My Authors

Alumni of  the Brain-to-Book 90-Day Accelerator program.

Jamie Pride

Startup failure is preventable!

Ninety-two per cent of technology startups fail in the first three years, leaving their founders burnt out, alone and fatigued. But this culture of failure doesn’t have to be the norm. 

Unicorn Tears is the ultimate guide to avoiding startup failure, written by a founder, for founders. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, author Jamie Pride has lived through and witnessed the mental and financial pain of startup failure.

Through this, he has created a robust strategy grounded in reality to give founders the best possible chance of success.

Don’t let your startup follow the pattern of failure. Whether you’re just starting out with an idea or you have an established startup, Unicorn Tears shares a winning formula for building a startup that lasts.

Jane Langof

In Feng Shui: A Homeowner’s Guide to Abundance, award-winning Feng Shui master Jane Langof reveals a modern approach to the ancient art of Feng Shui. This definitive guide demystifies the ancient practice and offers a clear path to a home that is not just a place to live but a sanctuary of abundance.

Karyn Gonano

As a researcher, you know your discoveries can help change the world. The question is, how can you tell the world about them? Too many researchers, despite their brilliant ideas, fail to effect change for one simple reason: they cannot write persuasively.

In Time to Write Persuasively, communications expert and writing coach Karyn Gonano shares her five-step process to help you.

Marek Kowalkiewicz

In the past few years, we have been flooded with examples of impressive technology. Algorithms have been around for hundreds of years, but they have only recently begun to ‘escape’ our understanding. We are so impressed by what they can do that we give them a lot of agency. But because they are so hard to comprehend, this leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.

In the twentieth century, we had the economy of corporations. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, we saw the emergence of the economy of people, otherwise known as the digital economy, enabled by the internet. Now we’re seeing a new economy take shape- the economy of algorithms.

Julie Hyde

When Julie Hyde received a shock diagnosis of aggressive stage three cancer, she found herself at a crucial crossroads. The diagnosis that came on top of a series of difficult life events seemed about to take her beyond her capacity to respond with her usual optimism.

But Julie had a secret weapon – she’s a mindset and leadership coach who had skilfully guided her clients over many decades through the toughest of challenges. Now she had to turn the tables and apply the same techniques to her own challenges. Julie found strength in knowing that change, no matter how daunting, holds the key to growth and endless possibilities. You always have a choice in how you respond.

Rearn Norman

Drawing on case studies, research and decades of observations, the book reveals the three most common barriers that can prevent leaders from being at their best. Using an easy-to-follow self-assessment, find out whether you are:

  • Going Fast
  • Holding Back
  • Overdoing

Unlocked provides you with evidence-based, practical strategies for how to enhance your impact as a leader, while drawing on the strengths that make your leadership unique.

Thomas Green

There is no denying that digital is changing the world we live in and that companies must adapt. What has worked in the past simply won’t work anymore. Business as usual is dead. Yet many leaders haven’t fully grasped the profound and fundamental shift occurring in our midst. Tom’s book, Digital Transformation, is a roadmap to a profitable and profound digital future.

Gwendolyn Janssen

This book examines the struggles faced by ADHD leaders, such as miscommunications, feelings of inadequacy, and difficulties in staying engaged in traditional roles. It offers an array of tips, tactics, and real-life stories, illuminating the path to success for ADHD leaders.

Gain a fresh perspective on the intersection of ADHD and leadership and learn how embracing your ADHD can help you embrace your strengths and transform challenges into opportunities for growth.

Serving as both a reflection on the author’s experiences and a guide for aspiring leaders or entrepreneurs, this book encourages readers to shed the limitations imposed by the neurotypical world and find inspiration in the resilience, creativity, and determination that define ADHD leadership.

Peter Webb

We need a more considerate and compassionate way to make decisions if we are to solve the wicked problems of our era. And we need a more balanced and common-sense approach to making life-changing choices for ourselves. How can we choose wisely?

