Note: The following review is of a internet marketing book that I requested from Hay House UK, which they kindly sent me.

With the book ”Launch: An Internet Millionaire's Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams”, internet entrepreneur and marketer Jeff Walker, who’s one of the world’s foremost expert in the online marketing industry, clearly outline the steps you have to take to bring your business successfully online.

Jeff Walker started ut in the online marketing industry back in 1996 when he began to publish a newsletter teaching people about the stockmarket. It was a modest beginning, but since then his Product Launch Formula that’s been developed through extensive testing, has drastically changed the way we’re doing business online.

In "Launch", you’ll get all the essential information and tools you need to turn your vision of an online business into reality.

The Product Launch Formula process

In an easy-to-follow approach, Jeff Walker takes you through the Product Launch Formula process, and by that significantly increases your odds of being able to build a solid and profitable online business.

What You'll Learn

After you’ve digested all of this valuable information the book contains, you’ll know more of how to build an mailing list from scratch, how to write engaging sales letters, find out which the mental triggers are that turn prospects into paying customers, the important role of social media and email and how to use these tools productively in your online business, and how to work with pre-launches prior to the big launch.

Inspiring Case Studies

To help you put all of the information into practical use, the book is filled with inspiring case studies of people who have started or turned their online businesses into successful ventures by using the information you find in this book.

You Can Sell Almost Anything

This sounds all great, but what if you don’t have a physical product to sell, but are eager to bring your business online? Good news – Jeff Walker has covered this as well – you’ll learn how to both sell non- or physical products and services, and how to build an online business from scratch. It’s all here!

Get Additional Free Resources

”Launch” also comes with free resources – these include a four-part training video with Jeff Walker, a 30 minutes full-length case study video presentation, a special questions and answers session with Jeff shot on video, and finally, a video presentation in which Jeff takes you through his own strategies when launching this newly updated version of ”Launch”.

"Launch" - A Wealth of Inspiration and Assistance

Whether you already are running an online business or thinking about it, "Launch: An Internet Millionaire's Secret Formula To Sell Almost Anything Online, Build A Business You Love, And Live The Life Of Your Dreams", will be a tremendously valuable source of inspiration and assistance on your way forward.

Note: The following review is of a leadership book that I requested from Harvard Business Review Press, which they kindly sent me.

”Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading” by Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linksy is a book that urges you to seize opportunities for leadership on an ongoing basis, in your everyday life and working environment.

More written like a novel and a page-turner than a "dry and technical" manual, the book discusses the beauty of leadership and its importance, but at the same time highlights some of the common pitfalls that a leader or manager should look out for, especially in times of great change.

Below are some of the many key points that the book covers of which I took to heart.

1. Look out for clues in your working environment

With lots of different case studies from the area of business and politics, the authors describe how to look for clues in your working environment to get a clear sense of when to push forward or when to pull back. These are clues that otherwise might go unnoticed and get missed entirely or simply being overlooked by a leader that finds himself/herself in a demanding work situation.

2. Observe your closest allies and take note of the signals

To me, the book paints the picture of a work place that is like a living organism, an organization when experiencing too much pressure and strain in one area, risks of breaking apart in a whole different part. Things can quickly take a turn for the worse when someone who's taking on a leadership position doesn't notice the worrisome signals coming from their closest allies due to the pressure they themselves are experiencing in conjunction with the work of change.

Here, the authors do a great job of shedding the light on something that otherwise can result in major negative consequences for someone who's in the forefront.

3. How to reduce the risk of getting emotionally injured

Another important part the authors bring to surface, is how to avoid getting emotionally injured when leading. Just by changing how you, as a leader or manager, interpret the reactions and feedback you’re receiving from your team and colleagues can save you lots of unnecessary emotional pain – here Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linksy provide a great deal of information on how to do that, drawing from their wealth of experiences working for themselves and with others.

4. Leadership isn't a one-person operation

An aspect in regard to leadership the book covers is that leading isn’t a one-person operation. Instead, it is of significant importance to seek out and have allies, but also to seek out and work closely together with your opposition. For leaders, these are crucial steps for navigating through the sometimes harsh waters they find themselves in.

5. Delegate – put the work where it belongs

A good trait of a leader, the authors tell us, is knowing when to step back and delegate in some work related situations and let those involved take full ownership – to put the work where it belongs so as to avoid the recurrence of the issue and instead get sustainable results and achieve progress.

