Upgrade: Taking Your Work and Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary

What could a graffiti artist, eminent neurologist, star athlete, celebrity chef, fashion designer, rocket scientist, and Grammy Award–winning musician possibly have in common?

In this groundbreaking new book, Rana Florida shares their formula, giving you the tools to achieve unimaginable success in work and life. Upgrade gathers the best practices, not just from CEOs and business executives but from entrepreneurs, innovative thinkers, and creative leaders.

Upgrade includes interviews with Sir Ken Robinson, Dan Pink, Mark Cuban, Andre Agassi, Kenny Scharf, Zaha Hadid, Governor Martin O’Malley, Tory Burch, Tim Brown, and many other leading figures. Despite this cast’s vastly different backgrounds and skills, Florida’s research concludes that there are seven key principles to achieving your business and life goals:

• Envision the future
• Find your passion
• Get creative
• Design your time
• Collaborate
• Take risks
• Embrace failure

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the majority of us don’t do. Instead of developing a real strategy to upgrade and optimize our lives, too many of us just slog through life in a state of “managed dissatisfaction.”

But it’s never too late to envision an entirely different future—or to actively upgrade your life. It’s not about finding more time, money, or resources. Anyone can do it.

This smart and entertaining guide delves deep into each principle, giving you the insights, tools, and inspiration to take your life from ordinary to extraordinary.

About the Author

Rana Florida writes the Huffington Post column “Your Startup Life” and is a regular HGTV contributor. CEO of Creative Class Group, a consulting firm serving such clients as BMW, Starwood, IBM, Philips, Zappos, and Johnson & Johnson, she has appeared on The Today Show and in The New York Times. Florida previously served as Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at HMSHost (Host Marriott Services), a $2 billion dollar international organization in the travel industry working with hundreds of brands, such as Starbucks, Tumi, and Kenneth Cole. She was also Vice President of Corporate Communications for the world’s largest producer of live family entertainment, Feld Entertainment, which owns Disney on Ice, Disney Live, the Doodlebops, and many other brands.