Book Review - Make It, Don't Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business

About the Book

An award-winning CEO and communications expert shows how authentic leadership eliminates the need for the shortcuts that sabotage success. “Fake it till you make it” just doesn’t work—at least not long enough to build a sustainable business.

Driven to succeed under constant pressure, entrepreneurs and business leaders alike can be tempted to exaggerate their strengths, minimize weaknesses, and bend the truth. Through the twin lenses of running her own national public relations firm and advising thousands of executives for a quarter-century, Sabrina Horn revisits the core of leadership; defines authentic, reality-based business integrity; and shows readers how to attain and maintain it.

With firsthand accounts of sticky situations and painful mistakes, Horn lays out workable strategies, frameworks, and mental maps to help leaders gain the clarity of thought necessary to make sound business decisions, even when there are no right answers. In her straightforward, no-nonsense style, she shares the power of humility and empathy, mentorship and self-assessment, and a strong core value system to build a leader’s confidence and resilience. Horn’s fake-free advice will empower readers to disarm fear, organize risk, manage setbacks and crises, deal with losing and loneliness, and create a culture and brand designed for long-term success.

My Take on the Book

This was a great book for any leader looking to take their leadership to the next level. The book offers you practical advice that allows you to plan, starting and build a business, without taking shortcuts but instead being honest about your intentions. The book offers advice that comes from the author's own experiences. What was great about this is that you are learning directly from the wins and mistakes that she made on her own journey. The author does a great job discussing how a leader’s approach must evolve as a company evolves. She is honest about the challenges of scaling the business, resources, and staff. 

The strongest part of the book looks at issues around crisis management. This is a topic that I have not seen in many books and it was a great addition. This along with everything else in the book really opens your eyes to things that you can do to make your own business even stronger.

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Book Review - Integrity by Design: Working and Living Authentically

About the Book
What gets in the way of your desire to be your best? How confident are you to do what you say? What matters to you?

If you or your organization lacks integrity, you’re out of alignment with what’s important. When work and life are out of alignment, it’s increasingly difficult to lead, improve, and drive positive change in teams and organizations.

If you want to bring your best to every situation and lead teams and organizations with authenticity, this book is for you.

Integrity by Design: Working and Living Authentically is about the differences between good intentions and the outcomes we create every day for wellbeing, in both intimate and professional partnerships. It’s also about the groups and teams that count on us to “show-up” and to contribute meaningfully. It’s about bringing more of who you are to what you do.

This book calls you to your higher purpose, to the aspiration to work and live authentically. Every possibility for success begins with a life designed with integrity.

My Take on the Book
If you are looking for a guide for your organization when it comes to organizational integrity this is the book for you. The book walks you through valuable questions that all organizations need to answer as they think about these important topics and allows you to take this learning to build a plan for the future. This was a book that was a very good read and you leave the book with a much stronger understanding and feel for how to incorporate integrity into all aspects of your organization.

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Book Review - Metropolis Grove

About the Book
Metropolis Grove follows the perilous escapades of a newfound friendship put to the test when chaos ensues in suburbia. The big city is full of Superman sightings, but in Metropolis Grove? Every kid in the suburb knows that he’s not real except Sonia Patel, a newcomer to town, who convinces her friends Duncan and Alex to believe in Superman again! This all changes when the trio discovers a mysterious cave full of Super-memorabilia that they can't keep to themselves, setting off a school year full of drama and adventure and more than a few opportunities for a newfound friendship to test its limits. But when they finally figure out the resident of the cave is Bizarro, things get even more out of control!

 

My Take on the Book
This was a great story of friendship, superpowers, and more. I loved the characters and seeing them as real people with real issues. You see how friendship goes through phases and sometimes you have to work through the good and the bad to make friendship last. Also, you get to see Bizarro as the "hero" that he is (or at least who he wants to be). This was a super fun book that fans of DC will love! 

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Book Review - Escape Book: Madam Mortell's Haunted House

About the Book

Solve strange puzzles and riddles with scary monsters in order to escape the book, in the third installment of The Escape Book series!

Beware brave souls, you’re trapped!

