Career Memoirs

An entertaining, humorous, and inspirational memoir by the founder and chief creative officer of the multimillion-dollar lifestyle brand ban.do, who "has become a hero among women (and likely some men too) who struggle with mental health" (Forbes). Hilarious, hyper-relatable, and filled with fascinating insights and hard-won wisdom on everything from why it’s okay to cry at work to the myth of busyness and perfection to the emotional rating system she uses every day, Gotch’s inspirational memoir dares listeners to live each day with hope, optimism, kindness, and humor.

In Full Out, “the Bill Belichick of cheerleading” (The Cut) Coach Monica Aldama shares how she built one of the most successful and beloved cheerleading programs in the country. Her uncompromising brand of discipline and consistency goes far beyond the mat - showing how the principles of building a winning team apply to personal goals, the corporate world, parenting, and all aspects of life.

Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. In 1998, Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft for $265 million. About a decade later, he sold online shoe empire Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion. The secret to his success? Making his employees happy. Drawing on interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by the pressure to succeed but who never lost his generous spirit.

From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one, and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis. With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life: how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and more.

Much more than a showbiz memoir, Hot Pants in Hollywood tells of a baby boomer's life on steroids. Susan Silver was one of the first female TV comedy writers with credits like the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, Bob Newhart, among others. From Milwaukee, Susan went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood, had a successful career as one of the first women in TV sitcoms, and reinvented herself in different prominent arenas in New York. Though her story is unique, her life is relatable to all women looking for advice in work or love.

Veteran character actor Nick Searcy takes you through his wide-ranging career, from both sides of the camera as an actor and director, to guest-hosting for Rush Limbaugh, managing a professional wrestler, costarring in the hit show Justified—and somehow continuing to work in Hollywood even after he went to Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

In this intimate and often surprising personal portrait, Joseph McBride challenges the conventional wisdom that Welles' career after Citizen Kane, widely regarded as the greatest film ever made, fell into a long decline. The author shows instead how Welles never stopped directing radical, adventurous films and was always breaking new artistic ground as a filmmaker. McBride is the first author to provide a comprehensive examination of the films of Welles's artistically rich yet widely misunderstood later period in the United States (1970–1985).

Today, more than ever before, the quality of a country’s governance and leadership determines whether it will succeed or fail. Now Tony Blair has written the manual on political leadership that he would have wanted back in 1997, sharing the insights he has gained from his personal experience and from observing other world leaders at first hand, both while he was in office and since, through his Institute’s work with political leaders and governments globally.

Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world's most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity. Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world's financial giants, where they're taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money - as well as how to dress, talk, date, drink, and schmooze like real financiers. But they experience something new, too: an industry forever changed by the massive financial collapse of 2008. And as they get their Wall Street educations, they face hard questions about morality, prestige, and the value of their work.

Robert E. Lee scholar H. W. Crocker III is an esteemed Civil War historian. Skillfully summarizing Lee’s life, Crocker clearly extracts leadership lessons from the storied career of the South’s beloved leader and applies them to today’s business worldUnder General Lee’s management, a rag-tag army of poor farmers—vastly outnumbered, outgunned, under-supplied, and under-fed—consistently routed Union troops. Brilliantly seizing strategic opportunities, Lee stunned his foes and inspired his soldiers. He was decisive, focused, and humble.

In iLeadership, Jay Elliot gives the listener the opportunity of seeing Steve Jobs as only his closest associates have ever seen him, and to learn what has made him - and the mystique of his management style - capable of creating tools so extraordinary that they have remade three industries and have transformed the way we create, consume, and communicate with each other.

In early 2012, Jim Tselikis visited LA and met up with his cousin Sabin Lomac. Over a few drinks they waxed nostalgic about their childhood in Maine, surrounded by family, often elbow deep in delicious lobster while gathered around the picnic table. From this strong memory was born the very first Cousins Maine Lobster food truck. Smart, authentic marketing, and sustainable, delicious ingredients helped turn that one food truck into an overnight sensation.

Courageous, insightful, brave, and characteristically authentic, Let Love Have the Last Word shares Common’s own unique and personal stories of the people and experiences that have led to a greater understanding of love and all it has to offer. It is a powerful call to action for a new generation of open hearts and minds, one that is sure to resonate for years to come.

Before Mary Kay, Martha Stewart, and Joy Mangano, there was Brownie Wise, the charismatic Tupperware executive who converted postwar optimism into a record-breaking sales engine powered by American housewives. In Life of the Party, Bob Kealing offers the definitive portrait of Wise, a plucky businesswoman who divorced her alcoholic husband, started her own successful business, and eventually caught the eye of Tupperware inventor Earl Tupper, whose plastic containers were collecting dust on store shelves.

In this disquieting cyber thriller, Joseph Menn takes readers into the murky hacker underground, traveling the globe from San Francisco to Costa Rica and London to Russia. His guides are California surfer and computer whiz Barrett Lyon and a fearless British high-tech agent. Through these heroes, Menn shows the evolution of cyber-crime from small-time thieving to sophisticated, organized gangs, who began by attacking corporate websites but increasingly steal financial data from consumers.

History often appears to consist of big gestures and dramatic shifts. But for every peace treaty signed, someone set the stage and provided the pen. As social secretary to the Clintons for eight years, and more recently as chief of protocol under President Obama, Capricia Penavic Marshall has not just borne witness to history, she facilitated it. For Marshall, diplomacy runs on the invisible gesture: the micro-moves that affect the macro-shifts. Facilitation is power, and more often than not, it is the key to effective diplomacy.

A great American voice narrates a poignant tribute to our most outstanding monument. One of Charles Kuralt's last projects, Our Lady of the Freedoms is a full-scale production of writer-director Norman Corwin's account of how the Statue of Liberty came to New York harbor.

Being alone has a serious branding issue. We've only ever had negative language to talk about flying solo - but what about when time spent alone is restorative and joyful? What if it's something you crave? Enter: alonement, Francesca Specter's empowering new word to express valuing your own company and carving out time to spend with yourself, whoever you are and whatever your relationship status. In Alonement, Francesca Specter reveals how we can all thrive alone, whatever our circumstances, and harness the untapped power of some meaningful time with me, myself and I.

Jeffrey Cruikshank and Arthur Schultz have written a fascinating biography of one of the 20th century’s most intriguing figures. Albert D. Lasker helped invent “reason why” advertising, market research based on direct-mail advertising, premium coupons, and a host of other industry innovations. He invented and promoted powerful brands. But his impact went far beyond traditional advertising. This is the story of a man who shaped an industry - and changed the way we look at our world.

Instructive as it is innovative, Unlabel will empower you to channel your creativity, find the courage to defy convention, and summon the confidence to act and compete in any environment. This blueprint will teach you how to grow both creatively and commercially by testing your personal brand against the principles of the Authenticity Formula. Marc Eckō shares the bruising mistakes and remarkable triumphs that reveal the truth behind his success, growing from a misfit kid airbrushing T-shirts in his parents' garage to the bold creator of two hugely successful branded platforms.