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The best commencement speeches are often motivational and thought-provoking, leaving new graduates optimistic as they head into the “real world.”

But for the Class of 2024 at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, new grads walked away with more than just a wealth of knowledge — they left their ceremony with an extra $1,000 in their pockets.

Related: ‘There Is More To Life Than Work’: Bill Gates Delivers Emotional Message To Graduates About Learning To Take A Break

Last week, the founder and CEO of Granite Telecommunications, Robert Hale Jr., spoke to grads at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth about their futures and shared a story about a time when his business suffered a $1 billion loss in just one day to explain the importance of perseverance through failure.

“It’s okay to fail,” Hale told graduates. “Life will give you challenges and if you take those challenges you’ll fail from time to time — don’t worry about it … don’t fear failure, understand that it’s just part of the process, and if you use that fear of failure to motivate yourself, you’ll be better for it.”

Then, as he wrapped up, he shocked the audience by announcing he was giving each graduate graduate $1,000 — but there was a catch.

“These trying times have heightened the need for sharing, caring, and giving,” Hale told students. “Our community needs you and your generosity more than ever.”

The students were given two envelopes with $500 each — one was intended for the students to keep for themselves while the other was for them to give to someone else in need.

Related: Sheryl Sandberg’s Advice to Grads: Banish Self-Doubt, Dream Bigger and Lean In, Always

“As the degree conferral was about to begin, Hale came forward and let the graduates know he had one more bit of advice for them. He told the eager crowd that for him and his wife Karen, ‘the greatest joys we’ve had in our life have been the gift of giving,'” UMass Dartmouth said in a release. “Hale let the Class of 2024 know that the two large duffle bags being brought up on stage by security were packed with envelopes full of cash.”

There were roughly 1,200 students in UMass Dartmouth’s 2024 graduating class.

Hale’s current net worth is an estimated $5.4 billion.

After 20-plus years of enduring increasingly diminished returns as a bottom-shelf member of the media, along with recent “downsizing” at my now-former network, I realized that it was time to stop working for other people and to start working for the man in the mirror.

Successful entrepreneurs always advise “follow your passion.” And so I did. My secret passion? I’ve always wanted to helm historical walking tours.

(Yes, shockingly, I’m also super single.)

I am a mass consumer of walking tours. Over the years, I’ve booked countless pavement-pounding adventures the minute my flight’s wheels arrive on far-away runways. And I consistently marvel at how these knowledgeable hosts hold patrons in the palm of their hands whilst dispensing all manner of amazing info within any city I’m visiting. From morbid Jack the Ripper strolls within London’s White Chapel district to sweaty Art Deco slogs down Miami Beach to a driving Dearly Departed tour (because Los Angelenos ONLY walk on red carpets) that illuminates areas where A-listers OD’ed, I log the good, bad and ugly experiences while thinking about how I might’ve made them better.

So with a mission in my heart and years of research in my head, I just had one big question: how does this industry even work?

The first step

“I think the biggest mistake people make when starting out is thinking that this is easy because it is not,” says Seth Kamil, President and Founder of Big Onion Walking Tours. There are all kinds of incorporation and insurance considerations, but before that, a biggie is defining what’s going to make your tour different.

Seth founded, what remains the gold standard in New York walkabouts, as a graduate student at Columbia University in 1991. His mission statement was two-fold: A) Churn out thought-provoking tours that focus on the history, architecture, local personalities, etc.; and B) Provide real-world experience plus much-needed income to other graduate students or recent, underfunded PhD’s which, to date, are the only types of employees he hires.

“All our guides have education backgrounds and are historians who lead tours,” adds Kamil, “not tour guides who dabble in history.”

[Note to self: Google “black-market PhD degrees”.]

“Podcasting can be a solitary business,” says Tom Meyers who, for fifteen years alongside Greg Young, has hosted the ridiculously popular, NYC-history-based-behemoth that is The Bowery Boys. “But when we’re on one of our walking tours, [an offshoot of their enterprise that began in 2018] we get to hang out with fans and sometimes get ideas from them for upcoming shows!”

“We have slightly nerdier tours, like the ‘Jane Jacobs versus Robert Moses’ walk, which I’m especially proud of because I think it taps into the DNA of our podcast,” says Meyers. “I had dreamed of that tour for years, but it wasn’t until we finally got the perfect guide, Aaron Shielke, to research and write it, that the reality happened. Today it’s one of our most popular walks and Aaron now even gives tours to city planners!”

(To know me is to know that I just had a full-on dorkgasm regarding the description of that walk.)

