How do you take a vast body of knowledge and experience and turn it into something that readers can actually remember and apply when they're in the thick of a difficult situation?

That's the challenge Caroline Webb set herself with her latest book, Leadership Intelligence. Drawing on more than 25 years of leadership coaching and the latest behavioural science, she created a practical playbook organized around three distinctively human strengths: wisdom, inspiration and resilience.

In this conversation we explore the extraordinary amount of work involved in making complex ideas simple without oversimplifying them. Caroline shares how she developed that structure (hello, Post-its!), and wove into it the memorable models and real-life stories that make a book both usable and memorable.

We also talk about the role of business books in an age of AI age and her power move - combining a print book with an evolving digital companion.

It's a masterclass in writing with the reader in mind.

Dr Claire Handby is a business leader, executive coach and author who's driven by the impulse to 'make the invisible visible'. Her first book, Uptick, draws on her own experience of career reinvention; her forthcoming book, Zip It, deals with the under-explored experience of professional silencing and how to find your voice again after a difficult career transition.

In this conversation we explore how books can transform lived experience into something that helps others make sense of their own lives, and how writing itself helps us process those experiences and find a way forward. We also talk about finding your voice, literally as well as metaphorically - it's a rare joy to hear a Northern woman narrate her own business book.

Claire also shares how she deliberately turned her unhelpful doomscrolling habit into a writing practice: simply noticing things, capturing thoughts, and gradually building up the body of work that would become her books.

It's a reminder, if you needed one, that writing a book starts with simply noticing that you have something to say.

It's a question that everyone who writes, publishes or sells nonfiction books has to face up to in 2026. The decline of reading and the threat posed by AI are unarguable, yet there are also signs of resilience and reasons for hope, alongside some useful lessons for anyone writing or publishing business or self-development books.

Practical Inspiration's fabulous sales and marketing assistant Lauren Moseley became a roving reporter between meetings at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, capturing five perspectives from across the industry.

Hear from:

• NielsenIQ Book Data's Belle Edelman on nonfiction trends, how readers discover books, and the value of writers' work in an AI world

• Durnell Marketing's Siobhan Humphries and Paula Moreno on how authors can support book sales, and why credibility and human connection matter

• Rights experts Clare Hodder and Kris Kliemann on international opportunities, shorter books, and offering something readers can't get from an AI query

• Liverpool University Press's Anna Champion on streamlining publishing work while preserving the relationships at its heart

• The Independent Publishers Guild's Tom Holman on copyright challenges, opportunities for smaller publishers, and taking a thoughtful approach to AI adoption.

If you couldn't make it to Frankfurt, here's a taste of the conversations shaping the future of books - and what they might mean for yours.

If you're seeking success as a speaker, what does that mean to you? Perfectly polished delivery, Big, flashy stages? 

Alex Merry sees his job as helping founders unlock the true potential of their ideas, and as part of that he brings speakers at all stages of the journey into community in MicDrop. He has a more intentional, strategic approach to defining success as a speaker. In fact, turns out some of the most commercially powerful speaking opportunities happen in very ordinary rooms, with a relatively small number of exactly the right people.

We talk about the beautiful overlap between books and speaking, why the two work together so synergistically, and how being in community with the right people can supercharge success in both. We also talk about the importance of doing all of this in public, testing your ideas, learning to communicate the same message in a million different ways.

A practical and energising conversation about speaking, writing, business development, community, and why success might be different to - and so much achievable than - your assumptions.

Michelle Gielan is a positive psychology researcher married to a happiness researcher - wouldn't you love to be at that dinner table?

In her latest book Resilient Optimism: The science of sustaining a positive mindset in tough times, she explores why optimism that lasts when reality hits is not based on an emotion, but on behaviour, and more particularly on the belief that our behaviour matters.

She also discovered that your behaviour matters way beyond your own mood and your own outcomes. Becoming a 'positive deviant' - actively expressing optimism, celebrating progress, spreading 'positive gossip' - can transform the outcomes of everyone around you. 

We also talk about writing as sense-making, experimenting with 'power leads', and how to think of a book as a collection of beautifully connected two-minute stories.

A hopeful, practical conversation about agency, courage, writing, and resilience.

Book awards are great for visibility and credibility. But there's another side to them too.

Entering for an award means putting the product of months or years of private work into the public gaze to be judged. And however highly evolved you are, there's a good chance that fear, hope, self-doubt, and even a sulk can all be part of the process that follows.

In this episode, authors representing every dimension of the experience reflect honestly and helpfully on their experience and what they've learned. 

Hear from:

• Sarah Robb on the difference between the award and the real reward
• Tom Pullen on awards as a way through the 'post-publication valley of death'
• Helen Beedham on the surprising questions that success raised about her identity as an author
• Susan Ni Chriodain on why there's nothing wrong with wanting something enough to be disappointed
• Martin Farrell on what awards revealed about his own need for recognition
• Virginia Cinquemani on managing expectations and breathing through the nerves
• Angela Rixon on the very real value of shortlisting 
• Ian Pettigrew on the need to take care around the meaning we attach to an outcome
• Alice Sheldon on treating an award result as data rather than a verdict
• Trevor Merriden on why awards judges understand more than authors might realise about what's at stake.

You know Nir Eyal. He's an authority on behaviour change and human potential, a respected academic and the bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable. His latest book is called Beyond Belief: The science-backed way to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results.

But did you know that he's not writing for you, dear reader - he's writing for himself, to satisfy his curiosity about a topic that's caught his attention? Or that when he sits down to write, it immediately triggers an anxiety response: 'Why is this so difficult? It's boring. What if nobody likes my book? What if I don't make my deadline? What am I even doing?'

In this fascinating conversation, we explore what beliefs mean for life and work and, most relevantly for this podcast, writing. You'll discover how he replaced those anxious questions with a more liberating belief, which I guarantee will work for you too (I know because it worked for me). 

And - of course - we talk about AI: where it's helpful for writing and where it becomes a dirty thief if you let it.

There's a lot of talk about high performance in leadership literature. But perhaps a more realistic goal, and the one with the potential to transform an organization root to branch, is effectiveness, argues Melissa Swift. 

Her new book Effective: How to do great work in a fast-changing world, explores what it really means to be effective at work - not crushing it, not hustling, just consistently doing the right work well in a world where nobody is ever really 'done'.

In this conversation, she talks about why we need to become our own personal organizational consultants: stepping back from the inundation of work to understand what our job actually is, where the friction points are, and what boundaries we need to keep doing good work sustainably.

She also talks about the craft of writing business books, including what business book writers can learn from journalists and how to get the balance right between informing and entertaining.

A thoughtful, practical conversation about work, writing, resources and realistic goals.

It's episode 500 of The Extraordinary Business Book Club. I KNOW!!!

To mark the milestone, I handed the mic over to YOU, the listeners, to reflect on what the show has meant to you over the years.

There are reflections on discovering what to read next, finding community among people with big ideas, and hearing authors speak honestly about the intractably hard work of writing. (Public service announcement: writing a book is difficult not because you're doing it wrong, but because turning an idea into something useful takes real work.)

And in the age of AI, we explore what remains distinctively human about books, and why they matter more than ever.

A celebratory landmark episode about writing, reading, thinking together — and the extraordinary alchemy of books.

Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur, three-times bestselling author, keynote speaker and founder of Youpreneur, where he helps entrepreneurs and industry leaders and experts launch and market their books and grow their authority and their businesses.

In other words, the perfect Extraordinary Business Book Club guest. 

And he's here to tell you that too many business book authors treat publication day as the end of the project: box ticked, job done. When actually that's the moment the next phase of work begins.

Your book sits at the heart of your reputation-building ecosystem. Why spend months or years creating a brilliant body of content and then not use it properly? It's going to keep on giving as a source of ideas, stories, frameworks and prompts for marketing, speaking and client conversations if you let it.

We also talk about what personal brand really means (and how to build one), and the two most fundamental questions every business book author should ask themselves: what transformation do I want for my reader, and what do I want this book to do for my business?

Julie Smith's first book, Coach Yourself Confident, focused on the individual experience of confidence: closing the gap between how capable we are and how capable we believe ourselves to be. It won quite a few awards.

Her new book, Contagious Confidence, explores confidence as a performance variable: a powerful way for leaders to help teams do their best work.

But the funny thing about writing about confidence - even second time around, and even with awards in the bag - is that much of the time you don't feel very, well, confident. Julie talks about perfectionism, inner critics (hers is called Nigel) and the 'difficult second album', but also the surprising joy of giving yourself permission to write a shitty first draft and that sensation of freewheeling when it's all working perfectly.

It's a conversation about confidence, leadership, writing, community - and sprouts.

Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? is a phrase that has entered the business lexicon, not just as a book title and the name of a company but as a leadership philosophy. Ben Hunt-Davis and Harriet Beveridge self-published the first edition 15 years ago - Ben telling the inspiring story of how he and the British men's rowing Eight underwent radical transformation to win Gold at Sydney in 2000, and performance coach Harriet Beveridge highlighting the transferable strategies everyone can take from it.

Now Penguin are releasing an updated third edition. The principles remain the same, but the strategies are even sharper and the stories brought right up to date, to equip a new generation of individuals and leaders with tried-and-tested strategies for everyday success.

In this conversation, we talk about what it means to develop and refine one powerful idea over time, rather than chasing the next shiny thing, how the book and the business work together, and what it takes to sustain a creative partnership over many years and several editions. And there's some candid insight into the real work of writing a book, which begins after you've actual written the book... 

Status is a funny thing. We want it, but because it's what other people think of us, we assume we can't control it. And we're pretty sure that we shouldn't be caring so much what other people think of us, anyway.

But Alison Fragale, organizational psychologist, professor and author of Likeable Badass, is clear not only that status is a fundamental human need, but that you can influence it, once you understand how it works.

She's also clear-eyed about the realities of writing a successful book: the importance of a well-thought-through proposal, the ruthlessness required to cut material that you as the author love but that doesn't serve the reader, and the unavoidable truth that nobody will ever sell more of your book than you will.

A masterclass in making ideas accessible, embedding a book in a business, and sustaining the book promo for the long term.

Something a little bit different this week, as I celebrate an unusual milestone: eight years of running every single day.

But this isn't really about running, it's about streaking (no, not that kind of streaking, do grow up) and why committing to one tiny daily action can be such a powerful way of moving yourself towards the person you want to be.

Don't just take my word for it: writing productivity expert Bec Evans and daily blogger Seth Godin also share their thoughts on why consistency matters more than brilliance, why the practice matters more than the output, and why this might be exactly what you need to get your book written.

One day every streak will end, and that's a tough thought to comptemplate. But today? Today, you get to choose.

Eric Ries wrote the bible for many entrepreneurs: The Lean Startup. But in recent years, he's turned his attention to what happens to startups as they mature - having showed us how to create something worth protecting, he's now focusing on how we protect it once it's built. Why do so many founders who had such a positive vision for their new company, and who achieved such success with that approach, find themselves sidelined or overruled as it slides into mediocrity or even malignancy? 

The result of his quest to understand this seemingly inevitable, faceless force is a new book, Incorruptible:  Why good companies go bad and how great companies stay great.  

As one of the leading thinkers and activists of our day, Eric discovered the surprisingly simple way to create the infrastructure necessary to reimagine value by founding the Long Term Stock Exchange. And as a tech entrepreneur himself, he has great advice on how to use AI effectively and ethically in the writing process. 

One of Eric's most fundamental lessons is that trust is the most valuable asset of all, and that applies to your book just as much as your business. NOT an episode to miss - trust me on this. 

You might think that being in nature and writing business books are two entirely unconnected activities. But the annual Write it Wild retreat keeps showing that the first benefits the second in more ways than even I had realised when I first came up with the idea. 

In this episode I talk to this year's participants about what they're noticing - the dynamic interplay between attention and perspective, between focus and freedom, between structure and flow, between solitude and community, and how all of that is impacting their writing and their state.

You don't need to go off into the woods and examine a daisy through a magnifying glass or make fire with flint and steel every time you want to write a decent paragraph, but if you're feeling a bit stuck or a bit joyless, spending a little purposeful time in nature might just make all the difference. And writing that's easier and more joyful for you to write tends to be easier and more joyful for others to read, too. 

Technology is great at making life easier. But sometimes, easy isn't what we really need. 

It's hard to resist the siren call of AI as you stare at a blank document: 'Let me write that email/post/book, I can do it really quick and it'll sound super professional.' Or, as it's more likely to put it: 'It's not cheating. It's optimizing for efficiency.'

In this episode, I make the case for engaging with the mental heavy lifting of writing in a world determined to lift it for us. Doing the hard things builds capacity and it also, weirdly, makes us happier.

Resistance is NOT futile. But it's going to take a bit of work. 

Innovation. You can't sit through a corporate meeting without hearing the word. Everyone thinks they know what they mean by it, and most people are confident that it's someone else's responsibility. There's a department for that, right? 
In fact, Barbara Salopek argues, innovation is a responsibility for every employee, whether they like it or not, because the deep knowledge required is distributed throughout the business;  the 'innovation muscle' has to be built both top down and bottom up throughout all three levels – individuals, teams and the entire organization.

She also makes the case that innovation is far broader than most people think: not just shiny new product development (expensive) but also incremental internal process improvements (efficient). Building that kind of innovation culture takes long-term commitment, and it also demands that leaders pay attention to building psychological safety, not just brainstorming. 

And if you're grappling with your own business book, you need to hear about Barbara's structured approach to conquering what can seem like an insurmountable task.

In writing, as in life and work, we often focus on the question that looks obvious: How do I write this quickly? How do I find the time? How do I tell my story? How do I get feedback?

But very often, there's a better question behind the one we're asking.

In this Best Bits episode I look at some of the most common wrong-question traps that authors fall into, and explore the deeper, more useful questions behind them that can transform not just the book, but the author too.

Hear from:

• Kevin Anderson on why AI is a terrible answer to the 'how can I write my book quickly' question
• Chris Lovett on 'finding' [sic] time to write
• Amy Cantin on writing to make readers feel capable, not impressed
• Ian Pettigrew on telling your story without making it the point of your book
• Paolo Gaudiano on starting with what your reader cares about (rather than what you want to tell them)
• Helen Beedham on testing your argument rather than simply strengthening it
• Becky Westwood on what to do with feedback once you have it
• Alison Jones on why, for business book authors, it's not just about the book.

Luckily, writing is itself a great way to find better questions... 

Does the book still have a place in next-generation corporate learning platforms? You bet.  

Amy Cantin of Skillsoft talks me through the evolution of organizational learning, and the ways in which business books underpin the various summaries, webinars, AI simulations and social learning opportunities they offer their corporate clients to ensure not only that every employee keeps learning, but that they are able to learn in the way that suits them best. 

There are great tips here on how to write a book that's truly transformational for professional development, and a reminder that while the learning landscape has evolved, books remain the fullest expression of the ideas that shape work-life, and authors are still central to the learner's experience.  

It's almost a decade to the day since I first pressed 'record' and launched this podcast into the world (and you might be amused to find out the real reason behind it). In this 10th birthday episode I'm taking a moment to look back on the ambition and anxiety behind that moment, and reflect on how much has changed, and what hasn't, for writers and readers of business books.

I've also put together 10 super-practical lessons I've learned over that time, for anyone grappling with their own ambition and anxiety in the face of starting something new. I welcome back my very first guest and have a moment with 2016 Alison, as we look forward to whatever the next 10 years will bring. 

Whether you've been listening since that first episode or just discovered The Extraordinary Business Book Club, you're part of something really special, and a way of being and thinking that's taken on existential meaning for us over the last decade - as individuals and as a society. 

Paolo Gaudiano's expertise ranges from rocket science through computational neuroscience to the really tough work: diversity, equity and inclusion in organizations.

It's not got any easier over the last couple of years, but it's not got any less important, either. Paolo simply points to the evidence: focusing on improving workplace experiences for all employees leads not only to happier people but also to better business outcomes. His book - Measuring Inclusion: Higher profits and happier people, without guesswork or backlash - was named International Business Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards in 2025. 

We also talk about the power and perils of language, the concept of 'gateway words', and the importance of recognizing that the words that work for you might not work for others... 

Fresh (sic) from the London Book Fair, this week's episode brings together perspectives from across the industry on the National Year of Reading campaign.

Does reading even still matter? [Spoiler alert: it matters more than ever!] And how can we - as an industry and as individuals - encourage people to do more of it, given all the competing demands on their attention?

