Tag Archives: Forbes

New Work Rules Book Crashes into Best-Seller List

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NewRulesofWorkCoverJust eleven days ago, as of this writing, Crown Books released The New Rules of Work:  The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career.  It is already in the top 100 books in two Amazon.com best-selling sub categories, and today, hit # 5 on the Wall Street Journal business best-seller list (April 29-30, p. C10).

We will watch the progress of this book on the best-seller lists, and continue to monitor critical reviews of the book before making a decision to present it at the First Friday Book Synopsis.  However, the strong start that it has certainly has us already giving it very strong consideration for presentation.

The authors are Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew.  According to Amazon.com,

Cavoulacos is the Founder and COO of The Muse.com, where she leads the AlexandraProduct and Operations teams, creating and launching new features weekly.  Prior to founding The Muse, Alex was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s New York office. She graduated from Yale University and is an alumna of Y Combinator in Silicon Valley.

KathrynMinshewPictureMinshew is the CEO and Founder of The Muse.com, a career platform and community helping 50+ million Millennials find inspiring careers at innovative companies.  She was named to INC’s 35 Under 35 and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 for two years in a row.

These are the rules that the book presents:

The New Rules for finding the right path: Sift through, and narrow today’s ever-growing menu of job and career options, using the simple step-by-step Muse Method.

The New Rules for landing the perfect job: Build your personal brand, and communicate exactly how you can contribute and why your experience is valuable in a way that is sure to get the attention of your dream employer. Then ace every step of the interview process, from getting a foot in the door to negotiating your offer.

The New Rules for growing and advancing in your career: Mastering first impressions, the art of communication, networking, managing up and other “soft” skills – and make it obvious that whatever level you’re at, you’re ready to get ahead.

Continue to monitor our blog and website for any future decisions regarding whether we will present this book.   As of this writing, I have fair optimism about that.

Get What’s Yours Rise to the Top Demonstrates Our Insecurity

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GetWhat'sYoursCoverWhat does it say about Americans when a book about Social Security zooms to the top of the best-seller lists?

I say we are just insecure.  Or uninformed.  Or panicky.  Or lots of things.

As a elixir, book readers are buying Get What’s Yours:  The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security (Simon & Schuster, 2015) by Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Philip Moeller, and Paul Solman.

Here is where the book stands on Amazon.com as I write this today:

The book is # 3 on the Wall Street Journal hardcover business best-seller list and # 4 on the non-fiction list.  I cannot find updates for the Bloomberg Business Week.  The book’s website claims that it is a New York Times best-seller, but I cannot verify that this morning as I write.  But, since the book has only been out since February 17, 2015, its rise to the top is meteoric.  It certainly did not hurt sales when Jane Pauley said this is “an indispensable and surprisingly entertaining guide for anyone who is retiring or thinking of retiring with all of the Social Security benefits they’ve earned.” With a flurry of endorsements from financial experts, many readers must have flocked to the physical and on-line outlets to see what it says.  Or, it likely did not hurt when the summary on Amazon.com proclaimed, “Many personal finance books briefly address Social Security, but none offers the thorough, authoritative, yet conversational analysis found here. You’ve paid all your working life for these benefits. Now, get what’s yours.“
And, who wouldn’t be interested in a book with a summary from such as this:  “It tells you precisely which months you should collect retiree, spousal, survivor, divorcee, parent, and child benefits to achieve the highest lifetime benefits.  Maximize My Social Security incorporates all Social Security provisions and options for singles and married couples.“
Who are these authors?  The book’s website provides these details:

Laurence Kotlikoff

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and a professor of economics at Boston University.  He is also president of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in financial planning software.  His company websites are ESPlanner.com and MaximizeMySocialSecurity.com.  He is author or co-author of sixteen books, including Spend ‘Til the End and The Coming Generational Storm (both with Scott Burns).  His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Economist, Huffington Post, and other major publications.  He has served as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, governments around the world, and major U.S. corporations including Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, and AON.  In addition, he has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to committees of Congress.  He lives in Boston.

