Book picks similar to
Topgun's Top 10: Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit by Guy M. Snodgrass
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Shake the World: It's Not about Finding a Job, It's about Creating a Life
James Marshall Reilly - 2011
He conducted in-depth interviews with Tony Hsieh (Zappos), Blake Mycoskie (TOMS), Shawn Fanning (Napster, Rupture, Path), and Jessica Jackley (Kiva, ProFounder), among many others. And he learned that despite their different fields, they're all using similar tools to seize opportunities and redefine success. Embracing a shift in generational values, these young people share a passion for driving powerful global change while creating sustainable organizations that often blur the old boundaries between business and philanthropy. To really "make it" these days, according to Reilly, you need to break the old corporate mold, ignore the "rules," and create your own opportunities. The true game-changers are the men and women starting their own businesses, inventing jobs that didn't previously exist, and committing themselves fully to attaining astonishing success, however individually defined. Shake the World reveals the meteoric rise (and the occasional stumbles) of a new generation of business leaders. Reilly brings their stories to life and, along the way, offers clear lessons that you can apply to your own pursuits. For example, you'll learn first-hand how: • Doug Ulman followed his passions to become CEO of LIVESTRONG. • Tony Hsieh of Zappos leveraged micro failures to achieve macro success. • Blake Mycoskie of TOMS responded to ordinary events in an extraordinary way and created a sustainable organization that changed the face of giving and the lives of millions. • Bobby Chang used counterintuitive thinking to build the global brand Incase, and applies the same techniques to problem-solving in everyday life. • Jessica Jackley of Kiva and ProFounder harnessed technology in unprecedented ways to build a powerful network and enact palpable, transformational change. • Elizabeth Gore took a small risk during college that altered the trajectory of her life and ultimately led her to become the Executive Director of Global Partnerships at the UN Foundation. • Shawn Fanning of Napster fame became a disruptive force in multiple fields as a self-educated pioneer whose endeavors are based on unfettered creativity. The role models in Shake the World define themselves not by money and title, but by fulfillment and happiness. This book will light your path to greatness if you too want to shake the world. This is not just a book about finding a job. It's a book about creating an inspired life.
Big Blue Wrecking Crew: Smashmouth Football, a Little Bit of Crazy, and the '86 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants
Jerry Barca - 2016
Big Blue Wrecking Crew is the no-holds-barred story of the team that created Giant Football, the pound-you-into-submission, quarterback-crushing defense, coupled with a powerful ball control offense that resulted in a 1986 Superbowl Championship—the first in team history. In a gripping narrative of the season that changed the course of a franchise, author Jerry Barca takes readers on a wild journey filled with improbable characters. Linebacker Lawrence Taylor partied with the same level of recklessness and violence he put forth when he donned his jersey. Bill Parcells motivated his team in an unrelenting Jersey Guy way, and quiet defensive genius Bill Belichick would go on to greatness.Based on years of research and hundreds of interviews, Barca chronicles the Giants’ rise out of rock bottom to their status as a premiere NFL franchise. From behind-the-scenes personnel discussions of general manager George Young to the meeting rooms with Parcells and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick, Big Blue Wrecking Crew is filled with the riveting exploits of unforgettable players. It is an unfiltered look at how enormous egos came together to win a championship, playing hard and partying equally as hard along the way.
Star-Crossed
Minnie Darke - 2019
When childhood sweethearts Justine (Sagittarius and serious skeptic) and Nick (Aquarius and true believer) bump into each other as adults, a life-changing love affair seems inevitable. To Justine, anyway. Especially when she learns Nick is an astrological devotee, whose decisions are guided by the stars, and more specifically, by the horoscopes in his favorite magazine. The same magazine Justine happens to write for. As Nick continues to not fall headlong in love with her, Justine decides to take Nick’s horoscope, and Fate itself, into her own hands. But, of course, Nick is not the only Aquarius making important life choices according to what is written in the stars.Charting the ripple effects of Justine’s astrological meddling, STAR-CROSSED is a delicious, intelligent, and affecting love story about friendship, chance, and how we all navigate the kinds of choices that are hard to face alone.