Most of your choices are quick, intuitive, and largely subconscious.
You don’t actually think about it too much. You just go by ‘what feels right’. This is system 1 thinking.

Sometimes you need to stop and figure things out. You need to sit down with a spreadsheet or do some calculations. This is system 2 thinking.

It takes a lot of energy to analyse things and you’re most likely to avoid it if you can.

But what happens when there isn’t enough information to go on? There’s no one to turn to for advice? And you need to make a critical decision that will likely affect the course of your life and the lives of others?

When it comes to choosing wisely with your heart (system 1 thinking) or your head (system 2 thinking), it turns out neither system is definitive. You need a third system of thinking. 

Leah Mether

Leadership is about people. Yet many leaders find themselves responsible for implementing change without ever being taught the foundations of HOW to support and lead people THROUGH change.

If you’re a leader challenged with navigating the rough seas of change, this book is your beacon.

You will learn a new approach to communication and leadership that will help you deal with the feelings of your people, improve performance, and get better results.

Anthony Stevens

The paradigms of big business have changed. Business models that were once lucrative now seem to barely move the needle. How can pre-digital businesses survive? They’re loaded with resources, brand power and deeply embedded networks. They just need a new playbook.

Authors Anthony Stevens and Louis Strauss have played this game from the inside, as entrepreneurs and tech leaders in one of the big four global accounting firms.

Now, with Chasing Digital, they offer a clear and detailed framework to help leaders leverage their strengths and re-design their organisation. From taking advantage of artificial intelligence, to harnessing big data, this playbook gives you the tools and mindsets needed for your business to thrive.

Transition beyond old business models to adopt the new digital paradigm and a new era of business.

Georgie Smith

“How can I make a difference?”

”Why are things so slow around here?”

“Is the public sector for me?!”

Every day, new recruits join two million Aussie public servants striving to help our country thrive.
But whether you’re in local, state or federal government, without a roadmap, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, lose hope, and quit. Unless you have guides.
With wit and insight, two career public servants lay out what you need to know to make your mark in government:

  • Why public servants are critical to solving Australia’s big challenges
  • How to master your greatest asset – yourself
  • How to attract powerful allies to your cause
  • The architecture of all problems (and how to solve them)

This book is for young public servants seeking an impact they can be proud of.

Ric Navarro

Customer obsession is the new black

So much of marketing, even in this digital age, is concerned with what to say — and when, where, and to whom to say it — in order to sell a product or service. Too many brands expend their energy and money on this approach without truly understanding their customers.

Ric Navarro, who has worked as Chief Marketing Officer for global brands, offers another way. And he backs his approach with evidence and stories of its success. He helps C-Suite leaders navigate the complexities of modern marketing.

When brands are obsessed with the entire customer experience, have a deep understanding of why their message is important to customers and why they will care enough to listen, they stand out in today’s crowded marketplace.

Marketing with Purpose is for a C-Suite guide to understanding and elevating the marketing function within your organisation in a way that supercharges your customer obsession.

Jessica Hickman

We’ve all heard of the Bystander Effect, where people see bad behaviour and they walk on by. Bystanders have been called out by the #MeToo Movement, Black Lives Matter and March4Justice, to name just three. It’s not OK to ignore bad behaviour and it never has been.

In the workplace (even in the highest levels of Government) bullying and bad behaviour take place, causing toxic cultures and awful places to work. But with 35% of the workforce now from the Millennial generation, it is essential that workplaces change. The Millennials are the Upstander generation — and they are the ones who are driving the future of business – you need them on your team.

Mark Rosenberg

Mark Rosenberg draws on his extensive experience as an executive coach and mediator to provide leaders with insights and practical tools to improve communication and master hard conversations.

Mastering Hard Conversations provides a proven, practical, structured approach to help you become a better leader by improving your communication and conflict management skills.

