More than 11,000 business books are published every year—an overwhelming choice for busy professionals. Therefore, in partnership with getAbstract, Training brings you December’s top three business books recommended to our readers.
“The Gig Is Up. Thrive in the Gig Economy, Where Old Jobs Are Obsolete and Freelancing Is the Future” by Olga Mizrahi (Greenleaf Book Group, 2018, 176 pages, ISBN: 9781626344938; $16.95
As the advantages of full-time employment diminish—with health insurance, pensions, and other benefits fading away—freelance work is an increasingly appealing alternative. Gig work can offer relative freedom and steady financial rewards. In this brief how-to, educator Olga Mizrahi shows how to utilize third-party apps such as Upwork or Guru to break into the freelance market and build a reputation. She describes how to move from apps to cultivating your personal client base and even hiring a staff. Mizrahi, an instructor at the University of California, Irvine’s Continuing Education program, offers a quick, peppy survey of the issues freelancers face—from acquiring insurance and planning for retirement to managing their time and contending with bad reviews. Her manual is an apt primer for newbies in the gig economy.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 6
Style: 8
“Leveraged Learning. How the Disruption of Education Helps Lifelong Learners and Experts with Something to Teach” by Danny Iny (Ideapress Publishing, 2018, 250 pages, ISBN: 9781940858692; $24.95)
Business and employment are undergoing radical change, but higher education remains static, mired in the past. As such, says Danny Iny, the CEO of an online business education company, college may prove to be a losing wager for some young people. Many of them, he contends, would do much better pursuing nontraditional learning programs. And that is his line of work; he specializes in providing educational opportunities to people who want to gain useful knowledge and skills. Iny re-examines higher education and offers advice—some of it controversial—to learners, educators, and businesses. Executives and HR officials responsible for hiring new employees can benefit from discussing the pros and cons of his take on higher education. At the end of each chapter, Iny includes “learning self-assessment” exercises readers can use to test their understanding of the ideas he presents. This makes it a useful workbook for students and professionals. Lifelong learners, prospective college students, and Learning professionals will find food for thought in Iny’s contrarian overview.
Rating (out of 10): 7
Applicability: 8
Innovation: 6
Style: 8
“Finish. Give Yourself the Gift of Done” by Jon Acuff (Portfolio, 2017, 208 pages, ISBN: 9781591847625; $27)
Setting new goals is easy, but finishing them is hard. In this blockbuster bestseller, blogger and popular speaker Jon Acuff shares his plans to help you actually achieve your goals. Acuff explains that perfectionism, the main blockade to reaching your objectives, delivers a negative message: the lie that something isn’t worth doing unless it’s perfect. People also fail to reach their goals because they set targets that are too ambitious. Acuff advises cutting your goal in half, breaking it down into smaller, more achievable chunks. He also advocates doubling your timeline, choosing how you will fail and making your goals enjoyable. You’re more likely to finish tasks that are fun, exciting, and easy. Acuff goes off on long tangents, but his stories remain funny and relatable. getAbstract recommends his guidance as a helping hand for everyone who ever sought to complete a goal and just fell short.
Rating (out of 10): 8
Applicability: 9
Innovation: 7
Style: 8
For five-page summaries of these and more than 15,000 other titles, visit http://www.getabstract.com/affiliate/trainingmagazine