The Engineer's Wife
Tracey Enerson Wood - 2020
Then she was lost in its shadow. Discover the fascinating woman who helped design and construct the Brooklyn Bridge.Emily Roebling refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she's determined to make change. But then her husband asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible.Emily's fight for women's suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when her husband Washington Roebling, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers, or her husband's. As the monument rises, Emily's marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it?Based on the true story of an American icon, The Engineer's Wife delivers an emotional portrait of a woman transformed by a project of unfathomable scale, which takes her into the bowels of the East River, suffragette riots, the halls of Manhattan's elite, and the heady, freewheeling temptations of P.T. Barnum. The biography of a husband and wife determined to build something that lasts—even at the risk of losing each other.
A House Full of Windsor
Kristin Contino - 2021
Sarah Percy's career depends on New Yorkers taking her household advice as gospel. "Sarah Says" used to be the most popular segment on the city's top morning show, but ratings are down and it looks like Sarah might not have a tip for everything, after all... especially when her mother gets involved.Debbie Windsor, Sarah's mother, is a shopaholic and compulsive hoarder, a secret Sarah has worked tirelessly to hide her entire life. Debbie was always fascinated by royalty, but when her real-life love story started to parallel Princess Diana's, she turned to collecting royal souvenirs to fill the void. Leaving her husband's native England and relocating the family to her hometown in Pennsylvania doesn't help the situation, and two decades later the house is a royal mess. Debbie's safety is on the line, but she brushes off any attempts her family makes to help.When Sarah's brother gets a job on Stuff, a TV show about compulsive hoarding, he nominates their mother for an episode and promises his famous sister's participation. Backed into a corner, Sarah and Debbie agree, but everyone has something at stake whether the episode does or doesn't go off without a hitch. With both family and romantic relationships on the line--including the connection between Sarah and the show's sexy host, and Debbie's budding romance with a local shopkeeper --long-buried secrets and resentment must come to the surface for the family to move on.
Silent Spring: Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War
Patrick Hogan - 2019
I began the process without much enthusiasm and quickly got side lined by my new civilian life. Little did I realize that I wouldn’t re-visit my disability claims again until almost forty years later, when I watched President Barack Obama give a speech on the horrors of the Vietnam War. I’m still not quite sure what happened that day, but after listening to the president, I committed myself to investigate the causal link between my tactical pesticide exposures and the myriad health problems plaguing my life and the lives of many other Vietnam veterans. My post-service medical problems began mildly enough but soon balloned and were followed by more serious health issues. Every time I would ask one of my doctors what was causing my illness, I would usually get the answer, “I don’t know, but---.” When I began my research in 2012, I would learn that Agent Orange, along with several other military pesticides, were all very capable of impacting every biological system in my body and could actually be linked to many wide-ranging ailments for which many of my doctors could only say they weren’t sure of the cause. Despite the uniqueness of Vietnam veterans and the incredibly diverse range of hazardous chemicals to which we were exposed, the DVA insists on assessing our illnesses by using civilian epidemiological studies, resulting in appallingly inadequate standards for evaluating our toxic exposures during the war. During my years of research, I have quite literally reviewed thousands of studies and documents. The vast majority of those records came to the same inescapable conclusions as I eventually did at the end of my investigation. Low-level exposures to just the various known chemicals discussed in my book will attack living organisms on an undetected hormonal, genetic, and cellular/molecular level, producing covert systemic damage and alterations to immune, cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory, and neurological systems of any human unlucky enough to be put in their path. Exactly how that damage and those alterations manifest depends on the several exposure factors which I discus in the book. Regrettably, I couldn’t go back over the last half a century to get a do-over or to have the war conducted differently. I couldn’t force our legislative or military leaders to make better decisions. I couldn’t rewrite the unpleasant history of the Vietnam War, with all the numerous negative impacts that war had on me and every other soldier, marine, or sailor who served the United States in South Vietnam and in the blue waters of the surrounding ocean. The very best I could do, almost a half century after the war, was to write an account of our betrayal and describe our exposures to the toxic pesticides and abhorrent conditions of the Vietnam War. All in the sincere effort to correct the present so that what occurred in South Vietnam will never happen again to new generations of military personnel, their families and their children and quite possibility their grandchildren’s children. The mountain of evidence presented in my book points to one common sense conclusion: Exposure to the tactical pesticides used in the Vietnam War were extremely injurious to the health of military personnel, as well as, the health of anyone else exposed to them. Despite all the facts, the government still places the burden of proof on veterans instead of taking responsibility for the mess they made during the Vietnam War or in the words of Dr. Jeanne Stellman, the Vietnam War is, "the largest unstudied environmental disaster in the world."