As well as finding out what's happening in the industry, learn how you can join the movement to make reading a more intentional, joyful part of your everyday life, and I'm not just talking about business books. Your attention is under siege like never before - reading is a radical act of resistance, as well as a practice of self-development, a powerful way of supporting your wellbeing and the best route to becoming a better writer. 

It's the big idea behind award-winning author Helen Beedham's second book People Glue: Hold on to your best people by setting them free, which leans into that paradox with rather more by way of helpful detail than the Police front man ever provided. Through rigorous research and conversations with top CEOs she has identified four key freedoms that top talent most values, and also the anti-freedom forces that most frequently prompt them to walk out of the organizational door. 

We also talk about what it means to write a second book – why WOULD you put yourself through that again? And what might you do differently second time around? 

If you ever hear someone dismissively say 'hope is not a strategy', be sure to introduce them to Ian Pettigrew, author of Hope is a Strategy. He will disabuse them of the idea that hope is simply wishful thinking and introduce them to a more muscular, active concept: hope that can be – MUST be – wielded with rigour and realism.

In Ian's book (quite literally), hope isn't rainbows and unicorns; if it is, you don't get away with that twice. Neither is it about ignoring reality until something good happens. Strategic hope is gritty and demanding, but it's also the most powerful force in the world for both personal and organizational transformation.

We also talk about the practicalities of applying this theory of hope to the business of writing a book, both the inner game and the getting of the words onto the page. So if you're feeling a bit hopeless about your own project, this is for you.

Why do so many of us feel like we're drowning in endless demands and to-do lists, at work and at home? Why, when we have so many smart productivity tools, is it so damn hard to get the important things done?

If you relate, I'd like to introduce you to Chris Lovett. Because HE can introduce you to the genius idea of 'strategic laziness', and also explain how an author with no time can write a book perfectly designed to be read by people with no time.

If you're looking for the antidote to hustle culture, if you're ready to face the fact that you will NEVER get to the bottom of your to-do list and if you fancy embracing tiny acts of rebellion to stem the relentlessness, this is for you.

Kevin Anderson never planned to become CEO of one of the biggest editorial agencies in the world, but that's where his knack for seeing opportunities in a fast-changing industry together with the guts to take them has landed him. 

In this episode, we talk about how publishing professionals can support authors at every stage – from clarifying the concept through writing the manuscript to securing the right deal (and we note that 'the right deal' means different things to different authors.)

From the impact of AI on writing and piracy to top tips for writing business books, the enduring appeal of long-form nonfiction to the plethora of publishing options open to authors today, it's packed with insights and advice for aspiring authors.  

Don't wait until you've written your manuscript to listen to this! 

Organizational psychologist Becky Westwood is an expert in social anxiety at work. And that gives her a unique persepctive on the situation guaranteed to created anxiety in ALL of us: giving and receiving feedback. 

In her book Can I Offer You Something? Expert Ways to Overcome the Horrors of Organizational Feedback, she invites us to reject the grim reality of most workplace feedback processes and return to the original sense of the word: nourishment. It's refreshingly human, and might just save you some lost sleep, not to mention relationships. 

This book was named Short Business Book of the Year, and we talk about what length is the right length for a book, and how the answers come as you write, not before you start.

So start. 

Pressure is the new normal - in life, at work, in leadership, and also in writing. Other people put pressure on us, we put pressure on ourselves, we put pressure on other people...

This Best Bits episode explores how we deal with that, and also whether it's possible to use it well, and to find some joy in it. (Spoiler alert: it is.)

Hear from: 

• Henry King on becoming 'change native'
• David Sinkinson on how to enjoy pressure in the moment
• George Walkley on turning negative feedback into fuel for progress
• Dominic Colenso on the transformative power of career meltdown
• John Amaechi on curating your own power and the discipline of writing 
• Zoe Arden on the pressure to do justice to others in your writing
• Catherine Xiang on the pressures you don't even know are there. 

Pressure is inevitable, how we respond is down to us. 

David Sinkinson, SaaS entrepreneur, podcaster, and co-author of Startup Different (all of this done in partnership with his brother, Chris) is a big fan of business books. On long commute after long commute they taught him pretty much everything he needed to know to start and succeed with his own business, and one of the reasons he wrote his own book was a desire to pay that back. 

One of the ways he does that is by rejecting the easy myths: he's open about the doubt, the missteps and the WFIO moments (you'll have to listen) along the way, and along with the practical wisdom addresses the emotional weight of building a business, what he describes as 'baked-in empathy'.

Having read a lot of business books is a great start when you're writing a business book, but nothing is ever going to make this easy. David has some great advice for anyone taking the job on (especially in partnership with a fellow author), and draws out the parallel with entrepreneurship: it's hard, you're constantly doubting yourself, but if you can let yourself appreciate the process while you're in it rather than obsessing about the outcome, you might just find it's one of the most grittily joyful experiences of your life. 

Intercultural communication is always complex, but for Western leaders seeking to build relationships as a way in to the mighty Chinese market, it's particularly tricky. From seating plans to changing job titles to how to ask for a solution to a problem, there are very different assumptions and unspoken rules. Which is why Catherine Xiang,  UK Director for LSE's Confucius Institute for Business, wrote Bridging the Gap:  An introduction to intercultural communication with China, named Specialist Business Book of the Year.

It's tricky enough when everyone is speaking English, but if you're learning Mandarin, it gets even trickier: get the stress on a word wrong and you could easily proposition someone by mistake!

For writers with an eye to the global market, there's a deeper significance too: not only language and metaphor but even the way the book opens or an argument is structured can embody a particular cultural bias.  Practical strategies and a thoughtful perspective on how to build genuine, effective cross-cultural relationships, at the meeting table and on the page.

What's the real promise and transformative power of AI in business? In their new book Autonomous:  Why the fittest businesses embrace AI-first strategies in digital labor, Henry King and his co-author  Vala Afshar make the case that organizational design will be transformed by agentic AI, with intelligent agents and humans collaborating seamlessly.

It's an empowering vision: just as autonomous vehicles will democratize and expand humans' ability to move around, they argue that AI can augment and democratize our creativity and effectiveness.

And Henry talks me through their ecosystem of iterative idea development, including the use of AI to challenge and expand those ideas, and offers super-practical advice for other writers in this space.

If you're here for the intersection of cutting-edge technology, business strategy, the future of work and writing, this episode is very much here for you. 

It's the time of year when we traditionally think about the changes we want to make in our lives to help us become the people we want to be. In 2026, I think we also need to think about what we want to KEEP doing for ourselves, even though AI tools might be able to do those things more quickly and easily. 

Writing is a great example. From exploratory writing - early-stage, messy, private thinking-onto-the-page - to social media posts to writing a book, embracing the messiness and the hard yards is what will set you apart, personally and professionally. 

Get out of your comfort zone and lean into writing that sparks genuine connection, builds trust and results in words worth reading. Because if you delegate your writing now, you're delegating you might just find you're delegating your thinking in the future. 

It may be the most wonderful time of the year, but Christmas is also very often a hot mess of busy-ness, stress and tricky relationships. So in these few days as the excitement/expectations build, here's an invitation to press pause, just for a few minutes, and try something a little different. 

Because Christmas - together with the odd days of Twixmas that follow ahead of the new year - is a great opportunity to press pause just for a few minutes. And sometimes, that the gift we REALLY needed. 

We often think of great leadership as 'magic,' but the truth is that's a convenient excuse. Great leaders aren't born that way - they become great by leaning in to what John Amaechi describes as ' a very boring set of skills and a huge amount of personal effort'.

John's own background in the NBA showed him that the most extraordinary athletic achievements are the result of dull, consistent, mundane practice. That makes greatness accessible - though not necessarily easy - for anyone who chooses it.

One of the most fundamental skills of leadership is storytelling, and John is a master at turning the raw material of daily experience into stories that connect, challenge and inspire. He has a model of storytelling that I guarantee you'll never forget. And why turn stories into books? Because books force the 'so what?' question. And that changes everything. 

What does 'story' mean to you? Zoe Arden asked that question of more than 100 people, beginning her research, as she encourages us all to begin our stories, by listening first. 

Leaders have at their disposal more facts and data than ever before, but the research and our lived experience confirms that facts and data are not what we need to catalyse real change. Our brains are wired in such a way that only stories have the power to mobilise us into action - they are, in Zoë's words, both levers of connection and levers of change, so understanding how they work is vital for any leader who wants to gets stuff done.  

But stories aren't just for telling, they're for living - and we need to make choices about the stories we tell ourselves, more or less consciously, just as much as the ones we craft for others. 

Zoë's own story of finding her voice as a writer amongst the many voices of her interviewees will be invaluable if you're drowning in reseach, and her remarkable journey to publication might just be the inspiration you need to get started... 

I don't know about you, but I couldn't claim any of the following distinctions before I turned 26: flying a spaceship, losing a million dollars, being fired by Simon Cowell or dodging paparazzi. 

Dominic Colenso, author of Cut-Through, ticked off all of these in the course of his acting career. Life is a little calmer now that he's discovered how his acting skills could translate into a unique framework for effective business communication, helping leaders and teams pitch and present with impact.

It turns out that rehearsing for a stage role has many parallels with preparing a business pitch, and even with writing a business book - not just delivering a message, but discovering the purpose, distilling the essence, drilling and debriefing repeatedly to get feedback on and refine the text. 

And if you've been making excuses as to why now isn't the right time to get started, prepare to have them blown away...

George Walkley is a legend in the publishing world. Over the last three decades, and particularly at Hachette, he has not only witnessed but helped shape the digital transformation of the industry, and these days he's focused on how publishers respond to the challenges and opportunities of AI. 

While the book itself has proved remarkably resilient as a technology, technology has transformed the ways in which they are written, discovered, read and published. What are the ethical and practical considerations of AI for publishers, authors and readers? And what does all that mean for George himself as he writes and considers how to publish his OWN book? 

Essential listening for anyone curious about where publishing is going, and the implications for authors, plus top tips on building an audience through writing an unmissable newsletter. 

Because writing a business book, just like starting a business, isn't simply an intellectual exercise. There's a profound inner journey behind every book, from the creative spark of the idea, so often born of frustration, through the gritty, vulnerable, exhausting middle, the stress of overwhelm and deadlines and the courage it takes to complete, and throughout it all, the unexpected moments of joy. 

Writing a book is a whole-brain, whole-person exercise, and these conversations prove it. Hear from:

• Eleanor Tweddell on turning anger and confusion into the first steps of the writing journey.
• Parul Bavishi on accepting fear as part of the process and showing up anyway.
• Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb on building trust and joy through collaboration.
• Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haarst on navigating difficult moments with curiosity and respect.
• Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic on the three moments of joy (and the many hours of masochism).
• Maria Franzoni on falling out of love with you book (and then back in again).
• James Spackman on making choices guided by pride, joy and connection.
• Sally Percy on overcoming overwhelm.

The work is real - but the good news is you don't have to do this alone. 

If your idea of a rebrand is a new colour palette and an updated logo, think again. 

Too often, superficial design changes don't just fail to deliver growth, they actively damage the brands they were intended to bolster. Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb have helped some of the world's biggest companies refresh their brands from the inside out. They argue that rebranding is more a strategic undertaking than a design project, and it's definitely NOT something that should be driven by a new leader's ego. 

This is a conversation for anyone invested in understanding the deeper mechanics of making a brand work over the long term, but also for anyone who wants to write a book that makes a real difference for its readers.

When someone cheerfully tells you that when one door closes another door opens in the midst of the rawness of redundancy, you'd be forgiven for wanting to punch them. Eleanor Tweddell certainly did. But then she made a conscious decision to 'lean in' to the idea of another door. It turns out that opportunity is often disguised as messy chaos – it's all about how you choose to view it.

Eleanor shares how her 'Another Door' blog, podcast and book came about – the idea that wouldn't leave her alone, the conversations that moved it forward and the creative process that begins – like all good things – with a whiteboard and is so very, very different from the polished, orderly approach of her corporate comms background.

This is a conversation about what it means to be human in the act of creation, and to seek out connection before your ideas feel ready to share. It's about jealousy and comparisonitis and courage and designing for your reader, and it might just be the best thing you hear this week.

How do you feel about hard conversations at work? 

Our approaches to conflict are often less than smart. Whether your tendency is towards avoidance or aggression, unless you're actively rejecting 'enforced harmony' for an environment in which people are able to disagree well, you're not getting the best out of your individuals or your organization. (Plus, given that most people are so bad at it, mastering hard conversations is the ultimate leadership edge.)

Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haarst, co-authors of Smart Conflict: How to Have Hard Conversations at Work, are experts at diagnosing the wide range of conflict styles and helping leaders make better decisions about how they adjust their approach for the situation and the person in front of them.

But could they walk the talk when it came to the ultimate stress test: writing a book together for the first time? Spoiler alert: yes. But what they discovered in the process will be gold to anyone considering a co-authored project. 

Plus why I HAD to go and have a good time each night - publishing runs on ideas, caffeine and relationships, and the Frankfurt Book Fair delivers all of these in spades. 

'Just be yourself.' It's the most uncontroversial advice in the world, right? 

Wrong, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He's a man who likes to pick fights with universally accepted truths, because of course they're almost always more nuanced than we like to think. 

In his new book Don't Be Yourself, he points out that unfiltered authenticity is a privilege reserved for the powerful, and it's not just selfish and a terrible career move for the rest of us but also limits our potential - because we grow by exploring our future possible selves, not just repeating who we've always been.

He's also a man with a nuanced opinion of writing: simultaneously 'the best way of... actually organizing your thoughts' and 'a lonely, slow, and occasionally masochistic pursuit, like knitting, except with more existential dread and less wool.'

I think we can all relate to this. 

Parul Bavishi - editor, former literary scout, co-founder of the London Writers' Salon and host of the Writers' Hour podcast - knows something about the realities of writing and the power of creative community.

Writing can be a lonely business, but in the LWS's regular 'Writers' Hour' Parul has seen the extraordinary power of 'body doubling' - simply watching others write can be all the encouragement and support a writer needs to get unstuck. And there are even more potent aspects of community such as accountability and critique that can take your writing to the next level.

We also talk about the genius that is the five-minute outline, the agony that is finishing and shipping a book, and how to ensure that your nonfiction book clearly sets out (and fulfils) a promise of transformation to the reader. Because if you're going to put all that time and emotional labour into writing a book, you might as well make it one that changes people's lives.

As a former international speaker bureau owner, Maria Franzoni knows exactly what it takes to become a highly sought-after (and well-paid) speaker.

In this week's conversation, she reveals what speaker bookers are really looking for, and you might be surprised to discover that how well you speak is only one factor in her brilliant Bookability Formula.

We talk about the interplay and overlap between being a speaker and being an author, and the way in which books support speaking so beautifully, and vice versa. (But it has to be the right book - Maria spent months of her life writing the wrong one so you don't have to.)

If you want to land more speaking gigs, if you're not afraid to hear what that takes, and if you want to write the right book to support all of that, you probably shouldn't miss this.

In the book trade, James Spackman is known as 'The Pitch Doctor'. From an illustrious start to his career in the post room at Bloomsbury to sales, marketing and agency roles at Hachette, Osprey and now The bks Agency, his passion has always been to communicate a passion for books. 

As he explains, the success of a book depends in large part of a 'chain of enthusiasm' that has to begin with the author and ultimately - hopefully - reaches the reader through a complex ecosystem of agents, editors, sales reps, marketers and booksellers. This is the art of the pitch, and because it ends with the reader, that's where the crafting of it must begin too. 

In this week's conversation we discuss the fact that publishing is 'a business of persuasion rather than a meritocracy of texts', and what that means for authors. We also talk about the extraordinary route that James took to publish his own book, why measures of success are deeply personal, and why doing things your way is so damn rewarding. 

That kind of unashamed questioning is a trait also shared by many of the leaders she interviewed for her latest book 'The Disruptors', shortlisted for the Business Book Awards.

In this conversation she shares her hard-won lessons for writers, and also reflects on how business and business writing has changed over recent years and where the opportunities for those writing in the space can be found. 

Challenging the system often starts by asking awkward questions and you'll find lots of those here. What you WON'T find are excuses. Think you're not creative or confident enough to be an author? This is for you. 

Listen, enjoy, but don't expect to leave with your assumptions undisturbed.

Hear from: 

• Charlotte Otter on why we need new leaders (and how to get them); 
  Hilary Cottam on reimagining work;
  Lesie Grandy on creative velocity;
  Mike Porteous on redefining confidence; 
  Todd Sattersten on books - and publishing models - that turn things upside down; 
  Jane Friedman on why you should consider NOT writing a book; 
  Georgia Kirke on how AI can help unleash the missing voices; 
  Kerry Tottingham on how to launch a book differently. 