Michelle Taylor

Transform your nursing leadership with Michelle Taylor’s groundbreaking book, Transformational Nurse Identities. As nurse leaders face increasing challenges and stress, it’s time for a radical shift in how we approach leadership development. Drawing from her years of experience as a nurse and leadership coach, Taylor reveals a powerful strategy that has helped hundreds of nurse leaders not only become more effective, but also find more fulfillment in their work. With practical tools and a relatable, engaging writing style, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to create more meaningful and impactful leadership in the nursing profession. Written by a nurse for nurses, Transformational Nurse Identities is the ultimate guide to taking your leadership to the next level.

Mike Harley

Strategisation is packed full of stories from Mike’s decades of experience in Australia and organisations around the world.

The Strategisation framework recognises that a great strategy is only half the battle; without a team of enthusiastic people to carry it out, it’s just words on a page, destined for costly failure.

Mary Freer

Mary Freer imagined a compassion revolution taking place in the healthcare sector. Her dreams turned into actions, and spread like wildfire through the ranks of doctors, nurses, aged care workers, executives, CEOs, not-for-profit leaders and entrepreneurs from London to Australia.

What had these professionals so enthralled?

A new, research-backed take on the power of compassion. Not fluffy. Not nice-to-have. Not kindness, even. No. This is compassion as a revolutionary act. A swath through bullying, blaming and exclusionary workplaces. A full stop to the many destructive practices that drive down the quality of work performance and wear away our mental wellbeing.

This revolution demands compassion both fearless and forthright. It is compassion as a fortress, a balm and a life raft. And the research is clear: compassion is also the path to more productive, more profitable and far friendlier, more fulfilling workplaces.

Come and join the compassion revolution. Drawing on decades of experience incubating revolutionaries in her Compassion Labs, Mary Freer makes it easier than you can imagine.

When reading Compassion Revolution, be prepared for a warm hug and a push between the shoulder blades. The time is right to start now. Freer shows you how to use what you have and keep going until the revolution is won.

Link to buy the book: https://compassionrevolution.care/product/compassion-revolution-start-now-use-what-you-have-keep-going

The eBook is available for purchase at:
Amazon AU, Booktopia, Barnes and Noble (Nook) and Kobo.

Print copies for international delivery can be ordered from:
Amazon AU, Booktopia and Barnes and Noble.

Amanda Oldridge

Chats That Click is a field guide for all manager conversations. In this book, workplace communication expert, Amanda Oldridge, will take the complexity out of leadership communication, allowing you to build your skills and make conversations with your team fluid and effortless. From water cooler chats to formal performance reviews, you can learn to make every chat click.

Dale Monk

Landed that leadership role you coveted for so long only to find yourself feeling a little … “meh”? Your days disappear with little sense of progress. Busy? Yes. Brilliant? Well, not by your standards.

Will you ever be the leader your aspired to be?

You bet!

Leadership expert Dale Monk disrupts outdated attitudes to leadership development with his frank advice to leaders at all levels. Dale has expertly coached leaders to shift out of overwhelm and unlock their natural leadership brilliance.

Learn how to:

  • ditch the rose-coloured glasses and understand your leadership impact today
  • amplify your strengths and optimise perceived “weaknesses”
  • empower your team and strengthen their sense of purpose
  • navigate ambiguity and connect with others through stories
  • develop courage and grit to endure the challenges of leadership

Just Lead! is essential reading for new and existing leaders ready to enjoy great relationships, ramp up their impact and influence, and get stuff done.

Books can be purchased from www.ministryofleadership.com/justleadbook

Sangeeta Mulchandani

From a winning mindset to winning customers, Mulchandani shows you how you can give your ideas wings so that your business can fly. Learn how to prepare yourself for the entrepreneurial journey, pick the right ideas, design a fool-proof strategy, attract your ideal customers and create a profitable business.

With 40 step-by-step guided exercises to help you turn your business ideas into reality, this book will be your guide and best friend in your business journey. It’s the roadmap to a successful and prosperous business of your dreams.

William Cowan

Most career advice available today does not address the needs of senior job seekers. Building a Winning Career sets out a proven process that has worked for hundreds of senior executives, delivering superior results for those considering their next career move.

In Building a Winning Career, William Cowan describes strategies that best position you for success while avoiding common traps.

