Upgrade - Taking your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary (2013) By Rana Florida ..... Book Review.
The Review by "Surfer Chris" Garrah
The book focuses on how a person can change ones life and provides impetus. The youth of the author and the connection with her husband in business, a professor, are key ingredients in making the book a smart, breezy book. The economic collapse of 2008 is in the mix of why people should move forward with what they can do to create independence in life and work. Rana Florida is the author and she is also a CEO of a management business that is also headed by her husband . Her husbands' research on the "creative class" is a key component of the management business. The "creative class" is a group of people attracted to work in certain cities where knowledge workers and artists enjoy living.
In the course of the book encourages people to do things and fail because their are opportunities to learn from failing. The steps to changing one's life appear very doable to this reader because of the book's encouragement. The approach that many people can succeed even by failing at first is non-threatening. There is a natural progression of ideas through the chapters.. The books arguments are supported by interviews with successful business people the author has encountered.
There are also mentions of other books that have been read by the author, In the motivation or personal development areas are The author points other seminal books like "Good to Great". "Who moved my cheese" , "Made to Stick" and lastly, the book "Drive". For further reading on the "creative class" I recommend the book "The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited" (2012) by Richard Florida. Or the earlier book "The rise of the Creative Class - and How It's transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Every Day Life" ( 2002) also by Richard Florida.
