There are plenty of management and business courses but sometimes you just want something a little bit different. Here are our top 25 courses for anyone seeking to boost their careers with some, less than obvious, professional development.

1. Be Brilliant – Clearly you are brilliant but for those of your colleagues who aren't perhaps you could recommend The Art of Being Brilliant a one day course for people who want to do things better but don’t know how.

2. Act stupid – Managers are taught how to discover their inner clown, perform to an audience and live in the moment on the How to be Stupid course.

3. Discover your spiritual side - Dr Deepak Chopra offers spiritual wisdom for senior executives on Kellogg School of Management’s The Soul of Leadership course.

4. Change the world – The London Business Forum is hosting an afternoon with Sir Bob Geldolf entitled Global Leadership and Change: Lessons In How To Change The World .

5. Drink champagne – Reims Management School runs a variety of courses for managers and vineyard owners about the champagne industry including MBA electives on wine marketing.

6. Indulge your inner thesp – the Leadership as Performance Art course at Chicago School of Business’s London campus teaches middle to senior managers how to improve their effectiveness by learning about performance, acting and directing.

7. Be an elite athlete at work – The Athlete @ Work course leaders adapt elite sports people’s preparation and motivation techniques for the workplace.

8. Lead like a king – Whether it is Inspirational leadership based on Shakespeare’s Henry V, Influential Leadership based on Julius Caesar or Courageous Leadership which takes it’s cue from Macbeth, there is a course for you.

9. Think creatively – leave your left-brained logical ways behind and liberate your lateral thinking on the Right Brain Coaching course. Learn how to use random words and pictures to generate ideas or brain-storm effectively.

10. Step into the hot seat – Don’t Panic is a short customised one-to-one course for people who find themselves stuck with making a major presentation or big speech at short notice.

11. Be successful and nice – Being horrid is fun but if you’re nice and don’t want to change your ways the nice people at the Institute of Financial Services will help you with their Nice People Can Succeed course.

12. Challenge the boss – Become a player by developing a political mindset to rival Machiavelli on the Challenging the Managerial Mindset: The Constructive Use of Organisational Politics course run by Cranfield School of Management.

13. Do an MBA in a day – MBA alumni and students from top US business schools teach the fundamentals of strategy, marketing, finance and accounting to knowledge hungry, time poor managers at the MBA Day Camp in Chicago.

14. Remember things – Gain competitive advantage by learning quicker and remembering more than your colleagues on a Mind Mapping and Memory Improvement course.

15. Hold it together – Learn how to remain calm when you feel yourself getting hot under the collar and stay effective when you’re upset on a Self Discipline and Emotional Control in the Workplace course.

16. Sell like a magician – Learn how magicians use psychological techniques to direct and hold attention, then persuade and convince their audience on the Psychological Secrets for Selling course. Then use the techniques on your customers.

17. Live in luxury – study luxury and go on to work in the luxury industry hopefully earning enough to be able to afford to live in the lap of luxury by taking an MSc in Luxury Goods and Services at the International University of Monaco.

18. Make new friends – There is more to networking than successfully balancing a glass of champagne and a plate of nibbles. The Impact Factory's Business Networking Course will tell you what.

19. Make it add up – If you don’t know your POE from your PBIT then a short finance course might help. Try the Finance for Non-Finance Managers course by the Chartered Management Institute.

20. Answer dad back – Harvard Business School’s Families in Business: From Generation to Generation is a course for those working for family-owned or family-managed businesses. It teaches families and their colleagues how to play to their strengths and what to do when things go wrong.

21. Visit the human zoo – Visit London’s east end, an art gallery, a high tech laboratory, a school and a zoo on London Business School’s Proteus programme. The course helps managers take stock of their professional and personal development.

22. Avert a mid-life crisis – The Aspen Institute promises to help professionals who are wondering “What’s next?” to plan for “useful, moral and meaningful second halves.” It’s Pursing the Good Life seminar also includes tickets to the Aspen Music Festival.

23. Have a laugh – comedy and improvisation skills can help you at work by boosting your confidence and creativity according to Positive Comedy UK who run a number of seminars for business folk.

24. Speed read – Imagine how great it would be if you could rapidly read all the great management texts, research papers and reports you’d like, understand and remember it all the next day. Learn how on an Effective Rapid Reading course.

25. Understand Little Britain – London is the finance capital of the World attracting an international workforce but deciphering the complex workings of Government, the City and UK media can tax even the most experienced international business brain. Get to grips with life in the City on Cass Business School’s London Programme.

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