Spring is here, folks. Time to shrug off the cold, slothy-feelings of a winter spent behind a computer screen and get yourself motivated again. Here are five books to share new perspectives and tips on how to find that new job, perfect your speaking abilities, and become an incredible creative.
1. I Got My Dream Job and So Can You: 7 Steps to Creating Your Ideal Career After College
Did you have trouble breaking into your industry once you graduated college? Are you a recent graduate discovering the struggles of job hunting within companies related to your major? If so, you’re not alone. According to Pete Liebman, author of I Got My Dream Job and So Can You, recent graduates looking to enter the workforce face a discouraging job market and stiff competition for even the most entry-level positions. Yet, he says, with the right attitude and strategies, anyone can break into any organization in any industry and start climbing the ladder to success.
This book not only outlines the five steps that every graduate should take to ensure his/her success, but teaches you how to find unique and fulfilling jobs that will provide an upwards, not just lateral, career path.
2. How to Deliver a TED Talk
If you’ve haven’t been living under a rock for the past few years (and if you have been, welcome back to the “above rock” world), then you’ve probably heard of TED. Specifically, you’ve probably heard of TED Talks, a series of short (under 20 minutes) educational videos about a wide variety of subjects. The videos feature one or two experts in the field of each Talk giving a presentation to a very large audience, most of whom are regular folk and not related to the field at all; this means that each presenter needs to tailor his/her speech to make sure that anyone can understand it. So TED Talk presenters need to be: clear, concise, accessible to all, and engaging enough to keep viewers’ minds focused.
Now wouldn’t you love to bring all of those attributes to your presentations?
In Jeremey Donovan’s book, How to Deliver a TED Talk, he teaches readers the secrets behind some of the greatest TED Talks and gives tips on how on how anyone can learn to deliver a TED caliber presentation.
3. Creative Strategy: A Guide to Innovation
How does innovation happen? Can good ideas and new answers, i.e., innovation, just come from anywhere? Creative Strategy aims to answer that question. According to the author, William Dugan, you can use folks who rely solely on creativity and strategy to explain how to research and analyze a situation, but they don’t guide toward the next step: developing a creative idea for what to do. Or they rely on the magic of “brainstorming” — just tossing out ideas. Instead, Duggan shows readers how creative strategy follows the natural three-step method of the human brain: breaking down a problem into parts and then searching for past examples to create a new combination to solve the problem. With this book, you too can learn how to be a spearhead of innovation.
4. The Graphic Designer’s Business Survival Guide
Before you read the title of this book and skip it thinking it pertains only to graphic designers, read this. Trust us, this book isn’t just good for folks in the graphic design industry, it’s good for anyone looking to do freelance work or set up their own company. The Graphic Designer’s Business Survival Guide gives readers a steady business plan, marketing advice, and samples of contracts and basic forms used in graphic design, but can easily be altered for other types of business.
5. Grow: How to Take Your D.I.Y Project and Passion to the Next Level & Quit Your Job!
Do you have a dream/pet project that you just know would succeed? Well, why haven’t you done it yet? For most, the answer is something like “I don’t have enough money/I can’t do this on my own/It would be crazy to leave my full-time job in this economy/I have no idea where to start.” I’ve seen so many good ideas never take off due to those worries. Luckily, we’re alive in an era where all of those problems can be solved, or at least downplayed, by reading Grow: How to Take Your D.I.Y Project and Passion to the Next Level & Quit Your Job!
This guide provides step-by-step instructions and advice for creative people with great ideas for independent projects who want to achieve success and sustainability. Whether their projects are based in independent publishing, music, food, art, craft, activism, or community work, this user-friendly tool will help to clarify the project vision, get organized, set goals, create a plan, raise funds, market, and manage any do-it-yourself project. The reference is full of real-life inspiration and creative business advice from successful, independent business owners and creative people with projects that began in the do-it-yourself spirit. The book also has an accompanying website includes downloadable worksheets to assist in putting the information and advice into practice.
Surprise: 100 lucky Find & Follow Your Passion attendees will receive a free copy of one of these books.
Do you have a favorite book that motivates you? Share it in the comments.
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