“This can be a dream job if you do it right,” says Randy Walker, a New Orleans-based writer who has hosted French Quarter ghost adventures, primarily through Haunted History Tours, for over a decade. “Whether the night is awful, exciting, or both, it is never boring.”

It also goes without saying that if you’re looking to entertain visitors underneath the umbrella of an established company? Make sure you know a bit about the damn company.

“Our prospective guides have to be good storytellers, obsessed with New York history, and have a sense of humor,” advises Meyers. “They also have to know the show — we don’t test them, but they do get bonus points if they point out things we said in any of our past 430 episodes!”

Related: Can a Great Bloody Mary Cure a Bar’s Financial Hangover?

Getting the word out on the street

“We were word-of-mouth, listings in print media and ‘pagers plus payphones,'” remembers Kamil. “I approached Big Onion like a business, leading tours and presenting a full walk even if only one person showed up — it cannot be all about making money in the short-term because building a dedicated client base is more important.”

The word-of-mouth thing works for me, but further afield necessities, like securing a website and dealing with eventual online anger, were worrisome.

“Those things are horrible because you have no power and one insult negates hundreds of compliments,” laments Walker of online-reprobates-masquerading-as-objective-reviewers. “I equate it to that Adam-Sandler-running-a-resort sketch when he was hosting Saturday Night Live: ‘If you’re sad now, you’ll probably feel sad there.’ Basically, Yelp was invented by angry white people.”

Adds Tom of live hecklers: “It’s quite common for passing pedestrians to add their own commentary. Greg and I were once filming something in Seward Park when a woman in her 80s interrupted the shoot yelling, ‘What do THEY know, why don’t you ask ME?!’ Of course, she was probably right.”

The name game

Regarding my business’s moniker, my long-time Compound Media graphic artist/genius, Matt Smith, kindly provided me with the below image and preliminary title, but as for a permanent name? I’m not married to Thirsty History Tours, Liver Let Die Historical Bar Crawls, Bar Apple Walking Tours, Old Brew York Tours, Pisstorical Bar Crawls or — even though blunt is usually best — Historic Big Apple Bar Crawls.

Credit: Matt Smith

None of my options moved me unless, you know, a site containing any of those words is still available. As anyone who has ever tried to name something knows, anything you really like is already taken. “We grabbed our domain name in the 1990s, so it wasn’t hard back then,” notes Kamil.

Come to think of it? I probably should’ve kept, even the crappiest of these nominees, to myself.

Making it legal (and funded)

Then there’s the getting legit bit: New York has always found new ways to fun-police any small business and my category is no different. Sightseeing guides, in all shapes or forms, must be licensed. So the most daunting requirement for this former C-student was taking the local history exam. This quiz consists of 150 questions, requiring a minimum of 97 correct answers, plus a nonrefundable $50 exam fee. (Yikes.)

“We are big advocates of the Guides Association and we only hire those who have passed the official exam,” explains Meyers. “But our guides love that test because taking it is like a night out for bar trivia!”

(Thanks for that, Tom. Doesn’t make feel even remotely more confident about this test.)

In happier paperwork news, the Alliance for Downtown New York’s Walking Tour Incubator Grant Program gives money to entrepreneurs starting walking tours in lower Manhattan. [Note: If me writing about starting a walking tour in lower Manhattan for Entrepreneur doesn’t get me a grant based on entrepreneurs starting walking tours in lower Manhattan? Well, it’s time to look into the lucrative work that is ditch digging.]

Expect the (alcohol-infused) unexpected

“I was hosting one tour on The Bowery and a man walked out of a flophouse, approached our group, dropped his pants and said to a client, ‘Will you be the mother of my children?'” recalls Kamil of a 1994 gig. “We quickly walked away with the woman being shocked, her date angry and me telling them I should charge extra as they will tell this story forever.”

While 24/7 intoxicated interlopers are an expected Manhattan job hazard, The Big Apple’s got nothing on The Big Easy.

“My very first night, I’m nervously trying to hit every word correctly in front of a bachelorette party and, as I am doing this, a rubbery thing hits me on the cheek,” winces Walker. “Well, they had an inflatable sex doll and decided to rub its dick into my face.”

Tenured tour guides also excel at picking out the free-loaders.

“It’s common to have people try to join the group, thinking they’re being sly,” laughs Meyers. “We see you!”

