No one climbs
alone.
Self-improvement is good. Choosing the people who will improve you is better.
Fourteen remarkable lives, from Warren Buffett to Michael Phelps to Nelson Mandela, all were lifted by the same three forces.
Find your First. Build your Circle. Choose your Room.
Pre-order
Coming October 20, 2026
“Every reader will finish this book remembering the first person who saw who they could be, and wondering whose life they might yet help lift.”
— Barbara Barrett, 25th Secretary of the Air Force
Fourteen Remarkable People Told Me Their Story
Across business, sports, politics, war. Fourteen extraordinary people discovered the three forces that inspired them all.
Warren Buffett, investor and philanthropist · Dr. Reatha Clark King, chemist and Fortune 500 director · Malcolm Forbes, publisher · Donald Trump, U.S. president · Michael Phelps, most decorated Olympian in history · Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, Nobel Peace Prize laureates · John McCain, senator and presidential nominee · Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs · David Petraeus, four-star general and CIA director · Nikki Haley, governor and UN ambassador · Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian dissident · Lou Lenart and Allen Cunningham, freedom fighters
“Insightful and entertaining, Lift debunks the myth that our ‘self-made heroes’ climbed alone.”
—William R. Kerr, Harvard Business School
“Lift is as good as Henry Kissinger’s last book!”
—MICHAEL M. CROW, president of Arizona State University
Weekly wisdom on building a Lift Culture, at work, at home, in your community. Under three minutes. (Your email ) (I’m In!)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Cunningham is the former publisher of Forbes, where he led the magazine through the rise of the Forbes 400. He went on to run Zip2, Elon Musk’s first company, and served as chairman or board director of more than ten public companies. As a professor of leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird and Cronkite Schools, he hosted the award-winning interview series Iconic Voices, featuring candid interviews with Warren Buffett, Michael Phelps, General David Petraeus, and other global leaders. His book, Lift, distills those encounters into lessons on achievement, resilience, and the relationships that shape extraordinary lives.
Ask Jeff a question about Lift:
“Jeff Cunningham reveals how extraordinary lives are shaped long before a résumé exists.”
—RICHARD C. ADKERSON, chairman of the board of Freeport-McMoRa