In closing – a great investment

The book makes for lots of reflection besides gifting you with valuable tools for making your work as a leader a more fulfilling one.

”Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading” is well worth your time and investment if leadership is something you’re already involved with or aspiring to explore.

Like the authors tell us – there are opportunities for leadership presenting themselves every day in every walk of life. You just have to seize them!

The booklet "The Testament of a Furniture Dealer" (PDF) was written by IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad in 1976 and describes the essence of IKEA as a company and its cornerstones in nine segments.

From segment number 4 – "Reaching good results with small means":

That is an old IKEA idea that is more relevant than ever. Time after time we have proved that we can get good results with small means or very limited resources.

[…]

Waste of resources is one of the greatest diseases of mankind.Many modern buildings are more like monuments to human stupidity than rational answers to needs. But waste costs us even more in little everyday things: filing papers that you will never need again; spending time proving that you were right anyway; postponing a decision to the next meeting because you do not want to take the responsibility now; telephoning when you could just as easily write a note or send a fax. The list is endless.

During a talk at the Milken Institute's "Global Conference 2016", hedge fund manager Ray Dalio from Bridgewater Associates, said to moderator Robert Kegan, psychologist and professor at Harvard university, that his best gift to anybody was the gift of Transcendental Meditation, a practice Dalio has been doing since '69.

When the founder and CEO of the Australian company Oliver's Real Food was introduced to Transcendental Meditation, he quickly experienced its many benefits and realised its usefulness in the corporate area.

Today, the employees at Oliver's are introduced to the technique and the project has been a major success in wellness.

"For us to be the best that we can be as an organization, we really need to take the time to nurture the people who make up our organization," said Gunn, CEO of Oliver's Real Food in Australia. "When I realized the shift, the impact TM had on me as an individual, I quickly came to realize this is something I wanted to share with all the people that make such a wonderful contribution to the business of Oliver's Real Food."

Gunn has two thriving stores in Australia—one in Wyong, Central Coast, and another in Hexham, Newcastle. Today, nearly 20 percent of Oliver's employees practice the Transcendental Meditation technique.

In an article from Yahoo Finance, hedge fund mananager Ray Dalio attributes much of his success to Transcendental Meditation, which he talks about in Dr. Norman Rosenthal's latest book "Super Mind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life Through Transcendental Meditation". Not only keeps the practice Dalio calm, but it also enhances his creativity and problem solving, and gives him the ability to come up with great and unique business ideas.

Dalio tells Rosenthal that meditating helps him remain "centered." It's a calmness that he describes as being "like a Ninja."

"It means when things come at you – challenges, stresses, disruptive events – you can be calm and analytical and approach them almost, I imagine, like a Ninja sees things coming at him in slow motion so that he's obviously in control. Being "centered" is that state in which your emotions are not hijacking you. The ability to think clearly, put things in their right place and have perspective: That's what I mean by 'centered.'"

Dalio's success in the financial markets comes from making multiple good decisions over time. Meditation helps him make those decisions.

Image credit: Via Dealbreaker.

In an effort to end years of speculation, Australian entrepreneur Chris Wright contacted three big media outlets – the BBC, the Economist and GQ – and revealed that he is the Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in a one-time-only TV interview.

By going public, Mr Wright hopes to put an end to press speculation about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. The New Yorker, Fast Company, Newsweek and many other media organisations have all conducted long investigations seeking Bitcoin's creator and named many different people as candidates.

In December 2015, two magazines, Wired and Gizmodo, named Mr Wright as a candidate after receiving documents believed to be stolen from him that revealed his involvement with the project.

Think for a moment about the major impact Facebook has today and what it has evolved to, and now watch this early start-up interview with Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, footage that even contains keg stands in the office. Hilarious!

"Its like, now, we'll go to parties on campus. We end up in someone's room, like, there's a Facebook window open. That's pretty cool," says a baby faced Mark Zuckerberg in a 2005 interview about his burgeoning start-up, then known as TheFacebook.com. In those times, The Facebook was only for college students, and its office culture more closely resembled a frat party than the social behemoth we know today.

Robert Williams has compiled a nice and valued list of advertising executive David Ogilvy's 20 rules for getting and keeping clients.

