Alexandra Levit has authored several books, including the popular business world survival guide They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, How’d You Score That Gig?, and Success for Hire.

Alexandra’s career advice is featured monthly in the Huffington Post, and has been showcased in more than 800 media outlets including ABC News, the Associated Press, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, National Public Radio, Fortune, Yahoo!, and MSN. Known as one of the premiere career spokespeople of her generation, she regularly speaks at universities and corporations on workplace issues facing young employees.

Great interview on what Gen Y is looking for in work, the leaders they work for and a few of the hot careers for twenty-somethings.
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If you are looking for a way to spice up your blog, articles or conversation, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book L is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue by Chronicle Books Staff. The book includes all sorts of great words and phrases (Good Night Nurse, YOWZA and persnickety are a few of my favorites). Really fun!

Did I get your attention with the title?

Good. I hope so.

In the book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, author Robert Sutton goes into a concise view of the jerks we have in many of our organizations around the country. He discusses corporate bullying, manipulation and control and gives some great advice on how to stop it. The sad thing is that in reading his book, I know a few people just like this, and I get e-mails occasionally from a few who I would never want to work with. It makes me sweat just thinking about it.

This post is one of the most important you are going to read this week. In light of what happened recently in Florida with a few teen girls beating up another girl (who by the way had been bullied and beat up by these girls for months), I have to take a stand and tell you this “Stop taking orders or working for/with a bully!” If we don’t stop it now, this is going to continue forever, and these corporate bullies are the people who are teaching our teens to go beat the s— out of another teen. I am so fired up about this story…it makes me sick!

Here are the signs that you are probably being bullied at work:

1) You are working day and night, only to be criticized by your boss or manager

2) You are being intentionally left out of meetings or social engagements with co-workers

3) You are hearing gossip about you from your work colleagues

4) You wake up in the morning, nauseated and with a headache, and you call in sick more than you know you should

5) You are doing work for your boss, and he/she is taking credit for your ideas and labor

6) You are noticing that you are being sabotaged at every turn

7) You can cut the tension with a knife

8)Your boss/manager is constantly asking you to work an ungodly schedule

So…if you are someone who is experiencing this, then please, please ask for help. And by all means, get out of the environment. Let’s put an end to this madness now!

Adair Cates is the author of Live with Intention: Ten Steps to Creating the Life of Your Dreams. She is a Millennial who lives with intention, passion and purpose and believes that now is the time to break free from doubt, fear and worry and start living the life of your dreams. With her vibrant and joyful personality she will captivate you to see something inside of yourself that you’ve never noticed before. She is one of Bob Proctor’s LifeSuccess Consultants and uses her experience as a teacher to inspire and empower Millennials and people of all ages to realize their infinite potential. Adair truly understands what it means to reach beyond current circumstances to live a better life. She herself took a leap of faith to pursue a career as an author, speaker and coach. She and her husband Chris also do motivational/musical events together as Synergy Shift. They live with their two cats in Asheville, NC.
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As we move into the future, the face of leadership is going to change. As the Millennial Generation explodes onto the business scene, they will be bringing with them an entrepreneurial spirit unlike anything we have seen before in history. In order to lead in the future, not only are we all going to be called to understand what it means to be an entrepreneur, we are going to be challenged to shift our thinking and to start challenging our assumptions about the human dynamics which are at play for all business leaders…and those dynamics are going to be moving heaven and earth (just look at what is going on in our world today economically, politically and socially).

To help you along your journey, I am recommending two must reads (and I don’t recommend books that often). These two books are critical additions to your library, because both of these authors have worn many hats in life, have experienced a huge variety of business opportunities and will be the first to admit that they have made mistakes along the way. In spite of any demons they have met in the past, everything they have touched has turned to gold (so of course, why would you not read their books).

So…here we go…the two top reads for this month are:

Beyond Booked Solid: Your Business, Your Life, Your Way Its All Inside by Michael Port

I have come to the conclusion that anyone and their grandmother can write a marketing book. But…writing a marketing book with passion and from the human emotions we all experience as business owners requires a master craftsman. Michael Port is truly such a master, and this book is at the top of my list of biz books for 2008. Port goes deep…challenging business owners to look at the internal shifts required to go from being a great business owner to one making a significant impact on the world.  As we all know, each growth phase of a business requires a new attitude and a new way of seeing your business and the world, and I can promise you this…if you read this book, your life and business are going to change for the better, and there’s no turning back…you will never see your business or your life as you see it today (and that is a great thing…as I always say, you can’t do what you’ve always done to get where you’re going today and tomorrow!). Fabulous!

Awakening the Entrepreneur Within: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Companies by Michael Gerber

Michael Gerber’s mission is “to create a turnkey system for awakening the entrepreneur within every person who wishes to go into business for themselves, while providing them with the support for doing it”. Well, he has certainly achieved this mission with this passionate book…calling even the most frustrated entrepreneurs to start dreaming big about what they want for their businesses and their lives. As with The E-Myth Books, Gerber makes this simple and just a great read. You can read the entire book on a Saturday afternoon (while sipping hot tea or coffee in your snuggly robe, but after you read it, you are going to want a hot night out on the town dressed to the nines, because the book will set your soul on fire!) Truly inspiring!

it is so hard to believe it, but EDGE: A Leadership Story will be available for purchase on May 15, 2008. Advance orders will be available soon.

