Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.   As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:   • Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. • Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

    In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

    This book takes a critical look at these myths and contradictions from an inside perspective, presenting a fresh and nuanced perspective on the opportunities that the Indian market offers. It draws upon a wealth of data, from consumer research, market data, macroeconomic research, popular culture and case studies, to provide a thorough and compelling insight into what makes for success in the complex Indian market, based upon two decades of experience.

    The force behind WordPress.com is a convention-defying company called Automattic, Inc., whose 120 employees work from anywhere in the world they wish, barely use email, and launch improvements to their products dozens of times a day. With a fraction of the resources of Google, Amazon, or Facebook, they have a similar impact on the future of the Internet. How is this possible? What's different about how they work, and what can other companies learn from their methods?To find out, former Microsoft veteran Scott Berkun worked as a manager at WordPress.com, leading a team of young programmers developing new ideas. "The Year Without Pants" shares the secrets of WordPress.com's phenomenal success from the inside. Berkun's story reveals insights on creativity, productivity, and leadership from the kind of workplace that might be in everyone's future.Offers a fast-paced and entertaining insider's account of how an amazing, powerful organization achieves impressive resultsIncludes vital lessons about work culture and managing creativityWritten by author and popular blogger Scott Berkun (scottberkun.com)"The Year Without Pants" shares what every organization can learn from the world-changing ideas for the future of work at the heart of Automattic's success.

    Over the past decade, Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk, Special Operators like the Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, and maverick scientists like Sasha Shulgin and Amy Cuddy have turned everything we thought we knew about high performance upside down. Instead of grit, better habits, or 10,000 hours, these trailblazers have found a surprising short cut. They're harnessing rare and controversial states of consciousness to solve critical challenges and outperform the competition.New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler and high performance expert Jamie Wheal spent four years investigating the leading edges of this revolution—from the home of SEAL Team Six to the Googleplex, the Burning Man festival, Richard Branson’s Necker Island, Red Bull’s training center, Nike’s innovation team, and the United Nations’ Headquarters. And what they learned was stunning: In their own ways, with differing languages, techniques, and applications, every one of these groups has been quietly seeking the same thing: the boost in information and inspiration that altered states provide.Today, this revolution is spreading to the mainstream, fueling a trillion dollar underground economy and forcing us to rethink how we can all lead richer, more productive, more satisfying lives. Driven by four accelerating forces—psychology, neurobiology, technology and pharmacology—we are gaining access to and insights about some of the most contested and misunderstood terrain in history. Stealing Fire is a provocative examination of what’s actually possible; a guidebook for anyone who wants to radically upgrade their life.

    D.E. Boyer takes us on a fascinating journey from the depths of despair to an amazing quantum world where anything is possible. First, we will learn how to defend ourselves against the chaos in our minds, then we will learn how to rekindle the magic in our hearts. Along the way, the wisdom of Socrates and the myth of Narcissus will transform the way we think and feel. Boyer then shows us how the military teaches their Navy Seal recruits how to handle their thoughts and feelings when someone is trying to kill them, so we can better handle our bosses, spouses, and children when it feels like they are trying to kill us. We will also get a glimpse of death through the eyes of someone who sees people die every day, giving us a much greater appreciation for life. With extremely amusing stories from her own life that touch on her dysfunctional upbringing and traumatizing career as an intensive care nurse, Boyer teaches us how to control our anxiety, boost our fragile self-esteem, and get into a state of flow so that we can spend most of our time loving life, rather than dreading it. She also gives us crucial health and nutrition tips so that we can live longer with our newfound peace and joy, and she shows us how to be more successful at life by being a better friend, spouse, and parent. With every step we take on this path, we'll find ourselves flirting with the hidden power of the mind, a power that often lies just beyond most people's reach. Only by mastering the basics of thinking and feeling can we gain access to this power. Once the door is unlocked, we will enter another dimension, a quantum world where time is irrelevant and the magic of our mind is waiting to be found.

