BOOKS (Available on Amazon)
Leadership is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Most people tend to think of leadership as a character trait. A person either is a leader or they aren’t. In practice, nothing could be further from the truth. Leadership is a learned skill. True, some people have leadership advantages. A winning smile, a commanding voice, an impressive title or schooling, but those attributes pale in comparison to true, practical leadership. A winning smile will only take you so far in business. Empirical leadership is a skill that requires discipline, determination, and diligence. The key to such leadership is trial and error. To become a practical leader, you must be willing to take risks. You must be willing to push boundaries. You must be sensitive to the culture, needs, and wants of those around you. You must know where you are going and have a plan for how to get there. You must be flexible if that plan crumbles—as they often do. You must know what makes you, you (warts and all). You must believe that you can always do better, for yourself and for those around you. You must be curious. You must be bold. You must be balanced. All this probably sounds fanciful, or impossible. Empirical leadership is neither of those things. It’s a journey, difficult and grueling. You must prepare to fail and feel imperfect. There is nothing fanciful about hard work. The good news is that empirical leadership isn’t impossible. It’s the reason you recognize names like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. These are leaders worth emulating. But don’t emulate them. In fact remove them from your mind completely. The first lesson of empirical leadership is that every person brings unique attributes, competencies, and experiences to the table. By comparing yourself to the people you admire, you are setting yourself up to feel like a failure. From this point forward, turn a critical eye inwards. The Empirical Leader is a sort of how-to for leadership in the 21st century. It covers the three axes of leadership: social, self, and environment. As you work through each chapter, take the time to consider how the anecdotes, insights, and social psychology apply to you and your specific circumstances. The success of any leader is in their ability to learn from the experience of others and apply them creatively, not in merely following footsteps. BUY ON AMAZON
The story you tell about yourself affects how far you go in life. If you describe yourself in terms of failure, you are more likely to fail. If you describe yourself in terms of success, you are more likely to succeed. A pessimistic outlook assures a pessimistic perception and worldview. The opposite worldview assures the opposite effect. The story you tell about yourself isn’t all it takes to succeed, but it’s a large part of the equation. The story you tell about yourself can get you through a rough patch. If you believe yourself to be a warrior, adaptable and capable, willing to learn new skills, meet new people, and accept that you have flaws and can accomplish your goals despite them—or even because of them—then you’re in a much better position than the average person to get where you want to be in your career. This description, however, doesn’t apply to the average person. The average person operates with fear, skepticism, and is easily discouraged by defeat. It’s unsavory to say and it’s unsavory to accept. Frankly, some of life’s biggest and most important lessons are unpalatable. But that doesn’t make them any less insightful or true. For me, the journey of accepting my own imperfection has brought me to the place I am. I accept my imperfections as a catalyst for transformative growth and gains. In this book, Grow - Develop Yourself for Success, I explore the often maligned approach to self help and career development that rests on the belief that our flaws and our imperfections can unlock our success. I won’t couch my language with feel-good terms. I won’t placate you. My goal here is to arm you with practical and potent tools for self-exploration so that you can achieve your goals and be better than you are now. Your new and improved story starts now. BUY ON AMAZON
The modern workplace is recognizably different from the workplace of just 20 years ago. Some things haven’t changed though. People are people. Today’s workers are no different from the workers of a few decades ago in crucial senses. Workers today want to better themselves, make money, support their families and make time to enjoy them. They want healthy work relationships and once, in a while, their hard work lauded. In essence, at the personal level, the gap between then and now is not so vast. At the business level though, it’s a whole new world. The Professional’s Bible is a simple guide to help people understand, navigate, and thrive in the modern workplace and answer the big question: What does it take to succeed in today’s job market? At the heart of that question lies great uncertainty. This book is meant to quell that uncertainty. BUY ON AMAZON
