It is impossible for me to convey how sad, how devastated, I am as I write these words. Kathleen Frances Fowler was my family, my best friend, my lover, my spouse. My world revolved around her. This book, like many that have come before, is dedicated to her, to what she meant to me, and to the amazing love she gave to me over our many years

pleasurable. Thanks to Lauren Capitani, Jonathan Daves, Inbal Demri, Raquel Gonzalez Dalmau, Phillip Mohabir, and Kevin Williams—and to Michael Wenderoth, who has worked with the online version of the course from the beginning.

WRITING A BOOK, EVEN ONE THAT is sole-authored, is very much a collective effort. Throughout my career I have been blessed, a word I use intentionally, with amazingly fabulous colleagues with whom I have done research and, independent of any joint work, who have provided insights and inspiration and the constructive critiques and challenges that

In a situation where you need to do things that are unnatural and maybe even uncomfortable, get people to help you. And continue doing things for yourself that will keep important ideas in your head even as you hold yourself accountable for, to paraphrase Stanford business school’s motto, “changing lives, changing organizations, and changing the

Instead of speculating about things such as whether being agreeable is an advantage or disadvantage in climbing the corporate ladder and earning more money, or relying on anecdotes—or worse yet, some internet discussion, or the fictionalized account of some business leader’s career as told in their self-enhancing, often ghostwritten

Figure out who can be helpful to you and reach out to them, practicing the idea of Rule 5. Build a powerful brand—Rule 4—by developing a concise statement of who you are and why you are uniquely qualified to be doing what you’re doing. Act and speak with power—Rule 3—by understanding and then implementing the ideas of how to convey power through

Build what some people call your “power muscles” the same way you would build any other muscle: through practice and use. It is not that difficult.

List what you want to do, what you want to learn, who you need to meet.

The power of being able to discuss ideas, particularly difficult or challenging ideas, with others, and the benefits of being able to share your experiences with and ask for help from them, is completely generalizable.