6. Only accept a client if you can improve their existing work.
Ogilvy was famous for turning down the New York Times because he "didn't think (he) could produce better advertisements than the brilliant ones they had been running." Don’t think you can create better work than what's already there? Don't take on the client.

[…]

10. Avoid contests in which more than four other agencies are involved.
It's way too easy to waste your time in meetings. Especially when you're on the shopping list of every prospective client. You have other fish to fry — the fish of your current clients. Ideally you wanted to be courted by clients who have no other prospects in mind.

[…]

13. Tell prospects about your weaknesses.
David picked this up from antique dealers. He realized that when a dealer drew your attention to a flaw in the furniture, he almost always gained your trust. If you do this too — before the client notices your flaws on their own, you will also gain their trust. It will make you more credible when you boast about your strong points.

[…]

15. Explicitly tell clients why they should hire you.
The day after a new business a new client meeting, David would send the client a 3-page letter on why they should pick him. Today you can send an equally brief email to help clients make the right decision.

[…]

20. Use what you specialize in to find new clients.
David Ogilvy created ads selling his ad agency. You should dog-food your own service too. So how does your work help clients? Can it help you in the same way? For example, do you help them find customers by creating content? Create content for your agency. Do you do graphic design? Create infographics for potential clients. The trick will be to not just make thing that you like or impress people in your industry, but to make things that impress potential clients.

I own a hardcover copy of Ogilvy's "Ogilvy on Advertising" (1985) that I highly recommend.

Image credit: Ogilvy & Mather

Via @TheDesignTrust.

In the documentary "Sweatshop: Deadly Fashion" (2014), three Norwegian fashion bloggers travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to work in a sweatshop for a month.

It started off as a web-series, charting the experiences of three young fashion bloggers, who spent a month living the life of Cambodian garment workers in Phnom Penh. But following headlines and articles all over the world, more than a million hits and lots of inquires, the webseries has been re-versioned into an hour long documentary.

Frida, Anniken and Ludwig live, breath and dream fashion. They spend hundreds of euros every month on clothes and make a living promoting the latest catwalk trends. Except for speculated that factory workers must be ‘used to’ their hard lives, they have never given much thought to the people who make their clothes.

Now, they're trading their comfortable lives for those of Cambodian garment workers. As well as working in the factories, they have to survive on $3 a day. But this is no exploitative doc, relying on shock value. It poignantly shows the consequences of cheap fashion.

Watch trailer:

The web series is still available to watch for free.

Featured image: From the trailer.

When Pete Cashmore founded Mashable in 2005, it was hard and lonely work for a long period of time, that gave the site massive momentum.

Whether you are an experienced blogger or a beginner, I think you'll appreciate hearing Cashmore talk with Inc. Magazine about his journey when first starting out. Just one thing: don't neglect your sleep!

Update: Had to remove the embeded video because of the autoplay function.

Trader Paul Tudor Jones advices anyone who wants to succeed in business to take a journalism class, so they can improve memos and reports.

Jones says writing as a newspaper journalist does can help someone become a better problem-solver because it requires synthesizing a complex problem. Writing clearly to a peer can help an employee get to the heart of a problem and find a solution faster.

"Today, in business, time is money," said Jones. "When you've got hundreds of decisions to make every week—dozens every day—being able to see, think and understand what the issue is in the first couple of paragraphs is actually paramount to being efficient at what you do."

American best-selling author and negotiation expert William Ury has a rich library of streaming lectures, so that you can get to yes more often with yourself and others.

Image credit: Photography by Kiko Ferrite. Via Revista Trip.

Via Inc. Magazine.

A interesting behind-the-scenes footage from National Audio Company, one of the few manufacturers of audio cassette tapes that still operates. Thanks to the retro movement, business hasn't been any better, and this year marks as the best one in the company's history, a history that stretches back to 1969.

When Lara Hogan, Senior Engineering Manager at Etsy, has achieved something noteworthy in her line of work, she celebrates this by devouring a donut, thus taking the time to reflect on the good that has happened.

Years ago, I found that whenever something awesome happened in my career – maybe I got published, or promoted, or launched a project – I wouldn't take the time to celebrate the achievement. I'm an achiever by nature, the kind who feels like every day starts at zero. Not deliberately marking these moments left me feeling like I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything. "Oh cool, that A List Apart article went up," I would think, then move on with my day.

