If you have never experienced a PARADIGM SHIFT before, then read this book. It is exactly the paradigm shift that should have happened to me much earlier in my career. I have been meaning to read this book but other work get in the way. It is when I finally read this book, I then understand that hard work and dedication alone cannot get me the promotion I so desire. I felt so "naked" and unprepared after reading the book. As if the authors Elizabeth Xu and Patricia Zimmerman are coaching me alongside, they demystify on how to advance my career in an almost scientific approach. Career advancement does take hardwork and dedication but when without a laser-focused strategy and plan, our efforts can be wasted and our promotion is left to chance only. We can get lucky getting a promotion with the right boss, but we can still unprepared to do the job. An Olympics athlete did not just train right before the competition, they train for years physically and mentally up to the big event. The Olympians also train with world class coaches. Let this book be your coach, and let us all win at the life's competition!

Elizabeth Xu provides excellent career advise in this book. It's rare that I use career advice from a book again and again. The main thing I took from this book is how important it is to think about the different perspectives of your manager and N+1. When you are junior in an organization it is easy to have role based or silo blinders on to what you really need to do to get promoted. Working hard is expected. How do you go above and beyond to be perceived differently to get that promotion? How do you work effectively with mentors and advisors? This book is an excellent guide to organizing both your time and your point of view to get promoted more quickly. The advice works!

Elizabeth Xu provides excellent career advise in this book. It's rare that I use career advice from a book again and again. The main thing I took from this book is how important it is to think about the different perspectives of your manager and N+1. When you are junior in an organization it is easy to have role based or silo blinders on to what you really need to do to get promoted. Working hard is expected. How do you go above and beyond to be perceived differently to get that promotion? How do you work effectively with mentors and advisors? This book is an excellent guide to organizing both your time and your point of view to get promoted more quickly. The advice works!

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who might be considering leaving their current position or those now looking for a job. Practical steps that can lead to success for those wanting a better position or a change. If you had been out of the job market for awhile this book will bring you up to date on methods that recruiters currently use to find candidates. It is an easy read. Used as the text for a course at Stanford University.

"Myths of the Promotion" offers a powerful tool to anyone seeking professional advancement. The virtual box is a clever and creative image that allows the reader to see how others perceive him or her as well as offering a way to truly understand others by looking from another's virtualbox. The lessons learned in this book normally take years of experience dealing with both management and employees. By internalizing the lessons offered, the reader will leapfrog ahead in professional development. This book should be read prior to interviewing for a new job. This book is the perfect gift for all high school and college graduates. Managers should be required to read this book. New employees should be given this book upon their hiring. Anyone feeling stuck in their current position should review the methods and tools offered in this book to understand why there has been no upward career advancement. "Myths of the Promotion" truly offers a fresh perspective toward self-advancement!

I learned from Elizabeth at a classroom setting at Stanford when she was just getting ready for publishing this book couple years ago. What she shared with me and others has been very helpful. I can relate to some of the tips that she provided in this book as I had personally experienced or used them. There is no doubt about her success but what differentiates her from other successful leaders isn't about her high ranked titles or her awards. She is a very giving and caring person who really means what she says. Giving back and making contributions to everyone around her have made Elizabeth a very special person to me and to the community and to this world. I highly recommend this book as you can learn how to be more successful and more importantly you will want to become a better person because of Elizabeth

No matter if you are a new graduate or have been working for many years, you will find this book useful. It has a very organized structure and is succinct. I find it not only expands my horizons on how to move up in my current organization, but also helps me advance my career in a long term. I am so glad that I read it and keep it as guidance for my career development.

Maybe you should read it even before you become a manager or a manager like position! It is a practical book, easy to read, easy to follow. It is a must read book!

