The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday


Rob Walker - 2019
    Our lives are in constant tether to phones, to email, and to social media. In this age of distraction, the ability to experience and be present is often lost: to think and to see and to listen.Enter Rob Walker's The Art of Noticing--an inspiring volume that will help you see the world anew. Through a series of simple and playful exercises--131 of them--Walker maps ways for you to become a clearer thinker, a better listener, a more creative workplace colleague, and finally, to rediscover what really matters to you.

Grace, Not Perfection: Embracing Simplicity, Celebrating Joy


Emily Ley - 2016
     As a busy wife, new mother, business owner, and designer, Emily Ley came to a point when she suddenly realized she couldn’t do it all. She needed to simplify her life, organize her days, and prioritize the priorities. She decided to hold herself to a standard of grace rather than perfection. This mantra led to the creation of her bestselling Simplified Planner®, a favorite among busy women everywhere—from mamas to executives and everywhere in between.Grace, Not Perfection takes this message from a daily planner to an inspirational book that encourages women to simplify and prioritize. Designed with Emily Ley’s signature aesthetic, this book gives women tangible ways to simplify their lives to give space to what matters most. With a focus on faith, Emily reminds readers that God abundantly pours out grace on us—and that surely we can extend grace to ourselves.Have you been told you can have it all, only to end up exhausted and occasionally out of sorts with the people you love? Are you ready for a new way of seeing your time? Learn to live a little more simply. Hold yourself and those you love to a more life-giving standard in Grace Not Perfection,and allow that grace to seep into your days, your family, and your heart.Ideas include:List Making 101—tips to create effective to-do lists and get through them one step at a timeSimplify your life by simplifying the three major areas: your space, your time, and your mindStrategies to center your day around an intentionally slower rhythm of life

The Rules of Life: A Personal Guide for Living a Better, Happier, More Successful Life


Richard Templar - 2005
    Things you can change. It's about what "they" know and "you" can learn: The Rules of Life."" Here they are: 100 personal, "practical" rules for dreaming, planning, living, loving, and overcoming even life's toughest adversities... For knowing what matters... learning from experience...using your intuition... changing what you can...de-stressing... staying younger... "getting stronger." Read 'em. Learn 'em. "Live" 'em.You'll feel better. You'll live better.You'll be a better friend, partner, parent, child, "human being." You'll "do" it: one small, simple step at a time. One step a day, every day. "Starting today." "Introduction xi" Part I: Rules for You 1Part II: Partnership Rules 105Part III: Family and Friends Rules 141Part IV: Social Rules 171Part V: World Rules 201

Become What You Are


Alan W. Watts - 1955
    For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever. . . . You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now."—from Become What You Are In this collection of writings, including nine new chapters never before available in book form, Watts displays the intelligence, playfulness of thought, and simplicity of language that has made him so perennially popular as an interpreter of Eastern thought for Westerners. He draws on a variety of religious traditions, and covers topics such as the challenge of seeing one's life "just as it is," the Taoist approach to harmonious living, the limits of language in the face of ineffable spiritual truth, and the psychological symbolism of Christian thought.

What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers


Richard Nelson Bolles - 1970
    A favourite of job hunters and career changers for more than three decades, it continues to be a mainstay on best-seller lists, from Amazon.com to BusinessWeek to the New York Times, where it has spent five and a half years.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness


Dave Ramsey - 1994
    There's one sure way to whip your finances into shape, and that's with "The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition".By now, you've heard all the nutty get-rich-quick schemes, the fiscal diet fads that leave you with a lot of kooky ideas but not a penny in your pocket. Hey, if you're tired of the lies and sick of the false promises, take a look at this--it's the simplest, most straightforward game plan for completely making over your money habits. And it's based on results, not pie-in-the-sky fantasies. With "The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition," you'll be able to:Design a sure-fire plan for paying off all debt--meaning cars, houses, everything Recognize the 10 most dangerous money myths (these will kill you) Secure a big, fat nest egg for emergencies and retirement!

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?


Julie Smith - 2022
    Dr Julie Smith's expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr Smith's empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? might just change your life.

Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living


Krista Tippett - 2016
    The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation.   In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty.   The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says – definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other.   This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century – of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid.   One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters


Kate Murphy - 2020
    So do our politicians.We're not listening.And no one is listening to us.Despite living in a world where technology allows constant digital communication and opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or even knows how. And it’s making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before. A listener by trade, New York Times contributor Kate Murphy wanted to know how we got here.In this always illuminating and often humorous deep dive, Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). It’s time to stop talking and start listening.

Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living


Shauna Niequist - 2016
    I was tired of being tired, burned out on busy. And, it seemed almost everyone I talked with was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, depth, but settling for busy.I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, writer, and I know all too well that settling feeling. But over the course of the last few years, I’ve learned a way to live, marked by grace, love, rest, and play. And it’s changing everything.Present Over Perfect is an invitation to this journey that changed my life. I’ll walk this path with you, a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self, the one you were created to be before you began proving and earning for your worth.Written in Shauna’s warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more, all while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World


Tsh Oxenreider - 2014
    Butwe can choose to live it differently. It doesn’t alwaysfeel like it, but we do have thefreedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so thatour path better aligns with our values and passions. The popular blogger and founder of the internationallyrecognized Simple Mom onlinecommunity tells the story of her family’s ongoing quest to live more simply,fully, and intentionally.Part memoir, part travelogue, part practical guide, Notes from a Blue Bike takes you from ahillside in Kosovo to a Turkish high-rise to the congested city of Austin to asmall town in Oregon. It chronicles schooling quandaries and dinnertimedilemmas, as well as entrepreneurial adventures and family excursions viaplane, train, automobile, and blue cruiser bike.Entertaining and compelling—but never shrill or dogmatic—Notes from a Blue Bike invites you toclimb on your own bike, pay attention to who you are and what your familyneeds, and make some important choices.It’s a risky ride, but it’s worth it—living your lifeaccording to who you really aresimply takes a little intention. It’s never too late.

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind


Joseph Murphy - 1963
    It is one of the most brilliant and beloved spiritual self-help works of all time which can help you heal yourself, banish your fears, sleep better, enjoy better relationships and just feel happier. The techniques are simple and results come quickly. You can improve your relationships, your finances, your physical well-being.Dr. Joseph Murphy explains that life events are actually the result of the workings of your conscious and subconscious minds. He suggests practical techniques through which one can change one's destiny, principally by focusing and redirecting this miraculous energy. Years of research studying the world's major religions convinced him that some Great Power lay behind all spiritual life and that this power is within each of us.The Power of Your Subconscious Mind will open a world of success, happiness, prosperity, and peace for you.

Be Here Now


Ram Dass - 1971
    Illustrated.The book is divided into four sections:Journey: The Transformation: Dr Richard Alpert, PhD into Baba Ram DassFrom Bindu to Ojas: The Core BookCookbook for a Sacred Life: A Manual for Conscious BeingPainted Cakes (Do Not Satisfy Hunger): Books

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (And World Peace)


Chade-Meng Tan - 2012
    With Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan, one of Google’s earliest engineers and personal growth pioneer, offers a proven method for enhancing mindfulness and emotional intelligence in life and work.Meng’s job is to teach Google’s best and brightest how to apply mindfulness techniques in the office and beyond; now, readers everywhere can get insider access to one of the most sought after classes in the country, a course in health, happiness and creativity that is improving the livelihood and productivity of those responsible for one of the most successful businesses in the world.With forewords by Daniel Goleman, author of the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, renowned mindfulness expert and author of Coming To Our Senses, Meng’s Search Inside Yourself is an invaluable guide to achieving your own best potential.

When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life


David D. Burns - 2006
    Anxiety is one of the world’s oldest cons. When you’re anxious, you’re actually fooling yourself. You are telling yourself things that simply aren’t true. See if you can recognize yourself in any of these distortions:All-or-Nothing Thinking: “My mind will go blank when I give my presentation at work, and everyone will think I’m an idiot.”Fortune Telling: “I just know I’ll freeze up and blow it when I take my test.”Mind Reading: “Everyone at this party can see how nervous I am.”Magnification: “Flying is so dangerous. I think this plane is going to crash!”Should Statements: “I shouldn’t be so anxious and insecure. Other people don’t feel this way.”Emotional Reasoning: “I feel like I’m on the verge of cracking up!”Self-Blame: “What’s wrong with me? I’m such a loser!”Mental Filter: “Why can’t I get anything done? My life seems like one long procrastination.”Now imagine what it be like to live a life that’s free of worries and self-doubt; to go to sleep at night feeling peaceful and relaxed; to overcome your shyness and have fun with other people; to give dynamic presentations without worrying yourself sick ahead of time; to enjoy greater creativity, productivity and self-confidence.Does that sound impossible? The truth is you can defeat your fears. In When Panic Attacks, Dr. Burns takes you by the hand and shows you how to overcome every conceivable kind of anxiety. In fact, you will learn how to use more than forty simple, effective techniques, and the moment you put the lie to the distorted thoughts that plague you, your fears will immediately disappear. Dr. Burns also shares the latest research on the drugs commonly prescribed for anxiety and depression and explains why they may sometimes do more harm than good.This is not pop psychology but proven, fast-acting techniques that have been shown to be more effective than medications. When Panic Attacks is an indispensable handbook for anyone who’s worried sick and sick of worrying.