Out of the Wild: Seven Years in the Wilderness
Charlie Paterson
Away from all the modern conveniences and comforts most take for granted, his tale is one of adversity, building a dream with dogged determination. Battling against considerable and powerful opposition, bureaucracy, severe lack of money, unforgiving nature, loneliness and ultimately his own ill health; only to find the dream fulfilled will almost destroy him. A sometimes spiritual and critical tale of self-discovery where ultimately his growing faith in God literally saves him from a very sorry end in the mountainous wilderness of New Zealand. A story that exposes wilderness living as it truly is, not for the faint hearted. However, Out of the Wild is more than just a candid wilderness survival tale, but includes some very interesting snippets of New Zealand's early pioneer history associated to the Fiordland National Park, the Hollyford Valley, Martins Bay, the beautiful deserted ghost town of Jamestown Bay and even the fabled "lost ruby mine" in the inaccessible Red Hills. For the outdoor and "back to basics" enthusiasts Charlie details his accounts of hunting red deer in the thick Fiordland rainforest around his wilderness home to using the old traditional methods to store his kills, through to trapping introduced predators destroying the special rainforest ecosystems of Fiordland. "Out of the Wild" is a very unique New Zealand wilderness tale which will appeal to the outdoor conservative types.
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story
Christie Watson - 2018
She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients.In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important--which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward--Gladys and older patients like her--show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society.
No Time For Spectators: The Lessons That Mattered Most From West Point To The West Wing
Martin Dempsey - 2020
Why I Hate Green Beans: And Other Confessions about Relationships, Reality TV, and How We See Ourselves
Lincee Ray - 2018
Our skinny jeans mock us. Our just-trying-to-help mothers are just driving us crazy. Our social media feeds taunt us with everyone else's picture-perfect lives. It's enough to send you on a gummy-bear bender while binge-watching Friends reruns and not showering for a week. Lincee knows. She's been there. Right there, in fact. Gummy bears and all.For every woman who's ever wondered if she's unlovable, uninteresting, or unattractive, Lincee offers her particular brand of hilarious (and hard-hitting) self-reflection. Like a true friend, she shows us that the fastest way to happiness is to embrace ourselves in all our imperfection, trust that God knew what he was doing when he made us, and maybe go buy a new tube of mascara. Walk alongside Lincee as she discovers that her identity is not found in her job, her relationship status, her bank account, or her social circle. It's found in Christ.
Lehengey & Lafdey
Varun T. - 2019
But then, matrimony came along and politics suddenly felt like the non-essential elaichi in this Mughlai Biryani called life. When my ‘loved ones’ subjected me to scenarios unimaginable, when as the groom I had to wait for an hour for my baaraat to arrive, when certain ‘rituals’ scarred me with shame for the rest of my life, I so wanted to give it back to the society! And hence, ‘Lehengey and Lafdey’ was born. LnL will raise your ire, tickle your funny bone, and show you everything except what a wedding is supposed to be: a sacred union. In a world filled with romantic novels, where love always wins in the end; patience, perseverance and the insane ability to bear a butt load of crap is required to emerge victorious in the holy war of matrimony. Enough talk! Jump right in and witness a whirlpool of emotions, with a cup of masala chai and some fryums on the side. Put your seat belts on, for it is going to get crazy. Welcome to the world of Lehengey and Lafdey!
