Before she became a best-selling author, Sheryl Sandberg was most widely known for her role as a principal executive at Facebook, Inc. In 2012, Time magazine placed her among the world’s top 100 most influential people. “Lean In” was the first book that Sandberg had ever published.

Sandberg decided to put her ideas about women in the workplace into writing after seeing the response to her TED talk on the subject. Her engaging stories and research landed the book on best-sellers lists. The work came out in 2013, but writing it did anything but slow down this self-made magnate.

As of 2016, Forbes lists her seventh among the most powerful women in the world. Her husband, Dave Goldberg, who was CEO of SurveyMonkey, died prematurely in 2015 during a getaway to Mexico. Sandberg used writing to help her through her grief, co-authoring “Option B” with Adam Grant, a psychologist, and close friend.