Graeme Hosking

If you’re a business founder or owner ready to grow your business, but you’re not sure how – this book is for you. If you need to grow fast, and want to avoid many of the pitfalls of fast growth, then this book gives you the framework to build your successful scale-up plan.

Many scale-up initiatives fail not because they are a bad idea, but because of poor execution. Scale-ups can require massive personal and business changes, which can be daunting if you are doing this for the first time.

This book boils down the author’s experience building and advising scale-up businesses, and provides the tools and practical advice you need to steer your way through the challenges every growing business faces, to achieve sustainable success.

Therese Tarlinton

In this book, SWAP! Marketing without Money, Therese shares her step-by-step process so you can find the right companies to form partnerships with, and work with them to create a great outcome for both businesses and customers.

With her knowledge and expertise, you too can take your business from good to great, working with some of the most well-known brands, to create products and services that can take your 15 seconds of fame, and turn it into years of profitability.

Sue Webster

Change management programs offer great promise but often fail to deliver. With 20 years’ experience across dozens of change projects in many industries, Sue Webster has identified one common but usually overlooked element that makes all the difference: a team of change champions.

In this short and accessible guidebook, Sue explains:

  • what change champions are
  • how to select and support them
  • why you need them as part of your change ecosystem.

Links to buy the book:

Rob Pyne

Leadership today is becoming a collective pursuit – not a solo performance. As an effective top team, you can create tremendous, long-lasting value for your company. And yet, being in a leadership team is not easy: 80% of executives admit their leadership team is not as high performing as they know it could be.

In ‘Unlock: Leveraging the Hidden Intelligence in Your Leadership Team’, business coach, psychologist and team expert Rob Pyne explores the three types of intelligence your team needs to succeed, and how to build a leadership team that is smarter than the sum of its parts.

Karen Humphries

I’ve not met a single person who enjoys “sucking it up” when they feel challenged or stuck.

After a traumatic experience, you may feel like a frazzled meerkat, anxious all the time and unable to relax. Just the thought of change can seem overwhelming.

If life has served you a crap sandwich, here’s the thing: you DON’T have to eat it!

I know that’s a little confronting, but it’s my experience. I’ve been through the ringer and taken charge again. Now I’ve distilled all that I have learned, and drawn deeply on my professional expertise, to help you heal your trauma tale.

I’ve summarized the science with a side of spirituality to describe how you can begin to process life experiences. In this book, I share the insights and actions that have worked for me, and for the clients I coach.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Breathe yourself calm
  • Soothe your nervous system and make better decisions
  • Explore your fears without retriggering your trauma
  • Embrace your feelings
  • Reconnect to yourself and your healing power

Yes, the traumatic event has happened. You can’t go back, relive your life or get a do-over. What can you do?

Choose to change and bloom from within.

Andrew Smith and Gareth Jude

Retail Innovation Reframed shows retailers how to grow and become resilient in the most disrupted retail environment in history. ​

Many retailers struggle with innovation. They fail to change when the world around them changes. The result is a visible procession of well-known brand failures, others in steep decline and a relentlessly negative narrative surrounding the industry. ​Some put this lack of innovation down to the nature of the retail industry itself with its focus on daily execution and short term time horizons.  We show that this focus is actually a major positive for the industry if Innovation can be reframed as a process   ​

Retail Innovation Reframed introduces the ReFRAME process which is a “how to” guide to innovation for the retail industry. Along the way it provides all the tools, evidence, and information you will need to weave innovation into the operating fabric of your retail business.

Mike Adams

When you share purposeful stories in your client conversations, you’ll create more new business than you thought possible. Seven Stories shows you how to use stories in high-stakes sales to establish rapport and trust, deliver insight, inspire action and close the deal. And, in doing so, you’ll win new friends and collaborators.

Sharing more than 50 stories from around the world, Mike draws on his diverse international sales career to teach and demonstrate the power of storytelling — from first hello to signed contract.

