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No Fears, No Excuses: What You Need to Do to Have a Great Career – Larry Smith
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NO FEARS, NO EXCUSES : What You Need To Do To Have A Great Career

Larry Smith
BRAND NEW, HARDCOVER
Larry Smith
BRAND NEW, PAPERBACK

RM23.00

A Provocative New Approach To Discovering Your True Calling In Life And Achieving Not Just A Good Career, But A Great Future

ISBN 9780544663336
Book Condition BRAND NEW
Format HARDCOVER
Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date 20 Apr 2016
Pages 256
Weight 0.50 kg
Dimension 22 × 14 × 2 cm
Availability: 2 in stock

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2 in stock

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“A career is great when it offers satisfying work, impact on the world, a dependable and adequate income, and personal freedom.” –- Larry Smith
 
Life is a constant challenge. Every day you have to face new problems. Faced with what are real obstacles in your progress, you will each time have two possibilities. Fears and excuses – we all have them.
 
First, you can choose to move forward without fear. The other option is the easy one that too many people choose. These people decide to move backward and turn their backs on this obstacle. There are many reasons for this, but generally, it is the fear of failure or the fear of not succeeding, that stands out.
 
What is stopping you from having a great career? The answer, quite probably, is you.
 
After all, it is so easy to settle for the dull but safe, or to allow yourself to become trapped in a career you dislike, or to persuade yourself that the job you really want is out of your reach. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
 
Over the past three decades, professor Larry Smith has become something of a “career whisperer” for his students at the University of Waterloo. Each year, millions of talented college students graduate with little or no real sense of what their next step will be, yet they are determined not to settle for a so-so career; they are looking for a great career.


Smith points out that only a few fortunate souls are born knowing exactly what they want to pursue in life. The rest of us have to stop making excuses and start asking ourselves tough questions about achieving our goals. Problem is, there’s no real modern-day road map as to how to do this. Until now. In his straightforward, no-nonsense approach, Smith itemizes and dismisses all the usual excuses, fears, and worries that people hide behind when trying to find their true direction.
 
His unusual take on this challenging conundrum is both universal and timely, and his stunning TEDx talk on this subject has been viewed by more than six million people so far. This is the perfect book for any college graduate who is wondering where he or she fits into the world. It won’t necessarily be easy, but if you follow Smith’s guidance, your career dreams can indeed come true.
 
This book captures the best of his advice in a one-stop roadmap for your future. Showcasing his particular mix of tough love and bracing clarity, Smith itemizes all the excuses and worries that are holding you back—and deconstructs them brilliantly.
 
After dismantling your hidden mental obstacles, he provides practical, step-by-step guidance on how to go about identifying and then pursuing your true passion. There’s no promising it will be easy, but the straight-talking, irrepressible Professor Smith buoys you with the inspiration necessary to stay the course.
 
Here are some tips from the book to help you find a GREAT career – not a good one, but a great one!:
1. Don’t become a commodity, or else it all boils down to PRICE. Don’t be a commodity employee.
2. Know the difference between ‘getting work done’ and ‘producing exceptional results’.
3. SAMPLE everything in order to find your passion. But remember that you are not trying to sell yourself something.
4. Always be a student.
5. Be a good communicator.
6. Have an edge, i.e. what makes you better than the others. Even interns need to find ways to shine.
7. Stand out. Do what no one else is doing.
8. Don’t imitate. Innovate!
9. Great family and a great career are not mutually exclusive endeavors.
10. Remember, a great career means at the end of it and at the end of your life, you leave your mark behind. You leave your work behind to speak for you.
11. Don’t enter a crowded field unless you’re prepared – really prepared – to minimize the competitive pressure in that field… it’s everyone’s strategy to try, and to work hard. The truth is, you need to do better than that.
 
In the nutshell, No Fears, No Excuses, renowned ‘career whisperer’ Professor Larry Smith shows you precisely how to secure a great future. Building on his hugely popular TEDx talk, ‘Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career’, he shows why people so often get stuck on the wrong path.
 
He then takes you step by step from that initial point when you are considering your options to the moment when you pitch for that perfect job – showing you exactly what decisions you need to make, and when. Whether you are starting out, looking to move up, or hoping to change direction altogether, this book will guide you towards a happier, more fulfilled career NOW.
 
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Review From The Star.com.my :
 
There are few nonfiction books that terrify readers into action – Larry Smith’s No Fears, No Excuses is one of those books.
 