The authors wrote this book from their experience and their heart. Reading this book is very similar to talking to a career advisor. This book is filled with fresh ideas, wise insight, and practical examples and tips on how to live a successful corporate life. It provides numerous sound and practical pieces of advice on how to deal with issues and situations that one will undoubtedly encounter. For example: How to get along with one's boss, how to dress properly, and how to deal with a jerk, to name a few. I have personally benefited a great deal from heeding the advice offered in this book. I find myself referring back quite often and practicing many ideas from the book during my day-to-day operations at work. Any individual contributor who is becoming a leader must undergo a period of paradigm shift. This book delves into a leader's mindset, and is therefore a must-read for those who wish to successful transition from individual contributor to a leader. I personally went through the process about six years ago, and was very fortunate to have participated in a seminar series which this book is based on. For those who wish to pursue a lifetime technical career, reading this book will help to understand corporate culture and how the leadership-level operates, therefore making one's career life more fulfilling. There are books that are worth one's time reading, and books must be studied. This book belongs to the latter. I highly recommend all my team members to read it and closely adhere to the advice offered. I have also recommended this book to my children who are about to start their careers. I truly believe that those who can internalize the key concepts of this book will become much better prepared for a successful career in corporate America.

This book has completely changed my mindset and my understanding about career advancement. It offers very practical and easy to follow steps for me to build a career. These 10 steps has helped me develop a plan to not only advance my career but also help me to understand business priorities better and help me refine my leadership skills. Highly recommend this book for anyone who is trying to advance his/her career and create an effective personal brand and network.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who are new the to American Corporations, to get a good understanding of how American Corporations work, how to navigate as well as get promoted in the American companies. This is especially helpful for people from different culture background. The book is very practical and lays out steps to advance the career to the next level. I have been promoted twice since I read this book and still review this book every year to help me planning for next year.

I just finished Elizabeth's class at Stanford. She is a genuinely passionate instructor and her class is full of interesting people from all walk of life. Highly recommend her book and her class at Stanford to anyone who is interested in opening new doors.

Very cool and practical advice for career development! Especially early getting up. Many great insights!

The idiom "Don't judge a book by its cover" is very applicable for Myths of Promotion. Do not let the blue, simplistic cover fool you. Its content packs substance. If you want an easy-to-read book on how to develop your career in the U.S., this is a good starting point. While not explicitly stated in some cases, the authors have presented advice applicable to: * Managers & Employees: Thinking two levels (or more) up and networking * Start-Ups: Developing several virtual box constructs is especially useful as an entrepreneur (before reading this book, I did this when starting up a company, and the virtual box analogy reinforced what I had done as an entrepreneur) * Immigrants: Reasons to develop your English in the U.S. if English is not your first language (having lived in the U.S., Taiwan, and Japan, this advice is relevant for developing your language in the relevant country as well) * Making Friends/Networking: Developing trust and advice Having seen one of the authors, Elizabeth Xu at a speaking event, she disclosed that she was an immigrant herself, having developed her career in America. While I did not directly speak to her on anything substantial, several points she brought up have resonated with me (I may be paraphrasing): * There is only a glass ceiling if you perceive there to be a glass ceiling. * If you are an immigrant, be proud of your heritage and use your heritage to network and make friends. * Regardless of your work, spend some time to maintain your networks. If you have the opportunity, I recommend that you attend Elizabeth's lectures, if any. Overall, the Myths of Promotion shows flip sides of a coin that a person would not normally perceive. I highly recommend it!

Myths elevates my view of building a successful career and changes the way I see professional relationships. The book is filled with insights on how to approach daily challenges in a very practical way, from writing an effective LinkedIn profile to building a long lasting mentoring relationship, from looking 2 levels up in the corporate ladder to how to talk to a jerk, from writing logs of personal accomplishments to considering how we want others to feel. It is a pleasure to read. The book is also a real gift. The authors help readers understand how to maximize their potentials by sharing their personal experience. They do this with big hearts. I definitely feel their generosity from page to page. The best way to express our gratitude may be to share their advice and help more people around us.

As a newly graduated student from UC Berkeley, the tough economy has made the job-hunting process very difficult. In last four years in school, I spent most of my time on the major education, but very little in my career planning towards the post-graduate. So when it comes to the time of participating the professional world, I had a lot of anxiousness and doubts. After reading Elizabeth's book, I found that there are a lot of great concepts and ideas that could deeply benefits me for my future career. A lot of the live examples that were used in the book are very interesting, and I could imagine myself be in the same situation. I particularly appreciate the idea of "always look two steps ahead". Many of my classmates felt a sense of unfairness when their boss took the credits, but Elizabeth's book taught me that our role within in the organization is actually to make our boss successful. I appreciate this idea because it set my mind in a different altitude, and I believe this will set a higher starting point for my future career. If you want to build a successful career, this book is a must-read!

This is a great book that first asks you to understand yourself and what you would like to achieve. Afterwards, you are taught to create a virtual environment in your head to practice becoming the position that you wish to achieve. The book teaches you how to practice this on a regular basis so you become familiar with the position that you want. That way, when the opportunity comes, you are ready for it. There are quizzes and exercises at the end of every chapter to reinforce and to get "hands on" practice of what was taught. This is a good concept. This book does ask the reader to be more proactive and speak up more, which may not be comfortable to some people.

I took Elizabeth's class at Stanford and I read this book for the class. There are some good take aways and I suggest you to read to get a lot of good, simple recipes for succeeding in your career.

The best part of this book is it's built on the author's personal experience, very practical.You can use it as a guide book for most problems you may encounter in corporate America. It's not as fancy as the NYT best sellers. It's very concentrated and has all the essentials. Each of the chapter has such a depth that it can be expanded to one single book. For example, in "Mentoring and Networking", the book covers who's a great mentor, where to find them, how to approach them, and how to build a long lasting relationship. What's more important, the book goes beyond that, discussing how to find a supporter(sponsor).

Provide answers to many questions that people have in career development. Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her experiences and insights. I highly recommend it.

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2013 I am so glad I had the opportunity to have this book presented to me as a preferred reading. It's very insightful and gives wonderful tips on the proper ways to approach career advancement. I am very thankful to have read this book in the early stages of my career. This book gives me a better insight of myself and gives wonderful suggestions on how to improve my skills to better adapt in the work environment. I really enjoyed the homework assignments written at the end of each chapter. I see some of the assignments as challenges that I should work on and overcome during the next few years of my career. Most importantly, the homework assignments gives me the chance to get a better understanding of myself and what I want for my career. It was helpful for the authors to provide personal experiences. A few of the experiences written, sounded very familiar to similar experiences I have gone through. Reading how the authors approached certain situations also gives a better insight on how things could be approached professionally. This book will definitely be recommended to my peers, family, and friends, who are not only looking for career advancement, but also where and how to find your career path.

The concept of a virtual box of a person is particularly interesting. It teaches you how to exam yourself systematically and objectively. At the same time, it is also a great tool to think as another person. For example, you can construct a virtual box of your boss, your partner, or your child. Then you will understand them better. The concept basically teaches you how to empathize with people, which is an important ability for achieving greatness in any field.

Elizabeth takes a complex problem and simplifies it. She illustrates how anyone, with the right mindset and effort, can achieve amazing success. For anyone looking to move up in their career, This book is inspirational and anyone that reads it will almost definitely take a big step forward in their personal and professional career

Thank you very much for your teaching. I learned a lot and was inspired. A2C is a great community. There are many highly motivated people, and we see many exciting ideas. They love to share and encourage each other. We should keep this going so it benefits more people.

I've been receiving coaching for many years. Despite 12 years of coaching I got, I still constantly had imposter syndrome. I learned from Dr. Liz and Pat the valuable lesson of changing my mindset and not treating others around me as my competitors. They are not competitors. Instead, they are the people who help me to grow. This's one thing that has changed many, many things in my life and my work. It makes me less anxious, more at ease, and more forward-looking and growth-thinking. I learned many other things from this program, but I want to highlight this piece and how valuable it is for my life. And you are really really wonderful people, and I really fully heartily endorse you. Thank you so much！

I appreciate the thinking system Dr. Liz has set up for us. There're so many great ideas in each chapter to act on. For example, one main thing I learned from Dr.Liz is that trade credit with trust. What a big heart! Last weekend, someone who is three levels higher than me reached out to revise his document. I kept it private and returned the edited version to him, and he is really really appreciated. I treasure those opportunities rather than feeling used. The mindset change helps me look forward and have a bigger pole in my future roles.

One of my most important takeaway from Dr. Liz’s coaching is “what gets you here will not get you there”. It means you will need to learn new skills if you want to move up to the next career level. I had been in the situation where I tried very hard for many years to get promoted while not realizing that I needed to develop new skills. Dr. Liz’ coaching got me unstuck.