Let's keep shaking things up, brilliantly.

What do you think of when you think of sports coaching? Elite lean performance machines preparing to break records? 

Mike Porteous has competed and coached at elite level as a triathlete, but he believes that coaxing new swimmers from the shallow end is just as important an act of coaching as taking an elite to a new world Ironman time. 

His vision of coaching is centred on confidence - and all the messy, emotional reality that surrounds human ambition, at whatever scale. To allow people to go beyond what they believed themselves capable of - in sport and in life - the coach needs to build confidence in three directions: the athlete's confidence in their own ability, the athlete's confidence in the coach, and, crucially, the coach's confidence in themselves.

There's an obvious parallel to the book-writing process, and the slow-burn confidence demanded of authors to grapple the uncertainty and believe that their message is worthwhile. If you're involved in coaching, in whatever capacity, and particularly if you're writing about it, this is for you. 

When you're all about creativity, social justice and empowering individuals to transform pain into positive action, how do you design a book launch that reflects that? 

Kerry Tottingham rejected the warm white wine option for a radically different book launch event to celebrate the launch of her new book 'Healing-Centred Transformation: Mend, tend and change the future'. This week's podcast is a behind-the-scenes look at how she did it, with insights and advice for anyone planning a book launch of their own. 

Dr Hilary Cottam, OBE has spent the last five years exploring this question through collaborative workshops she calls 'imagininings', involving all sectors of the post-industrial workforce from gravediggers to consultants.

The same resonant themes kept emerging: the need for work that pays the basics, offers meaning, allows space for caring and play, is tied to place, and demands collective, not just individual, change.

She discovered that the challenges we face - technological disruption, ecological crisis and a lack of social justice - together provide the springboard for this change. And in the process of putting it all together into her new book, The Work We Need, she also discovered that writing, like change-making, is a slow, humbling process best done in community. 

Profound, challenging, generous, inspiring - and very much worth your listen. 

Writing a novel can be lonely; writing a thesis can be demanding; writing a business book can be a team effort. Charlotte Otter's done all of these, with a side of journalism, and in this week's podcast we talk about the different approach to those genres, and what she learned about structure and community along the way. 

In her new book 'We Need New Leaders: Mastering reputation management to reshape the C-Suite', Charlotte argues that reputation is a powerful tool of advancement too often overlooked by - or unavailable to - people from underrepresented backgrounds. Which means that communications professionals can play a key role as allies for more equitable business.

Listen in for a fresh take on how we can build better business leadership, and how you can write a better business book, too. 

What makes a business book worth reading - or publishing?

If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume (and, let's be honest, variable quality) of business books on the market, you'll appreciate Todd Sattersten's refreshingly thoughtful approach. As the author of The 100 Best Business Books of All-Time and the upcoming 100 Best Books for Work and Life, he's done a lot of leg work on your behalf as a reader. 

And as publisher and owner of Bard Press, he's doing his bit for quality over quantity with a startlingly original business model: Bard publishes just one book each year. Risky? Revolutionary? Realistic? All of those things.

We also talk about the increasingly blurred lines between business and self-development books, the importance of identifying real-world problems and the route to 100,000 copies. Extraordinary Business Book Club gold. 

What does it take to turn a spark of inspiration into a sustained creative fire?

This week's episode is a reflection on the art of making fire, from striking the first spark with flint and steel to nurturing the ember with just the right balance of oxygen and fuel, and how that process sheds light on the creative process. More specifically, it's about the moment I found myself grinning like a loon while holding a flaming bundle of hay on my recent Write it Wild retreat. (Yes, really. Check out the episode artwork.)

Discover how permission, preparation, process, and patience all play a role not just in spark-wrangling, but in idea-wrangling too. And we'll talk about the art of holding your nerve when things get smoky.

Whether you're at the start of your writing journey or tending an idea that's been smouldering for a while, this one's for you.

Jane Friedman has been commentating on the business of books for many years, and her classic The Business of Being a Writer has demystified the industry for thousands of authors. So on the release of its second edition it seems a good time to ask: what has changed over the seven years since the first edition?

It turns out that while the specifics of platforms and tech tools have moved on, the principles of writing and promoting a good book are pretty much as they always were: the fundamental challenge of persuading people to care about your writing still remains, and it's arguably harder than ever in the face of what Jane calls 'the tremendous fragmentation of attention across so many different channels'. And as a writer you need to engage with those channels, in fact you should even be asking if you should be focusing there instead of on a book. 

But in any case, one channel that remains powerful for authors, and which Jane herself uses brilliantly, is the newsletter: we talk about how to write a good one, and how and when to migrate to paid subscription.

She also shares her own systems and processes for writing, including how she's integrated AI tools. It's part reality check, part masterclass, and it's wholly worth your time.

Until she realized, in her corporate career working with visionary leaders like Steve Jobs, that creativity can also be defined as 'the ability to solve problems in novel ways'. And now she helps organizations - from major brands like Starbucks to early-stage ventures - navigate the challenges of innovation. Creativity, it turns out, is not an inbuilt talent reserved for the select few, but a practical skill that anyone can develop with the right mindset and tools.

And that's exactly what she provides in her book Creative Velocity: simple, everyday techniques for building creative confidence. She also tackles the role of generative AI, inviting us to see it as a partner that can expand our creative thinking, provided we bring structure and discernment to the process.

Leslie also discovered she could have filled a book with what she didn't know about publishing a book, and shares her insights from that journey too. 

Funny, inspiring, practical, unmissable. 

What does it look like to use AI in creative activities practically, ethically, and in a human-centred way? One answer to that question might be Cliobooks.ai, the speak-your-book technology developed by publishing entrepreneur and business coach Georgia Kirke. 

Starting and ending with humans, and rejecting the quick fix of AI-generated content, this is an attempt to develop workflows that make authorship more accessible and less soul-sucking. But there's no short cuts to the human expertise behind each book (sorry), both on the part of the author and the publishing team around them.  

This is a fascinating exploration of how AI can be used for good, the difference between timeless principles and evolving workflows, and the wisdom of understanding the difference between them. 

This Best Bits episode is a love letter to intentional conversations – the ones that unlock insight, build cohesion, shape identity and, ultimately, bring books into the world. As I looked back over the last few episodes, what stood out was how often my guests spoke about dialogue in all its forms – with ourselves, with each other,and with our readers – as the real work of writing, leading and changing the world.

Hear from:

• Sarah Rozenthuler on the life-changing magic of energising, intentional dialogue;

• Claire Pedrick on the space between words and the attentiveness behind great coaching – and writing;

• Wendy Smith on paradox as a creative lens for thinking, leading, and writing;

• John Dore on the 'glue' that binds people together around ideas;

• Marissa Eigenbrood on publicity as a bridge into new conversations with new audiences;

• Petra Molthan-Hill on making complex ideas accessible and immediately useful;

• David Oxley and Helmut Schuster on creating a character to talk to an audience that's had enough of being talked at;

• Alison Jones (hello!) on how AI forces us to be more intentional than ever about the conversations we're having – and who we're having them with – as authors, publishers, and humans.

If you're writing a business book, or even just thinking about it, this episode is packed with insights to get you talking.

This week, we're flipping the script a bit. Normally, I'd be bringing you an engaging conversation with a business book author, but this week we're exploring an origin story—one that gives you an insight into the inner workings of publishing as an industry and an individual publisher's mind.

A successful book series is the closest thing we have to magic in publishing magic. But how do you go about finding the right concept in a crowded marketplace? Here's how our new 6-Minute Smarts series came about, from a series of conversations at Frankfurt to a 30,000-foot exploratory writing sprint to launch. 

Whether you're a reader, an aspiring author, or simply curious about the publishing world, this episode offers insights and inspiration that you won't want to miss.

For the new generation entering the workplace, reading a traditional business book has all the appeal of a colonoscopy. So longtime colleagues and collaborators Dr David Oxley and Dr Helmut Schuster realized that if they were to get across their insights and advice, the only way was through storytelling.

The result? The series of Shey Sinope books, which explore the complexities, conundrums and constraints young professionals face as they navigate the modern workplace in a lighthearted, readable, engaging way. It's a fresh perspective that speaks directly to the experience of embarking on a profession career; the absurdities and challenges, but also the profound need for meaning and fulfilment.

But we all know that writing a standard business book is hard enough - how on earth do you go about writing fiction collaboratively? Find out here.

Something a bit different today: join me for a deep dive into a publisher's experience of London Book Fair 2025. I have been to a LOT of book fairs, but this one was a little different. I'm exploring the issues faced by publishers of all sizes today, navigating challenges such as AI's disruptive potential to the demands of new EU regulations and the current geopolitical chaos, and reflecting on the opportunities they present.

Whether you're in the business or simply curious about the world of books, this episode is a behind-the-scenes look at an industry perpetually on the brink of transformation as well as a very personal reflection on how it feels to be part of it.

You think writing a book is hard? Well, ok, yes it is, but it comes as a nasty shock for most authors to realize that writing the damn thing isn't enough - then they have to promote it. Luckily, there are people out there who do this really, really well. And even more luckily, one of them is about to give you a book publicity masterclass. 

Marissa Eigenbrood, President at Smith Publicity, specialises in the art of connection, matching the right authors to the right platforms, so the right readers can find the right books. While marketing is great for creating a buzz at launch, publicity helps establish enduring credibility. Marketing directly engages your readers; publicity harnesses the power of established media to supercharge your authority and reach. 

The good news is that there's a wealth of opportunities out there. The even better news is that you don't just get one chance to shine; long after publication day, savvy publicity means you can continue to use your book to build an enduring professional presence.

Here's to the long game.

When it's a case of scarce resources - as it always seems to be, right? - our default thinking is Either/Or. Either I spend time on this project, or I prioritise my family. Either I work on delivering today's priorities, or I focus on planning for tomorrow. 

But Professor Wendy Smith would like you to consider a different way of thinking: Both/And. Life is essentially paradoxical, and she argues that the best way to navigate all the competing demands on our time successfully is to understand their interdependence. In an increasingly complex world, navigating tensions creatively can lead to better, more inclusive solutions - and this applies to personal life just as much as professional life.

She also shares the challenges of writing for a natural speaker and extrovert, the hacks she's developed for herself, and why books are 'rocky splashy'. (If you were worried that all this research-based, insightful stuff was going to be terribly academic, I hope you're now reassured.)

Petra Molthan-Hill is a professor of Sustainable Management and Education for Sustainable Development at Nottingham Business School, and a prolific academic writer. But when it came to The Handbook of Carbon Management - which was named Change & Sustainability Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards 2024 - she knew she wanted to take a different approach.

She knew this had to be a practical book for anyone, at any level of the organization, and in any size of organization, wanting to make more sustainable decisions. It had to contain not just evidence-based theories, but pragmatic, easy-to-implement solutions grounded in research and real-world impact. And it needed to get out there quickly and start making a difference, because this is a crisis that demands a response and there is literally no time to lose. 

So Petra turned to a trusted group of her peers, and between them they created something that is more than the sum of its parts. 

In this week's episode Petra tells me about their collaborative, creative writing process, and the way in which reading and writing more generally can provide some of the most satisfying conversations you'll ever have, even when there's noone else in the room.  

Sarah Rozenthuler is no stranger to the art of conversation at work. With over two decades of experience as a business psychologist, she's seen both how energizing high-quality conversation can be, and also how most people, most of the time, would do almost anything to avoid difficult topics (or difficult people). 

Her latest book, Now We're Talking, addresses the deep-rooted reasons for this - the fear of our own and the other person's emotions, the challenge to our fragile self-image, the risk of the bad outcome, and more - and also the transformative power of leaning into the resistance and engaging with each other more effectively.

And we discover along the way that sitting down to write a book involves much of the same fear and resistance. Sarah's own journey as a writer, the false starts and the slow burn, is as relatable as it is inspiring. So here's a nudge to lean into the discomfort - in writing, in conversation and in life - because it's a sign that we're doing the work that matters. 

John Dore, head of London Business School's Senior Executive Program and founder of Wave Your Arms, wants you to reimagine your idea of 'glue': as the magic ingredient that holds organizations together. Creating glue, he argues, is a core leadership capability: building real connection, delivering not just strategies but stories that resonate, that are galvanizing and engaging. 

Storytelling is a key ingredient in glue, and as you might expect from someone with a side hustle in screenwriting, John is a genius at telling stories. You can see it in his book, Glue: Transforming leadership in a hybrid world, which was the winner of the 2024 Business Books Award Leadership Category. 

In this week's conversation, we get stuck in to the idea of glue in organizations, and also how as a writer you can create a different kind of glue, the kind that keeps a reader engaged with your book, and makes your ideas stick in their minds. 

Claire Pedrick and Lucia Baldelli sat down together to write a book on how to move from 'really good' to 'even better' coach, but they quickly realised that mastery is less about what the coach does or says, and much more about how they are in the coaching conversation. It's about noticing and responding, being the person that can facilitate the coachee's own work, being a little less certain, being a little more human, in fact. 

And that approach spills into Claire's approach to writing, too: it's about noticing, iterating, being curious, and being unafraid to let the ideas evolve and develop. Which is how The Human Behind the Coach came about, and why it was named Specialist Business Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards. 

(Although I don't THINK she uses scissors quite so regularly in her coaching work as she does in her writing process...)

If you care about coaching, writing or thinking - or just about being human in a world that's increasingly inhuman - make tea, sit down, listen up. 

It's another Best Bits episode, and the theme that really stood out to me as I looked back over the last few episodes was one that you'll have met here before if you're a regular listener: it's the power of writing not just as a means of communication, but as a tool for self-discovery, clarity, and growth. Writing, it turns out, isn't just about creating content; it's about creating ourselves. It helps us process our thoughts, discover and sift ideas, and make sense of the world.

One the things I love most about this podcast is that I don't just get to talk to authors about their books or even their ideas; I get to ask them how the act of writing has shaped them and changed them, personally and professionally. So that's what this episode is all about: uncover how writing transforms not just the reader, but the writer, and hopefully it'll fire you up and give you some practical ideas on how to go about getting more of this in your own life.

Because as these powerful writers will tell you, it's powerful stuff. Hear from: 

• Jenny Proctor on sifting through what's already in place; 
• Kate Toon on pushing through to the new stuff; 
• Todd Rogers on the joy of rabbit holes; 
• David Falzani on the satisfaction of writing that makes a difference; 
• Per Wimmer on self-reflection and future direction; 
• Laura Hamill on letting go of performing and embracing authenticity; 
• Amy Walters Cohen on trusting the process; 
• Lucy Ryan on flow and joy. 

Per Wimmer has spent his life soaring to new heights, metaphorically in global finance and quite literally as an astronaut. It's a fascinating mix, but the two spheres have more in common than you might think. 

When you've lived a life so full of variety and adventure, it's a double bind: this is exactly the kind of life worth writing about, and yet how do you choose what to include, and how do you link it all together? We talk about the challenge of making sense of one's own life in order to create sense for others. 

And how do you give people a reason to read, beyond the mere act of goggling? Per's solution: catalyse inspiration and action in everyone. Winning Business Journey Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards 2024 meant everything to him, as it was a sign he'd achieved just that. 

(He's not one for being constrained by limits, and he's not done yet; this is just Volume One.)

Passive income—it's the dream, right? Earning money while you sleep, basking in the golden glow of financial freedom. Sadly, it's not quite that simple. 

Award-winning author and digital marketing expert Kate Toon, author of  'Six Figures in School Hours' and 'Six Figures While You Sleep', has achieved that dream and now shows others how to do it for themselves, but she doesn't sugarcoat it: there's no such thing as truly passive income. Every income stream, no matter how automated it appears, demands upfront effort and ongoing maintenance. And just as with business books, marketing is just as vital as creating the product itself - maybe even more so. 

In this energising and practical conversation we discuss the taxonomy of automated income, the way we value time over money, the need to play the long game, the centrality of community and the importance of rationing dopamine.

For me, the start of a new year always brings a sense of potential. It's a chance to make changes. But I'm old enough to know that resolutions are easy to make and hard to keep - these days I'm all about design rather than decisions.

This year, more than any other I can remember, feels like a tipping point in history as AI goes mainstream and the polycrisis comprising climate, economic and geopolitical unrest swirls around us. 

What does it mean to be a slightly better human in this context? It'll be different for everyone, but it's almost certain to involve some intentional choices about our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. And it will also demand that we think carefully about what we delegate to AI to boost our productivity and effectiveness and what we retain as a core human capability. 