This book will change the way you think about selling. Rather than seeing your role as that of a transactional deal closer, you’ll become a story master and connection builder.

Joanne Love

Do you ever set goals you never achieve?

Have you ever looked back on past attempts to achieve something and ended up beating yourself up over the fact you didn’t achieve it? It’s not because of lack of time, energy or skills; it’s because you have never been shown the way.

Gold medal goals will unleash your greatness within. You don’t have to be a champion or even a competitive athlete to use this book. This is a guide for everyone because what you learn here will prepare you to be the best version of yourself.

With the right mindset and the best strategies you can achieve what you always thought was impossible.

This book provides the gold medal strategies to break out of the past patterns of setting goals that may have hindered or harmed your mindset so you can break through the barriers to your goal success. You will learn how to set goals that means something to you in an easy and fun way.

Marcia Devlin

What are professional women in academia to do while they wait over 100* years for gender equality?

The answer is a tough one: learn to beat the current odds and achieve your full potential despite it all. And Marcia Devlin’s tough, funny, and practical guide to kicking the system in the butt on the road to success will give you an unfair advantage and help you fight back and win.

Devlin has climbed the ladder in one of the toughest environments: the hierarchical university sector. She tells it like it is and it’s not good. Men hold 75 percent of senior university roles. And this figure is not shifting. While her book addresses success in the academic setting, its advice will be relevant to many professional women.

In a book that is both a call to arms and a roadmap to success, Devlin draws on her own experiences and those of hundreds of women, many of whom she has mentored, to reveal the attitudes, tactics and frameworks that have proved successful against the odds.

Jonathan Reeve

The disruption of store retail by online shopping has only just begun. Few retailers are ready for the changes ahead.

Online retail expert Jonathan Reeve forecasts that last-mile innovations will see shopping online overtake shopping in stores within 20 years.

The Amazons of this world have blazed the trail and a small number of retailers are keeping up. Most are well behind and have underestimated the threat. Reeve urges us to get ready before it’s too late.

Gail Eaton-Briggs

Do you feel stuck in some part of your life? Are you trying hard but can’t get to where you want to be? 

You need to find your zone of conscious grit. You make changes happen, and you take control, when you discover and use your powerful conscious grit.

This book will help you get into that zone and give you the tools you need to make the changes that you want. I know it works – I was stuck and now I’m not!

Allison Patchett

Leading and managing in residential aged care is complex, but what if you could have a “go-to” book with ideas, tools and exercises as your everyday guide?

Better yet, what if you could use those ideas, tools and exercises to change what you do and how you do it, AND it gets you results?

Whether you are an experienced manager, a new manager or an emerging leader in residential aged care, transformation in aged care is not for the faint-hearted. Residential Aged Care Transformed will change the way you do things, how you engage your people and deliver great results, by:

  1. Changing the way you lead
  2. Helping you overcome challenges to deliver results
  3. Creating safety, quality and fun in everything you do
  4. Keeping the focus of the residents at the centre of your day

Why wait to figure it out for yourself? Residential Aged Care Transformed allows you to access the decades of experience from a leading expert in the field.

Sheila Wherry

Do you feel you have to keep working harder and pedaling faster to succeed as a leader?

Are you frustrated by fragmented teams that are pulling in different directions?

Is it always you coming up with the solutions?

This is a common scenario for leaders in today’s fast-paced, hyper-connected world.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. You have the silver bullet. YOU!

You may not be able to change the relentless demands of leadership, but you can change what you bring to them and how you deal with them. The secret? Presence. Your ability to bring your best self to the role of leadership.

Beth Jennings

My intention is for you, woman in business, to feel inspired to ask yourself, how do you show up in the world? Are you fully expressed? Do you feel really seen and understood or is there room for more?

My faith is that you will take what you need and apply it. You’re a woman of action, you don’t need another how-to book.

My greatest wish is for you to let go of the jungle and step into who you really are and your true power with confidence.

Forget world’s best practice, how about world’s best YOU?

It’s time to recognise your power, and it’s time to own it.