Related: At the Comedy Cellar, the Customer Is Always Right – Entrepreneur

On-the-asphalt experience

I’ve inadvertently been training for this labor of love per previous pieces on The Ear Inn (via both New York magazine plus a video package for Maxim), Neir’s (Entrepreneur) and The Heidelberg (The New York Times) for my entire adult life.

Yael Bar-tur, social media consultant and co-host of the awesome Ask A Jew podcast, recently let me premiere my business for her 40^th birthday which included…*gulp*…30 of her closest pals.

Yael’s feedback was encouraging, yet vaguely insulting: “You were so thorough and meticulous in your preparation that it reminded me of those homeless people who walk around with a stack full of notes while mumbling to themselves.” But it went well enough that I heard from some friends of her friends wondering if I could helm a follow-up walk for the much easier group of four. Answer? Yes!

Robin and Nick Meahn, of the latter party, emailed a much kinder review: “You’re a riot! Great bars, comfortable pace, crazy history — definitely a fun way to spend an afternoon in the city!”

My most recent effort centered around another birthday via Emmy-award-winning reporter and two-time Drunk History vet Lauren Sivan. This little-sister-I-never-wanted was game to the point of dressing up as “Sexy Alexander Hamilton” during the proceedings. Not to be outdone and to paraphrase an old adage: Dress for the job you want, not the job you…uh…currently don’t have, I wore a movie-accurate homage to Daniel Day Lewis’s “Bill The Butcher” character in 2002’s Gangs Of New York. Annoyingly, Sivan assumed I was going as Willy Wonka.

Credit: Matt Smith/@FiveFanPS

On these three initial tours, we hit Paris Café (1873), The Dead Rabbit, (2013, but the edifice was built in 1828), Fraunces Tavern (a debatable 1762), Old Town Bar (1892), Pete’s Tavern (1864), and an indefensible Joey Roses (2022, mostly because comedian, Joe DeRosa, was on Sivan’s tour and owns the joint).

The stops went great, I studied up on all of the locales, but boy was I nervous about getting stumped by super inquisitive patrons. This, it turns out, is not a fear unique to me. “Every new guide fears answering a question with the response: ‘I don’t know'”, advises Walker. “The reality is there’s so much history, nobody knows it all and most tourists are there to have a good time while rooting for you.”

There are no small tours, only small tips

A reporter once asked Yankee great, Joe DiMaggio, why he played so hard during meaningless games. The Hall of Famer’s response: “There might have been somebody in the stands today who’d never seen me play before and might never see me again.”

Seth discovered the simple truth firsthand of why you need to go big every single outing during an early Big Onion gig. “We learned this on a rainy day in 1992 when one person showed up and I did the full walk for all of $10,” recalls Kamil. His decision not to cancel or give it less than his all became his first big break. “The person on the tour ended up being an editor for The Washington Post and we were subsequently featured on the front page of their Sunday travel section.”

Positive press is the kind of payment money can’t buy, but actual gratuities are the gain when it comes to this game and my guy in NOLA learned this lesson when it came to being cute while requesting a little something for the effort.

“We try different things and the dumbest one I ever did was saying ‘tips OR hugs are welcome'”, laughs Walker. “Sure enough, 30 pairs of eyes lit up, drunkenly embraced me, but did NOT fill my wallet.”

Adds Randy: “If I don’t make $80 to $100 per tour, I’m not happy. There’s no science to it, you can’t tell who’s going to be a good or bad tipper.”

To quote the aforementioned Bill The Butcher: “Don’t you NEVER come in here empty-handed again, you gotta PAY for the pleasure of MY company!”

My three downtown events garnered a little over two grand and I don’t pretend that this will be the average take as things progress. Yet with more movable feasts on the ole calendar, it has occurred to me that this might be the one freelance gig that AI can’t take. Yet.

Related: 7 Ways to Snag Tourist Dollars and Keep Locals Happy at the Same Time

In a world where success stories often seem like overnight sensations, it’s refreshing to hear the journey of someone who has truly embraced perseverance and resilience. From a blue-collar background to founding a social media platform and later a B2B software company, Scott Kaplan‘s experiences offer valuable insights into personal development, entrepreneurship, and the transformative power of sports. Perseverance and finding joy in one’s work emerge as recurring themes throughout Kaplan’s discussions.

Related: Try This Breathwork Technique to Unlock New Ways of Problem-Solving

He emphasizes the importance of pushing through challenges and setbacks, never losing sight of the ultimate goal. Kaplan’s journey serves as a reminder that success rarely comes without hard work and dedication. By embracing perseverance, individuals can overcome obstacles and achieve their dreams. Time management, self-reflection, and aligning actions with personal values are also key factors in Kaplan’s path to success. He stresses the significance of managing time effectively, prioritizing tasks, and staying focused on the bigger picture.

