This book contains the playbooks that took me from sleeping on my gym floor to owning a portfolio of companies that generate $200 million per year in less than a decade. Want to know the biggest difference between those two time periods? How many leads I was getting.

Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, getting a promotion, or getting a pink slip. It's essential to be pitch perfect - to get the right message across to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, Bill McGowan shows you how to craft the right message and deliver it using the right language - both verbal and nonverbal.

Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress, and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese, and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives, and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.

New York Times bestselling author Jonah Berger’s cutting-edge research reveals how six types of words can increase your impact in every area of life: from persuading others and building stronger relationships, to boosting creativity and motivating teams.

You were born influential. But then you were taught to suppress that power, to follow the rules, to wait your turn, to not make waves. Award-winning Yale professor Zoe Chance will show you how to rediscover the superpower that brings great ideas to life. Influence doesn’t work the way you think because you don’t think the way you think. Move past common misconceptions—such as the idea that asking for more will make people dislike you—and understand why your go-to negotiation strategies are probably making you less influential.

It’s harder today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films. From predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them, the odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model for making money with your film is broken, and there needs to be a change.

What makes someone charismatic? Why do some captivate a room, while others have trouble managing a small meeting? What makes some ideas spread, while other good ones fall by the wayside? If you have ever been interrupted in meetings, overlooked for career opportunities or had your ideas ignored, your cues may be the problem - and the solution.

In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining.

How do master storytellers compel us? There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story, but few have used a scientific approach. In The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can tell better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers - and also our brains - create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change.

When it comes to delivering a pitch, Oren Klaff has unparalleled credentials. Over the past 13 years, he has used his one-of-a-kind method to raise more than $400 million—and now, for the first time, he describes his formula to help you deliver a winning pitch in any business situation. Whether you're selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, Pitch Anything will transform the way you position your ideas.

Why do some products get more word of mouth than others? Why does some online content go viral? Word of mouth makes products, ideas, and behaviors catch on. It's more influential than advertising and far more effective. Can you create word of mouth for your product or idea? According to Berger, you can. Whether you operate a neighborhood restaurant, a corporation with hundreds of employees, or are running for a local office for the first time, the steps that can help your product or idea become viral are the same.

Everybody has regrets, Daniel H. Pink explains in The Power of Regret. They’re a universal and healthy part of being human. And understanding how regret works can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives.

It’s hard to be successful without a clear understanding of how business works. These 60 daily entries from New York Times best-selling author Donald Miller focus on the tangible skills it takes to offer extreme value to your organization while building your company, your career, and your legacy.

Do you wish you could decode people? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date, or your networking partner? You need to know how people work. As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards studies the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab—and she's cracked the code. In Captivate she shares a wealth of valuable shortcuts, systems, and behavior hacks for taking charge of their interactions at work, at home, and in any social situation.

Brilliantly researched, impassioned, and accessible, Presence is filled with stories of individuals who learned how to flourish during the stressful moments that once terrified them. Every listener will learn how to approach their biggest challenges with confidence instead of dread, and to leave them with satisfaction instead of regret.

When it comes to delivering a pitch, Oren Klaff has unparalleled credentials. Over the past 13 years, he has used his one-of-a-kind method to raise more than $400 million—and now, for the first time, he describes his formula to help you deliver a winning pitch in any business situation. Whether you're selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, Pitch Anything will transform the way you position your ideas.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than 15 million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase. But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges: Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight. Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others.

In today's world, customers don't want to hear sales pitches, but many salespeople still rely on them. In this breakthrough audiobook, Steve Yastrow, founder of a successful business strategy consulting firm, asks us to throw out everything we've been taught about pitching to customers. His advice: "Tear up your sales pitch and instead improvise persuasive conversations."

Every day at work, people do three things: talk, listen, and pretend to listen. That's not surprising when you consider that the average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds. To break through, says high-stakes communications expert Paul Hellman, you need to focus on your audience, be slightly different, and deliver with finesse.

Salespeople, consultants, managers, executives, entrepreneurs... Influence is a crucial tool for absolutely anyone seeking success and prosperity. But how can everyday people actually become more influential? Maximum Influence unlocks the secrets of the master influencers. Now in an all-new edition, the audiobook combines scientific research with real-world studies, presenting the most authoritative and effective arsenal of persuasion techniques ever.

Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one rises to the occasion under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.

When it comes to creating ideas, we hold ourselves back. Thats because inside each of us is an internal editor whose job is to forever polish our thoughts, so we sound smart and in control, and so that we fit into society. But what happens when we encounter problems for which such conventional thinking fails us? How do we get unstuck? For Mark Levy, the answer is freewriting....

In this book, we travel inside Emily's and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it, and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works - and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the listener, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work environment but succeed in it - and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.

The sales profession is in the midst of a perfect storm. Buyers have more power - more information, more at stake, and more control over the sales process - than any time in history. Technology is bringing disruptive change at an ever-increasing pace, creating fear and uncertainty that leaves buyers clinging to the status quo.

Everyone recognizes leaders with "presence." They stand out for their seemingly innate ability to command attention and inspire commitment. But what is this secret quality they exude, exactly? Executive and CEO coach Kristi Hedges demystifies this elusive trait, revealing that leadership presence is the intersection of outward influencing skills and internal mental conditioning. Using her I-Presence model, the author shows how anyone-regardless of position or personality-can strengthen their impact.

The Plateau Effect is a powerful law of nature that affects everyone. Learn to identify plateaus and break through any stagnancy in your life - from diet and exercise, to work, to relationships. The Plateau Effect shows how athletes, scientists, therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to break through their plateau - to turn off the forces that cause people to “get used to” things - and turn on human potential and happiness in ways that seemed impossible.

The Second City has launched the careers of celebrated comic performers such as Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert and produced award-winning content. But it's the actual improvisational process developed and honed over the years by The Second City that has become its legacy. Players master an ability to cocreate in ensembles using philosophies that celebrate a "yes, and" approach.

Have you ever been lied to? Of course you have, whether you knew it or not. Ever caught a spouse, business partner, parent, boss, or child brazenly lying right to your face? What if you could tell someone was lying, just by listening to them, and observing their action and behavior? Here's the first audiobook that gives you the tools to figure out what's really going on.

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Best-selling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas.

In The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle goes inside some of the world's most successful organizations - including Pixar, the San Antonio Spurs, and the US Navy's SEAL Team Six - and reveals what makes them tick. He demystifies the culture-building process by identifying three key skills that generate cohesion and cooperation and explains how diverse groups learn to function with a single mind.