Here are some thoughts on how I'm approaching this new year, and some questions for you to think about, too. And however you decide to design 2025, there's some thoughts on how you can use exploratory writing as your secret weapon for making those changes stick.

Let's make this New Year extraordinary!

Jenny Proctor is living proof that you don't need to shout to get the right kind of attention. It can feel pretty lonely, being an introvert in the famously extrovert environment of a corporate marketing department. But setting up her own business meant Jenny was free to set her own rules, and the fact that her book, Marketing for Introverts, won the Business Self Development Book of the Year award is proof that her approach is welcomed by others, too.

Whether it's the quiet power of a well-crafted blog post or the paradoxically introvert-friendly nature of video marketing, Jenny's insights on how introverts can rewrite the marketing rules are as practical as they are reassuring.

I'm an off-the-scale extrovert, and we discovered, hilariously, that we have at times both secretly envied the other's MBTI profile. But whether you're an introvert, an extrovert, or something in between, you'll find something worth listening to in this episode.

David Falzani has spent decades building and growing businesses, and now, as a  Professor of Practice, helping others to do the same. And throughout that time he's watched entrepreneurs grapple with one constant, intractable, mysterious issue: pricing. 

It's not just about numbers. (In fact it's not really about numbers at all.) The price we put on something, the price we're prepared to pay for anything, is wrapped up in emotion and our deepest most irrational cognitive processes. Understanding that and getting your pricing right is all too often the difference between thriving and failing as a business, which is why David wrote his Business Book Award winner, 'Double Your Price'. 

If better pricing leads to better business, David is equally clear that smarter writing leads to more satisfied readers. (Or at the very least, fewer rewrites.) And he has some good tips to help you with that, too.

Dr Lucy Ryan's book Revolting Women touched a nerve worldwide: many women can relate all too well to the perfect storm of challenges facing midlife women at work, and everyone has an opinion on it.

Which took a bit of getting used to. In this week's conversation, part of my series talking to this year's Business Book Awards winners, Lucy talks frankly about the learning curve when a doctoral research project becomes an award-winning, conversation-sparking business book, and how she learned to love (or at least manage) the work of promoting it.

From being squeezed down to seconds in her first radio interview to talking sex, drugs and rock and roll with Mariella Frostrup, her experience and hard-won lessons are pure gold to anyone setting out to write - and promote - a business book that makes an impact.

Todd Rogers has been using behavioural science for good for many years, from strengthening democracy to increasing student attendance, so his kids were somewhat underwhelmed when he turned his research to writing.

But think for a moment what the world would be like if everyone wrote clearly and effectively in a world where readers have little time and patience. Imagine the time not wasted, the offence not taken, the goodwill not squandered, the ideas not lost in translation. 

Todd argues, and I agree with him, that better communication can lead to a kinder, more efficient world, and it starts with us. Whether it's an email, a business report, or a book, here are practical ideas for writing that's simply easier to read. 

Amy Walters Cohen is the author of Ruthlessly Caring: And Other Paradoxical Mindsets Leaders Need to Be Future Fit, which was named overall Business Book of the Year in 2024. It's based on years of research, which revealed that the key skill for effective leadership in a complex world is the ability to hold in tension five seemingly paradoxical mindsets. 

As well as talking me through these, Amy told me about the challenges and rewards of translating her research into a book, including the amount of fidgeting, procrastination and coffee-fetching involved in the early stages.

She also introduced me to the 'pub test', which I am shamelessly stealing for all future writing... 

When Laura Hamill set out to write a book about the subject she knew best - the subject she'd spent years researching in theory and practice - she naturally drew on all the studies, statistics and evidence she'd gathered together to support her argument. 

Turns out, that's not what the reader needed. (And it wasn't just her editor who told her that, it was her son, too.)

Those in organizations with a problematic culture don't need research studies, they need help. Laura had to learn how to step out from behind the screen of academic writing, how to own her experience and her opinion, and to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty and self-doubt that involves throughout the writing process. 

The result is a book that allows leaders and indeed anyone at any level to look beyond the words stencilled on the lobby walls to see how the real culture - what's expressed in how people speak and behave - is aligned with strategy, and what to do about it if it's not. 

In this best bits episode, I'm exploring the role of writing in human intelligence in a world where it's suddenly possible to delegate writing to an AI tool. How does generating a written output quickly and easily fit alongside the hard yards of writing for ourselves, and is there still a place for that at work? [Spoiler alert: Yes. Yes, there is.]

Hear from: 

• Patrick Dixon on why physical books have become even more meaningful in an increasingly virtual world; 
• Anna Faherty on why AI takes us backwards when it comes to story-telling; 
• Dan Kieran on why we need the alchemy of writing to make sense of our lives; 
• Thomas Bergen on the renaissance of the book and capturing its soul; 
• Kathryn Jacob and Sue Unerman on why creativity matters so much in a world run by algorithms; 
• Tiffany Gaskell on how being more human benefits the organization as well as the individual; 
• Graham Allcott on why he doesn't let his AI avatar write his newsletter; 
• Colin Ellis on the importance of the discography; 
• Alina Addison on giving readers the courage to embrace both the too-muchness and the not-enoughness. 

Get ready to be challenged and cheered by these outstanding humans. 

Dan Kieran is a publishing legend: as a co-founder of Unbound he revolutionizing the industry by empowering authors and readers. He learned a lot about himself and about setting up a business along the way, and he brought all that together in Do Start, winner of the Startup Book of the Year at the Business Book Awards. 

But he also firmly believes that writing isn't just, or even primarily, about the final product; it's the process itself, the way you understand and articulate your journey, both professionally and personally. Which is why turning to AI to generate your writing outputs for you is such a dangerous, self-defeating habit for anyone who cares about ideas.

Or as Dan put it: 'Why would anyone want to read something that you couldn't be bothered to write?'

getAbstract is one of the leading corporate learning platforms, and it's based on books. The founders met with a lot of resistance from publishers in the early days, but their vision of making the knowledge in books discoverable and actionable quickly became reality. One reason was the brilliance of the team of abstracters creating summaries of the books, and in this episode we talk about how AI is changing the landscape and what that might mean for this most human of industries. 

I talk to getAbstract cofounder Thomas Bergan, VP and global Head of Rights Arnhild Walz-Rasilier, and Practical Inspiration author Julie Smith, who took home the Readers' Choice gong. But it quickly becomes clear I'm never going to make it as a roving reporter.... 

If there's a foundational text of executive coaching it's Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore, first published in 1992. Sadly John died in  2017 and so Tiffany Gaskell, who co-founded Performance Consultants with John and worked with him on the 5th edition in 2017, became the driving force behind the new, post-pandemic 6th edition. 

She talks to me about the power of coaching, its evolution since 1992, and how it has become so foundational for organizational and personal growth. We also explore the link between coaching and writing, and how embracing coaching principles can help you fulfil your full potential as a writer. And we're all here for that, right?

Graham Allcott's back on the podcast and all is well with the world once again. This time he's talking about the transformative power of kindness in the workplace. Many assume that leaders need to belong to Team Screw-Them-All-And-Be-Evil to come out on top, but Graham demonstrates that being kind (which is NOT the same as being 'nice') is is a smart move if you want to be successful too.

There's a deeply personal story behind this which particularly resonated with me: Graham's own experience of the way his son's additional needs create a 'vessel for kindness' all around him. We talk about salted caramel, 'badass' kindness, how leading a course leads to writing a book, why two authors means twice the work, and how this is definitely the last book he'll write.*

We also talk about what writing does for us - we write what we need to read - and why delegating it to AI is a poor strategy. Writers write.

This is a conversation that will make you think, and which I hope will inspire you to be a little kinder, in life and work.

*I for one do not believe this.

There are lots of books on creativity out there, but surprisingly few at its intersection with everyday business, what Sue Unerman and Kathryn Jacob call 'pragmatic creativity'. So they developed a series of practical techniques and structured approaches for fostering creativity in every business situation, organized metaphorically by the seasons of the year.

This is the third book they've written together, so I ask them about the secret of a happy, productive 'writing marriage', and also the role of their agent, Clare, as encourager, giver of advice and accountabliity partner. It's a fascinating insight into the role of collaboration in creativity, and the interplay between structure and adaptability. 

If you're committed to fostering innovation and inclusivity in your own professional and creative life, this one's for you.

Whether you're an AI enthusiast or it fills you with existential terror, this conversation will challenge your perspectives and elevate your understanding of our increasingly super-smart world.

Futurist Patrick Dixon has been predicting AI for 25 years, and now he works with the world's largest corporations and governments, helping them explore the profound implications of artificial intelligence across all sectors from medicine to marketing to global security.

This is not comfortable listening. We peer into the chasm (did you know that in a recent study, half of AI researchers perceive a 5% risk of AI leading to human extinction?). But Patrick remains an optimist, albeit a worried one, and hopefully you'll feel the same way at the end. 

One great cause for hope is his insistence on the importance of authenticity in writing, the irreplaceable human connection that readers seek; AI-generated content cannot replicate human passion.

A thought-provoking conversation that merges foresight with practical wisdom.

Anna Faherty found out the hard way that there were no books to help her teach a course on 'digital storytelling' - so she had to write her own. And if you're trying to write a business book then much of what she tackles in it - writing for busy readers, structuring ideas, adding in details and taking out fluff - is relevant for you too. 

Even if you're not writing a book, you'll learn a huge amount from this conversation about capturing and keeping attention online, and why AI stories are not the way forward for anyone who cares about social justice. 

There's also a super-practical post-it tip and an extended discussion about Gregory Peck and leopards. You're welcome.

It takes courage, tact and humour to point out to a leader not only that there might be an issue with their organization's culture, but that the issue might be them. And that's as true when you're writing a book as when you're in the room with the person. Luckily, Colin D. Ellis has all three, and in this frankly hilarious conversation he takes us under the hood to show us how he tells difficult truths in an easy-to-read way, 

We also talk about crediting the music you listen to as well as the books you read as you write, the joy of the Venn diagram, and why being Liverpudlian is a superpower. 

Pin your ears back. 

When her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of 10, it was what former head of trading and executive coach Alina Addison calls her 'butterfly moment'. While she accepted the diagnosis, she says, she didn't accept the prognosis, which was bleak. Instead she dedicated herself to discovering how to harness these extraordinary aspects of neurodiversity into something powerfully positive.

The result was a deep understanding of the superpower that is audacity: caring plus courage plus non-conformity. And that's as relevant to leaders as it is to parents of neurodiverse children. 

In this deeply personal conversation Alina shares with me how she interwove her personal story with her professional expertise, and developed a style of writing based on talking. We also touch on how audacity plus wine can equal a hotel in Transylvania... 

But if we're going to create anything of real value - in business, in writing, even in sport - we need to be ready to take the less-traveled path. Because that makes all the difference. 

In this Best Bits episode, hear from: 

• Henry Mintzberg on cherishing anomolies; 
• Maureen Dunne on why neurodivergence is so essential for organizations; 
• Sol Rashidi on resisting easy answers when it comes to implementing AI projects; 
• Cath Bishop on thinking more thoughtfully about success, in sport and life; 
• Rob  Hatch on find what works for YOU and doubling down on it;
• Hasan Kubba on the lean approach to writing a business book; 
• Dougal Shaw on responding to feedback and changing paths; 
• David B. Horne on rising to the challenge to 'think bigger'; 
• Michelle Glogovac on the imporatance of asking the questions noone else is asking. 

My hope is that when you spot a chance to take a more interesting path this week, you'll find the courage to see where it takes you... 

In this week's episode, we discuss how books serve as a permanent record of knowledge, helping businesses learn, grow, and establish credibility. As well as attracting the right clients, they can also help you 'consciously uncouple' from clients that no longer align with your goals.
And did you realise that writing a book - a journey of personal and professional development - can also count towards your CPD hours?

A classic EBBC blend of practical tips and inspiration. Get the kettle on.

If you're enthralled by the drama of the Paris Olympics, here's a thoughtful take on what you might be missing if you're focused primarily on the medals table. World Champion rower Cath Bishop has competed at three Olympic games. When she won silver in 2004, the pain of missing out on gold led to a decades-long reexamination of the idea of success, across sport, education, politics and business. 

As an international conflict negotiator and a leadership coach, as well as an advisor to several sporting bodies, she now makes the case for a richer, more human, more sustainable vision of what it means to win well - what she describes as the Long Win. 

This conversation will change how you watch the Olympics, how you think about your business, and perhaps even what you value in life. 

When Hasan Kubba and Ash Ali got together to write 'The Unfair Advantage: How you already have what it takes to succeed', they assumed they'd self-publish. They even put up a 'lean' version of the book on KDP. But as it turned out they had publishers fighting over it (sensibly, as it went on to be named Business Book of the Year), and Hasan has gone on to help other authors achieve the same feat. 

While having a big following certainly helps in the battle for publishers' attention, Hasan argues that it's possible to get a book deal with a major traditional publisher without it. It's not unlike securing funding for a start-up, which is the other area in which he is an expert. 

Discover the vital elements you need in place and the process to follow to get yourself and your book concept in front of agents and publishers with the best chance of success, with lessons for ALL kinds of content creation. 

Implementing AI in your business isn't easy, but NOT implementing it could be disastrous. Sol Rashidi is a former C-suite executive turned AI consultant who knows more than most about the real-world challenges and opportunities in AI deployment. She's been in the field since 2011, developing enterprise-grade applications that integrate AI into business processes effectively, and now she's written a book to help leaders avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits.

But how do you write a book on such a fast-moving technology? You write it FAST, and you keep it focused on principles, not specific tech tools. Sol reveals how she managed to write her book in two and a half months (or 26 years, depending on which way you look at it...), and how she learned to love the challenge of marketing. 

AI can be an augmenter and accelerator in your business, and this episode can do the same for your writing. 

Along with the nuances of management theory and social change, he revealed insights into his own remarkable writing process. And these elements aren't as different as you might think: his insistence on the non-linear nature of writing and the importance of 'cherishing anomalies' reflects his disciplined yet emergent and above all human approach to strategy. 

Despite the fact that he has so many successful books to his name, Henry Mintzberg is suprisingly wide and creative in his use of other forms of content, such as video, in his mission to make complex ideas accessible. I particularly love the 'Irene question': what can YOU do to drive social change - within your personal life, community, business, government, even on a global scale? It's a profound inquiry that challenges us to consider our own role in shaping a better world.

This conversation felt like an uplifting, enlightening, mind-expanding gift: I hope you feel that way too. 

It's a story of intrapreneurship, which is fitting for a series that draws out lessons in both entrepreneurship and corporate leadership from visionary leaders who are often willing to be more vulnerable away from the finance and figures that are the focus of their more traditional BBC interviews. From the power of storytelling to the psychology of interviewing, there's lots of great stuff here for business book writers, and there's pure gold from Dougal's own experience of breaking down the book into writable parts and discovering the interconnections and patterns in the material. 

Not only CEO secrets, but journalistic and writing secrets too. You're welcome. 

As we hurtle towards the workplace of the future, where human and machine intelligence will interplay in ways we can't yet fully imagine, one thing is clear: standard modes of thinking are becoming less valuable to organizations as algorithms become ever more efficient at replicating them. Nonlinear thinking, hyper focus, intuitive leaps and the ability to tolerate social discomfort and resist groupthink - attributes that have until now been under-valued and under-employed - will become more valuable as complements to AI. And that means that neurodivergent people will become ever more valuable within organizations.

That's the argument of Dr Maureen Dunne, cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert and member of the neurodiversity community herself, and it's also the topic of her new book. As well as making this case, she also shares her own neurodivergent approach to writing: an interdisciplinary, visuospatial 'conceptual synaethesia'.

A rich and extraordinary conversation, at every level.

If you're navigating business or personal growth challenges, this episode could be a game-changer.

Rob Hatch challenges the widely accepted narrative that failure is our greatest teacher. Instead, he argues, the most useful lessons come from our successes. Instead of studying what to avoid, let's try to better understand what to repeat.

If you're curious about the underlying forces that drive success, or if repeated advice about learning from failures doesn't resonate with you, this fresh perspectives on 'learning from success', together with his simple, practical ideas for how to start, might be just what you need.

Michelle Glogovac is an author and host of the My Simplified Life podcast, and a frequent guest on other podcasts. She's passionate about the special, intimate connection that podcasts create between authors and their readers, and the triple win of a good conversation: great content for the host, great marketing for the guest, great insights for the listener.