“I don’t know what a snooze button is,” Kaplan told Jeff on this episode. “Once my brain starts getting going in the morning, it’s like, ‘Let’s go!'”

Kaplan encourages listeners to engage in regular self-reflection, allowing them to assess their progress, identify areas for improvement, and make necessary adjustments. By aligning actions with personal values, individuals can ensure that their work is fulfilling and meaningful. Adaptability and innovation are crucial in the ever-evolving world of business, as Kaplan’s journey exemplifies. From transitioning from radio to founding a social media platform and later a B2B software company, Kaplan demonstrates the importance of embracing change and staying ahead of the curve. By being open to new ideas, technologies, and market trends, entrepreneurs can seize opportunities and drive business growth.

About The Jeff Fenster Show

Serial entrepreneur Jeff Fenster embarks on an extraordinary journey every week, delving into the stories of exceptional individuals who have defied the norms and blazed their own trails to achieve extraordinary success.

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Related: Use This Simple Strategy to Push Through Limitations in Your Life

Hemingway famously wrote that the best way to determine if someone is trustworthy is simply to trust them. In most businesses, particularly in tech, trust has historically been hedged on two main factors: security and compliance. I believe this approach (much like Hemingway’s advice) is not only outdated but also costs companies millions every year.

As a chief trust officer, I’ve worked with dozens of companies in retail, software and even biotech, helping to turn their trustworthiness into a product they can take to market. This approach has led to faster sales and higher customer satisfaction, but it requires an entirely new way of thinking — and operating. And the reality is that most businesses are thinking about trust in the wrong way: It’s not about accumulating checkmarks on an IT or compliance list — it’s about enabling, defending and creating real business value.

At a time when technological, sociological and even geopolitical forces are pushing us to reevaluate authenticity and how to foster trust in a world full of misinformation and deep fakes – I’ve been thinking about this challenge a lot.

Simply put, if trust in your company or product is required to make a sale, you can and must turn it into an intentional product based on evidence of how you run your business. Here’s how to transform trust into a go-to-market product with significant ROI (and why it has never been more important):

Trust is taking a beating

Cyber attacks, data breaches and online fraud have exponentially increased in recent years, but it’s not just cybersecurity that’s causing trust issues. Edelman’s 2024 trust barometer revealed more than two-thirds of respondents believe business leaders are purposely trying to mislead people.

Companies like Meta and Boeing have famously made headlines for devastating customer trust issues in recent years. In the software sector, I’ve seen firsthand how the downstream effects of declining trust can negatively impact companies, whether through costly audits and compliance checks or by chipping away at their long-term valuation.

Whatever your business, thinking about trust as a product can be an invaluable way to streamline sales, boost revenue and support core business metrics. And trust really does matter in the grand scheme of your company’s success: trusted companies have been shown to outperform their peers by 400%.

Building a new trust framework

For most companies, trustworthiness will be scrutinized most during the sales process. But I believe businesses need to start thinking and talking about trust well before they get to this stage. The reality is, that trust has to be a core part of how you run your business, and customers care about that more than you think.

The best place to start is by understanding exactly what your customer needs — and then finding ways to ensure those needs are being served by your organizational practices and operations. Here’s the trust framework I use:

1. Productize your process

Customers care about how your product is made – and they want to hear about how you deal with problems just as much as how you’ll help them succeed (this is especially true in software, where prospective buyers require evidence of safe processes and trustworthy, predictable behavior to give the green light on a purchase).

So how do you do this? Compile evidence of your trustworthiness into relevant trust stories that demonstrate to your customers why they can and should trust how you do what you do — whether it’s a view into your data storage practices, supply chain, or your approach to company governance. By getting ahead of the curve and proactively removing the possibility of trust friction, you can accelerate sales and value generation.

2. Set up a trust shop

While security and compliance traditionally belong to IT, a trust practice must be much more holistic — not to mention championed and adopted by a broad cross-section of company leaders. Every segment of your business — from operations to marketers to the C-suite – should be talking about your trust practices and telling your trust stories.

And, of course, adding a chief trust officer to your team will inevitably accelerate the investment in trust as a core value driver (not to mention demonstrate to others the importance you place on trust as an organization as a whole).

3. Map to C-suite metrics

As with any practice, you need to know whether your trust practice is working. So how do you measure it? Use the same metrics your CFO does, such as impact or influence on customer acquisition costs, churn and sales.

