Book picks similar to
The Better World Shopping Guide: How Every Dollar Can Make a Difference by Ellis Jones
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Your Money or Your Life
Vicki Robin - 1992
Your Money or Your Life is even more relevant today than it was when the book first hit the stands, and a great publicity campaign will bring this already strong-selling book to a whole new audience.
Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle - 1999
His views go beyond any particular religion, doctrine, or guru. This book extracts the essence from his teachings in The Power of Now, showing us how to free ourselves from “enslavement to the mind.” The aim is to be able to enter into and sustain an awakened state of consciousness throughout everyday life. Through meditations and simple techniques, Eckhart shows us how to quiet our thoughts, see the world in the present moment, and find a path to “a life of grace, ease, and lightness.”
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
Sendhil Mullainathan - 2013
Busy people fail to manage their time efficiently for the same reasons the poor and those maxed out on credit cards fail to manage their money. The dynamics of scarcity reveal why dieters find it hard to resist temptation, why students and busy executives mismanage their time, and why sugarcane farmers are smarter after harvest than before. Once we start thinking in terms of scarcity and the strategies it imposes, the problems of modern life come into sharper focus.Mullainathan and Shafir discuss how scarcity affects our daily lives, recounting anecdotes of their own foibles and making surprising connections that bring this research alive. Their book provides a new way of understanding why the poor stay poor and the busy stay busy, and it reveals not only how scarcity leads us astray but also how individuals and organizations can better manage scarcity for greater satisfaction and success.http://us.macmillan.com/scarcity/Send...
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Peter H. Diamandis - 2012
We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler. Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.
The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living
Helen Nearing - 1970
This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Brené Brown - 2012
Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” —Theodore RooseveltEvery day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.
The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains
Robert H. Lustig - 2017
Serotonin is the "contentment" neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don't need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin--because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated--with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture.
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel - 2020
It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. How to manage money, invest it, and make business decisions are typically considered to involve a lot of mathematical calculations, where data and formulae tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world, people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In the psychology of money, the author shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important matters.
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself
Kristin Neff - 2011
Kristin Neff comes a step-by-step guide explaining how to be more self-compassionate and achieve your dreams in lifeThe relentless pursuit of high self-esteem has become a virtual religion—and a tyrannical one at that. Our ultracompetitive culture tells us we need to be constantly above average to feel good about ourselves, but there is always someone more attractive, successful, or intelligent than we are. And even when we do manage to grab hold of high self-esteem for a brief moment, we can't seem to keep it. Our sense of self-worth goes up and down like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lockstep with our latest success or failure.Fortunately, there is an alternative to self-esteem that many experts believe is a better and more effective path to happiness: self-compassion. The research of Dr. Kristin Neff and other leading psychologists indicates that people who are compassionate toward their failings and imperfections experience greater well-being than those who repeatedly judge themselves. The feelings of security and self-worth provided by self-compassion are also highly stable, kicking in precisely when self-esteem falls down. This book powerfully demonstrates why it's so important to be self-compassionate and give yourself the same caring support you'd give to a good friend.This groundbreaking work will show you how to let go of debilitating self-criticism and finally learn to be kind to yourself. Using solid empirical research, personal stories, practical exercises, and humor, Dr. Neff—the world's foremost expert on self-compassion—explains how to heal destructive emotional patterns so that you can be healthier, happier, and more effective. Engaging, highly readable, and eminently accessible, this book has the power to change your life.
The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
David Suzuki - 1997
But what are the real needs that must be satisfied to live rich, fulfilling lives? This is the question David Suzuki explores in this wide-ranging study. Suzuki begins by presenting the concept of people as creatures of the Earth who depend on its gifts of air, water, soil, and sun energy. He shows how people are genetically programmed for the company of other species, and suffer enormously when we fail to live in harmony with them. And he analyzes those deep spiritual needs, rooted in nature, that are also a crucial component of a loving world. Drawing on his own experiences and those of others who have put their beliefs into action, The Sacred Balance is a powerful, passionate book with concrete suggestions for creating an ecologically sustainable, satisfying, and fair future by rediscovering and addressing humanity’s basic needs.