In the middle of a carnival, you discover a mysterious building and you're in for the fright of your life! Locked in this strange place inhabited by vampires, dancing ghosts, and even Frankenstein, you must now find a way to escape. Will you be able to solve the bizarre puzzles and rise to the challenge? It will take everything you’ve got to make it out safely. Bring the excitement of the popular escape room activity with you everywhere you go in this third book, Madam Mortell's Haunted House. You will need to keep your cool to free yourself because who knows what terrifying monsters you'll encounter along the way!



My Take on the Book

If you love escape rooms and monsters then this is the right book for you. The book is full pf puzzles, twists, turns and more that will make you think and consider all of the possible paths. You actually have to go through all of the paths to get to the end. It made me think of the Choose your own adventure books of my childhood and I loved those then and loved reading this now. The book is full of great illustrations and the story is a ton of fun with characters that you will not want to miss! Make sure to follow the rules and not skim ahead or flip through the book itself to take advantage of the fun that this book has to offer!

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Book Review - Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur

About the Book
With women leading only twenty-four Fortune 500 companies, female founders receiving only 2.2 percent of US venture capital, and the continued presence of sexual harassment and double standards, the gender gap continues to hinder the advancement of women in the professional world.

In Digital Goddess, Montgomery-Brown—founder of Big Think, a collection of experts across all fields and disciplines that are either at the top of their field or disrupting it, shares her story in an entertaining and educational light. Told from the unique, female entrepreneurial perspective that unpacks all the hurdles other female founders may face in their own journey to the top, Montgomery-Brown shares the real-world lessons she’s learned along the way, such as:

• Never lie to your investors, even when you just got arrested.
• Raising money is a poker game—learn how to play.
• The power and money still lie with men. Pretending it’s not that way, or being angry about it, won’t lead to success.
• Your relationship with your co-founder is like a second marriage, so forget about keeping the personal out of the workplace.
• The more authentic you are, and the more fun you have, the better your experience will be.
• This book is about dealing with the way things are, even when you don’t like it, and being yourself, even when it seems like a drawback. It’s about sucking it up, making the hard choices, and dealing with the consequences.

It’s about being honest no matter what is going down. Victoria’s been called “the anti-Elizabeth Holmes,” for a good reason—unlike the ill-fated Theranos CEO, she’s transparent with her investors even when she fears they will walk away.

Digital Goddess is a story for entrepreneurial women at any stage of life who want to know what it actually takes to build a business in a world that’s not always fair, predictable, or politically correct.



My Take on the Book
If you have a daughter that dreams of being an entrepreneur, this book will give you a unique insight into what it takes for a woman to start and run a business in today's society. The author is wide open and shares herself completely with the reader including the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur. The amazing part of the book is the lessons and practical knowledge that she shares that you can put into practice immediately. This is an amazing book that you will want to read and then share with your own daughters. 

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Book Review - Mission-Critical Leadership: How Smart Managers Lead Well in All Directions

About the Book
Typical leadership development focuses on a single direction: downstream in the organizational hierarchy. Leadership that is mission-critical requires that you lead well in all directions: up, across, down, and inward. Mission-Critical Leadership is the book for you if you have ever:

• Felt stuck in your job
• Been frustrated with your boss
• Experienced a lack of cooperation from peers at your same leadership level
• Wondered why the team you supervise fails to perform to your expectations

This guide will show you how to build influence and relationships that deliver impactful results. With these strategies your organization will have more engaged employees, better talent retention, and a plan for developing the next generation of leaders. When the stakes are high, smart leaders focus on what’s mission-critical to cut through the clutter, clear away distractions, and ensure their teams are devoted to what’s truly essential.

My Take on the Book
I am always looking for books that have practical advice, especially when it comes to being a better leader. This book provides you just that! The book examines what the author calls the four aspects of leadership: leading yourself, leading up, leading across, and leading down. In the book the author has broken the concepts into three parts and how you can set up a plan to incorporate the four steps of leadership into your own life. As you read through this book you can tell that the author really knows his stuff and he is very generous in the information that he provides! This is a great book for everyone that wants to be a stronger leader!

 

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