The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion


Elle Luna - 2015
    We arrive at this crossroads over and over again, and every day. And we get to choose. Starting out or starting over, making a career change or making a life change, the most life-affirming thing you can do is to honor the voice inside that says your have something special to give, and then heed the call and act. Many have traveled this road before. Here’s how you can, too. #choosemust An inspirational gift book for every recent graduate, every artist, every seeker, and every career change.

The Tao of Happiness


Derek Lin - 2015
    He was the sage who stood apart from all others in Chinese history. He was a unique presence, a great mind like no one before or since. Chuang Tzu quickly distinguished himself and became well known for his deep understanding and sense of humor. His mastery was such that he could explain the Tao with simple stories, and his humor was such that he could see the joy in ordinary things. He taught his students about “carefree wandering”—the path of moving through life with a free and happy heart, regardless of how turbulent the journey might be. It is time for modern readers to join in on the fun. Chuang Tzu’s wisdom is not just for Eastern culture, but for all of humanity. We may not have the instability or the clash of massive armies indicative of Chuang Tzu’s time, but we have a lot of stress and tension in our modern world. Many of us find ourselves fighting little battles on the personal front just to get through the day. We can benefit greatly from Chuang Tzu’s teachings. These parables are presented throughout this book and juxtaposed with the charming and intelligent prose of modern-day Taoist teacher and author Derek Lin. Together, Chuang Tzu and Lin will present you with simple lessons that will have a lasting impact on your life.

In the Heart of Life: A Restless Soul, a Search for Meaning, and a Bond That Death Couldn't Break


Kathy Eldon - 2013
    Diving into this tumultuous new world as a journalist and writer, she embraced the energy and creativity of Kenyans, both black and white. But her world collapsed when her twenty-two-year-old son, Dan—an artist and photojournalist on assignment for Reuters—was stoned to death by an angry mob in Somalia, killed by the very people he was trying to help. Kathy's journey through this tragic loss was deeply spiritual as she discovered that, in many ways, Dan was still ever-present in her life.This gripping international saga includes a passionate love, a dangerous coup in Kenya, and a compelling glimpse into a woman on the brink of self-discovery. After her son's murder, Kathy began to publish his art, which gained popularity worldwide and—together with her daughter, Amy—launched a global foundation celebrating Dan's work as a creative activist. Throughout Kathy's exploration of profound tragedy, we find the secrets to not only surviving, but being truly, gloriously alive.

On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes


Alexandra Horowitz - 2013
    You are missing what is happening in the distance and right in front of you. In reading these words, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses. The hum of the fluorescent lights; the ambient noise in the room; the feeling of the chair against your legs or back; your tongue touching the roof of your mouth; the tension you are holding in your shoulders or jaw; the constant hum of traffic or a distant lawnmower; the blurred view of your own shoulders and torso in your peripheral vision; a chirp of a bug or whine of a kitchen appliance.On Looking begins with inattention. It is not meant to help you focus on your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask. Rather, it is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived "ordinary." Horowitz encourages us to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. So turn off the phone and portable electronics and get into the real world, where you'll find there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life


Jacob Nordby - 2021
    But according to author and creative coach Jacob Nordby, nothing could be further from the truth. Every human being is creative, and having a regular creative practice is a vital key to a happy and fulfilling life. If we don't exercise our creativity regularly, our lives can feel dull, stagnant, and rote. Many people live this way and believe “this is just the way life is,” without realizing that developing a regular creative practice can be the cure to what ails them.Nordby knows this all too well. By the time he reached his midthirties, he was running a successful mortgage company and lived in a big house with fancy cars. But he felt like he was dying inside. Starting and maintaining a creative practice is what saved his life. Now, in this powerful book, he explains how he traded in his stagnant way of life for one full of meaning and purpose, and offers specific steps to help you build your own creative practice.The Creative Cure is a call for a revolution, fostering change where all change must begin: within. This internal change will allow you to express your own creative gifts, cultivate happiness, and experience the unique feeling of fulfillment that only a creative practice can offer. Packed with powerful, transformative exercises, this book is the medicine you need to find and reinvigorate your creative soul.

Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges


C. Otto Scharmer - 2007
    Fundamental problems, as Einstein once noted, cannot be solved at the same level of thought that created them. What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention - both individually and collectively - is key to what we create. What often prevents us from attending is what Scharmer calls our blind spot, the inner place from which each of us operates. Learning to become aware of our blind spot is critical to bringing forth the profound systemic changes so needed in business and society today. First introduced in Presence, the U methodology of leading profound change is expanded and deepened in Theory U. By moving through the "U" process we learn to connect to our essential Self in the realm of presencing - a term coined by Scharmer that combines the present with sensing. Here we are able to see our own blind spot and pay attention in a way that allows us to experience the opening of our minds, our hearts, and our wills. This wholistic opening constitutes a shift in awareness that allows us to learn from the future as it emerges, and to realize that future in the world. Theory U explores a new territory of scientific research and personal leadership, one that is grounded in real life experience and shared practices. Scharmer shares much from his own personal and professional development, and draws from a rich diversity of compelling stories and examples. Readers will find themselves drawn to new ways of thinking and acting as they read, completing a parallel journey of exploration and discovery. The final chapters lay out principles and practices that allow everyone to participate fully in co-creating and bringing forth the desired future that is working to emerge through us.

Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer


Russell Hoban - 1998
    He is so desperate that when the peculiar Mr Rinyo-Clacton offers him one million pounds but only one year to live, he agrees to the proposal. But what happened next was even more shocking.

The Little Book of Stupidity: How We Lie to Ourselves and Don't Believe Others


Sia Mohajer - 2015
     We are all masters of self-delusion. Every day we make decisions that aren’t based on logic, but rather stories. Stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, what we want and why we want it. The Little Book of Stupidity is about these stories, from: Why you are always tricked into paying more How a piece of grilled-cheese sold for 28,000$ Why the legal system will always be flawed Why we can never save money Why we can’t end unhealthy relationships Why you are biologically wired to be judgmental How a statistician saved countless American lives The real secret behind “being lucky” Why you should stop watching the new immediately Why more choices don’t make you happier Best-selling author, Sia Mohajer, takes us on a journey through the statistics, experiments and psychology of stupidity to reveal one important fact – self-delusions are part of being human. You will emerge from this journey – wiser, more compassionate and with a better understanding of yourself. Get the Little Book of Stupidity now for a limited time price of 2.99.

Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever


Mark O'Connell - 2013
    It fills our Facebook feeds. It keeps afloat a whole armada of late-night comedians, YouTube auteurs, and twitter wits … an endless stream of "Worst Things Ever." Recall, if you will, Rebecca Black's chart-topping disasterpiece, "Friday." Or “The Room”, Tommy Wiseau's cinematic tragedy turned cult farce. Or the devout Spanish septuagenarian who produced an infamously botched, and now stunningly ubiquitous, retouching of a 19th-century fresco of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Internet era has fueled an obsession with these and other acts of cultural cluelessness. Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without some new aesthetic travesty spreading across the globe in the form of ones and zeros, spawning countless remixes and riffs, like the world's biggest inside joke. And once more the cry goes up: Fail! Epic Fail!But what, exactly, draws us to these futile attempts at making songs, movies, and art? What are the essential ingredients that render a ridiculous failure sublime? More important, what does our seemingly insatiable appetite for the "succès d'incompetence" say about our aesthetic impulses? Our ethical ones? Is our laughter all in good fun or is something more sinister at work?

The Wisdom of James Allen: Five Books in One: As a Man Thinketh: The Path to Prosperity: The Mastery of Destiny: The Way of Peace: Entering the Kingdom


James Allen - 1996
    James Allen's best-selling classic, As a Man Thinketh, combined with four other James Allen titles: The Path to Prosperity, The Mastery of Destiny, The Way of Peace, and Entering the Kingdom.

