7 Podcasts to Benefit Your Career and Business

We are what we take in, whether we’re talking about the food we consume or the messages we consciously, or unconsciously, give ourselves and so to be successful in our career we need to be intentional about the information we take in.

We can all benefit from more inspiration and encouragement in our work and business lives and one way to find that is through listening to some great podcasts.

Below are seven podcasts, one for each day, that you can add to your playlist for some a needed dose of career enthusiasm.

School of Greatness with Lewis Howes: The goal of the School of Greatness is to share inspiring stories from the most brilliant business minds, world class athletes and influential celebrities on the planet to help you find out what makes great people great.

Pivot with Jenny Blake: Author, speaker and business strategist Jenny Blake talks with peak performers to reverse-engineer their most successful career pivots, interview experts on what it takes to be agile in a rapidly evolving economy, and opens the kimono on what happens behind-the-scenes of her book and business.

48 Days to the Work You Love: Dan Miller is the author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and is a leading authority on work, career and business start-up.

How I built This with Guy Raz: A podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

Good Life Project: In-depth, unscripted, deeply-inspiring conversations and insights from acclaimed artists, entrepreneurs, makers and world-shakers, hosted by Jonathan Fields.

Building a StoryBrand with Donald Miller: Donald Miller brings you practical advice about clarifying your message so customers will listen and start talking about your brand.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin: Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, brings her practical, manageable advice about happiness and good habits to this thought-provoking podcast.

We’d love to hear about the podcasts you’re listening to and would recommend. Let us know!

5 Books to Inspire a Better Career and Life

Books are a great resource for career development and to improve your life and so we're recommending five recently published books to inspire you to excel in your career and life.

Happy reading!

1. Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by Gretchen Rubin--Many habit experts offer one-size-fits-all solutions. But as we all know through hard experience, no magic formula exists. The secret, Rubin explains, is to pinpoint the specific strategies will work for us. From finding the right time to begin a new habit, to setting up a counter-intuitive system of reward, to using the pleasure of treats to strengthen our good habits, Rubin identifies the 21 strategies that will allow every reader to find an effective, individual fit.

2. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg--Productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive.

3. #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness by Gary Vaynerchuk--#AskGaryVee is the product of over a year’s worth of answering questions on business, entrepreneurship, social media, leadership and more on a YouTube show.

4. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant--Originals is about how to champion new ideas and fight groupthink. Using surprising studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports, and entertainment, Grant explores how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt.

5. How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness That Helps the World by Colin Beavan--In this breakthrough book, Beavan extends a hand to those seeking more meaning and joy in life even as they engage in addressing our various world crises. How to Be Alive nudges the unfulfilled toward creating their own version of the Good Life—a life where feeling good and doing good intersect.

5 Habits for a Successful Career (and Life)

Habits. There are good habits and there are bad habits and all of us have a mixture of both. The challenge is to encourage and build upon the good habits and eliminate the bad.

Our habits can have a significant impact on our careers and that is one reason it is so important to build on and add to our good habits.

With that in mind here are five habits that can enhance your career and life:

Sleep. It is important to your intellectual and emotional well-being to ensure that you get enough sleep every night. Set a bed time that allows you to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night and stick to it. Avoid watching TV or drinking alcohol right before bed.

Meditate. You don't have to be a monk to enjoy the benefits of meditation and you don't need to meditate for long periods of time. A simple practice of 5 minutes of attention to your breathing can bring great benefits.

Eat. Focus on eating healthy and energy-producing foods, while avoiding a lot of sugar, salt, and alcohol. You'll feel better and have more creative energy to apply to your work and home life.

Move. Avoid a sedentary life. This is especially important for those who spend long hours in front of a computer. Be sure to stand up and take a break every hour. Walk around the office or get outside. Do some light stretching.

Thank. If needed adjust your attitude and be grateful: for your job, your family, your co-worker, where you live. Find something to be grateful for every day. And a bonus habit: journal. Keep a daily journal where you can write about your progress and note those things in your life you are thankful for.

A great resource for developing good habits is Gretchen Rubin's new book Better Than Before. Learn more about it and check out helpful resources at her web site.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: Do Something Every Day

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

In this video writer Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project) discusses the importance of developing the discipline to do something every day and shares the following quote: "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules."

Learn more in the video below: