Small things that are done well make a difference in your career, particularly if you’re in the role of a manager or leader. This audio-only course, adapted from The Art of Leadership by Michael Lopp, encourages all leaders—from new managers to experienced executives—to sweat the small stuff when hiring, delegating, managing meetings, handling crises, controlling rumors, and more. While many new managers receive no managerial training and must learn by experience, the lessons in this course can give you a head start on your road to becoming a successful, inspiring leader.

This audiobook summary was created by getAbstract, one of the world’s largest providers of business book summaries—with more than 20,000 text and audio summaries in 7 languages. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.

Turn your video footage into a work of art. Learn the basics of rotoscoping to build creative effects and to isolate video elements for compositing or VFX. In this course, instructor and mograph artist Eran Stern starts by diving the history and origin of rotoscoping in film and video, providing the background for subsequent practical techniques. He shows how to transform video into natural art—from pencil sketches to Van Gogh paintings, claymation to chalkboard drawings, watercolors to graffiti, and ink blots, Legos, comic books, pastels, and much more. You can also find out how to use the same foundational techniques to isolate elements for compositing and visual effects work, and create simple character animations. Plus, explore the different software for rotoscoping, from Photoshop and After Effects to professional applications such as Mocha AE.

Creativity and innovation are now recognized as some of the most important contributors to economic growth. Thus, it’s imperative that work environments are structured so that creativity and innovation can thrive. But how can leaders translate the desire for creativity into something doable in their company? How can they lay the foundation for this structure? In this course, international speaker and trainer Denise Jacobs shows you how. Learn about the key directives that leading companies use to enhance engagement, reignite passion, and ramp up meaningful contribution. Discover how to prevent time pressures from blocking creativity, ask questions that spark innovative thinking, amplify the ideas of others, and more. By the end of this course, you'll have the tools you need to boost engagement and help your teams produce cutting-edge work.

Imposter syndrome can make even celebrated, successful people feel small. Sufferers of imposter syndrome often feel like they haven't truly earned their accomplishments, and that it's only a matter of time until they're found out. They credit their capabilities and accomplishments to things outside themselves, such as luck. Or, the "imposter" may be unaware that they are in the middle of a normal learning curve. In this course, adapted from the podcast How to Be Awesome at Your Job, Dr. Valerie Young shines a spotlight on impostor syndrome and shares a healthy way out of this mental trap. Learn how to shift your mindset by reframing how you think about competence, criticism, and fear. Discover how to celebrate your successes and reward yourself for your efforts, no matter the outcome, as well as consider all things to be opportunities for learning and growth. Plus, Dr. Young discusses the arrogance behind imposter syndrome, and how holding yourself back is bad for everyone.

This course was created by Pete Mockaitis of How to Be Awesome at Your Job. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.

Many elements come together to make an effective photo, whether it’s a magazine cover shot or a photo of a kid’s soccer game. In this course, Pulitzer-finalist Natalie Fobes takes you into the studio and on location to explore what makes great photos effective. The course begins with an exploration of composition. Next, Natalie details the role of color and light, describing basic color theory and showing how color contributes to the mood of a photo. She then covers how to see and work the natural light in a room or outdoor location, as well as how simple lighting setups can help you replicate the look of natural light. Natalie also examines movement and its role in still photography. She shows how a photographer can convey a sense of motion by blurring part of an image, or, conversely, how to freeze a fast-moving subject. She wraps up by exploring the importance of the “decisive moment”— that split second when you capture the storytelling photograph.

Traditional feedback often fails because it assumes and prescribes. People let their pent-up emotions and judgments take control, and make no effort to understand the context behind problematic behavior. As a result, both parties end up feeling defensive and start to talk past one another. In this course, adapted from the podcast How to Be Awesome at Your Job, Jonathan Raymond shares how to let your curiosity guide conversations and communicate feedback that gets results. Jonathan goes over a simple five-step system to help you kick off a productive conversation about improvement without falling into the feedback trap. Along the way, he shares how to help people come to conclusions themselves and own the changes they make.

This course was created by Pete Mockaitis of How to Be Awesome at Your Job. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.

Accounting, like almost every industry, is being disrupted by new and emerging technologies. This disruption will affect auditing in unique way. In this course, futurist and financial expert Jason Schenker shares the most important changes, constants, and uncertainties for the future of audit. Learn why advancements in physical technologies, like drones and robots, will become more important for deployment in the field, while data analysis, AI, and quantum computing will be impactful when doing testing and sampling. Then discover why technology will be a critical lever for evaluating financial statements as part of audit and due diligence work—and how some things, including the goals of an independent audit, will remain unchanged. Jason also reviews regulatory risks and emerging types of audits such as social and cybersecurity audits. This course can help executives, leaders, and tax and accounting professionals identify the changes ahead and how they are likely to present both opportunities and challenges for their business.

This course was created by Jason Schenker. We are pleased to host this training in our library.

Being a CEO can be particularly challenging. Those who ascend to this rank must steer their company to success while grappling with loneliness, stress, and the weighty knowledge that their organization's fate largely rests in their hands. In his 2014 book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, entrepreneur Ben Horowitz delves into this role, sharing practical lessons gleaned from his own experiences in the trenches of Silicon Valley. This audiobook summary provides concise highlights from the book that you can listen to while on the go. Learn how to handle layoffs, hire the right people, dispense with politics to make your company a place where people want to work, and more. Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

Bring your best self to work. Join Dr. Britt Andreatta in The Mindful Workday, a series of mindfulness exercises to keep you connected, grounded, and focused at work. Learn how to maximize your commute—whether it’s a two-hour drive or a short walk to your home office—so you show up prepared. Discover how to create a healthy working environment and communicate better with your boss. Find out how to use your downtime in a positive way, stop watching the clock so you can live in the present, and turn meetings into successful, collaborative experiences. Finally, learn how to mindfully leave work and arrive home fully present.

Note: This course was created and produced by Desk Yogi.

If you want a fulfilling and happy life, your morning routine is the place to start building it. This audio-only course shows you how some changes to your morning routine can help you start creating the life you’ve always wanted. Find out how to escape Rearview Mirror Syndrome (RMS) and make decisions that will positively impact the future you. Learn how to embrace the morning with purpose and excitement and how to raise your wake-up motivation level. Explore ways to set aside time for purposeful silence or meditation, start a habit of positive affirmations, and schedule exercise into your day. Discover how you can make time to read and write, customize your miracle morning, and build your miracle morning into a lifelong habit.

Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

While virtual sales calls have steadily increased for many reasons—reduced travel costs, improving technology, and most recently health and safety considerations—the fact remains, people simply hate virtual meetings. Factors like fatigue and distrust of the presenter lead to declines in attention and engagement, which reduce your chances of closing a deal. In this course, neuromarketing expert Patrick Renvoise shows you how to tackle the challenges around selling virtually by understanding the brain of your audience. Patrick covers the reasons people hate video calls, why they generate so much fatigue, and why it’s so hard to establish trust over a virtual meeting. He also guides you through what to say and do on video sales calls, and shows how a little knowledge of the primal brain can help you communicate more persuasively in the virtual world.

Where does the power of habits come from, and how can you put that power to work for you? This audio-only course shows you how the brain forms a habit or routine and how you can start or end any habit you wish. Learn how habits create a craving that make them difficult to break, but you can replace an existing routine with another one that has a similar reward. Discover how you can use keystone habits, such as willpower, and small wins to change large routines. Find out how crises can change organizational habits, how habit-based marketing works, and how movements are born. It’s up to you to take responsibility and change your habits for the better.

Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

In The Practicing Photographer, photographer and teacher Ben Long shares a weekly serving of photographic instruction and inspiration. Each installment focuses on a photographic shooting scenario, a piece of gear, or a software technique. Each one concludes with a call to action designed to inspire you to pick up your camera (or your mouse or smartphone) to try the technique for yourself.Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.