This project has been such a labor of love. Partnering with Corey style=”margin: 10px; float: left” Blake and Eva Silva-Travers style=”margin: 10px; float: left” and the entire team of Writers of the Round Table has been one of the best experiences of not just my career but my life. Their background in screen and film have truly opened up my mind to a brand new way to coach and live.

I also want to take the time to acknowledge our Joint Venture Partners on this project. Each one of these men and women have supported me not just over the last 18 months of this project but have mentored me in ways I cannot begin to describe. I am forever grateful to each of them for their support and wisdom.

Michael Gerber

Michael Gerber has focused his career on inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs with his unique solutions to small business growth, effectiveness, and efficiency. He has established his revolutionary perspective as the gold standard for small business development, becoming what Inc. Magazine called “the world’s #1 small business guru” and one of Business Week’s bestselling authors of the past decades. Michael is the author of seven E-Myth books, including The E-Myth Revisited, which has sold more than three million copies worldwide, making it the most successful small business guide ever written. In 1977, he founded E-Myth Worldwide®, a business that has coached, trained, and educated over 60,000 small business clients in 145 countries. Now 70 years young, Michael Gerber lives with his wife, Luz Delia, in Petaluma, California, where they are intentionally and joyously pursuing their shared vision for transforming the world one small business owner at a time through their most recent venture, “In the Dreaming Room.”

http://inthedreamingroom.com/

Michael Port

Michael Port Called a “marketing guru” by the Wall Street Journal, Michael Port, has lectured, trained, inspired, and provided coaching and consulting services to over 20,000 business owners in the last two years alone. As a speaker, he has headlined events with leaders like Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins. Michael is the author of the national bestselling Book Yourself Solid, The Fastest, Easiest and Most Reliable System For Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing And Selling and the soon to be released Beyond Booked Solid: Now, Build a Bigger, Better Business By Leveraging the Power of People and Processes to Make More Money While Working Less.

http://www.bookyourselfsolid.com

Andy Wibbels

Andy Wibbels is an award-winning blogger and author of the book Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging . He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Entrepreneur and other media as a recognized expert in blogging and related technologies. Andy has helped businesses all over the world leverage new media to build visibility and increase sales. Andy Wibbels is an award-winning blogger and author of the book Blogwild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging . He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Entrepreneur and other media as a recognized expert in blogging and related technologies. Andy has helped businesses all over the world leverage new media to build visibility and increase sales.

http://andywibbels.com

Dave Buck

Dave Buck MCC, MBA is the CEO of CoachVille, the largest and fastest growing business and personal coaching organization in the world. The CoachVille vision is to unleash the greatness in all people everywhere through coaching. He worked with Thomas Leonard to found CoachVille in 2001 and has delivered coach training programs to thousands of coaches.

Dave’s coaching career is diverse. He began coaching as the assistant coach for the Seton Hall University Men’s Soccer Team in 1995 and coached for 10 seasons. He began life coaching in 1997 and over the last 9 years has coached close to 1,000 individuals. Dave is a Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coach Federation.

Dave has revolutionized the coaching profession by creating Pattern Language Coaching™ – a coaching method that dramatically reduces the time required to become a masterful coach.

In 2004 Dave was awarded the first annual International Coach Federation (ICF) Peace Maker award for bringing CoachVille and the ICF together.

Dave taught an MBA program for the Seton Hall Stillman School of Business called “The Joy of Business”, based on the 28 Principles of Attraction by Thomas Leonard.

http://www.CoachVille.com

Kim George

Kim George is the author of Coaching Into Greatness: 4 Steps to Success in Business and Life, published by Wiley & Sons.
The book introduces Kim’s groundbreaking work around the concept of AQ, Abundance IntelligenceT, and how people can eliminate the barriers that keep them from doing what they can do.

Kim is the Founder and CEO of The AQ Institute, a coaching, consulting and training community focused on bringing Abundance IntelligenceT to the world.

www.AQInstitute.com

Carol Dickson-Carr

Carol Dickson-Carr is a productivity coach for entrepreneurial spirits and helps them make money using their creativity as she does in her own business. She has taught in community and business colleges, at the university level, and in private consultations to provide both academic knowledge and practical strategies for creating a fulfilling life.

Other areas of her expertise include: productivity, creativity, communication skills, audio production, time management, and self-discovery through personal assessment tools–particularly the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Carol is also the creator of the interview audio series, Master Your Time and Live Your Dreams: Conversations with Coaches and Creatives Who Get It Done! and is also co- author to the book, A Guide to Getting It: Purpose & Passion.

http://power-edsolutionsinc.com
http://www.managingpersonalresources.com