Leadership Memoir

Starting and running a small business is hard! These 21 authors have done the hard work and overcome the risks. Their stories will help every listener to empathize with the challenges of being an entrepreneur and to join in and celebrate the victories. The stories provide lessons in grit, determination, and faith. Whether you have "made it" in your business, are still struggling, or have just started thinking about getting into business, these lessons will be useful in motivating you through difficult days or circumstances.

At some point in our lives, most of us have been affected by caring adults whose advice, guidance, and example made a difference. In The Person Who Changed My Life, individuals who have distinguished themselves in their fields write about the men and women who served as their mentors.

Jim McNerney was one of Jack Welch's top protégés at General Electric and a finalist to replace the retiring Welch as CEO. McNerney lost that competition in 2001, but since then he has emerged as one of the most effective leaders of his generation.

Virginia Jacko's extraordinary odyssey begins at Purdue University, where she is diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa while serving as a highly successful senior financial executive. As the darkness grew around her, she realized that she would slowly, but surely, go completely blind. Refusing to retreat to bemoan her fate, Virginia starts over as a vocational rehabilitation client at the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

A charismatic, heart-warming business memoir that's filled with life lessons on overcoming obstacles, Copy This! is a book for every business owner looking to grow a company, every manager helping his team perform, every visionary trying to launch a new idea, and for every mother and father of a child suffering from dyslexia or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

In Aim High: Chart Your Course and Find Success, Deborah James shares her personal and professional challenges, outcomes, strategies for success, and the problem-solving principles she used to overcome the daunting pressures, threats, and challenges that come with rising to the top of the US Armed Forces. As a supplement to her storytelling, Bain and Company, a top-tier management consulting firm, offers research and statistics that prove James's insights have widespread impact.

Reed Hastings is one of the world's foremost business leaders. As co-founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix, he has built one of the largest media and entertainment companies on the planet, with an estimated personal net worth of $3.6 billion. A notable philanthropist, he has served on the boards of Facebook, Microsoft and a number of non-profit organisations. This concise but detailed biography provides an overview of Hastings' career trajectory, providing insights into his success.

The complete rankings of our best - and worst - presidents, based on C-SPAN's much-cited Historians Surveys of Presidential Leadership. Over a period of decades, C-SPAN has surveyed leading historians on the best and worst of America's presidents across a variety of categories - their ability to persuade the public, their leadership skills, their moral authority, and more. The crucible of the presidency has forged some of the very best and very worst leaders in our national history, along with everyone in between.

A fun, inspiring memoir from "the Queen of YouTube" about her journey from anonymity in Florida to massive popularity on the Internet, filled with the unlikeliest of stories that are as poignant as they are hilarious.

When a thoughtless tweet by Zelda la Grange unleashed a storm, she was asked: ‘Have you learnt nothing from Nelson Mandela?’ This book is her answer. Here she draws out his lessons on humility, respect, honesty, how to truly listen and what to do if you realise you have made a grave mistake, a lesson she herself had to learn the hard way.

An iconic teacher. A warm friend. A generous mentor. For more than 40 years, Howard Stevenson has been a towering figure at Harvard Business School: the man who literally defined entrepreneurship and taught thousands of the world’s most successful professionals. Now - spurred by Stevenson’s heart-stopping brush with death - his student, colleague, and dear friend Eric Sinoway shares the man’s wisdom and inspiration.

With Schwarzkopf is Gus Lee's remembrance of his mentor and friend H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and his firsthand account of how Schwarzkopf shaped his life. In 1966, Lee, a junior-year cadet at West Point, was bright, athletic, and popular. He was also on the verge of getting kicked out. Nearing the bottom of his class due to his penchant for playing poker and reading recreationally instead of studying engineering, he was assigned a new professor: then-Major Norman Schwarzkopf.

Topgun on Wall Street chronicles one man’s extraordinary journey from the cornfields of Ohio, to the cockpit of an F-14, to the boardrooms on Wall Street. Lieutenant Commander Jeffery Lay and number-one New York Times best-selling author Patrick Robinson bring a provocative, ground-breaking voice to the business landscape with a revolutionary answer for stabilizing corporate America: business - the military way.

Open a door into the complex and active mind of Sharper Image founder, Richard Thalheimer. This successful entrepreneur shares stories about creating his visions, taking risks, sharing rewards, cultivating generosity, and showing respect, as well as knowing there always is a way to solve every problem.

Growing up in poverty-stricken rural South Carolina, Tim Mercer wasn’t exactly set up for entrepreneurial success. Despite the odds stacked against him, he would go on to found the technology consulting business Intelibox, growing the company to a multimillion-dollar business. But Bootstrapped Millionaire is not only the true rags-to-riches story of one man’s life; it’s also an inspirational guide to budding entrepreneurs hoping to reach similar heights.

Success Reinvention will take you behind the scenes of one of the foremost thought leaders of our time. As an innovative entrepreneur, a brilliant medical doctor, and visionary leader, Dr. Castro's recipe for success will allow you to break through even the most difficult obstacles and setbacks in life. When you listen to this audiobook and take action, you will find that your dreams manifest into reality, and your success is always in your control to invent and reinvent at every stage of your life.

Serving to Lead, is a brilliant "oeuvre" and provides leadership lessons relevant for every profession. It delivers a compelling personal narrative underpinned by tales of tenacity during adversity and resilience garnered from the battlefield, his time playing professional football, and the corporate world.

Not everyone will have the chance to chase and seize Colombian cocaine cartel smuggling boats, assist in post-9/11 security in New York City, keep the peace between warring mountain tribes in Southeast Asia, or build and run successful American manufacturing companies. But everyone has the chance to become their very best self and build a bulletproof life of their own!

There are not many successful entrepreneurs who will enthusiastically break off in the middle of a multi-million pound deal to have a huge snowball fight in the car park with their finance director. But then, Mark Mills is not just any successful entrepreneur. Whether organizing one of his infamous summer Christmas parties, flying to New York to find a new business idea, or staying up all night to celebrate a successful deal, Mark Mills has always believed in the absolute importance of having fun in business. And not just for him, but for his employees, customers, and suppliers, too.

Inspiring women to pursue their own colorful dreams, I'm Not Really a Waitress tells the story of how Suzi Weiss-Fischmann transformed a small dental supply company into a number one beauty brand around the world.