This is the America we believe in a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last twenty-five years we have seen a disturbing opportunity gap emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now, this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam about whom The Economist said, "His scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny," offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students "our kids" went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book. Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country.

    We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favour of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the promise that "you can make it if you try". And the consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled populist protest, with the triumph of Brexit and election of Donald Trump.Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the polarized politics of our time, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality. Sandel highlights the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgement it imposes on those left behind. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success - more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the common good.

    I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump  Here is Trump in action—how he runs his business and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and changes the face of the New York City skyline. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated eleven guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest deals; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur and an unprecedented education in the practice of deal-making. It’s the most streetwise business book there is—and the ultimate read for anyone interested in achieving money and success, and knowing the man behind the spotlight.

    But few people know that when it came to the behavior of individuals—the way we perceive ourselves, the way we treat others, and the decisions we make in pursuit of happiness—the Scottish philosopher had just as much to say. He developed his ideas on human nature in an epic, sprawling work titled The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Most economists have never read it, and for most of his life, Russ Roberts was no exception. But when he finally picked up the book by the founder of his field, he realized he’d stumbled upon what might be the greatest self-help book that almost no one has read.In How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, Roberts examines Smith’s forgotten masterpiece, and finds a treasure trove of timeless, practical wisdom. Smith’s insights into human nature are just as relevant today as they were three hundred years ago. What does it takes to be truly happy? Should we pursue fame and fortune or the respect of our friends and family? How can we make the world a better place? Smith’s unexpected answers, framed within the rich context of current events, literature, history, and pop culture, are at once profound, counter-intuitive, and highly entertaining. In reinvigorating this neglected classic, this book provides us with an invaluable look at human behavior through the lens of one of history’s greatest minds.

    Whether you're coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism.Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world's talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything. • Deep Practice--Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn't know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice.• Ignition--We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development.• Master Coaching--What are the secrets of the world's most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these "talent whisperers" to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students.These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo's to Michael Jordan's. The good news about myelin is that it isn't fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished. Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.

    Burger teaches at Wiliams College; Starbird at The University of Texas at Austin. Here, they “reveal the hidden powers of deep understanding (earth), failure (fire), questions (air), the flow of ideas (water), and the quintessential element of change that brings all four elements together. By mastering and applying these practical and proven strategies, readers develop better thinking habits and learn how to create their own successes.”Brilliant people aren't a special breed--they just use their minds differently. By using the straightforward and thought-provoking techniques in "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking," you will regularly find imaginative solutions to difficult challenges, and you will discover new ways of looking at your world and yourself--revealing previously hidden opportunities.The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change. No matter who you are, the practical mind-sets introduced in the book will empower you to realize any goal in a more creative, intelligent, and effective manner. Filled with engaging examples that unlock truths about thinking in every walk of life, "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking" is written for all who want to reach their fullest potential--including students, parents, teachers, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners.Whenever you are stuck, need a new idea, or want to learn and grow, "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking" will inspire and guide you on your way.

    Moms in particular will welcome this trend.  A full 60% wish they had a flexible work option. But companies see advantages too in the way remote work increases their talent pool, reduces turnover, lessens their real estate footprint, and improves the ability to conduct business across multiple time zones, to name just a few advantages.  In Remote, inconoclastic authors Fried and Hansson will convince readers that letting all or part of work teams function remotely is a great idea--and they're going to show precisely how a remote work setup can be accomplished.

    It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man’ and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.

    The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck?Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes.By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.

    Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard was of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. Indeed, these were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997, when Marc Randolph had an idea. It was a simple thought—leveraging the internet to rent movies—and was just one of many more and far worse proposals, like personalized baseball bats and a shampoo delivery service, that Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning.But Hastings was intrigued, and the pair—with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO—founded a company. Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix's triumph feels inevitable, but the twenty first century's most disruptive start up began with few believers and calamity at every turn. From having to pitch his own mother on being an early investor, to the motel conference room that served as a first office, to server crashes on launch day, to the now-infamous meeting when Netflix brass pitched Blockbuster to acquire them, Marc Randolph's transformational journey exemplifies how anyone with grit, gut instincts, and determination can change the world—even with an idea that many think will never work.What emerges, though, isn't just the inside story of one of the world's most iconic companies. Full of counter-intuitive concepts and written in binge-worthy prose, it answers some of our most fundamental questions about taking that leap of faith in business or in life: How do you begin? How do you weather disappointment and failure? How do you deal with success? What even is success?From idea generation to team building to knowing when it's time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable, but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

    Although the 80/20 principle has long influenced today's business world, author Richard Koch reveals how the principle works and shows how we can use it in a systematic and practical way to vastly increase our effectiveness, and improve our careers and our companies.The unspoken corollary to the 80/20 principle is that little of what we spend our time on actually counts. But by concentrating on those things that do, we can unlock the enormous potential of the magic 20 percent, and transform our effectiveness in our jobs, our careers, our businesses, and our lives.