    She has used the analogy of a hardy Peppercorn tree which survived in her childhood backyard, symbolising for her the endurance of suburban 'battlers' struggling to achieve purpose and hope within a somewhat barren environment.. It reveals a very different world of post Second World War frugality, British style education, no television or computers; a time when children largely created their own entertainment, were expected to conform and obey all authority figures and accept limitation in terms of their personal development and dreams. The final chapters reveal how Jill's childhood impacted on her later life as a mother of six children, a victim of a difficult marriage and her eventual achievement of four University degrees as a mature-age student. Jill also touches on aspects of Australian literature and how some of the greatest Australian authors such as historian Manning Clark, novelist Patrick White and social scientists Donald Horne and John Thornhill have viewed suburbia and the Australian psyche developed over two centuries of pioneering a beautiful but harsh land. Jill's story includes humour and pathos and is a keenly observant record of the Australian suburban culture of that era. This is a book for all who live, dream and struggle in suburbia.

    Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.The Toyota Way reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry.Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr. Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't.

    An internationally renowned success coach, he shares the best of what he’s learned—about inspiration, motivation, well-being, relationships, finances, and more—from more than15 years of training thousands of people to have what they want and create a life that makes them go “Wow!”Let him do the same for you . . . and you’ll experience more happiness and greater success than ever before!

    Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down — all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people’s lives as never before. The pessimists who dominate public discourse insist that we will soon reach a turning point and things will start to get worse. But they have been saying this for two hundred years.Yet Matt Ridley does more than describe how things are getting better. He explains why. Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else. The habit of exchange and specialization—which started more than 100,000 years ago—has created a collective brain that sets human living standards on a rising trend. The mutual dependence, trust, and sharing that result are causes for hope, not despair.This bold book covers the entire sweep of human history, from the Stone Age to the Internet, from the stagnation of the Ming empire to the invention of the steam engine, from the population explosion to the likely consequences of climate change. It ends with a confident assertion that thanks to the ceaseless capacity of the human race for innovative change, and despite inevitable disasters along the way, the twenty-first century will see both human prosperity and natural biodiversity enhanced. Acute, refreshing, and revelatory, The Rational Optimist will change your way of thinking about the world for the better.

    In The Multi-Hyphen Method Emma Gannon teaches that it doesn't matter if you're a part-time PA with a blog, or a physio who runs an online jewellery store in the evenings - whatever your ratio, whatever your mixture, we can all channel the entrepreneurial spirit. Today, the stigma of being a jack of all trades is being dispelled and having more strings to your bow is essential to getting ahead in the modern working world and Emma Gannon's book is the ultimate guide in helping us navigate our way towards success.

    This book has been designed for people who don't know how to pray yet or those who aren't sure whether they learned correctly or not. In this book you will learn the prayers by reading clear and simple descriptions of what to do along with pictures to make sure you understood correctly. One of the unique features of this book is that it doesn't limit itself to teaching the rituals behind the prayer only. Rather, there is an entire chapter dedicated to learning the meanings behind each statement and action in the prayer.

    It is the looking glass through which we see and understand our inner world and our outer world...to build unshakeable self-confidence, especially in those moments when we feel nervous.”Since 2011, Aiman travels locally and internationally to speak to young people about various issues. Inspired by countless anecdotes from young people with myriad self-confidence issues, Aiman wrote this book as a self-help guide to build self-confidence from scratch with proven practical tips and tricks from scientific literature and personal experience.

    There is some good advice here and there, but it's typically scattered. There is no single go-to book that brings together into one spot the best principles and practices for getting a clear view of how to make your desk work for you as effectively as possible. So that’s what this book aims to do. We will look at why desk setup matters, basic principles for setting up your desk well, where to put your desk (and where not to!), what goes on your desktop (less than you think), how to set up the drawers, and how to set up the rest of your office. Along with this, we will also see the connection between setting up your desk well and changing the world, which is what all productivity practices are ultimately about.

    These are personal experiences of Geet Sethi, a seven time world billiards champion. It's a book about his experiences sharing joy and what society views as success.It is both a philosophical journey outlining one man's self discovery and a road map highlighting themany emotional upheavals that exist off the path to a full, rewarding life. Of course, it's an inspirational book on Mind Control.