If you're sitting there waiting to be asked to be a guest on a podcast, then that stops today: discover exactly how to pitch yourself effectively to your perfect podcast host. And if you're thinking about hosting a podcast of your own, then this is just pure gold.

While ethics has become more talked-about in business, it might not be something you've considered as a factor in your business writing. But you should.

In this Best Bits episode, I draw together insights from a wide range of recent guests that show how the moral position you take – in work and life – informs your writing, and the impact that has on both your reader and yourself.

Nothing heavy and duty-bound here, just a joyful, thoughtful exploration of how we can write and work in a way that benefits the world, those around us, and ourselves.

Hear from:

• Corey Keyes on the opposite of languishing;
• Alison Taylor on why business ethics matter to all of us;
• David McQueen on being braver about decision-making;
• Lucy Adams on why HR is about allowing people to flourish rather than being responsible for them doing so;
• David Roche on the obligations we have to our leaders;
• Louise Brogan on taking an ethical, human approach to social media;
• Meredith Norwich on why publishing is an industry full of principled people.

Becoming a first-time CEO is a lonely experience, and David Roche (who's got that particular t-shirt himself) believes every new CEO should be assigned a coach and mentor, because if we expect our leaders to have all the answers, we're setting them - and ourselves - up for failure in a complex, fast-moving, uncertain world. 

David has been involved in the book trade for many years, but that didn't insulate him from the hard work of authorship, including the paranoia of wondering if his draft was 'good enough'… 

Merging the personal with the professional, and storytelling with business strategy, this is an episode that offers coaching insights and writing wisdom – and which will be particularly interesting if you're aiming for or already seated in the CEO's chair, or writing for those sitting in it. 

I think we can all agree the world is ready for some fresh perspectives on the ethical obligations of the business world: Alison Taylor is here to provide them. 

All too often there are stark differences between company statements and their day-to-day actions, as they perform the delicate dance between ethical decisions and turning a profit. Alison questions long-standing business beliefs, including the assumption that compliance is a proxy for ethical behaviour, proposing a new approach that accounts for companies' internal systems and also their role within broader society. 

She also reveals how she went about writing her book 'Higher Ground', including how she workshopped her thoughts in the classroom and sparked dialogues online as a sounding board.

Insightful, challenging, practical and energising - classic Extraordinary Business Book Club stuff.

Most of us are only too familiar with 'languishing' - the opposite of flourishing. It was when Adam Grant wrote his famous 2021 New York Times article that we all recognised it as the defining post-pandemic emotion, and it continues to dominate discussions of wellbeing.

Grant's article credited research by Dr. Corey Keyes, a distinguished professor emeritus and a leading voice in the study of mental health and human flourishing. In this week's conversation, Corey explains the personal and professional reasons why he's spent his career advocating for a more proactive approach to fostering mental health — and the profound implications of translating a lifetime of research into a book that can change lives.

This extraordinary conversation will reshape how you think about mental health, not just in business, but in every facet of life.

Meredith Norwich is a senior acquisitions editor at Routledge, part of Taylor and Francis Publishing, and she has seen a LOT of business book proposals. What makes a proposal stand out for her? You might be surprised...

Packed with valuable insights for first-time authors and behind-the-scenes glimpses into the publishing industry, this is essential listening for anyone contemplating writing a business book. 

But what does that mean? As publishers, we at Practical Inspiration Publishing are all about selling books, but we don't actually sell our books at book fairs: so what DO we do? Here's an insider's guide to what actually goes on at London Book Fair for book trade professionals and for authors and illustrators, and what you can expect (and what you can't) if you decide to rock up to Olympia next year.

She's also in the throes of writing her first business book, so this is a great report from the frontline if you're in that place and want some comradely advice and support. 

And finally, Louise's no-nonsense, super-helpful LinkedIn how-to videos have also made her something of a YouTube star, so I made sure to ask her all about that too... 

Lucy Adams spends her days helping HR leaders reimagine their profession, and her classic work HR Disrupted and its sequel, The HR Change Toolkit, are critical to this mission.

Her message is simple: treat employees as adults. But the implications are profound.

In this conversation, we talk about how HR is changing (or not), the impact of COVID on the profession and on Lucy's decision to write a new edition, the delight of writing and the grind of editing, and the exhilaration and terror involved in opening your freshly minted book for the first time...

David McQueen has never been one to shy away from tough conversations. In his book, The BRAVE Leader, he challenges all leaders to lean into the difficulty, to be more courageous and ambitious in their decision-making for inclusivity. 

And it turns out that willingness to engage and that refusal to settle served him well when it came to writing his first book. More at home on the stage than the page, David found this a steep learning curve, and he's open and honest about what he discovered along the way. 

But just like those tough conversations, the hard work of writing and editing paid for itself in spades, and the book is now the 'centre of gravity' for his talks and other activities.  

If you need to be braver with your book and/or your leadership, this week's episode is for you... 

The theme is pushing through discomfort, and it brings together extraordinary stories, illuminating insights and gloves-down challenges from: 

• Errol Doebler on emotional regulation and the discipline of writing; 
• Sir John Tusa on the traits of people who Get Things Done;
• Bonnie Wan on writing her way out of the darkest moments; 
• Andy Brown on taking ideas further; 
• Sara Dalrymple on getting through the discomfort of selling; 
• Gillian Camm on getting through the discomfort of editing; 
• Naren Aryal on breaking through the trust barrier; 
• Sara Lloyd on how publishers, and writers, face up to challenge. 

Includes ice baths, coffee, deep breaths and showing up. 

When I put out the call for questions for this quadricentennial episode, I could never have imagined the response. From the playful to the profound, these questions have got me thinking and I hope they, and my answers, will get you thinking too. 

So for one week only, to celebrate this 400-episode milestone, you're asking the questions in the Extraordinary Business Book Club and I'm in the hot seat. Very strange, but very fun! 

Errol Doebler knows a thing or two about discipline. He's been a Naval Surface Warfare officer, Navy SEAL officer, FBI special agent and SWAT operator before founding his leadership consulting firm Ice Cold Leader, which is also the name of his new book. 

Why ice-cold? Because ice baths form a key part of his own self-regulation regime, and because managing emotional responses is so foundational to effective leadership. Errol had to develop a conscious process for emotional regulation after a traumatic injury robbed him of that area of his brain; that process turns out to be valuable for anyone facing the stress and emotional discomfort that accompany leadership. 

Prepare to be challenged and inspired in roughly equal measure.  

Publishing is an industry that runs on creativity and intellectual property. So how are book publishers responding to the challenges and opportunities of generative AI? Can the book, one of our oldest technologies, survive this latest technological revolution? And if so, what are the implications for authors? 

As the first Global AI Lead for Pan Macmillan, one of the world's largest publishers of trade fiction and non-fiction, Sara Lloyd is grappling with these very questions. In this week's conversation she sheds some light on the conversations taking place in the industry, and the ways that publishers themselves are using AI. She also gives her best tip for authors writing their first book, and it's probably not what you expect... 

As a brand strategist, Bonnie Wan knows how to put together a creative brief that makes meaning out of mess, that goes straight to the essence of what a company is really about. So when she reached a moment of crisis in her own life, she reached instinctively for that skillset.

The result was The Life Brief, not a document but a 'practice of permission' she has adopted in all areas of life now for cutting through the noise and finding what really matters to you, the vision you recognise at a visceral level when you unearth it. 

Along the way she discovered the power of exploratory writing, the power of developing her ideas through speaking and workshops, and the art of leading the reader step by step through an experiential book. 

You're going to love this. 

For many small business owners, 'selling' feels deeply uncomfortable. So too often they don't do it, and the result is the business struggles along or even fails because not enough people know how great their product is. Sound familiar? 

Sara Dalrymple sees you. Not only that, she has empowering and energising news for you: your sales skills are already better than you think, and you don't have to spend hours of you day selling. In this week's episode, she tells me why our assumptions about selling are outdated, and what effective, zero-ick, 21st-century small-business selling looks like. 

(And also how she came to write a book by accident.)

There are many, many books about creativity: what it is, how to do it, what steps to follow. When journalist and arts administrator Sir John Tusa turned his attention to the topic, he took a rather different approach.

His book is dedicated to 'bright sparks who refuse to become damp squibs', and it tells the stories of people who match that description. Around the world, against great odds, overcoming ridicule and opposition and invariably making many people furious along the way, these individuals achieved extraordinary creative success. From these varied experiences, we see the commonalities emerge and we can't help but be inspired to do things differently. That is the power of storytelling, and this is a masterclass in how to go about it. 

When you tell people you're a publisher, you discover pretty quickly that a significant proportion of the population wants to write a book some day. And no wonder. Writing a book is one of the most significant, rewarding uses of your time on the planet, it will challenge and stretch you, deepen your thinking and allow you to connect to the top thinkers in your field, and that's all before the book itself is out there, building your reputation and reach. 

So if you're determined to achieve that goal this year, how will you go about making it happen? Here are some ideas on first steps that will help you turn that dream - or indeed any other - into reality. Happy new year; let's make it count. 

Having a good idea is a great place to start when you're writing a business book. But it's only a start. Then comes the real work: testing that idea out, articulating it clearly, and - perhaps hardest of all - drawing out the 'so what?' 

Andy Brown has been through all these stages with The Emotional Overdraft - from recognising that business growth often has a human cost that's hidden from the balance sheet but is no less real for that to developing effective metrics to help leaders manage that cost for themselves and their people. 

If you're a 'doer' whose go-to answer is 'just work harder' or a writer struggling to develop your idea or - even better - both, this is for you.  

Naren Aryal is laser-focused on the business of publishing for business. In this week's episode he talks to me about how Amplify Publishing Group developed from a single title to one of the world's leading business imprints, the unique goals and expertise of business authors, and why it's so important that you're clear on the target market for your book. (Spoiler alert: it's not 'everyone'.)

Too often, people see writing a business book as something comletely different from business itself.

It's not.

In this best bits episode, I draw together the choicest insights of recent Extraordinary Business Book Club guests to demonstrate that writing a business book is in fact a business activity, not simply because it contributes to your business success, but because it draws on your core business strengths. And the skills you develop as you write your book will develop those skills, too. 

You'll hear from: 

• John Simmons on individuality in business and writing
• Ginny Carter on the persuasive power of stories
• Adrian Hornsby on the 17-mattress problem (or how you stop your stories from dying under their own weight) 
• Ed Haddon on how telling your own stories can build human connection 
• Josh Bernhoff on why stories beat bald facts every time
• Catherine Stothart on bringing in workshop experience to increase your writing's impact
• Katie Lewis & Matthew Stafford on why having a co-author is like having a co-founder
• Karen Williams on assembling an expert 'project team' for your book
• Luan Wise on making your marketing smarts the foundation for your book. 

It's so full of inspiration you're going to wish you had an extra of ears... 

Luan Wise, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing with over 20 years of experience in B2B and B2C sectors, is an expert on all things social media. She's also become something of an expert on writing and publishing business books over the last few years, and in this week's conversation we talk about social media tactics, the difficulty of writing about a topic that won't stand still, the value of collaborating with academia for research, the difficulty of fitting the writing around the day job, and advanced procrastination strategies.

With insights into both traditional and self-publishing, this is a classic Extraordinary Business Book Club cocktail of practical inspiration.

You'll be familiar with the idea of visual identity in branding: but what about verbal identity? John Simmons, director at Interbrand, recognised that the language you use as a business is just as important - if not more so - as the logo, colours and fonts. 

He also realised that most businesses were doing this badly.  

In this week's though-provoking conversation, he talks me to me about human-to-human business writing, the value of learning to write well, and the joy of it. In his Dark Angels workshops he delights in introducing business people to their own creativity and building their writing confidence. Because when we write well, we think well, and when we think well, we are powerful. 

In this super-practical episode, Ginny pinpoints three critical missteps often made by self-help authors, demystifies storytelling, and introduces her ingenious 'chunking' technique as a way of structuring your content in a way that's more effective for the reader.

Whether you're an aspiring self-help author or a seasoned pro, this episode not only celebrates the profound impact of self-help literature but also delivers invaluable insights to take your own writing from good to great.

When Adrian Hornsby faced the challenge of how to convey complex business information in a way that resonated with readers, he drew on his background in writing fiction for theatre to bring dense business concepts to life. But he quickly learned that using a story to convey information was the exact reverse of what he needed to do. The result is the award-winning Disruption in Action, winner of the 2023 Life and Work Business Book of the Year award. 

As well as a masterclass on storytelling, we talk about learning from feedback and the decision of Adrian and his co-authors to self-publish and the advantages it brings, as well as the challenges. 

With a wealth of experience in coaching and training leaders from top multinational companies like Airbus, Google, and Audi, Catherine Stothart has developed a deep understanding of what motivates individuals and teams. Understanding these needs can help managers create the right conditions for motivation and engagement within their teams.

We also discuss the importance of aligning communication styles with individual preferences, as it plays a crucial role in building rapport, trust, and uncovering what truly motivates team members, and how so much of writing is actually about talking. 

Katie Lewis and Matthew Stafford are the co-founders of 9others, a unique community that brings together founders and entrepreneurs to find answers to the questions that are keeping them up at night. These conversations have brought some unexpected benefits too, such as the connections and friendships that have emerged from these shared dinners.

In this week's conversation, Katie and Matthew reflect on how their collaborative approach to entrepreneurship and the synergy that has fuelled their business journey as cofounders played out when they became coauthors of their book - Find Your 9others.

This might sound familiar to anyone who's sat down to update their book. But this conversation isn't just for you if you're considering a second edition: Karen Williams is talking about her bestselling Book Marketing Made Simple, and this conversation is packed with insights and ideas for marketing your business book from day 1. 

From tactical tools to timeless principles, discover best practice in modern marketing - including thoughts on AI - and the enduring joy of writing buddies and post-its.  

Mavericks write their own rules. Modern mavericks write their own rules of success. 

Ed Haddon, author of The Modern Maverick, helps people think more deeply and more courageously about what success means to them. What really matters - in their private lives and in the world around them, as well as in their professional lives? As an elite athlete, corporate rebel, and the founder of the first B Corp-certified coaching practice in the UK, he's walking the talk, and might just inspire you to change your own life... 

So how can you use that voice most effectively? Here's some advice from some of the best writers in the business books business to give you some ideas... 

• Anne Janzer on what your writer's voice is and why it matters
• Dr Lucy Ryan on writing for your reader
• Catherine Garrod on the holistic nature of the writer's voice
• Nicholas Janni on precision and the craft of rewriting
• Rachel Lawes on caring, not selling
• Robin Powell on aligning your interests with your readers'
• Neil Mullarkey on using humour right (and avoiding the wrong kinds...)
• Richard Hoare on finding a coherent voice with a co-writer
• Dennis Sherwood on not getting too hung up about it all too soon. 

Listen in, and discover how to take your voice from meh to aMAZing! 

Luckily Lucy is made of sterner stuff, and her research has given us not only a new understanding of why midlife women are revolting against the constraints and biases of corporate life [hint: it's not because they 'lack ambition'], but what changes leaders can make to retain their invaluable talent and experience.

In this conversation we talk through her findings, and also the tricky process of translating a PhD dissertation into a practical, inspiring book for every leader. Be prepared to be enraged, but also hugely entertained.

Today more than ever, if you want a comfortable retirement, it's up to you to put the thinking and the work in. And the sooner the better. Financial journalist Robin Powell has made it his mission to counter the misinformation and cut through the jargon, and the result is How to Fund the Life you Want (co-authored with Jonathan Hollow). 

He talks to me about his own journey to financial literacy, via journalism, and how he went about turning his findings into a practical and readable book that could really make a difference to someone's life. We even touch on what happens when co-authors disagree! 

"In everything we write, we choose a voice."

Poets and novelists talk a lot about their writing 'voice', but nonfiction writers, and especially business book writers, can write a full manuscript without giving it a thought. Which is a shame, because as Anne Janzer - copywriter, ghostwriter and business book writer - knows more than most, being intentional about your voice is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal if you want to write a book that doesn't just tell the reader a bunch of facts, but engages them in a way that might just change their life. 

As well as learning more about how to choose and develop your writing voice, you'll also discover how to go about one of the best ways EVER for creating content, building engagement and crafting a marketing hook: carrying out original research. 

If you're going to write a business book and you want to do it well, you shouldn't miss this. 

Richard Hoare didn't set out to become an expert on negotiation. In fact his first attempt at negotiation, when he was offered a poorly paid first job in the music industry involved, he admits, no negotiation at all. But after a career at the top of legal services in the music industry he's learned a thing or two, and recognized the need for a short, straightforward book that set out the principles of successful negotiation in a way that anyone could grasp and use. 