All day, we make decisions—from what to have for lunch to whether or not to shut down a product line. These decisions shape our careers and haunt our dreams.

It turns out that people aren’t very good at making decisions, and the main reason is simple: we hoard our chips. We overvalue things we’ve built, experiences we’ve endured and assets we’ve acquired. As a result, we get stuck. Too many dead ends and too many regrets.

The promise of this course is simple: You and your coworkers will finally be able understand why we get stuck and what to do about it. With engaging stories and a new way to talk about the issue, Seth Godin helps you see how to stop being manipulated and start leading instead.

There’s no such thing as overnight success. Success is built gradually, and the good news is that you’re probably already doing things to be successful. This audio-only course shows you how to build on what you’re already doing to give yourself that slight edge toward success. Find out how to enhance your ability to make critical choices, as well as how to keep learning and train your mind for success. Discover four tools you can use to keep moving on a positive path, then learn about ways to cultivate positive habits and take the three steps needed to make your dreams a reality.

Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

No matter who you are, how wealthy or powerful or healthy you are, you only have 24 hours in a day. Do you often find yourself wondering if you’re spending those hours in the most effective way? Do you live in denial about what you can actually accomplish in any one day? Then check out this audiobook summary of Elizabeth Grace Saunders’ The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, a practical guide to living a life by design instead of impulse. It provides step-by-step strategies for planning your days around the commitments that really matter to you, setting up effective routines, and finding people to help you stay on track. It also reveals the importance of dealing with emotional baggage like guilt and shame, which can derail even the best-laid plans.

Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

Learn the flaws behind three negotiation-related myths: win win, the need for trust, and getting to yes vs. starting with no. In this course, adapted from the American Negotiation Institute podcast Negotiate Anything, Kwame Christian discusses these common negotiation myths with Allan Tsang, negotiation coach and consultant at Oblinger and Tsang, and explores how to use the truth to your advantage. They discuss examples that show why the myths don’t work in real life and address concerns you may have about challenging conventional wisdom.

This course was created by the American Negotiation Institute. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.

How can you make learning a core part of the way you work, and how can you share that across your company? This audio-only course shows you how to establish a learning culture at your company. Most skills only stay relevant for five years, so it’s important to keep learning. Explore teacher tactics to keep learning interesting, as well as how to cultivate an agile learning environment that helps you and your team adapt to a changing world. Find out how to generate employee excitement around learning, provide accessible learning, and demonstrate and promote the value of learning. Plus, discover ways to prove the value of development programs and create a DEAL hour.

Note: This audiobook summary was produced by Blinkist. We are pleased to host this content in our library.

In this installment of Adam Shostack’s Threat Modeling series covering the STRIDE threat modeling framework, Adam goes over the D and E parts of the framework: denial of service and elevation of privilege. For both threats, Adam digs deep into two main questions: “What can go wrong?” and “What are we going to do about it?” He details the many targets of denial-of-service attacks like storage, memory, CPU bandwidth, and budget, and how elevation of privilege exists in basically any running code. He then goes over structured methods for ensuring that your systems are resistant to the various types of DoS attacks and elevation-of-privilege attacks. These attacks affect all manner of systems, and having an understanding of how they work and how to combat them are essential parts of a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity.

The best things in life are often the result of difficult conversations. But what happens when the other side isn’t operating in good faith? Find out how to deal with deception and dishonesty in this course, adapted from the American Negotiation Institute podcast Negotiate Anything. Dan Oblinger is a hostage negotiator, consulting negotiator and coach, and cocreator of the #NegotiationTribe. He is also the author of Life or Death Listening: A Hostage Negotiator’s How-to Guide to Mastering the Essential Communication Skill and The 28 Laws of Listening: Best Practices for the Master Listener. In this discussion, Dan teaches three ways to deal with deception in any circumstance. He explains how to come to the negotiation table prepared, how to know when to walk away, how to practice active listening, and how to confront deception. These tips will help you deal with people who try to undermine negotiations with deception.

This course was created by the American Negotiation Institute. We are pleased to offer this training in our library.