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Praise for Be Real

“Mulhern shares deeply personal experiences and from them, draws penetrating insights about the nature of leadership and relationships. His conversational tone provides easy access to the profound wisdom on every page. Save a return trip to the bookstore and buy a copy for yourself, your boss, your employees, your spouse and each of your children today.”

Kerry Kennedy, President, RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, author of Speak Truth to Power

“There is no one better at presenting the life of everyday leaders than Dan Mulhern. No one. Be Real is full of real stories of real leaders doing real things. The stories will make you laugh, cry, and cheer. Be Real is a must-read for every citizen-leader.”

Jim Kouzes, co-author of the leading book on leadership, The Leadership Challenge

“In my 20 years as an executive with HP and in my work at the Center with some of the world’s leading companies, I have learned that 99% of leadership isn’t about what the elite few do in a moment of crisis. It is the product of everyday work and life. Dan Mulhern’s excellent new book gently but eloquently makes this point in a highly readable fashion.”

Professor Brad Harrington, Executive Director Boston College Center for Work & Family

“As a business owner with a mission to make life enjoyable and productive for our staff, customers, vendors and community, I found Be Real very helpful, insightful and enjoyable. This is a book that I will certainly go back and re-read..”

Curt Munson, Founder and CEO, Good Form Running and Playmakers Sports

A brand new CD for parent leaders.  Dan takes the research-tested ideas that are guiding business and political leaders and applies these lessons to home. He shares surprising, powerful and practical ideas you can use to inspire, challenge and empower your children. Dan doesn’t just share great successes but also mistakes he has made that have taught him.  He also shares the work of some great parent leadership writers in this 90-minute series.

In Everyday Leadership Dan offers strategies to improve leadership skills, achieve results, and gain greater satisfaction in hectic and challenging times. Dan writes for the everyday leader, whether that person is a principal, pastor, parent, or CEO.

In Everyday Leadership Dan offers strategies to improve leadership skills, achieve results, and gain greater satisfaction in hectic and challenging times. Dan writes for the everyday leader, whether that person is a principal, pastor, parent, or CEO.

Getting Unhooked from people who are killing you at work. In this CD, Dan interviews co-authors Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster about their awesome system of getting unhooked from people at work who drive you crazy. Dan walks them and you through their 4-step system that not only helps you to take the stress out of stressful relationships, but also shows how to take specific and strategic steps to minimize others’ hurtful behaviors.

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A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future

By: Former Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm and Dan Mulhern

The economic hurt that happened across America happened first, and most brutally, in America’s manufacturing heartland: Michigan. Jennifer Granholm, the state’s first female governor, tells how one state struggled and pioneered ways out of a perfect economic storm—and offers proven advice for a nation desperate to create jobs.

In January, 2002, Jennifer Granholm was the first woman ever to be sworn in as governor of Michigan—the eighth largest state in the nation, home to America’s auto industry with an economy bigger than that of Saudi Arabia or Greece. She swept into office armed with energy, optimism, and a determination to jump-start progress on several fronts, from diversifying the state’s economy to reforming its educational system.

Then reality struck—in the form of an inherited fiscal crisis, economic collapse, and infrastructure breakdowns from hospital systems to the energy grid.

A Governor’s Story is a first-hand account from the front lines of a series of battles that exploded first in Michigan and that now are sweeping across all America: the battle to create jobs, to repair health care, educational, and infrastructure systems suffering from decades of neglect; to rebuild a manufacturing base crippled by dramatic technological changes and unfair foreign competition; and the battle to restore hope and fairness to an economic system in which the few prosper even as the many suffer.

A Governor’s Story is also a frank exploration of what happens when ideology and political gamesmanship collide with human needs. Michigan’s efforts to solve problems like devastating unemployment and out-of-control budget deficits demonstrated the bankruptcy of such traditional responses as “lower taxes,” “less regulation,” and “smaller government”—all of which accelerated, rather than reversed, the state’s decline.

Only after eight years of experimentation did Granholm discover a formula for renewed growth and prosperity in the hyper-competitive twenty-first century. She steered Michigan toward unprecedented private-public partnerships with clean energy businesses and the auto industry in a way to revolutionize its entire manufacturing base. She completely restructured workforce training through the No Worker Left Behind program.

Granholm’s efforts spurred more than $57 billion in private investment. More than 147,000 adults went back to school for retraining and community college enrollment jumped 35 percent. By the year 2020, new companies are expected to create nearly 90,000 jobs. In 2010, jobs grew at the fastest rate of any state in the nation.

Filled with revealing stories about politics, economics, and the often-misunderstood connections between them, A Governor’s Story offers vital lessons not just for policy makers and business leaders but for anyone seeking insight into the challenges facing America today.

“Governor Jennifer Granholm faced extraordinary challenges with grace, intelligence, and tenacity. In a weak economy, no state was hit harder than hers. She embraced the challenge of rebuilding Michigan’s economy for the 21st century with new ideas, new jobs, and new businesses. In 2010, Michigan had the largest drop in unemployment in the U.S., thanks in large measure to her tireless effort. A Governor’s Story is a remarkable narrative. Everyone who wants to revive the American economy and restore the American dream should read it.”

—The Honorable Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America

“Jennifer Granholm spent eight years fighting for Michigan, and now the rest of the nation can benefit from the hard lessons she and her team learned as they positioned Michigan for recovery. A Governor’s Story offers a dramatic inside political story and an urgent call to recognize that our industry is competing not just with foreign companies but with the governments supporting them. It also offers a candid and moving personal story of a governor who is forced to devote her ‘all’ to turn around her state’s seemingly unyielding bad economy, with the resulting family pressures she faced as a loving wife and mother.”

— The Honorable Carl Levin, U.S. Senator from Michigan

“During her tenure as governor, Jennifer Granholm had to grapple with unprecedented economic crises that foreshadowed what other leaders around the world would eventually experience. A Governor’s Story is one leader’s recounting of what it’s like and what it takes to lead in the crucible of challenge and change. It is an engagingly personal, absolutely riveting, and completely honest story. As you walk in Jennifer Granholm’s shoes through the pages of this gripping narrative, you understand more fully the resilience, optimism, and grit it takes to lead in challenging times. Every executive, every politician, every student of leadership, and every citizen needs to read this book. There is hope here. A Governor’s Story gets my vote for the best leadership book of the year.”

—Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling book, The Leadership Challenge and Credibility

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