As a teacher of economics for the past 30 years, Smith, an adjunct professor at Canada’s Waterloo University, has lent his ears to thousands of students seeking career advice.
 
Following his 2011 TED Talk on pursuing a great career (see interview left), thousands of people from around the world contacted him for help in overcoming their challenges. It was this startling revelation, that so many find themselves stuck in career ruts, that led Smith to write this book, which serves as a comprehensive extension to his popular talk.
 
No Fears, No Excuses is written in three parts. The first examines why there is no such thing as a good career anymore – the landscape is simply evolving too quickly. Technology is rapidly advancing, and the demands of industry are becoming more and complex, which means the marketplace frequently requires innovative answers to new problems – and fast.
 
“Let’s assume you look at skilled jobs where there’s a lot of hiring going on, like high-tech or medicine,” writes Smith. “That should mean the skill is in growing demand and there will be a place for you when you complete your training, right? No, not at all. That approach has blown up in people’s faces repeatedly, because what is ‘hot’ now will not be so tomorrow.”
 
Smith is an economist, and since economists “do dismal”, you might be forgiven for thinking that this book presents a doom-and-gloom prognosis. However, part two exists to steer readers clear of a bleak future by exploring how a comprehensive plan of action can, and should, be put into place. After all, most of us deliberate over lots of choices, for example, the food on a restaurant’s menu – surely our passions and careers should be afforded much greater thought than we usually give them?
 
The final part of the book is arguably the most valuable. It covers, in depth, an array of the self-created obstacles that hold most of us back from pursuing our ambitions: they are, of course, excuses.
 
While I was engrossed in the book to this point, I found tremendous value in Smith’s rebuttals of a good number of excuses that have been presented to him by students and parents over the years.
 
Our excuses challenge the idea of finding our passion and persisting with our plan of action to make a difference through meaningful work. Excuses are born, most of the time, from conditioned thinking and conventional wisdom which, as you might guess by now, aren’t exactly met with warm thoughts by the professor.
 
“We don’t expect to be in a job we love, and so we don’t seek it. Rather, most people expect to work to make a living, preferring a decent, stable income and good working conditions. That is where the bar is. And if it’s good enough for most, it should be good enough for you. This is the standard and conventional form of thinking. Know it. Be aware of it. And fight it tooth and nail, because it’s all utter crap.”
 
Smith has a poster hanging on his office wall that reads, “Nature does not follow a single pathway; neither should man”. No Fears, No Excuses challenges us to think, to imagine, to plan and shape our future in a way that brings meaning and purpose to our own lives, and in turn brings benefit to others.
 
But it’s also a frank and pragmatic book: Smith is clear throughout that a great career takes time, thought, commitment and perseverance to craft. In an impatient age where we “surf and browse” we are called to get serious about what we’re interested in and capable of, and how we can make the best of our potential and capabilities – or risk being at the mercy of the changing market as dispensable commodities.
 
This is an enriching book that, although peppered with real-life examples from the stories of students, can be valuable to anyone at any stage in life, regardless of age.
 
No Fears, No Excuses allowed me some insights into my own career path at the grand old age of 33 and so I can personally vouch for the wisdom offered by Prof Smith and the necessity for the sense of urgency within his call to action. And that’s exactly what this book is: a call to action for anyone who feels somewhat unfulfilled and knows that they’re capable of offering more to themselves and others.
 
When it comes to finding your passion, a great career can be made out of anything, from landscape gardening to creating the next big technological advance and everything else in between. The first step lies in realising that we ourselves are responsible for the choices we make and that if we truly want a great career, we are bound to fail. Unless….
 
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About the Author :
 
LARRY SMITH is an adjunct associate professor of economics at the University of Waterloo. He is a recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Distinguished Teacher Award. During his long-standing tenure, Smith has taught more than 23,000 students, representing more than 10 percent of UW’s alumni. And, of course, millions from all over the world have viewed his provocative TEDx talk, and the numbers continue to grow on a daily basis.
 
Professor Smith is also president of Essential Economics Corporation, an economic consulting practice that serves a wide range of public and private clients. The firm specializes in forecasting and in the economics of innovation and development. He also advises UW students who start their own ventures. Smith has now worked with more than 450 teams of student entrepreneurs. Many have gone on to create companies of significant size and success. They include enterprises in such industries as communications, software, robotics, culture, entertainment, design, real estate, and professional services. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

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