Ever wonder why some ad campaigns are huge successes and others flop? Ever find yourself thinking that someone made a great argument only to find yourself still doing the opposite? As humans, there are many triggers that affect us and influence our decision making on a subconscious level.  Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive reveals 50 of these lessons and backs them up with real world examples and studies that may surprise you.
 
I'd like to highlight a few of the cases that were particularly interesting to me:

 Every once in a while a book comes along that despite a seemingly simple subject ends up being a very impactful and thought provoking book.  Seth Godin's "the dip" proves to be exactly that type of book.
 
"the dip" is all about understanding opportunities and yourself; there are many things we can all spend our time doing, but how many of them can you be the absolute best?  And how do you tell the difference between the struggle before success and the slow, painful death-march to failure?
 
As the book cover suggest, there's really two parts, which I'll highlight now: When to Quit and When to Stick.
 

We are in the midst of a renaissance. Not only is entrepreneurship gaining momentum on a regional and national scale, but we are blessed with brilliant entrepreneurs who are more than happy to share their greatest knowledge and experiences.  While there is great value in the many blog posts circulating RSS readers, Twitter and other sources every day, the right book can capture much more than even the best posts by Paul Graham. In the last 6 months, all of the following books have come out and been game-changers in the content their share:
 
Inbound Marketing by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan– Changing the way you market your business.
Mastering the VC Game by Jeff Bussgang – Changing the way you think about raising money.
ReWork by Jason Fried– Changing the way you think about building your business.
 
And today we add one more…
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh– Changing the way you think about customer service, corporate culture and the meaning of happiness.

Ever wonder what makes a leader great?  Ever spend time thinking about what the strengths are in your personality or how you might be able to become more like great people around you? Kevin Vogelsang has and he's written a book to help you answer those questions.  In his just released book "10 Powerful Personas," Kevin examines key attributes of 10 different qualities found in leaders. I learned a lot from the book and I'd like to share a few of the lessons here:

As a young entrepreneur, it’s not easy to understand how venture capital really works. There are tons of horror stories that spread through the community like urban legends and phrases like “Term sheets” and “Down Rounds” can sound foreign.  Amidst all of these questions is an aura of uncertainty about how the whole system really works. Fortunately, there’s Jeff Bussgang’s book, Mastering the VC Game to help. 
 
This book should be a must read for any young entrepreneur who thinks they may ever want funding. It’s that good. Here’s a few reasons I love the book:

Evaluating ReWork as a traditional book would be a mistake, because it’s not like regular books. Technically, it’s 273 pages, but there’s realistically only about 70 pages of real content.  At first glance, that may be alarming, but the level of quality in the limited words in this book make it all worthwhile.  The immense buzz in the startup community is well deserved.

A startup has the most uncertainty in the beginning. You have no customers. Your team may be incomplete. You may not even fully understand what your market is or even your product.  If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re either in this situation now, or you’ve been there before. Jessica Livingston’s book, “Founder’s at Work” profiles some of the most famous startups of the past few decades (and some you didn’t know) by interviewing founders and asking them what the “early days” were like.
 

With the Holiday season in full swing, there's always the question of both what to get others and what to tell people who ask what you would like as a gift.  As an entrepreneur, there's always plenty of things to hope for your business that unfortunately can't be conveniently wrapped and delivered to you. Fortunately, there are books.

With the Holiday season in full swing, there's always the question of both what to get others and what to tell people who ask what you would like as a gift.  As an entrepreneur, there's always plenty of things to hope for your business that unfortunately can't be conveniently wrapped and delivered to you. Fortunately, there are books.

With the Holiday season in full swing, there's always the question of both what to get others and what to tell people who ask what you would like as a gift.  As an entrepreneur, there's always plenty of things to hope for your business that unfortunately can't be conveniently wrapped and delivered to you. Fortunately, there are books.