Tired of getting general career advice and advice from your well-meaning manager that are abstract and not actionable? Wish you had more knowledge that empowered you to improve every day? Tired of trying to apply general advice by just trying a bunch of stuff without any solid idea on how to make it actually work in the real world? Wish you had practical ideas that were vetted and well-reasoned by an experienced peer that understands how to create techniques that are effective and practical and useful immediately? How about clear examples of realistic situations to showcase how they can used in the real world?

This book answers all those questions. Written by a software engineer with a decade of experience, respected and trusted by peers and bosses as both a mentor and individual contributor, and has a keen interest in continuously improving individuals, teams, and organizations through open collaboration, agile thinking and executing, and empowering everyone.

In today's competitive, globalized knowledge-based economy with an ever increasing population of well-connected humans, robots, and artificial intelligence, it can seem daunting to just keep ourselves up-to-date enough to not become obsolete, let alone become a high performer or become an exceptional thinker and executor like Elon Musk or Warren Buffett. Yet, that is precisely what you will get out of this book: a set of effective mental tools and essential knowledge to upgrade yourself into a high performer. Clear examples of how to use each tool are provided, as well as examples of how you can utilize several mental tools together to maximize your performance in common situations that knowledge workers encounter on a regular basis.