue Boilermakers where he was a 4-year letter winner and team captain. Then he travels across the country with his English bulldog, Bricks, to pursue a fighting career in a sport most people had never heard of at the time, MMA. After arriving in San Jose, California, he helped to build the American Kickboxing Academy into one of the greatest powerhouses in MMA. He also tried out and was almost on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. Experience the process he went through in real time and see how he handled it. Get an inside look at the struggle that go along with the life of a fighter, from health issues to trouble with making money and relationships. It's not all sunshine and rainbows for those who choose this life.

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A valuable new companion journal for the best-selling Falling Upward In Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up." The Companion Journal helps those who have (and those who have not) read Falling Upward to engage more deeply with the questions the book raises. Using a blend of quotes, questions for individual and group reflection, stories, and suggestions for spiritual practices, it provides a wise guide for deepening the spiritual journey. . . at any time of life. Explains why the second half of life can and should be full of spiritual richness Offers tools for spiritual growth and greater understanding of the ideas in Falling Upward Richard Rohr is a regular contributing writer for Sojourners and Tikkun magazines This important companion to Falling Upward is an excellent tool for exploring the counterintuitive messages of how we grow spiritually.

The World’s Most Influential Book on Personal Success The bestselling classic that made Systems Over Goals, Talent Stacking, and Passion Is Overrated universal success advice has been reborn. Once in a generation, a book revolutionizes its category and becomes the preeminent reference that all subsequent books on the topic must pay homage to, in name or in spirit. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is such a book for the field of personal success. A contrarian pundit and persuasion expert in a class of his own, Adams has reached hundreds of millions directly and indirectly through the 2013 first edition’s straightforward yet counterintuitive advice—to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket. The second edition of How to Fail is a tighter, updated version, by popular demand. Yet new and returning readers alike will find the same candor, humor, and timeless wisdom on productivity, career growth, health and fitness, and entrepreneurial success as the original classic. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Second Edition is the essential read (or re-read) for anyone who wants to find a unique path to personal victory—and make luck find you in whatever you do.

Stealing the Corner Office is mandatory reading for smart, hardworking managers who always wonder why their seemingly incompetent superiors are so successful. It is a unique collection of controversial but highly effective tactics for middle managers and aspiring executives who want to learn the real secrets for moving up the corporate ladder. Unlike virtually all other business books—which are based on the assumption that corporations are logical and fair—Stealing the Corner Office explores the unconventional tactics people less competent than you use to get ahead and stay ahead. It is your proven playbook to thrive and win in an imperfect corporate world. Stealing the Corner Office will teach you: How incompetent people so often get ahead, and what you can learn from them. How to make universally flawed corporate policies work in your favor. Why showing too much passion for your ideas can be career suicide. Why delivering results should never be your highest priority. These and many more controversial tactics will change the way you look at your career and how you manage projects, people, and priorities. Apply the 10 principles in Stealing the Corner Office and watch your career take off!