Once I realized that this was happening, I decided to be deliberate about marking achievements by eating one donut. Well, sometimes more than one, if it's a really big deal. The act of donut-eating has actually helped me feel like I'm accomplishing my career goals. As I started to share this idea with more people, I found that it resonated with others, especially young career-driven women who are routinely achieving goals and furthering their career but don't take the time to note their own success.

Lara's donut to celebrate the release of her book "Designing for Performance", and for giving a talk at Rent the Runway:

Featured image: Glazed donuts by Carnets Parisiens.

I still keep my business cards in my wallet and/or in a little cigar box, which suits me just fine for the moment. But, an alternative to these are the hand-knitted card cases by James Lotter, called Business Cardigans (sadly sold out, as of now).

At the end of the day, in most workplaces, our efficiency and productivity levels tend to drop. Nothing unusual about this, we're only humans and we get tired. So, I think it's a bit strange that a 32-hour workweek (or 6-hour workday) still seems a bit controversial and odd.

Ryan Carson and his company Treehouse prove that you can grow your company, and at the same time cut down working hours. They have done this since 2006 with great results.

Not only are Warren Buffett's Christmas cards unconventional, but so is his daily breakfast, or should I say everyday diet:

How does the world’s top investor, at 84 years old, wake up every day and face the world with boundless energy?

"I'm one quarter Coca-Cola," Warren Buffett says.

[…]

…"If I eat 2700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I drink at least five 12-ounce servings. I do it everyday."

When watching a documentary about Warren, we learned that he ate one steak everyday, so this diet of his didn't come as a big surprise. If that works for him, it works for him, but I would definitely begin to feel sick within a few days.

And yes, from the article you can tell that he's into potato sticks as well.

Photo credit: Daniel Acker Bloomberg / Getty Images

Via @LauraDimon.

Most of us appreciate a good and visually pleasing hand-lettered sign when visiting anything food related and/or shops in general. To help the businesses "blossom", this skilled artist in NYC has come up with the creative idea to craft those signs in exchange for a meal (and I also hope this leads to a full-time job eventually):

It’s simple: you have a lovely restaurant, bakery, bar, or coffee shop in New York City. I have a terrifying, yet impressive appetite. You have a little chalkboard or dry erase sign with your daily specials, happy hour deals, etc. I happen to have a knack for drawing pretty letters. Let’s make a deal.

I’ll write out your lunch special on your chalkboard in exchange for one thing: that exact lunch special. Want to promote your amazing lasagna? I’ll do it for a plate of that amazing lasagna. Have the best cocktails in the city? Whip some up for me and I’ll whip up a beautiful sign for you. Whatever you want me to write is exactly what you’ll pay.

Via @alexred.

When Mexican entrepreneur Salvador Abascal Álvarez visited Richard Branson on Necker Island, the trip made him reflect on how to go from, as Richard puts it, "stop doing to begin being".

I always have a to-do list: send emails, hold meetings, return calls, etc. But I have never had a to-be list: From 1pm to 2:30pm I will feel the miracle of life, from 2:30pm onwards I will be inspired, at 8pm I will enjoy being with my family (without doing anything, just being).

[…]

Last week I met a man that by being a great master at "being", can do anything. He can direct over 400 companies, operate in all five continents, plan space trips for the general public and walk around his own island in his bathing suit sharing experiences, asking questions and inspiring entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Richard Branson is a great master at "being"; he is authentically present in body and soul, he looks into your eyes, he is simple and he is having a great time. I was able to spend some time with Richard for three days. I did not see him at any moment carrying a mobile phone or in a hurry to arrive to his next appointment or activity.

[…]

My visit to Necker Island shows evidence that it is vital to make an effort to obtain the best inspiration possible from your work team. It is crucial to achieve camaraderie and a good work environment. Having a space to break the routine and surround oneself with different types of people is elementary. We observe that Richard’s inspiration system touches his own people as well as strangers, which leads me to ask myself: Where is my island? What do I usually do or what must I do to inspire my team more? And above all, what changes do I have to make in my life to stop "doing" and start "being"?

We all have our own inspiration island, that place where we stop doing to start being. For some it is their temple or parish, for others it is their family, others find it in the golf course or in the jogging track. How many do we invite into our own island? How inspired are they and we when we leave it? How often do we visit it? Do I have a beautiful island which I never visit? How can I remodel and improve my own island?

Featured image: Necker Island via The Yacht Week.