Upgrade - Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary Book Review

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.