Spoiler alert: It's not about getting your own way, it's about uncovering value and nurturing relationships. And because it was written with a co-author, the book involved some negotiation along the way itself.

In this week's conversation Richard shares his tactics for writing collaboratively, and indeed writing at all alongside a busy work schedule, together with some practical and profound insights on the art of the (better) deal.

Dr Rachel Lawes is the world's leading expert in semiotics and its application in the realm of marketing. (If you have no idea what that means, don't worry: I asked her for the 'explain-it-like-I'm-five' introduction and she did it brilliantly.)

But as well as taking in psychology, human behaviour, cultural dynamics, and the examination of societal constructs, we talk in gritty detail about her writing process. Rachel's straightforward and 'economical' top-down approach, together with her obvious delight in taking on a book-sized project ('The best bit about writing is reading... Your only job is to read your heart out for four months and write about what it makes you think about the world. What a treat.'), makes for an even-more-than-usually practical and inspiring episode.

Get the kettle on and grab a notepad and pencil... 

That was the challenge facing Nicholas Janni, and he rose to it so impressively that Leader as Healer was named Business Book of the Year 2023 at the recent BBA awards. In this week's episode he speaks to me about the challenge of that translation process, and the somatic experience of flow in writing itself. 

There's a lot of mystique around creativity, but for practical people - people like scientists and engineers - being able to have good new ideas reliably is vitally important in a fast-changing world. Luckily, there's a process for that, and Dennis Sherwood has put it into an award-winning book. 

In this generous and thoughtful conversation, we talk about that process for discovering difference (which makes, incidentally, a GREAT exploratory writing prompt), and we debate the order of writing and thinking. Fittingly, we land in different places here: what do YOU think? 

If the thought of trying to be funny at work brings you out in a rash, don't panic: I have it on good authority from Neil Mullarkey that there's no need to dress up as a chicken or do karaoke. And he should know. Co-founder of Europe's top improv troupe, the Comedy Store Players, Neil has spent many years sharing the principles of improv with business leaders to improve their confidence, communication, and creativity.

Neil's new book In the Moment is a call to embrace the importance of listening and co-creating in the moment, a key principle of improv. It's not about being funny per se, but rather about fostering collaboration, navigating ambiguity, and embracing vulnerability. In this context, humour enhances human connections, builds rapport, and fosters creativity - the elements, in fact, that we need most in our workplaces today. 

When it came to publishing her book, Catherine was determined to walk her talk, ensuring both language and design were as accessible as possible. She also reveals how she managed the delicate dance between perfectionism and deadlines, and learned how important it is an author to keep your sights on the reader and the difference you want to make.

Whether you're agonising over your manuscript or feeling ecstatic about the progress you're making you'll relate to all of this, and if you're lacking motivation, you'll find it here in spades. 

With insights from: 

• Steven Adjei on the nature of pain; 
• Richard Charkin on the visceral vulnerability of becoming an author; 
• Melissa Romo on the challenges of making the complex simple; 
• Catherine Erdly on detail wrangling; 
• Susan Doering on the relentless work of marketing; 
• Eloise Skinner on dealing with the soul suck of social media; 
• Adam Bryant on the all-consumingness of writing a book; and
• Alex Hill on why we do it at all. 

Imagine what Michelangelo could have achieved if he'd listened to this...

Adam Bryant, creator of the New York Times's Corner Office column, has interviewed a LOT of top leaders, but not in the way they expected. He ask them  about leadership, rather than strategy, and their own leadership in particular: questions that allow them to articulate answers they haven't seen before. 

In this fascinating conversation we explore how he's built on this journalistic approach to write a series of books, and how writing in public builds credibility, expands networks, and creates a perpetual motion machine for authorship.

If you're interested in leadership and writing, and if you love a good metaphor riot, this is unmissable. 

Working at the intersection of research and application, Professor Alex Hill has learned that it's not enough to have the 'Ta Dah' moment - you then need to have a good answer to the 'So What?' question. In this thoughtful conversation we talk about the principles of organizations that endure, the importance of naming ideas (and how to help people NOT misinterpret them), and the life-changing significance of finding out what it is you want to leave behind. 

If you ever feel like the problems of the world are overwhelming and that you are powerless against the injustice, apathy, greed and prejudice out there, this is the conversation you need to listen to. Solitaire Townsend is a solutionist par excellence, and she empowers other people to become solutionists too, no matter how insignificant they think their own actions might be. 

And part of having an impact on the world, it turns out, is stepping up to write a book that will exponentially increase your influence. Don't get angry: get writing. 

But after decades of senior leadership in major publishing houses, he's just taken on his greatest challenges: launching a start-up publishing company and writing a book himself. I asked him how that's going, and why he decided against an index... 

Melissa Romo is passionate about the opportunity that remote working presents - inclusion, access to talent, quality of life, etc etc. But as a remote worker herself, as well as the leader of a distributed team, she also knows it's not all 'roses and tulips'. Missing from all the discussion of remote work she was hearing was the emotional fallout she recognized in herself and others: guilt, paranoia, loneliness depression and boredom. If we don't solve for those, all the fancy collaboration systems in the world won't help us do our best work and be our best selves. 

The result is Your Resource is Human, a deeply researched and highly practical handbook for making remote work work at the relational level. In this conversation, she tells me what it took, and what it means, to shape and share those ideas. 

Susan Doering's career progression mirrored that of many women: a successful early career, derailed by childcare commitments and domestic expectations, followed by a period of 'happenstance' - doing jobs as she was asked, discovering her own skills, and starting to build her confidence and qualifications along the way, until she'd created a place in the world where she could excel and where she loved what she was doing. 

And then she wrote the book she wished she'd had herself, to help other women achieve the same. 

Along the way she discovered how to shift away from academic writing, how to structure ideas, and how to learn to love the long, long process of marketing a book... 

Writing a book means marketing a book, and marketing a book means becoming visible as an author. And that isn't always easy, even when you have a huge following. 

Eloise Skinner knows what it takes to write books (But Are You Alive? is her third), but she also knows that the writing alone isn't enough. To share her hard-won insights into what gives life meaning, which she's discovered through an extraordinary professional and personal life - including her work as a lawyer, as a psychotherapist and existential therapist and her time in an urban monastic community - she had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. In this thoughtful conversation, she tells me what that involves, and how she gets over herself to get her message out there. 

If you're an entrepreneur, you'll know about the price that you pay each day to sustain your enterprise: sometimes gladly, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes without even realising it. And you'll also know about the pain that's often involved. But did you realize that there are different types of pain, and that they demand different things of you? 

In this deeply personal and practical conversation, Steven Adjei offers a thoughtful way of assessing and responding to these various different kinds of entrepreneurial pain. We also discuss the too-often unheard lessons from African entrepreneurs, how to enrich the prose of a business book with poetry and music, and the vital importance of balancing compassion and competence. 

Luckily, Catherine Erdly is an expert in taming tigers, and in this week's conversation she shares with me some of the ways in which she helps small retail businesses do the same (and why that matters for everyone). 

We also talk about why the tiger is such a powerful metaphor, and how to write about difficult topics in an accessible way. 

It's GRRRRREAT!

Hear from: 

• Professor Lucy Easthope on leaning in to disaster and difficult feelings
• Dr Deb Mashek on real engagement and connection in relationships
• Danni Haughan on connection and purpose in podcasting
• Liam Black on not leaning in so hard that you fall over
• Catherine Baker on sustainable performance as a leader
• Sarah Stein Lubrano on writing as a process of engagement with ideas
• Tim Clark on writing more purposefully 
• Beth Stallwood on finding the people and the strategies to help you lean in more effectively

An unmissable, unforgettable best bits episode. 

Liam Black has become known as the 'gloves-off mentor' for his no-nonsense, straight-talking way of supporting social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven leaders. When the work you do matters so much to people's lives, it can be hard to see situations objectively, or to keep any kind of work/life balance. 

But capturing that voice in a book isn't easy. In this characteristically direct conversation, Liam shares the awfulness of writing - those wet Wednesday afternoons when the words die on the page - and the joy when the magic happens, the vulnerability of putting your book out into the world and the way it creates new connections when it's there. 

Probably the most truthful conversation about writing you'll hear all week. 

Catherine Baker qualified as a tennis coach before she qualified as a lawyer, and throughout her career has been fascinated by the interconnectedness of sporting and professional excellence. In her new book Staying the Distance, though, she argues that by drawing lessons for business only from the high performance we see, we're missing out on the reality that underpins that performance: what elite athletes do when noone's watching, the routines and rest that allow them to sustain that performance. 

It turns out this is also true for writing...

You're welcome. 

Discover: 

• How to find out EVERYTHING you could possibly want to know about getting published with Alysoun Owen, editor of the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook; 
• A better way to buy books online if you care about independent bookshops with Nicole Vanderbilt, Bookshop.org's UK MD; 
• Why TikTok is moving into the book-selling space and what you can do to promote your book there with Matthew Perry, Head of Books on the TikTok Shop; 
• How you can think ahead to make the most of translation opportunities as an author with Clare Hodder, rights consultant and Rights Manager for Practical Inspiration Publishing; and
• Things to keep in mind if you're planning to start a podcast, with Small Wardour's Carla Herbertson and Danni Haghan, formerly at Apple podcasts. 

You may not have used the terms 'WorkJoy' and 'WorkGloom' before, but I bet you immediately know what they mean, AND which is your most common daily experience. The good news is that you have much more control over that experience than you might think. 

In this week's conversation, Beth Stallwood talks to me about how we can find ways to bring more joy into our working lives, and how those lessons spill over into the work we choose to do for ourselves, such as, say, writing a book. Discover your own power - it was there all along - and also how to build the squad that will support you: the cheerleaders, challengers, comrades, creators, connectors and conjurers who will transform your writing experience into something altogether more joyful. 

Sarah Stein Lubrano describes The School of Life as 'a modern press': books are vitally important, but they're only one part of a wider ecosystem of ideas. There are many lessons here for business book writers, and many ideas too: how might YOU build in experiential strands, and opportunities for your readers to learn and reflect for themselves alongside their reading?

And what does it look like to be actively engaging for good in a content landscape that is so often based around distraction and monetizing the consumer's attention? 

A fascinating interrogation of the role of books, and indeed the nature of authorship. 

No hearts and flowers here, but real, thoughtful, passionate insights into what it means to be in relationship with those we work alongside, how we express love as part of leadership, and how passion fuels the work we do. 

With contributions from Professor Lucy Easthope, Yetunde Hoffman, Dr Deb Mashek and Richard Fox. 

Most of us run away from disaster. Similarly, we try to avoid painful emotions. 

For Professor Lucy Easthope, expert and adviser on emergency planning and disaster recovery, heading towards the most traumatic diaster scenes as others flee in the opposite direction is par for the course, as is leaning into the rawest human emotions of grief, horror and anger.

How do you do this every day and stay not only sane but cheerful? And how do you write about it in a way that readers can bear? 

In this truly extraordinary conversation, we explore courage, clarity, how writing helps both ourselves and others, and why books should be available on prescription.

If you only listen to one podcast this week, make it this one. 

You may be familiar with the Business Model Canvas - but have you ever thought about using it for yourself, rather than your business? Dr Tim Clark did, and discovered that this simple but powerful visual tool had astonishing power to help move his own and others' thinking forward. 

Words are powerful, but visual thinking can help us see things differently, and in their totality. 

In this fascinating conversation we talk about what it's like to adapt someone else's model, the difficult of creating a highly visual book, and the inescapable fact that writing is Really Hard Work. 

If you want to do work that matters, the unavoidable truth is that you're going to need to collaborate with others at some point. And that can be the most joyful, creative, energising experience.... but very often it isn't. 

What IS it about collaboration that's so damn hard? Turns out that even with the best collaboration tools and project processes, in the end it all comes down to relationships. The good news is that you can learn to collaborate better, and Deb Mashek has spent years researching exactly how to help you do that. 

The other good news is that you can bring those collaboration skills to the process of writing your book, and make it not only better but more fun along the way. Find out how....  

In this Best Bits episode, I look back over my recent conversations and pick out some insights from these extraordinary thinkers and writers on how we can - and indeed must - focus on what really matters.

With contributions from: 

• Tessa Misiaszek on branding;
• Phil Barden on goals;
• Ollie Henderson on the relationship between work and life;
• Joy Burnford on writing as a route to deep thinking; 
• Alison Jones (hello) on the passion behind the writing; 
• Bec Evans on finding what works; 
• Rob Orchard on being infatuated with what you're doing;
• Mark Leruste on why YOUR story matters; and
• Sarah Sparks on why YOU matter, and why you need to look after yourself. 

Food for thought, indeed. 

Ollie Henderson would like to talk to you about work-life balance. Specifically, he'd like you to understand that you will NEVER reach a state of perfect equilibrium, so why beat yourself up about it? Instead, he'd like you to consider the idea of work and life as a flywheel, working together, moving you forward. 

In this conversation, he shares some deeply personal insights about what that has meant for him, and also how he pivoted not just his work/life but his approach to writing as a way of exploring ideas and building community. If you're considering starting a newsletter, launching a podcast or writing a book in 2023, this is for you. 

Bec Evans and Chris Smith met in a bookshop and have worked with books, writing and authors ever since. As co-founders of Prolifiko they coach writers to be more productive, and as co-authors of Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit That Lasts they have made their experience and expertise available for anyone who needs it. 

But writing about writing is perhaps the most cripplingly tricky kind of writing - and writing with your life partner is a make-or-break relationship strategy. In this week's conversation we unpick the personal and professional strands behind their writing journey, and the importance of Peggy, their labradoodle, in holding it all together. 

In a media landscape dominated by the white-hot, reactive world of social media and rolling news, it can be hard to keep a sense of perspective. That's why a small group of editors decided to do something revolutionary: create a form of journalism that deliberately avoided breaking news, but instead focused on looking back to identify the real significance of events several months after they'd happened, once the dust had settled. Throw in high-quality production values and sophisticated infographics, and you have Delayed Gratification, the flagship publication of the slow journalism movement. 

Independent publishing - of books or magazines - is famously financial precarious, and in this conversation we explore the bloody-mindedness and vision that lies behind it and the joy it brings to those brave and foolish enough to take it on, and why the world needs those brave fools so badly. 

In a gratifying plot twist, I become the guest on my own podcast as Grace Marshall asks me all the tough questions about my own new book, Exploratory Writing: Everyday magic for life and work. 

How can one of our simplest, oldest technologies - the pen on the page - be the solution to our most pressing 21st-century problems? Discover why just 6 minutes of this deceptively simple off-line, off-grid, off-piste practice turns out to be a powerful tool for better thinking, creativity, and wellbeing, and even diversity and inclusion within organizations. 

Plus some thoughts on the crippling embarrassment of being a publisher who can't nail the structure for her own book... 

For most of us, it's hard for us to see how our personal story fits into our professional life. But Mark Leruste believes that your personal story is the 'emotional glue' that makes sense of everything you do in the world, and people need to hear it. 

In this fascinating conversation, we discuss not only how you find and own your story, but how you use it for good in the service of others as a business book writer. He also reveals how he designed his own book, Glow in the Dark, as a Trojan Horse for a much deeper message.... 

Looking back, Sarah Sparks can see that her body was trying to tell her there was a problem. But she didn't listen: she kept on working crazy hours under immense pressure while trying to be the perfect new wife, and eventually her body stepped in to give her a message she couldn't ignore: she collapsed and was hospitalized with burnout. 

Since then she's made it her mission to stop other people getting to that place, with her STOP model for combatting chronic stress. As she developed her model she realised the next logical step was to face her fear of writing: the result was an award-winning book. 

Marketer Phil Barden experienced this for himself, when he discovered that everything he thought he knew about advertising was wrong. In this week's conversation he shares how what he learned about how decision science transformed his own approach to marketing, and also how you as an author can help your readers take your ideas on board more effectively. 

People often talk about the value of the finished book - for the author and for the reader. Less talked-about is the value of the process of writing: the connections you make as you research and discuss the ideas, the deepening of your thinking, the shift that you make as an author from consuming and curating other people's opinions to setting out your own. 

Joy Burnford has been a 'curator of confidence' for many years, researching how women in particular build and sustain confidence at work, and developing her own in the process. But she realised that this is only one part of the equation: no matter how confident the woman, if the system at work is stacked against her, she cannot make the contribution of which she is capable. And when that happens, everyone loses out. 

A fascinating conversation on gender equality in the workplace, but also on how writing a book doesn't just change those who read it, but its author too. 