Positive Mental Attitude: The Science of Success by Napoleon Hill


Napoleon Hill - 2013
    It contains the material from “Think and Grow Rich,” “The Law of Success” and others. Anyone who uses even a few of the 17 Principles of Success will be successful. Highlight what works for you, review your notes, and launch your career.The book has a linked table of contents for easy reference.Napoleon Hill's work has touched the lives of countless thousands through his lectures, teachings, and prolific writings. His internationally known books Think and Grow Rich and The Law of Success have become the standards of motivational literature against which all others are measured. To make available in perpetuity the success principles he spent a lifetime identifying and sharing with others, on August 21, 1962, Dr. Hill and his wife, Annie Lou, founded the Napoleon Hill Foundation. A not-for-profit corporation, the Foundation's sole purpose is to continue to spread his philosophy of success through the co-operation and support of others, rather than at their expense. The 17 principles of success he quantified in his writings and lectures aid not only the individual who practices them, but all those with whom he comes in contact, as well. Those principles along with his lifelong published works and yet unpublished manuscripts, recordings, and courses comprise the legacy Dr. Hill endowed in the Foundation. Dr. Hill enjoyed close friendships with many of the turn-of-the-century business leaders who played a significant role in shaping the destiny of America and the world. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Theodore Roosevelt, and Alexander Graham Bell were but a few who freely shared the secrets of how they attained their success with Dr. Hill.Andrew Carnegie so strongly believed in the universal principles of success that he sponsored the research and writing that became the first authoritative treatise on the subject, the Personal Success Philosophy of Achievement by Napoleon Hill. This practical self-study program will help you thoroughly understand and apply the 17 principles of success in your own life, to achieve any goal — however ambitious.

Being Better: Stoicism for a World Worth Living in


Kai Whiting - 2021
    In our age of political polarization and environmental destruction, Stoicism's empowering message has taken on new relevance. In Being Better, Kai Whiting and Leonidas Konstantakos apply Stoic principles to contemporary issues such as social justice, climate breakdown, and the excesses of global capitalism. They show that Stoicism is not an ivory-tower philosophy or a collection of Silicon Valley life hacks but a vital way of life that helps us live simply, improve our communities, and find peace in a turbulent world.

What's Wrong with Damn Near Everything!: How the Collapse of Core Values Is Destroying Us and How to Fix It


Larry Winget - 2017
    The genius and power of his simple approach to turning around the parts of your life that need it has transformed people and businesses all over the world. Now, in this wildly entertaining and informative diagnosis and prescription, he narrows down the singular virus sickening the four most influential aspects in our lives: the people around us, our education system, business, and government. The illness rotting them all out can be blamed on people ignoring their core values.That's personal, and Larry goes there and then some, and that's why countless people have been converted into followers by watching him on television as he regularly appears on varied news programs and by buying enough of his books to put him on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. His shocking opinions and belly-laughing honesty all come unfiltered. If he offends you--good! You're engaged and really thinking about what's important to you. This single resource enables you to:Take real action to improve what's wrong with your business, family, and life. Get advice you can understand from a non-stop powerhouse coach. What's Wrong with Damn Near Everything! tells you all the simple truths to troubleshooting everyday problems in life and business.

Anyone Can Draw Anime (Aspiring artist's guide: manga and anime)


Robby Bishop - 2021
    This is a great how to draw book for kids!In this beginners drawing book, every mini drawing lesson is broken down into easy to follow step by step instructions.Let your kids learn to draw because kids that draw:✅ Develops Fine Motor Skills✅ Encourages Visual Analysis✅ Helps Establish Concentration✅ Improves Hand-Eye Coordination✅ Increases Individual Confidence✅ Teaches Creative Problem SolvingThis learn to draw books for kids is perfect for kids 09 - 12, but also for kids age 04 - 08 with a high interest in drawing will be able to follow the instructions easily as well.This How to Draw Anime: Step by Step beginners drawing for kids is the only sketch book for kids you'll need to turn your kids' creativity into artistic confidence, by having them learn how to draw cool stuff!

The Art of Talking to Yourself


Vironika Tugaleva - 2017
    It might even read like one. Once you dive into its pages, however, you will find some differences. Unlike others of its kind, this book does not promise results or give expert opinions. It is neither a miracle cure nor a magic potion. It does not pretend to have all the answers. Rather, this book is a plea for self-trust and a gentle guide to self-awareness. Instead of helping you become who you think you should be, The Art of Talking to Yourself hopes to introduce you to someone more interesting: who you are. So this book will not fix you. But if the words herein have their intended effect, you will flip the last page realizing that you do not need to be fixed. This book, rather than a cure, is an exploration—a curious adventure into your inner mystery. If it inspires you to understand yourself better, it has done its job.