    We’re a little taller or shorter than the average, our salary is a bit higher or lower than the average, and we wonder about who it is that is buying the average-priced home. All around us, we think, are the average people—with the average height, the average salary and the average house.But the average doesn’t just influence how we see ourselves—our entire social system has been built around this average-size-fits-all model. Schools are designed for the average student. Healthcare is designed for the average patient. Employers try to fill average job descriptions with employees on an average career trajectory. Our government implements programs and initiatives to serve the average person. For more than a century, we’ve believed that the best way to run our institutions is by focusing on the average person. But when you actually drill down into the numbers, you find an amazing fact: no one is average—which means that our society built for everyone is actually serving no one.In the 1950s, the American Air Force found itself with a massive problem—performance in expensive, custom-made planes was suffering terribly, with crashes peaking at seventeen in a single day. Since the state-of-the-art planes they were flying had been meticulously crafted to fit the average pilot, pilot error was assumed to be at fault. Until, that is, the Air Force investigated just how many of their pilots were actually average. The shocking answer: out of thousands of active-duty pilots, exactly zero were average. Not one. This discovery led to simple solutions (like adjustable seats) that dramatically reduced accidents, improved performance, and expanded the pool of potential pilots. It also led to a huge change in thinking: planes didn’t need to be designed for everyone—they needed to be designed so they could adapt to suit the individual flying them.The End of Average shows how success lies in customizing to our individual needs in all aspects of our lives, from the way we mark tests to the medical treatment we receive. Using principles from The Science of the Individual, it shows how we can break down the average to create individualized success that benefits everyone in the long run. It's time we stopped settling for average, and in The End of Average, Todd Rose will show you how.

    Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth.   In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.

     Based on more than 20 years of research and practice among 30,000 people in 45 countries, Getting More concludes that finding and valuing the other party s emotions and perceptions creates far more value than the conventional wisdom of power and logic. It is intended to provide better agreements for everyone no matter what they negotiate from jobs to kids to billion dollar deals to shopping. The book, a "New York Times "bestseller and #1 "Wall Street Journal "business best seller, is based on Professor Stuart Diamond s award-winning course at the Wharton Business School, where the course has been the most popular over 13 years. It challenges the conventional wisdom on every page, from win-win to BATNA to rationality to the use of power. Companies have made billions of dollars so far using his new model and parents have gotten their 4-year-olds to willingly brush their teeth and go to bed. Prof. Diamond draws from his experience as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at The New York Times, Harvard-trained attorney, Wharton MBA, U.N. Consultant in many countries and manager and executive in many sectors, including technology, agriculture, medical services, finance, energy and aviation. The ROI from reading "Getting "More will make it the best investment you make this year, says Rhys Dekle, the business development head of the Microsoft Games division, which produces X-Box. He added that the book was his team s best investment of the year too. The model was also used to quickly solve the 2008 Hollywood Writer s Strike. The advice is addressed through the insightful stories of more than 400 people who have used Prof. Diamond s tools with great success: A 20% savings on an item already on sale. An extra $300 million profit in a business. A woman from India getting out of her own arranged marriage. Better relationships with the family, including teenagers. Raises at work. Better jobs. Dealing with emotional situations. Meeting one s goals. Finding better things to trade. Solving cultural and political problems, sports conflicts, and ordinary arguments. The book is intended to be used in any situation. The most common response is life changing, beginning on page one. The most inspirational book I have read this year said David Simon, an attorney in San Francisco, CA. This book can change the world, says Craig Silverman, Investment Advisor, Long Island, NY"

    Why did work become so miserable? Who is responsible? And does any company have a model for doing it right?For two years, Lyons ventured in search of answers. From the innovation-crazed headquarters of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, to a cult-like "Holocracy" workshop in San Francisco, and to corporate trainers who specialize in ... Legos, Lyons immersed himself in the often half-baked and frequently lucrative world of what passes for management science today. He shows how new tools, workplace practices, and business models championed by tech's empathy-impaired power brokers have shattered the social contract that once existed between companies and their employees. These dystopian beliefs--often masked by pithy slogans like "We're a Team, Not a Family"--have dire consequences: millions of workers who are subject to constant change, dehumanizing technologies--even health risks. A few companies, however, get it right. With Lab Rats, Lyons makes a passionate plea for business leaders to understand this dangerous transformation, showing how profit and happy employees can indeed coexist.