You’ve totally got this.

David Grieve

Running a business can sometimes feel like trying to eat an elephant. And the best way to eat an elephant is ‘one bite at a time’ as the African proverb goes.

Packed with bite-sized anecdotes and practical tips, David guides you through the challenges your day-to-day role as a manager or business owner.

With suggestions, questions and strategies based on from the author’s experiences and observations as a business leader and business growth coach, you will achieve your management and business goals. Solve those “insurmountable” problems one bite at a time.

Annie Sheehan

Save time, money and heartache in your projects

A project sponsor is the primary accountable leader – the face of the project and its champion.  The leading cause of project failure is poor project sponsorship.

Annie Sheehan’s book is a roadmap to become the kind of sponsor that project teams long for. Dive in deeply or choose a chapter that strikes a nerve of a current project pain you are experiencing. You will find that being an effective sponsor is within your reach, and dramatically improves what you and your team can achieve together.

It is filled with examples, stories and practical action steps to help you build your courageous sponsor skills and get your project done.

Genevieve Hawkins

Unless you have your head in the sand, you will have noticed how much the developed world is talking about mental health.

Whether it be discussions on mental ill-health rates or the latest way to cope with the anxieties and challenges, rapid changes in the world have impacted our collective mental health.

As a leader, you must get ahead of the curve or leave performance on the table. You must get clear on how your mental health connects to the way you lead, your team’s mental health AND the performance of the business.

Real estate agents shout ‘Location! Location! Location!’, this book shouts ‘Connection! Connection! Connection!’ This book explores the science that explains why connection matters and offers practical strategies to build your own mental health, the mental health of the team and the strength of connection that delivers results.

This book is written by a senior manager for senior managers. Without jargon and ‘fluff’, you get all the insights you need. You can’t afford to ignore the tsunami hitting the developed world. Your own health, your business performance and your future leadership impact depend upon it.

Claudia Lantos

How to manage your peak performance in a world where complexity is the norm? Mastering the Scenario Thinking Framework™ will help you to navigate your way through adversity with confidence, increasing your leadership adaptability, resilience and decision making. Thrive, instead of survive.

Leonie Green

Want to lead, but find that doubt is getting in your way?

You are not alone. In fact, you are among many, many leaders who are plagued by doubt every day. And that includes the author, lawyer and successful entrepreneur, Leonie Green.

But while doubt is almost a given, the action you take is not. Leonie’s funny, kind and unusual approach to doubt makes sure you finish her book with techniques to deal with the doubt and stop it dead.

Many a leader fails to address their doubt, and it becomes their undoing. If you are ready to stop doubting, and start leading in your own unique way, this book is for you.

Leah Mether

Do you have days when you feel like you’re communicating with toddlers rather than adults in the workplace? Are you tired of dealing with sulking, tantrums, personality clashes and poor performance?

If you are not getting the results you need as a high-performance leader, this book is for you. In it, you will learn a new approach to communication that will radically improve your leadership effectiveness.

Yet few leaders have been taught the FOUNDATIONS of GREAT communication.

In “Soft is the New Hard: How to Communicate Effectively Under Pressure”, communications and soft-skills specialist, Leah Mether, gives you the complete solution: a step-by-step process that underpins communication and lays the foundations for success.

Dr Patsy Tremayne

Medical registrars face regular high stakes, high-cost exams. Each time they sit and fail, their confidence and their bank balance plummet. As smart as medical registrars are, most don’t know how to study efficiently. They wear themselves out, put their family life at risk and sometimes lose their careers (and their lives).

Dr Patsy Tremayne, sports-psychologist-turned-exam-performance-coach, has coached dozens of “failures” to success. Her book shows how to study in a structured and efficient way even when you are under intense pressure from your day job, overtime demands, continual research and family life. Regain control, and you will ace your exams and every other facet of your life.

Browse My Books

Overnight Authority: New in 2020!
How to win respect, command attention and earn more money by writing a book in 90 days.

Sticky Content: Mastering the Delicate Art of Content Marketing