How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age
Dale Carnegie - 2011
The only diploma that hangs in Warren Buffett’s office is his certificate from Dale Carnegie Training. Lee Iacocca credits Carnegie for giving him the courage to speak in public. Dilbert creator Scott Adams called Carnegie’s teachings “life-changing.” In today’s world, where more and more of our communication takes place across wires and screens, Carnegie’s lessons have not only lasted but become all the more critical. Though he never could have predicted technology’s trajectory, Carnegie proves a wise and helpful teacher in this digital landscape. To demonstrate the many ways his lessons remain relevant, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., has reimagined his prescriptions and his advice for this difficult digital age. We may communicate today with different tools and with greater speed, but Carnegie’s advice on how to communicate, lead, and work efficiently remains priceless across the ages.
Convict Conditioning: How to Bust Free of All Weakness Using the Lost Secrets of Supreme Survival Strength
Paul Wade - 2010
That is to say, for us humans who live lives of such relative security that we cultivate our strength and power more out of pride and for a sense of accomplishment than out of an absolute need to survive in the wild. The professional athlete hones his body to function well in a sports event-rather than to emerge safe from a life-or-death struggle. And even those in our military and LEO rely more on the security of their weapons and armor than on their own personal, raw power and brute strength to carry the day. There remains one environment where exuding the necessary degree of authoritative strength and power can mean the difference between life or death: the maximum security prison. In maximum security, the predator preys on the weak like we breathe air. Intimidation is the daily currency. You either become a professional victim or you develop that supreme survival strength that signals the predator to stay at bay.Paul Wade spent 19 years in hell holes like San Quentin, Angola and Marion. He entered this world a gangly, terrorized weakling and he graduated to final freedom, pound-for-pound one of the strongest humans on the planet. Paul Wade dedicated his prison life to the cultivation of that supreme survival strength. And ironically, it is in America's prisons that we can find some of the great, lost secrets of how to get immensely powerful and strong. Paul Wade mined these secrets as if his life depended on it-and of course in many ways it did.Finally free, Paul Wade pays his debt to society-not just with the horrors of his years in the hole-but with the greatest gift he could possibly give us: a priceless set of progressions that can take ANYONE who has the will from abject weakling to strength specimen extraordinaire.
I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations
Sarah Stewart Holland - 2019
People sitting together in pews every Sunday have started to feel like strangers, loved ones at the dinner table like enemies. Toxic political dialogue, hate-filled rants on social media, and agenda-driven news stories have become the new norm. It’s exhausting, and it’s too much.In I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening), two working moms from opposite ends of the political spectrum contend that there is a better way. They believe that we can choose to respect the dignity of every person, choose to recognize that issues are nuanced and can’t be reduced to political talking points, choose to listen in order to understand, choose gentleness and patience. Sarah from the left and Beth from the right invite those looking for something better than the status quo to pull up a chair and listen to the principles, insights, and practical tools they have learned hosting their fast-growing podcast Pantsuit Politics. As impossible as it might seem, people from opposing political perspectives truly can have calm, grace-filled conversations with one another—by putting relationship before policy and understanding before argument.
Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution
Auden Schendler - 2009
Soccer moms drive Priuses. And the business consultants say it's easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling while the planet burns. Why? Because implementing sustainability is brutally difficult.In this witty and contrarian book, Auden Schendler, a sustainable business foot soldier with over a decade's worth of experience, gives us a peek under the hood of the green movement. The consultants, he argues, are clueless. Fluorescent bulbs might be better for our atmosphere, but what do you say to the boutique hotel owner who thinks they detract from his?We'll only solve our problems if we're realistic about the challenge of climate change. In this eye-opening, inspiring book, Schendler illuminates the path.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Richard H. Thaler - 2008
Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisionsNew York Times bestsellerNamed a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.