Be sure to align your trust practice to business value metrics that will get management buy-in. I’ve personally seen results that speak directly to executives, such as decreases in time to close deals, increased revenue, and fewer (if any) disruptive audits.

The bottom line: trustworthy companies and products command a premium in the market.

If trust plays a critical role in your business outcomes, then changing the way you think about it — and treating it as a product — can ultimately add tremendous value. But the best measure of success? For most businesses, it’s knowing that, at the end of the day, your customers want to work with you because your company is genuinely trustworthy. And that proof is in your trust product.

If you struggle with confidence and self-esteem, you’re not alone. Over the years, studies have shown that a majority of people — about 85 percent — struggle with self-confidence. Improving self-esteem can have significant long-term benefits. Gaining confidence is a difficult process, but you can seek help from experts or people with valuable life experiences to share. Self-help books have exploded in popularity over the past decade, many of which have the explicit goal of helping readers improve their self-esteem.

These 10 best-selling self-improvement books, spanning three decades, have helped readers take important strides and improve their well-being. Check them out — they might help you, too.

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field – Nathaniel Branden (1994)

Image credit: Bantam | Entrepreneur

What We Love: This book about confidence is an oldie but goodie. In it, Nathaniel Branden — a pioneer in the self-esteem movement (and former romantic partner of Ayn Rand) — answers four questions: What is self-esteem? Why is it important? What can we do to raise our levels? And what role do others play in influencing our self-esteem? He also addresses six self-esteem cornerstones: the practices of living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, purposefulness and integrity. Branden outlines steps for success in each of these areas, and he cautions that the task of sustaining them falls on each individual.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “As someone who is pretty self-aware but only just now dabbling into my deeper issues (self-esteem being my core struggle), I found this book to be supremely helpful. It offered me a ton of ‘Aha!’ moments on how I relate to myself and others. It puts into perspective that self-esteem isn’t the prize at the end of treatment or work — it’s the actual work you do.” Another says: “I’m a psychotherapist, and I have gotten a lot out of this book personally and have recommended it to a lot of my clients.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $13.95 on Amazon

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brené Brown (2010)

Image credit: Hazelden Publishing | Entrepreneur

What We Love: There’s a reason why one of Brené Brown’s speeches ranks among the most popular TED Talks of all time. She’s a research professor and bestselling author, and this book offers guidance on living wholeheartedly, something Brown equates to living your life from a place of worthiness. Through the book’s 10 guideposts — with titles like “Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think” and “Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison” — Brown teaches readers to view themselves as “enough,” let go of productivity as self-worth and move away from self-doubt and the need to feel constantly in control.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “I initially avoided this book out of concern that it was one of many under-evidenced self-help titles. Changing my mind on reading this was undoubtedly one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I am a much better person for it … I think I can guarantee that something in this book will profoundly change you.” Another says: “The author talks a lot about how making a major change in your life isn’t something you wake up and do one day, it’s something you practice every single day. And most will struggle with it, but without the struggle, we lose out on so much. I will have far fewer regrets on my deathbed having read this book.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $5.49 on Amazon

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun – Gretchen Rubin (2011)

Image credit: Harper Paperbacks | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Gretchen Rubin’s writing and analysis put her at the forefront of research on habits, human nature and happiness, and her works have been translated into more than 30 languages. This book, which topped the New York Times bestseller list, was sparked by a simple question she asked herself on a rainy afternoon on a city bus: What do I want from life, anyway? In this book, Rubin outlines her own resolutions for the year she spent working on her own “happiness project.” She focused on a different area each month, like vitality and boosting energy for January, which meant having goals like an earlier bedtime, better exercise and simply acting more energetically. Rubin’s angle here isn’t telling readers to do something — rather, it’s to share her own experience in hopes of inspiring readers to think differently about their own happiness.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “The quirkiness of this 12-month plan for a focus on happiness distinguishes it from other self-help books. It allows for a plan that can be modified to fit any individual.” Another says: “A realistic, genuinely practical (but not easy), lifelong approach to making the constant adjustments we know we need to be our best selves.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $5.98 on Amazon

You Are a Badass – Jen Sincero (2013)