Sales & Marketing is not what it used to be, not even a little bit. Long gone are the days of gimmicks, clever phrasing, and seduction. The well of false enchantment has run dry. Clients and consumers stare down attempts at persuasion and flashy marketing because they expect authenticity from salespeople and corporations alike. This shift in expectation comes on the back of the digital revolution and unilateral skepticism toward salespeople and companies. As consumer psychology changes, sales & marketing enters a new era, where human needs, values, and connections define success and failure. To meet this call to action corporations and salespeople must change their perspective toward their clients and consumers. They must see them as community members, tribes-people, as human beings who need trust, predictability, transparency, and respect. This is the pathos of the Relationship Era. Spending large amounts of money to buy "likes" and promotions from paid bloggers is not the way to go. "Money Can't Buy You Love, Not Even a Like" discusses the core philosophy that the more you “sell”, the more you scare. That relationship building ought to be embraced not as a strategy but as a pleasure. That salespeople and corporations must know what they stand for and champion it. That they should listen to their clients and customers, spreading content that is valuable and resonates with their customers’ feedback. Lastly—most importantly—not fabricate authenticity. Not even try. BUY ON AMAZON
Digital technology poses fundamental questions about the way we live, the way we structure organizations and institutions, the way we build up communities and its members, and the way governments are dealing with increasing digital divides around the world. On the one hand, digital technology presents us with opportunities to connect, work, think, and interact in ways we never thought possible. And yet, as innovation sweeps across the world, companies, people, and governments alike are exposed as ill equipped to keep up with the pace of change. Going Digital: Harnessing the Power of Digital Innovation, is an exploration of digital strategy and digital transformation as a mindset: an interconnected way of seeing reality and the people in it in order to create adaptive, agile, and amicable work environments that champion innovation by harnessing individual differences, all while navigating a fractured macroeconomic landscape, revealing disruptive trends and new ways to thrive in business. This is a book of bite-sized chapters written by digital & management guru Anurag Harsh. Through his experience with digital transformation in an industry under fire, he has recast our fraught relationship to all things digital. BUY ON AMAZON
Some periods of life transition into memory unmarked, much like that song you love yet can’t remember the year it hit the radio. Some periods, however, stay with us, like erased pencil marks on white paper, indelible yet barely visible. Such is the case of the technological events that are occurring all around us right now in our lives. In every sense, what is happening in tech is unforgettable. We are making strides in some areas, foreshadowing technological innovations previously consigned to science fiction books: automated cars, augmented and virtual reality, chat bots, solar grids, and more. In those areas we are setting the stage for a prosperous future. Yet in other areas, the future is grayer, more ambiguous, and riddled with doubt. Care must be taken to remember what is being done right and what we are getting wrong, lest we fall victim to pernicious forgetfulness. We are seeing for example, how algorithms can skew the line between fact and fiction; how actors halfway across the world can shape a cultural narrative using social media and click-bait. Nowadays, all it takes to move millions is a strategic blog post, a clever domain name, and a social media account. In tech circles, historical forgetfulness is especially conspicuous. The thrill of discovery and the rate of change can blind us to the deeper consequences of our inventions. At its inception, did Mark Zuckerberg imagine that Facebook would influence cultural discourse, or even an election cycle? As machine-learning and algorithms enter our homes, curate our news, observe and analyze our vitals, and grant more and more access to our intimate spaces, it is imperative that we take the time to analyze and discuss. In this book, LinkedIn’s #1 ranked technology thought leader, Anurag Harsh, presents an instructive analysis of the key emergent, digital, and mobile trends of our times. With the goal of sharing lessons gleaned from the events occurring around us, he presents his insights with lucid prose and didactic organization that stokes the imagination and turns a critical eye on the technology we often take for granted. BUY ON AMAZON
Many businesses today recognize mobile commerce—mCommerce—as a way to increase revenue and offer customers a new level of convenience. Mobile phones and PDAs can now be used for online banking, ticket purchasing, messaging, and much more. For any transaction, security is a top priority--and this becomes increasingly complex when wireless and mobile applications are involved. This practical introductory guide clearly explains different mCommerce applications and their associated security risks. Through case studies, you’ll learn best practices for implementing specific security methods in key industries—including banking, retail, entertainment, military, travel, and healthcare. The book also contains 8 pages of blueprints that depict secure end-to-end mCommerce architecture as well as identify key vulnerability points. BUY ON AMAZON