Unlock Your Career Potential: Introducing "The Professional's Playbook"

Are you ready to take your career to the next level, achieve your professional goals, and become the best version of yourself in the workplace? If the answer is yes, then "The Professional's Playbook: Navigating Your Career Journey" is the guide you've been waiting for.

In this insightful and empowering book, Volkan Yorulmaz brings together a wealth of knowledge and experience to help you navigate the intricate terrain of your career. Drawing from the wisdom of best-selling authors and thought leaders, Yorulmaz offers you a comprehensive roadmap to success, providing practical advice and strategies for every step of your professional journey.

Your Next Five Moves | Patrick Bet-David

If I would need to share the best book I read in 2023, it is "Your Next Five Moves" by Patrick Bet-David. I found this book from the best sellers in Amazon business books list and I read it during a time where I need to answer some key questions in my career and set a new strategy for the upcoming performance review cycles. 

Let's leave the personal things and focus on this great book and its author.  According to Patrick Bet-David, "The only thing separating us from greatness is a vision and a plan for achieving greatness. When you’re fighting for a cause, a dream, something greater than yourself, you will find the enthusiasm, passion, and joy that make life a great adventure. The key is identifying your cause and knowing who you want to be." Who am I? A short question but the answer needs a long thinking. 

From my point of view, Patrick Bet-David's "Your Next Five Moves" has 2 main take-aways. First, get into the habit of thinking five moves ahead in everything you do in business.  Just working to try and do that will lift your game and lead to greater success. Second, in every industry, 80 percent of the players will be actors, and only 20 percent will be doers. The key to positioning yourself firmly in the doers camp is to be continually investing in learning and growth. Invest in yourself. Think five moves ahead.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things | Ben Horowitz

In the last days of the summer'23, I saw my colleague's (Dr. Philipp Moser) post in Linkedin about the book by Ben Horowitz: "The Hard Thing About Hard Things". It is a book with many experiences from Ben and the book brings a new perspective to you and make you learn what is going on in the top management side of the business.

Here we go with my highlights from the book:

“This the real world, homie, school finished. They done stole your dreams, you dunno who did it.” —KANYE WEST, “GORGEOUS”

From Communist to Venture Capitalist

Father turned to me and said, “Son, do you know what’s cheap?” Since I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I replied, “No, what?” “Flowers. Flowers are really cheap. But do you know what’s expensive?” he asked. Again, I replied, “No, what?” He said, “Divorce.”

By doing everything, I would fail at the most important thing. It was the first time that I forced myself to look at the world through priorities that were not purely my own. I thought that I could pursue my career, all my interests, and build my family. More important, I always thought about myself first. When you are part of a family or part of a group, that kind of thinking can get you into trouble, and I was in deep trouble. In my mind, I was confident that I was a good person and not selfish, but my actions said otherwise. I had to stop being a boy and become a man. I had to put first things first. I had to consider the people who I cared about most before considering myself.

Until you make the effort to get to know someone or something, you don’t know anything. There are no shortcuts to curiosity.

The Culture Code | Daniel Coyle

Honestly, "The Culture Code" is not one of those books that I will recommend someone to read but it has well chosed quotes that I wanted to carry to my blog. Anyway, I respect to the authoe Daniel Coyle's effort. So here you may find them: 

Individual skills are not what matters. What matters is the interaction.

They are not competing for status. They stand shoulder to shoulder and work energetically together. They move quickly, spotting problems and offering help. They experiment, take risks, and notice outcomes, which guides them toward effective solutions.

They are tapping into a simple and powerful method in which a group of ordinary people can create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.

I Will Teach You to Be Rich | Ramit Sethi

I am a fan of personal finance books and I do like to read this kind of books that I found in the best seller list of Amazon. This time, the list brought me the book: "I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S." This New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller is written by Ramit Sethi.

There were some generic recommendations which do not fit to the realities of today, at least for my country Turkiye. Anyway, it is a good piece of work who want to have a mindset about where to start for personal finance. Let's continue with my highlights from the book:

People love to argue minor points, partially because they feel it absolves them from actually having to do anything. You know what? Let the fools debate the details. I decided to learn about money by taking small steps to manage my own spending. Just as you don’t have to be a certified nutritionist to lose weight or an automotive engineer to drive a car, you don’t have to know everything about personal finance to be rich. I’ll repeat myself: You don’t have to be an expert to get rich. You do have to know how to cut through all the information and get started—which, incidentally, also helps reduce the guilt.

Investing early is the best thing you can do.

The best time to start investing was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

Leadership and the One Minute Manager | Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, Drea Zigarmi

In my previous blog post, I shared my quotes from the book "How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know" by Byron Sharp - this book was one of the two books my mentor Jalal İbrahimi recommended me in our first meeting. The second one is "Leadership and the One Minute Manager Updated Edition". It is a short read and during the weekend break, I had the chance to read the book and re-read my quotes from the book. 

This new, updated edition of Leadership and the One Minute Manager reflects the latest thinking about Situational Leadership® II. Written as a parable, it tells the story of an overworked entrepreneur who learns from the One Minute Manager how to get the most out of a diverse team by becoming a situational leader.

This is a book to read and reread until being a situational leader becomes second nature to you in your leadership roles at work, in your home, and in the community.

How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know | Byron Sharp

I started to work with Jalal İbrahimi who is my mentor and he recommended me two books in our first mentoring session. The first one is How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know by Byron Sharp. As a finance professional, it has been a while since I haven't read a book purely on marketing since my MBA graduation. There were many "aha moments" while I was reading the book and connecting the learnings with the ideas in the weekly commercial team meetings. So, let me share my highlights from the book. 

The most important knowledge contained in this book: No marketing activity, including innovation, should be seen as a goal in itself, its goal is to hold on to or improve mental and physical availability.