Image credit: Running Press Adult | Entrepreneur

What We Love: In the first paragraph of her book, Sincero writes, “What little I knew about the self-help/spiritual world I found to be unforgivably cheesy … At the same time, there was all this stuff about my life that I desperately wanted to change and, had I been able to bulldoze through my holier-than-thouism, I could have really used some help around here.” If this hits home, give You Are a Badass — written by a New York Times bestselling author and success coach — a try. In chapters with titles like “Love The One You Is” and “Your Brain Is Your Bitch,” Sincero dives into concepts like self-perception, spirituality, healthy views about money, meditation and purpose, all via accessible language and actionable how-tos.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “Stop what you are doing and get this book … This was the last book I read in 2017. The timing of it was perfect, because it helped me to formulate my goals and resolutions for 2018. This book helped me come up with my theme for the year: ‘Love yourself.'” Another says: “Her writing style does not feel like a self-help book at all. It’s like having real-talk with a self-loving, educated girlfriend.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $8.89 on Amazon

The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance — What Women Should Know – Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (2014)

Image credit: HarperBusiness | Entrepreneur

What We Love: In this book, broadcast journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman draw practical advice from their own life experiences, as well as those of other prominent women in media, business and politics. They combine these ideas with research in genetics, behavior, cognition and gender to arrive at self-esteem advice for women of all ages. “The newest research shows that we can literally change our brains in ways that affect our thoughts and behavior at any age,” the authors write. “A substantial part of the confidence code is … our choice. With diligent effort, we can all choose to expand our confidence. But we will get there only if we stop trying to be perfect and start being prepared to fail.”

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “I was expecting a touchy-feely book about how girls should have more confidence and drop everything to pursue their dreams, but I was incredibly pleasantly surprised at how scientific this book is.” Another says: “This book mentioned so many things that I used to do myself … I could see how I’m stacking the deck against myself without even knowing it. I read it before a salary negotiation, and as a result, I upped my initial asking number (and they gave it to me)!”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $10.99 on Amazon

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person – Shonda Rhimes (2015)

Image credit: Simon & Schuster | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Shonda Rhimes might have had three shows on television, but she didn’t have it all — especially when it came to confidence. Six words her sister said at a 2013 Thanksgiving dinner changed her life: “You never say yes to anything.” Rhimes realized she consistently said no to public appearances, interviews and events for one simple reason: fear. Self-esteem, unhappiness with weight and social anxiety all prompted her to decline invitations. And although it terrified her, she decided to change that in the hope that embracing new things would lead her closer to happiness. In this book, she chronicles the year she spent saying yes to every single thing that scared her — and inspires readers to do the same.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes, “She’s funny. Like laughing-out-loud-in-public funny. Like people changing seats on the bus because you’re smiling and snickering to yourself funny. Like spitting up coffee and pastry on the Kindle screen funny … In addition to being funny, she’s pitch-perfect in her capacity to convey authenticity, vulnerability and confidence all within the same paragraph.” Another says: “I felt overwhelmed by my responsibilities: work, school, mom, wife, trying to be everything to everyone … By the end of the first chapter, I was ready to start saying yes to more things in life.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $10.42 on Amazon

Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life – Gary John Bishop (2016)

Image credit: HarperOne | Entrepreneur

What We Love: If you’re stuck in your head when it comes to self-confidence — and you respond well to tough love — look no further than Gary John Bishop’s book. “Here’s what you’ve forgotten: You’re a fu*king miracle of a being,” he writes. The author also serves up a fresh wake-up call for those who believe they’re not in control of all aspects of their life, transparently reminding readers that other people and circumstances aren’t what’s standing in their way — it’s their own negative self-talk. In that vein, Bishop also provides strategies to boost self-esteem, as well as “assertions” for readers to repeat until they believe. For example, “I am not my thoughts; I am what I do.”

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes, “With the help of Gary’s words, I realize that I am my hero and, ultimately, this is really good news for me. I was so busy waiting for things to get better that I wasn’t in action about living a happy life … I feel like I am finally awake after an extended nap.” Another says: “One of the best books I’ve read. He doesn’t just talk about changing your life but he lays out clear steps to make it happen. Must read!”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $14.99 on Amazon

The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery – Brianna Wiest (2020)

What We Love: Brianna Wiest, the bestselling author and columnist, does not hold back. In The Mountain Is You, she makes it clear that becoming the best version of yourself requires sacrifice, including jettisoning the things that are holding you back. “Your new life is going to cost you your old one,” she writes. “It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It’s going to cost relationships and friends … The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side.” She dives into the complexity of self-sabotage, why people do it and how hard it is to break out of one’s comfort zone. In doing so, she makes a compelling argument that people’s biggest obstacle is often themselves.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “This book is a treasure trove of wisdom, offering profound insights and practical guidance to overcome self-destructive patterns and embrace personal development and growth.” Another says: “I read this book while I was in my first six months of a 12-step addiction program, getting out of a toxic relationship, changing jobs, coming to terms with my poor choices over 20 years. Now, I look back a year later and wonder how I ever survived. Briana’s writing is so beautiful. I tell my friends, ‘She gently gives you the hard truth,’ and that is what I needed.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $17.99 on Amazon

Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness – Steve Magness (2022)

What We Love: With a background as an elite running coach and exercise scientist, Steve Magness has studied human performance — and the things that hold us back — for decades. While many of the lessons are derived from athletics, Magness offers guidance that can help anyone struggling with life’s obstacles, whether those emerge in a relationship, job, the battlefield or elsewhere. Magness offers four core pillars to resilience: “Ditch the Facade and Embrace Reality,” “Listen to Your Body,” “Respond Instead of React” and “Transcend Discomfort.” Readers will build confidence and learn to embrace resiliency by following those pillars.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “I have read a lot of powerful books about mental toughness, and this was by far the best one I’ve read. His approach to mental toughness is different than most, yet it is logical and really makes sense. I liked the exercises given to help develop the mental skills described. Not only do the lessons apply to sports, but also to business and real life.” Another says: “It offers perspectives that can help coaches, parents, athletes, creatives or really anyone who strives. What I love most about it is that it reminds you of how much you actually love doing hard things … Magness doesn’t tell us why, but rather, he helps us understand why the process of doing hard things is more rewarding than having done them.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $15.99 on Amazon

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, 30th Anniversary Edition – Jon Kabat-Zinn (2023)

What We Love: When it was originally published in 1994, Wherever You Go, There You Are served as a groundbreaking text for those interested in mindfulness. Author Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts, offers a scientific understanding of how meditation can help people overcome stress and ultimately improve their awareness skills. “Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness,” Kabat-Zinn writes. The new edition contains not only a new introduction but also updated research that Kabat-Zinn has collected over the past three decades.

What Readers Say: One reviewer writes: “I read this book back in the 1990s and just re-read it as my interest in learning about and practicing mindfulness has been high recently … It’s written from a mostly secular/scientific point of view, though Kabat-Zinn does reference the Buddhist roots of mindfulness.” Another says: “Kabat-Zinn speaks in a no-nonsense tone about mindfulness. In this book, he guides us to gain direct experience — taking baby steps at first, larger steps later — to gain a personal understanding of mindfulness.”

Best Place to Buy: Currently listed at $10.98 on Amazon.

Business travel is inherently risky because driving poses certain innate hazards. If you’re a business leader sending yourself, team members, or employees out on the road, the least you can do is equip them with the tools they need to operate as safely as possible and get out of a jam if they happen to run into one.

A great tool that’s designed to help fix flat tires, this HOTO Air Pump Pro Portable Air Compressor and Tire Inflator, is on sale for just $79.99 (reg. $119). Promised to be 85% faster than competitors, this four-preset air pump is made to be able to fill a tire in at most five minutes.

Running on a 12V pump motor, this fast-working pump features a powerful battery life that can charge as many as 15 under-inflated tires within a single charge. When you’re filling up, the pump also prevents you from overdoing things with its worry-free automatic stop that ceases operations when the proper inflation is met.

This fantastic tire pump can serve as a great safety tool for business travelers. It can also promote exercise and recreation when used to pump up sports balls and bike tires.

The versatility and quality of this small, compact device have added up to make it a hit amongst users and critics alike. It’s even earned a coveted nomination from MoMa Design.

Don’t forget that for a limited time only, this HOTO Air Pump Pro Portable Air Compressor and Tire Inflator is on sale for just $79.99 (reg. $119).

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Many entrepreneurs value being able to choose where and when they work. However, you must maintain maximum connectivity to optimize your remote workflow, and the 8-in-1 Tablet Docking Stand was designed to do exactly that. It’s on sale for just $54.99, which is lower than Amazon pricing.

This docking stand is compatible with laptops and tablets and has all the ports you need. With 5Gbps data transfer speeds, working remotely won’t slow you down. Plus, high-powered devices up to 100W can be fast-charged with a Power Delivery port. A regular SD and microSD slot also make storing and accessing your media on memory cards easy.

The stand has three USB 3.0 ports, so you can connect a variety of peripherals, including a mouse, keyboard, external hard drives, and more. You’ll also be able to expand your visuals by connecting to the stand’s HDMI port. There’s even a 3.5mm audio jack, so you can listen to your favorite music, podcasts, and audiobooks with wired speakers or headphones.