The science of branding is undergoing a revolution as we begin to better understand the neurology of decision-making. Matt Johnson and Tessa Misiaszek interrogate this new world of branding with a ruthless focus on what the implications are for businesses. You might love your brand, but if it doesn't mean anything to your customers, sorry, it's not a brand. 

As well as this fascinating insight into the frontiers of marketing, we discuss the creative conflict (and the cocktails) involved in writing a book from two different perspectives, the challenges that presents and the reasons why it's so worthwhile. 

We can't get rid of these constraints, but we CAN get smarter about them, and maybe even turn them into superpowers. 

Get inspiration from: 

• Kate Nash on working with rather than against physical disability; 
• Jenna Tiffany on the impact of the pandemic; 
• Lucy Cohen on using whatever way of writing works for you; 
• Jodie Cook on using time constraints for productivity and wellbeing; 
• Em Stroud on using time constraints for playfulness and creativity; 
• Bruce Daisley on the magic of TikTok for explaining complex ideas in just a few seconds; 
• Felicity Dwyer on creating deadlines and accountability to get things done; 
• Kara Tan Bhala on translating rigour into readability; 
• Ian MacRae on using the book proposal document to create clarity. 

From the moment her well-intentioned mother spoke wistfully about the possibility of her getting 'a little job' when she was afflicted by chronic rheumatoid arthritis as a teenager, Kate Nash has been challenging the narrative of expectations around disable people in the workplace. She's the founder of professional development hub Purple Space and the inspiration behind the #purplelightup movement that has turned some of the world's most iconic landmarks purple in honour of disability rights. 

In this powerful conversation she blends the personal and the political to talk about her own experience, the complexity and diversity of disabled people's lived experience, the commonalities of the barriers they face in the workplace, and what it means to be a good ally for disabled colleagues. She also reveals her approach to writing a book which any writer, disabled or not, can learn a lot from. 

In her 3D model of communication, Felicity Dwyer starts by inviting us to consider how we communicate with ourselves. It's a profound and often moving process, but if we're going to connect meaningfully with others, it's an essential starting point. In a world that often focuses on superficial tactics to get a message across, this approach invites us to think more deeply, and connect more powerfully. 

This connection with self and others also characterised Felicity's approach to writing her book, Crafting Connection, and in this conversation she talks frankly not only about how she developed her own thinking through writing, but also about inviting others into the process, and coping with the gift of feedback... 

I'm willing to bet you've never met a Corporate Clown Coach before, not unless you've already met Em Stroud. In this fascinating conversation we talk about clowning and its role in work and life, finding fun in writing, and how we rediscover the parts of ourselves that may have been neglected over the years and integrate them into our day-to-day lives for more joy, playfulness and whole-hearted success. 

Jodie Cook completed her first start-up/exit cycle in 10 years, and she recommends it as a way of planning your strategy more purposefully: 10 years is 'long enough to think long term... but also short enough to not waste time.'

She focuses her time equally purposefully at the daily level too, working in 'blocks' to ensure the work gets done effectively and that she protects time to train and to rest - REALLY rest - in her day. And of course she makes time to write, because that's her way of processing everything. 

Make time for this. 

So it was a joy to talk to him about all of this, and particularly his new book, Fortitude, and why it's NOT called Resilience. Along the way we take in TikTok, Elon Musk, the tombstone aesthetic, and why the platform you build for your book is at least as important as the book itself. 

Listen, and be ready to take notes. 

Jenna Tiffany has worked with many businesses who mistook tactics for strategy. She decided the best way to help them - and many others - was to write a book. Because books, as her foreword writer Dan Barker points out, 'can literally perform magic', providing all the value of the most expensive course on earth, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost. 

In this fascinating conversation, we discuss not only marketing strategy, but the way in which that strategic approach is so essential for writing a business book. 

She's also shown that it's possible to write about complex ideas in a clear and straightforward way, using stories rather than abstract theories. (Parable, as she points out, is simply an ancient name for case study.)

A fascinating topic, and an equally fascinating conversation with a groundbreaking woman. 

Psychologist Ian MacRae is fascinated by the 'dark' side of online - the 'unconscious of the internet' - and how we can use a more nuanced understanding of that to better inform our online lives. 

He also has some wise words on how to go about pulling complex ideas and vast quantities of research into a readable book - even when it means creating a volume of untold stories as a byproduct... 

If your natural style is more seat-of-the-pants than perfectly planned, you'll love this unapologetic take on writing from Lucy Cohen - lying on a settee, writing from the heart, ideally after a large glass of red wine. 

But don't be fooled: there's nothing insubstantial about her take on the realities of entrepreneurship and where you need to focus for long-term success (hint: forget the first million). 

A joy of a conversation, taking in business, anxiety, oversharing, and powerlifting. 

Luckily there are many great writing and business brains on hand to answer it. Learn from the best: 

Simon Alexander Ong on the different types of energy and how they work together to create flow; 

Rob Wozny on how the spiritual energy of purpose can power writing; 

Sam Dogen on why writing is like exercise, and the interplay of mental and social energy; 

Mark Hayes on drawing energy from others and particularly the power of the podcast; 

Bernard Marr on the flywheel effect of the conversations you have at work and the conversation you have on the page; 

Katy Murray on breaking down big creative projects and generating the 'starting energy' you need to tackle them; 

Felicity Cowie on the importance of being fired up, and the need to contain that fire; 

Sara Tate on managing the energy-sucking effects on uncertainty and coming out the other side stronger; 

Zena Everett on just getting started. 

Whether you're energized or exhausted as the holidays draw to a close, I guarantee you'll find something here to light you up. 

Are you crazy busy? Of course you are. Me too. Rubbish, isn't it? Stop multitasking (you know it's not working) and take half an hour to listen to Zena Everett, author of The Crazy Busy Cure, and purveyor of sane, practical advice on how to stop wasting time on stuff that doesn't really matter and focus on the stuff that does. 

Like writing. 

What story about money do you buy into? Sam Dogen, aka The Financial Samurai, wants you to rethink financial freedom, and he's used writing as the way to enable his own extraordinary life-after-work. 

Think you're too busy to write? Don't listen to this if you want to be able to keep telling yourself that... 

Sara Tate and Anna Vogt were fascinated by the idea of failure, or rather, what we do AFTER failure, for both personal and professional reasons. It's a truism to say that we learn from failure: what is REALLY happening in that period of time between failure and success? How do we rebuild - personally and professionally - when we're knee-deep in rubble? 

From their own experiences and from those they spoke to in their podcast The Rebuilders they created a book - which in itself was a process of rebuilding for Sara after a lifetime of avoiding writing because of her dyslexia. 

A powerful, inspiring and often moving conversation about life, grief, resilience and hiding from our children. 

Futurologist Bernard Marr created history at the Business Book Awards this year by having two books published in the year, both of which went on to win in category, and one of which - Business Trends in Practice - went on to win the overall Business Book of the Year award. It was, he says, 'slightly embarrassing'. 

Discover how he did it in this fascinating conversation - and prepare to have your mind blown along the way as he reveals some of the trends he's been writing about and the impact they are set to have on our businesses and our lives. 

The balance between stepping up to make an impact in the world and stepping back where necessary to protect our own wellbeing and energy can seem an impossible one to find. And that's why Katy Murray argues that change-making is first of all an inner process: recognising and overcoming the various barriers that hold us back, and identifying the most effective way to use our energy to maximise our impact. 

She also shares the process she used to plan and write her book, which involves decorator's paper, getting outside, and listening to wailing women... 

What's your most precious resource? Time? Money? Or is it, in fact, your energy? 

No matter how smart or skilled we are, if our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy is depleted, day after day, we won't be showing up to do our best work.

In this conversation, Simon Alexander Ong reveals how we can design our lives to maximize our energy, so that we can maximize our impact. Spoiler alert: writing is one of his secret weapons...

Media relations might seem like a dark art, but when you understand what journalists are looking for, it's easier to pitch a story that will grab their attention, so that YOUR business can benefit from that powerful exposure. 

In this week's conversation, Felicity Cowie talks about life as both a journalist being pitched and a consultant helping businesses pitch effectively, and she shares the two essential questions every journalist asks themselves that decide whether a story will run or not. 

At the risk of being meta, there's a lot about conversation in this conversation. Conversations between managers and their sales team that empower and enable; conversations that spark ideas and reveal needs; and the conversation that the author has with the reader - on the page, and beyond the page. 

Fascinating insights into sales coaching, the writing process and the impact of a book on a business. 

That insight reflects the message of my guests on this podcast recently, and inspired the title of this episode: we CAN do hard things.

This isn't just about writing a book – although writing a book is a damn hard thing to do – but more generally about the things that simply feel beyond us, too big, too far out of our comfort zone.

Prepare to be inspired by insights from: Tim Bradshaw, Richard Rumelt, Corinne Sawers and Eric Lonergan, Graham Eisner, Daniel H. Pink, Catherine Sandland, Louise Third, Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, and Peter Elbow.

Have you thoughts about giving a TEDx talk? If so, you've probably got lots of questions. How do you apply, for a start? How do you put together a TEDx-worthy talk? How on earth are you supposed to do it without an autocue? And perhaps most fundamentally of all, given the huge amount of time and energy involved: why do it in the first place? 

In this episode I draw on the wisdom and experience of a wide range of TEDx speakers and particularly Catherine Sandland, the fabulous speaking coach at TEDxNorthwich, to answer all these questions and more. 

The red dot is waiting... this is where you begin your journey. 

Discover too why regret is such a positive force for good, and why feeling better doing necessarily make us do better. 

(But you certainly won't regret the time you spent on this.)

I don't know what you and your life partner achieved in lockdown. Eric Lonergan and Corinne Sawyers wrote a book. 

They brought their complementary skillsets - Eric in economics and monetary policy, Corinne in climate and sustainability - and produced Supercharge Me: Net Zero Faster, a call to action for policy makers and individuals alike to embrace the challenge and indeed the opportunities of reimagining our world more sustainably. 

They also discovered a way of writing together that preserved those individual perspectives while creating a unified argument. And a lot of it happened over the dinner table... 

In this wide-ranging conversation we talk about why strategy is such a controversial concept in business, and also why writing is such an important discipline for business thinkers. 

He's simply living out his mantra: #BecauseICan. And it turns out that writing a book was the adventure that took him further out of his comfort zone than any that had gone before... 

Ready to be challenged? 

Graham Eisner perfected his technique for asking clients for referrals without embarrassment on either side at Goldman Sachs, and has been teaching business owners how to do it to grow their business ever since.

At its heart, his method involves a simple but profound shift in mindset: a belief that people genuinely want to help. It turns out this is an incredibly helpful mindset when it comes to marketing your book, too - and Graham generously shares his pro tips in this energising and practical conversation. 

Louise Third has embraced this principle in the planning and writing of her book PR on a Beermat, first by partnering with the originators of the beermat idea to develop it for PR, by writing collaboratively with partners, and by involving journalists and other media professionals to share their expertise in her book. 

In this fascinating conversation we talk about PR, the role of a book as part of a business's storytelling, visual thinking, self-publishing and more. Energising and inspiring listening. 

So much of writing is about trust - trusting yourself, that you will find something worth saying; trusting that the words will come and that others will find something of value. If you can't trust yourself to take that first step, you'll never write anything. 

Peter Elbow knows this from experience. Having been shut down by a supercilious tutor at university he ended up dropping out of graduate school, simply unable to write the papers he was required to submit. But what he discovered in the process was to transform his own writing and that of the thousands of people he's taught it to since then - free-writing. 

What's more, he discovered that free-writing isn't simply a tool for getting unstuck, it produces writing with more energy and clarity. This episode might just change your life. 

When we speak about accountability in business, very often the context is negative. It's about consequences and blame. But if we see accountability as ownership, it's a radically different, more empowering concept. That's what Brian Moran and Michael Lennington discovered, and they drew on their long-standing accountability to each other as business and writing partners to bring out the full significance of that understanding in their new book. 

This week's conversation is not only a fascinating rehabilitation of a tricky term, but also a masterclass in writing collaboration. 

It's a good question, and one that's just as important for business book writers. In this week's 'best bits' episode we look back over recent conversations to see, well, where DO authors get their ideas? 

(So if someone asks you that question from now on, you can tell them: The Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast.)

With insights from: Cathy Rentzenbrink, Robert Kelsey, Jinny Uppal, John Howkins, Christian Busch, David Grayson, Helen Beedham and Catherine Stothart. 

For Robert Kelsey, writing is an essential business skill in the knowledge economy. And he won't accept excuses. In this conversation he shares his fear-free approach to effective business communication, and his tips for getting started and keeping going.

We also talk about the new landscape of publishing, and the extraordinary resilience of the printed book. 

Energising and insightful listening. 

Time management has been seen as an issue for individuals for too long: Helen Beedham argues that the real issue is systemic. The way that organisations manage and value time, she says, is broken. And it's not just a productivity issue, it's hurting our wellbeing and working against inclusion and diversity, too. 

Developing that insight into a book was something of a rollercoaster - as her family will attest... 

Creative work is to a large extent invisible - which makes it tricky for managers to manage. It also means that we're left with the challenge of making our invisible ideas visible if we're going to do anything with them. 

In this fascinating conversation I talk to creativity expert John Howkins about that process, the naming, defining and describing of a new idea, together with his best advice for writers (and his confessions about his own writing process...). 

In this week's conversation I talk to Jinny Uppal about how she learned this for herself, and about writing, publishing, crowdfunding and curiosity.  

Practical, thought-provoking and often very funny, these dispatches from the front line are essential reading for anyone considering writing a business book. 

From pitching a great proposal to delivering your manuscript to responding to feedback, here are some practical tips straight from the horse's mouth to help you get the best out of the relationship with your editor, the person who can, if you let them, take your book from good to great. 

Writing isn't just a tool for communication, and your book isn't just a product. In this thoughtful and practical conversation, best-selling author Cathy Rentzenbrink reveals how she approaches both life writing and how-to writing, and charts the looping, iterative progress that allows you to develop your ideas from exploration to exposition.

She also shares her own writer's tricks for managing energy and getting unstuck, and explains the importance of avoiding kitchen-sinking...

And if you're thinking that you're not a writer, there's good news for you: your business communication skills may be more transferable than you think. 

In this conversation, he explains more about how to become luckier by adopting a 'serendipity mindset', and also how you can benefit from 'peak-hour writing' to get your own book written. 

This just might be your lucky day... 

Whether you need to focus on building your following or your partnerships, or simply be a bit braver at making new connections, there's inspiration and ideas for you here.

Hear from:

• Eloise Cook on why publishers look for a following
• Sonya Barlow on creating serendipity
• Michael Buckworth on the value of talking about your idea
• Dorie Clark on professional communities, aka 'making friends as an adult'
• Trevor Thrall on collaborating with trust
• Michael Leckie on reaching out to your heroes
• Lucy Ryan on finding writing buddies
• Jo Bottrill on finding the right publishing skills.

It's too late to wish you happy Christmas, too early for Happy New Year (what day is it, anyway?), so here are some thoughts on making the most of the odd in-between days of Twixtmas - which might mean not doing very much at all. 

There's also 10 fabulous 2021 business book recommendations from listeners, for when you're ready to pick up a business book again. (Don't leave it too long.)

We also talk about the future for business books, and how authors extend their idea beyond the book to maximise engagement. 

If you're planning to pitch a business book proposal, this is pure gold. 

Discovering the 12-week year approach saved Trevor Thrall's career as an academic, and now he teaches it to other writers. In this conversation he tells me how it transformed his own writing, and how he's built the idea beyond the book into a community. 

This system is GENIUS, and might just transform your writing life too... 

It might not sound like the most positive of mantras, but that simple question lies behind Sonya Barlow's astonishing success: one of 2020's Most Influential Women in Tech, a top 50 BAME entrepreneur, LinkedIn's Changemaker 2021 for Gender Diversity and Inclusion and Marie Claire's Future Shaper 2020. 

Her determination to learn from failure and her remarkable resilience have not only driven her career as an entrepreneur, they're what made writing a book possible for someone who started to shake at the idea of writing 1,000 words. 

In this conversation, she talks candidly about what it took to overcome that fear and write a book. Because if you want something badly enough, the worst that can happen is that you don't give it a go. 

From copy-editing to repurposing for multiple formats, typesetting to cover design, discover exactly what's involved in transforming a manuscript into a beautiful book you can be proud of.

Michael Buckworth is an anomaly: a lawyer who's also an entrepreneur. He founded the only UK law firm working exclusively with startups, and he's the author of Built on Rock: The busy entrepreneur's legal guide to start-up success. 

If you're setting up a new business, you're already interested, amiright? But even if you're not, there's a huge amount to learn here about how to develop your intellectual property (hint: don't over-protect it) and how to make complex material accessible and engaging. Plus a helpful new twist on the classic 'the dog ate my homework' trope... 

Dorie Clark is very clear that creating content - sharing your ideas - is an essential part of building your reputation as an expert. But she's living proof that it doesn't happen overnight - with writing, as with relationships, you have to play the long game. 

Now one of the most respected business writers of our day, she's open about the rejections and failures she's experienced all along the way, and right up to the present day. This is a masterclass for anyone engaged in putting their ideas into the world, but it's also a hilarious and candid conversation, in which we find out why she once burst into tears on an Irish road... 

Dr Lucy Ryan started writing Lunchtime Learning for Leaders mid-pandemic, in response to the frantic cries for help from leaders grappling with the huge issues facing them but little time for traditional training. It wasn't intended to be a book, and the way in which she went on to shape those articles into a coherent whole is a masterclass in writing and editing.

We talk about imposter syndrome (her gremlin is called Bob, how about yours?), overwhelm, curiosity and writing in service of the reader - and it's a joy from start to finish.

Michael Leckie has built his career on asking good questions at the right time, and in his book The Heart of Transformation he talks about 'operationalizing curiosity' as one of the capabilities that drive successful transformation in organizations. 

Questions are also core to creating a powerful business book: questions for yourself, and for your reader. In this fascinating conversation we talk about change, curiosity and co-creation at work and on the page. 

So we say things that are the wrong things to say, or we miss our opportunities. If you have an opportunity to get a message across and you just treat it casually or you fluff it or you don't prepare, then that's a shame."

This insightful comment from Jeremy Kourdi was the inspiration for this Best Bits episode, in which I look back over the last few conversations in this podcast and pick out the sparkliest moments, stringing them together to create fairy lights for your mind. 

You're welcome. 

With powerful words from: 

• Jeremy Kourdi on using your words well 
• Megan Hayes on what happens beyond the page
• Azeem Azhar on the words that become your North Star
• Alice Sheldon on naming what's important
• Becky Hall on not compromising on the words that matter
• Jen O'Ryan on the power of sweary words
• Alison Jones on the words that diminish power, and how to avoid them
• Bobbie Carlton on how books embody leadership
• Jodie Rogers on how words hold you accountable for your thinking. 

Words matter. Use them, and use them well.  

As well as writing those 28 books, Jeremy Kourdi has experience of senior leadership at The Economist, Duke University and the CMI. It's fair to say he has an all-round perspective on the value of content in business thinking, and in this fascinating conversation he reveals his own approach to writing as well as his thoughts on the value of words more generally. As content creators, we have a responsibility to use our platforms well: what does that mean for you? 

Using words well is a core business discipline, as fundamental to effective leadership as financial management or strategic direction, and this is a masterclass for any leader wanting to go from good to great. 

If you're tired of formulaic approaches or cynical marketing tactics, this will be a breath of fresh air. Alice Sheldon had a powerful message to share but found the obvious writing route and standard marketing tactics didn't sit well with her. So she created an Alice-shaped way of authoring and promoting her book, a way that drew on her strengths and drew in help and support from a whole team of 'book friends'.

In this conversation we talk not only about the transformational Needs Understanding framework, the 'surprisingly simple secret' of the title, but also the way that by understanding your own needs as an author you can create a way of writing and marketing your book that is not only effective but also joyful and authentic. 

Megan Hayes studied the links between writing and happiness, and the first thing she discovered is that it's both more powerful and more complex than we think. Yes, 'getting it all down on paper' is a great way to process a difficult experience, but it turns out a writing habit can also help us be more creative, more energised and more effective OFF the page. 

We talk about accessing the full range of voices within you - not just the shoutiest - to resource yourself fully, self-efficacy and sense-making, the ghost of the English teacher, the power of NOT being a writer, and so much more. 

If you listen to nothing else this week, listen to this. 

But HOW you say it can make all the difference as to how people read it. I asked a group of editors what really pushed their buttons, and compiled this run-down of mistakes to avoid if you want to make a good impression. This is especially important if you're submitting a book proposal, but nailing this stuff will improve your credibility with all sorts of readers. 

Spoiler alert: these might not be quite what you expect... 

Used to writing for an academic audience, Dr Jen O'Ryan quickly realised that she needed take a very different approach for her business book if she wanted it to make a difference. And she really wanted it to make a difference. 

In this episode we talk about diversity and inclusion, in the workplace in general but also in publishing, about relearning how to write, about sweariness, and about the fact that you need a really big table to write a book. 

Listenable AF. 

The Art of Enough is the challenge of our age, says Becky Hall: as individuals and as a society we're beset on the one hand by scarcity (feeling inadequate, being under-resourced) and on the other by excess (overwhelm, over-consumption). Our personal and business goals are dictated by a relentless growth imperative that neither we nor the planet can sustain.

In this powerful conversation, Becky shares how she translated her profound message into a book, and the difficult decisions she faced about keeping its integrity.

A treasure of an episode.

We also talk about synergistification, aligning your content creation and community to build your brand and your business (ok it's not a word, but it should be). 

Insightful and intriguing, this is definitely not an episode to miss. 

Speaking and writing go together naturally, but how can you make the most of both? Bobbie Carlton has an extraordinary breadth of experience helping writers and speakers - particularly women - be heard. In this conversation she explores the mindset and the tactics that lead to success on stage and on the page, including some genius tips for leveraging your book as a speaker and for promoting it more widely. 

Grab a notepad and listen up. 

Jodie Rogers has identified the real competitive advantage for today's organisations: the mental fitness of the people working there. But as she points out, it takes more than an elearning module on how to take an afternoon walk to unlock the benefits of a workforce that's not just avoiding mental ill health, but positively mentally fit. 

She also talks honestly and thoughtfully about her own struggle to write this book - not just overcoming imposter syndrome, but rejecting the early, easy answers she came up with for a deeper, more rigorous self-interrogation. And all this against a backdrop of the pandemic coping with running a business, a family tragedy, and two small children not allowed out of the front door for 45 days during the Spanish lockdown. 

Absolutely compelling listening. 

With joyful moments from: 

• Minter Dial on the bliss of early mornings 
• Dre Baldwin on the pleasure of getting the stuff in your head out into the world
• Penny Pullan on finding connection and warmth even when there's noone else in the room
• Jackie Fast on the joy of unfamiliar conversations with familiar people
• Leanne Hamley on tapping into the positive power of other people
• Robert Wigley on rediscovering the joy of reading as part of writing
• Philip Levinson on the pleasure of being able to thank the people who've helped you write the book at the launch party
• Mark Choueke on the joy of doing it your way.  

Fill your tank and get inspired! 

If there's one experience common to pretty much every business sector in every industry over the last 18 months, it's screen fatigue. Which is a challenge for learning and development professionals who also care about wellbeing: sure, people need to learn new ideas and skills, perhaps now more than ever, but are another few hours staring at a screen for a webinar or elearing programme the best way to support that? 

Leanne Hamley (and I'm right behind her) thinks that businesses are overlooking one of the most powerful, lightweight development tools of all: the book. Along with Kate Bowers, she has founded Wot the Book!, a subscription service, podcast and community dedicated to bringing brilliant books to businesses. She's also an author herself, and talks frankly about her own experience of writing a business book. 

Why is B2B marketing typically so dull? Whereas consumer marketing is focused on creativity, engagement and originality, B2B marketing all too often consists of a features list.

Mark Choueke is here to change all that. His passionate call for bravery in B2B marketing is transforming the industry, and he applied exactly that same thinking to writing his business book too. Forget the templates and formulae, and write the book that only you can write. 

Half an hour that will leave you feeling braver and more human, covering as it does marketing, writing, book proposals, Star Wars, grief and a gorilla. 

Most people at work have sat through interminable Zoom meetings over the last 18 months, few of us have experienced the kind of energy and engagement that Penny can bring. In this conversation she reveals some of the techniques she uses to inject vitality into virtual and also some of the potential pitfalls - it's all too easy to subtly exclude members of remote teams. 

She also talks about her own approach to writing - highly visual and voice-based - and explains why her engineering background helps her see things differently in business. 

Making Workshops Work was the winner of the very first 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge, over 5 years ago: it's been a long time coming, but it turns out to be the right book at exactly the right moment. 

A short episode this week, but I hope you'll enjoy it. 

Robert Wigley saw the issue from two perspectives: as a father of adolescent boys, but also as a mentor and investor working with Gen Z entrepreneurs. The results of his research with both are fascinating, and reveal a more nuanced and optimistic story than we usually hear. 

As a first-time author, he also discovered much about the process of writing and publishing which will be equally fascinating to other first-time authors! 

Jackie Fast sees writing a book just like entrepreneurship - don't let fear stop you, break some rules, figure it out as you go along. And in Rule Breaker: Rebellious leadership for the future of work, she proves that that's the secret of success in the 21st century - the old playbook that so many of us have internalised just doesn't apply any more.

This is a fascinating reflection on her own remarkable journey from broke founder to MD of one of the world's most successful sponsorship companies, and how the process of writing a book mirrored that exercise in courage, exploration and action-taking.

"I don't care how big of a following you have, who your publisher is, what kind of marketing plan you put together, how big of an influencer you are: if you don't sit down and write, then there will be no book."

This is the game people, and this is how you do the work. Dre Baldwin didn't find basketball magically effortless, but he turned himself from high-school reserve to pro by doing the work, and now he teaches other people how to bring that pro mindset to the work that matters, whatever it is. 

In this conversation we talk about basketball, writing, using the full range of social media channels (well, almost) and how books fit within a content publishing empire. 

If you're looking for magic bullets and excuses this is probably not for you. If you want to be inspired and challenged - hit play. 

'Taking an all-seeing, all-knowing, conquering, dictatorial approach to managing people is going to land you in a world of pain.'

Philip Levinson always dreamed of becoming a CEO, and thought he was ready. But when he got there he realised the truth: nothing can prepare you for this. 

In Three Peaks Leadership he shares the lessons he learned, including the fact that leading at the highest level means not just surmounting the initial challenge of securing the role (the first peak), but embedding the changes for the long term (the second peak) and charting a course for the future, including your own exit from the role (the third peak). 

He's disarmingly honest about the lessons he's learned in humility along the way, both in leadership and in writing this book.... 

That's the powerful question that strategist and storyteller Minter Dial poses about writing, but it could equally well be applied to leadership. Having all the answers is no longer what we need from our leaders: in a disrupted, uncertain world we need leaders who are willing to admit that they don't know everything and to show up as their whole selves. 

This is a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation and it is pure audio gold.

In this Best Bits episode nine recent guests reflect on how writing their book changed them - often in unexpected ways. 

• Judy Piatkus on the impulse behind publishing self-development books
• Greg McKeown on writing Effortless for himself as much as anyone
• Grace Marshall on the struggle of writing Struggle
• John Williams on how work can be play
• Frederique Murphy on writing in flow
• Sarah Frier on finding out what you're trying to say
• Keel Hunt on asking great questions
• Diana Marsland and Julie Nerney on learning and pivoting
• Clive Lewis on writing with passion.

Diana Marsland and Julie Nerney began their work on Own Your Day just before the pandemic hit, and with a hypothesis that they were pretty confident about. Over the course of the next year, everything changed: their rigorous research disproved their original hypothesis and revealed a different path, and their close collaboration had to shift online as lockdown hit. For some authors that could have been the end, but Diana and Julie found a way of working together that transformed those setbacks into a new creative energy.

In this conversation we talk about how management is changing and the issues faced by those with the Herculean task of translating strategy from the top into results on the ground, and also about those processes of research, pivoting and collaboration. The result is a masterclass for anyone wanting to write a book grounded in the real world, and particularly for anyone thinking about writing with a partner. 

If his first book, Essentialism, was about prioritization, Greg McKeown's second book, Effortless, is about simplification. And this is no theoretical treatise: the truths behind the book were born out of a deeply traumatic personal experience, and Greg and his family's conscious decision to choose the 'lighter path'.

Profound wisdom about life and robust advice for writing that might just change your life (and your business book). 

If you love books, chances are you'll have benefited from an Ingram service perhaps without even knowing it. And as books have faced the challenge of the digital revolution, it's perhaps down to Ingram rather than other flashier, more famous companies in the book supply space that the book industry continues to thrive, and in particular to their habit of asking: 'Why are we doing it this way?'

Keel Hunt also reveals some hard-won journalistic secrets of interviewing and research, and how you find 'the story that hasn't been written yet'. 

As a woman founder in publishing, Judy Piatkus is one of my heroes. Working from home long before it was fashionable, navigating caring for a child with special needs alongside the casual sexism of the 1980s, she quietly built up a pioneering company specialising in self-development. And along the way she transformed her own consciousness through the books she brought into the world. 

Her story reflects many common themes of entrepreneurship, women at work, the digital revolution and the the power of books and of bringing people together. 

As a Productivity Ninja, Grace Marshall was used to helping people who were struggling - with overloaded inboxes, poor time management, any number of everyday productivity pits. But she noticed that in many cases there was a different kind of struggle going on, one that wasn't talked about so much, one that couldn't be solved with a shiny new system, one that could even hide beneath a frenzy of productivity. 

Gradually she realised that this kind of struggle isn't a sign that something's getting in the way of the work, it IS the work. And so she started a new conversation about struggle - professionally and personally. 

(It was a struggle. Naturally.)

Clive Lewis has written 17 books, so he's learned a bit about organizing and communicating his ideas. He writes about the things that mean most to him - this time it's the toxicity of the workplace (which is itself of course a microcosm of society) and how to create more positive, healthy environments. [Spoiler alert: it often just comes down to speaking and listening.]

In this week's Extraordinary Business Book Club conversation we talk about the 'new normal' and the old issues at work, about empathy, diversity and inclusion, setting goals, getting started (and the difficulty of finishing), and the intoxicating power of words. 

For someone who comes alive on the stage and accesses their flow speaking in front of an audience, the last year has been tough. But Frederique Murphy discovered that she could re-access that state of flow through writing her book, by delivering it as if to an audience, and the results were astonishing. 

Astonishing results are something of a speciality of Frederique's, and in this remarkable episode she shares something of the science behind her approach to helping leaders break free of their limitations and achieve their full potential. (Spoiler alert: this also involves writing...)

There's also powerfully honest insights into the process of publishing, and the vulnerability that involves. 

Along the way she also takes us behind the scenes of her own writing practice - the journalistic imperative to find the new angle, the colour-coded index cards, the plot-shaping, the late nights, the long showers, and the rosé.

A masterclass in business book writing and a fascinating glimpse into one of the defining forces of our culture. 

John Williams is an ideas guy, and he helps other people make their ideas happen too. He's also a very experienced marketer and business book writer, and in this conversation he shares exactly how he knocked out a full first draft of his new book F*ck Work, Let's Play in just nine days... 

Packed with practical inspiration for entrepreneurs and writers, this is a fascinating under-the-hood glimpse into the mindset and methods of someone who's succeeded at both.

John Williams is an ideas guy, and he helps other people make their ideas happen too. He's also a very experienced marketer and business book writer, and in this conversation he shares exactly how he knocked out a full first draft of his new book F*ck Work, Let's Play in just nine days... 

Packed with practical inspiration for entrepreneurs and writers, this is a fascinating under-the-hood glimpse into the mindset and methods of someone who's succeeded at both.

There'll be something here that you can use too, to make yourself a little bit braver and a little bit more likely to succeed. 

Learn from: 

• Drew Ellis on taking risks in a manageable way
• Stephen Van Bellegham on sharing your story early
• Susanne Althoff on confidence for women
• The $7 Millionaire on sneaking past your inner critic
• Yetunde Hofmann on love-based research 
• Rob Kerr on the power of involving other people
• James Ashton on podcasting as a test bed
• Sara McCorquodale on not taking rejection personally
• Kathryn Bishop on focusing on the reader, not yourself.

If there's a recipe for courage, this is it. 

From designing the iconic 'Choose Life' t-shirts of the 1980s to launching one of the first lockdown festivals of 2020, Drew Ellis has been living by this mantra for years now. 

One result of his experimentation is Like Minds, a global thought leadership and events company, and in this conversation we explore how it happened, why events and books are such a perfect partnership, and the future of audio and particularly Drew's plans for Clubhouse.

And if you're playing small, there's a challenge here for you: be seen. There are so many options that there are no excuses any more.