Philip Moeller writes about retirement for Money magazine, the PBS website Making Sen$e, and other media outlets.  He is also a research fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, and the founder of Insure.com, a site for insurance information that has provided original insurance content to the Web’s leading business portals, including Microsoft, Yahoo, America Online, and MarketWatch.  Formerly a contributing editor at U. S. News & World Report, he has spent forty years as an award-winning financial journalist, Internet entrepreneur, and corporate communications executive for a Fortune 500 financial services firm.  He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Paul Soloman

Paul Solman is the longtime business and economics correspondent for The PBS NewsHour.  His many awards for work in business journalism include Emmys, Peabodys, and a Loeb award.  He is also a Brady-Johnson Distinguished Practitioner at Yale University, where he teaches in the Grand Strategy course, as well as teaching at New Haven’s Gateway Community College. He has been a member of the Harvard Business School faculty and a visiting professor at his alma mater, Brandeis.  Solman has written for numerous publications, from Forbes to Mother Jones, co-authored (with Thomas Friedman) Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield, and wrote the introduction to Morrie: In His Own Words, created entirely from interviews with his former Brandeis sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz (of “Tuesdays with Morrie” fame).  He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

We won’t have this book at the First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas, as we don’t include individual-based finance books in our monthly coverage.

But that doesn’t mean that plenty of our attendees will find this important to read.  While they won’t identify themselves, I am sure we get some people who are insecure, uninformed, and panicky about their retirement years.  Maybe they. and many others will find this book a great relief to that anxiety.

Braun’s Pencil Hits # 1 and # 2 on Best-Seller Lists

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Promise of a Pencil CoverAdam Braun’s blockbuster best-seller, The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (New York:  Scribner, 2014) has hit the lists with fervor.  It is now # 2 in the Wall Street Journal business best-selling list for the second week in a row, and comes in at Amazon.com  #109 in total Books, and the following in specialty categories.

This is one of our two featured books at the First Friday Book Synopsis in June, 2014 at the Park City Club.  Registration opens on May 10 at www.firstfridaybooksynopsis.com.

Who is Adam Braun?   He is an American businessman, author, and philanthropist. He is the Founder and CEO of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning nonprofit organization that has built more than 150 schools across Africa, Asia and Latin America and delivered over 12 million educational hours in its first four years. PoP was founded with just $25 using Braun’s unique “For-Purpose” approach to blending nonprofit idealism with for-profit business principles. In 2012, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List.  Braun began his career in finance, until he met a young boy begging on the streets and asked him what he wanted most in the world.Adam Braun picture The answer- “A pencil.” He then traveled through 50+ countries to focus on educational systems and eventually left a dream job at Bain & Company to launch Pencils of Promise.  Braun was selected as one of the first ten World Economic Forum Global Shapers and has been featured at the United Nations, Clinton Global Initiative, Google Zeitgeist, Mashable’s Innovation Index and Wired Magazine’s 2012 Smart List of 50 People Changing the World.

What is this book all about?  Here is a summary from www.bookbrowse.com:

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling as a college student, he met a young boy begging on the streets of India. When Braun asked the boy what he wanted most in the world, he simply answered, “A pencil.” 

This small request became the inspiration for Pencils of Promise, the organization Braun would leave a prestigious job at Bain & Company to start with just $25 at the age of twenty-four. Using his unique “for-purpose” approach, he helped redefine the space in which business, philanthropy, and social media intersect. And a mere five years later, Pencils of Promise has now built more than two hundred schools around the world, proving that anyone can create a movement that matters. 

The Promise of a Pencil chronicles Braun’s journey through more than fifty countries to find his calling, as each chapter explains the steps that every person can take to ignite their own passion and potential. His trailblazing story takes readers behind the scenes with business moguls and village chiefs, world-famous celebrities and hometown heroes. Driven by compelling stories and shareable insights, this is a vivid and inspiring book that will give readers the tools to unlock their own extraordinary journey of self-discovery. 

If you have ever wanted a more purpose-driven life, if you have ever felt like you could become more than your current circumstances allow, it’s time to ask yourself, “What do I want most in the world?” And through the lessons shared in this book, turn those ideas into reality.

Promise of a Pencil Kids PictureThe picture you see to your left is of some of the children hoisting their pencils.

Look at those smiles and you will see how worthwhile the effort that Braun leads has become.

Rarely have we ever seen a book just leap to the top of legitimate best-selling lists so fast.

We look forward to presenting this book to you in June.

Don’t forget that registration opens on May 10.