This docking stand also makes working with tablets and extra monitors much more comfortable. Its height can be adjusted to help you maintain a healthy posture, up to 70°. The tablet holder is also adjustable and can be tilted up to 180°. This can all benefit your daily ergonomics, which can help you be more productive (according to Forbes).

The docking station easily folds up for packing or storage. It has a tiny footprint and weighs less than a pound, yet its aluminum alloy construction is sturdy and durable. There are non-slip silicone strips on the bottom of the stand to hold it steady and keep it from sliding around.

Get the 8-in-1 Tablet Docking Stand today while it’s available at a price lower than you’ll find on Amazon, just $54.99 (reg. $69).

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Sometimes entrepreneurs need to supplement their income with some side work to keep the dream alive. Other times, you flat out just need to find a job to pay the bills. Regardless of your inspiration, you don’t have to fall victim to the overly tedious, repetitive requirements of today’s job-seeking market.

To help automate and streamline your outreach, you can get a Canyon Pro Plan lifetime subscription on sale for only $89.99 (reg. $684).

This AI resume builder allows users to build optimal CVs that help them find their dream jobs. Within the platform, you can use the platform’s AI to manage, write, and edit your resumes, and you can customize them by doing those things yourself. You can always enhance a resume with AI and use it to improve your resume score.

Among Canyon Pro’s many attractive features, its autofill feature makes the repetitive and often frustrating task of filling out the same questionnaires over and over again while looking for a job a thing of the past. Using it is as simple as installing a free Chrome extension into your internet browser.

Some of Canyon Pro’s other helpful features include its unlimited AI mock interview practices and the ability to save and track job applications, making monitoring your progress easy. Canyon Pro is also designed to build ATS-friendly resumes so you can break through the noise.

Don’t forget that for a limited time only, you can get a Canyon Pro Plan lifetime subscription while it’s on sale for only $89.99 (reg. $684).

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The life of an entrepreneur is often a scattered and busy one. For those times when you can take in some entertainment or education in the form of a podcast, you don’t want to be fumbling around looking for which page on which app has the episode you’re looking for.

For business leaders who take their time seriously, organizational tools help maximize every minute, and this is a tool designed to do just that with your audio content. This lifetime membership to the Player FM Podcast Player Premium Plan is on sale for just $39.99 (reg. $120) for a limited time only.

You can use this top independent podcast player to listen to over 50 million podcast episodes from different platforms and devices. You can search, discover, save, and listen to these podcasts with your iPhone, Android, online, and even with Apple CarPlay.

In addition to these base-level perks of organizing your audio content with Player FM, this Premium Plan membership comes with a ton more. With it, you can listen to content offline that you download beforehand, create playlists and set bookmarks, create personalized searches, and sync your favorite podcasts with your cloud accounts and other devices.

Player FM is a hit among users and critics alike. It’s been raved about on Tested, GigaOM, and LifeHacker, which explained that “The app guides you to smart, interesting podcasts based on category, channel, or even specific topics.

Don’t forget that you can get this lifetime membership to the Player FM Podcast Player Premium Plan on sale for just $39.99 (reg. $120) for a limited time only.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Sometimes, the office gets a little quiet. We know there are more than a few examples of teams out there that work a little bit better and happier when they have some occasional tunes to groove to. And if your office lacks a proper delivery system for said tunes, then we have just the deal for you.

To help wake everybody up, you can get a TREBLAB HD-360 Portable Bluetooth Speaker on sale for just $99.99 (reg. $159) for a limited time only.

You can count on reaching for this thing whenever you need it because the powerful battery can deliver a full 20 hours of playtime (from fully charged) before needing to be plugged back in. The powerful speaker has a peak power of 90W and offers a full 360-degree surround sound despite its singular, portable design.

Its Bluetooth 5.0 technology makes connecting to your favorite devices easy. There’s nothing worse than getting everyone excited for a happy hour or dance party only to have them wait while you try and pair your phone with the speaker. That shouldn’t happen with this TREBLAB.

For teams that enjoy the occasional outing, the speaker comes with an IPX4 waterproof design, so it should be able to withstand the elements. It also has a built-in mic, which lets you take calls on it, turning your TREBLAB into its own independent conference call service.

Don’t miss your chance to get a TREBLAB HD-360 Portable Bluetooth Speaker while it’s on sale for just $99.99 (reg. $159) for a limited time only.

StackSocial prices subject to change.