The Thyroid Reset Diet: Reverse Hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's Symptoms with a Proven Iodine-Balancing Plan
Alan Christianson - 2021
Alan Christianson. "The most innovative treatment plan around."--JJ Virgin, New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness Hall of FamerThough the thyroid gland is small, it produces hormones that control the rate of nearly every chemical reaction in the body--turning food into energy, controlling the rate of tissue growth, stimulating the activity of other hormones, and much more. An estimated twenty million Americans have some form of thyroid disease, and up to 60 percent of them are unaware of their condition. Depending on the type and severity of the thyroid disease, symptoms can range from weight gain and fatigue to hair thinning and memory loss.In The Thyroid Reset Diet, Dr. Alan Christianson helps readers reverse chronic thyroid diseases like hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis with nothing more than dietary change: the reduction of iodine intake. Backed by new research showing that proper dietary iodine intake can start to reverse thyroid disease in as little as four weeks, his diet plan contains the optimal amount of iron and dietary iodine to control thyroid hormones, effectively resetting the thyroid.Instead of following a restrictive diet for thyroid health, The Thyroid Reset Diet does not require eliminating any food category. Instead, Dr. Christianson recommends food swaps like brown rice instead of processed bread to regulate iodine intake. He shares the latest on supplements and other thyroid health strategies, along with more than sixty-five recipes, weekly meal plans, and maintenance info. His cutting-edge research and clear results, coupled with an easy-to-follow diet plan, will help anyone struggling with thyroid disease.
The Crowns of Croswald
D.E. Night - 2017
Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “an action-packed treat […] with a relatable heroine facing challenges in a vivid world of magic and mystery,” and called a new classic by readers, The Crowns of Croswald series is a magical romp through a fully formed universe with dragons, magical quills, potions, and mythical creatures.Ivy Lovely is 16 and she has no idea who she is—or what her powers could be. When she crosses a magical boundary, she discovers a whole new world of enchantment and mystery. Making friends that will last a lifetime—and save her life—she steps into her own abilities and discovers more about her hidden past, magical blood, and the power of Croswald’s mystical stones. But all is not well: a dark history and an evil Queen threatens all that is good. Will Ivy’s bravery and wit be enough?Curious and whimsical, both shy and brave, Ivy is a hero that connects with readers of all ages. For those who wished that Narnia, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland could go on forever, Croswald opens a whole new world of magic. Recommended as a read-aloud for families and a first middle-grade fantasy read, The Crowns of Croswald is a four-part series that will carry readers to a whimsical world that they won’t want to leave.
Live, Love, Explore: Discover the Way of the Traveler a Roadmap to the Life You Were Meant to Live
Leon Logothetis - 2016
He was to do well in school, go to university, get a job in finance, and spend the next fifty years of his life sitting behind a slab of wood, watching the rain-slicked streets of London from thirty floors above. For a long time, he followed that script, until one day, he finally realized he was living someone else’s life—a good one—but not one of his own choosing. So he walked out of that life, and discovered the one that took him around the world. Since then, Leon has driven a broken-down English taxicab across America, offering people free rides; ridden a vintage motorbike around the world, relying solely on the kindness of strangers; and followed a fellow traveler through India without ever knowing where he was going. He has visited more than 90 countries on every continent. Along the way, he learned something about the human spirit and about the heart of this world. He learned that he needed to shed his old ideas about who he was supposed to be in order to feel his soul rise to the surface and become the person he always longed to be. The wisest words he heard, and the greatest lessons he learned, came from everyday people he met on his travels. He became their accidental student, and after years of sharing those lessons through TV shows, college tours, books, and in the media, he realized that he had also become an accidental teacher. His experiences are more than a collection of stories, they have become a way of life—the Way of the Traveler. So, what is the Way of the Traveler? It’s a roadmap to living your best life, loving with all your heart, and exploring the world—both the great and adventurous one waiting outside your door, and the even greater, more adventurous one waiting within your soul. Weaving together Leon’s hilarious and heartwarming stories of his misadventures on the road with simple but profound exercises to help you uncover your true path,
Live, Love, Explore
will teach you how to live fully and without regrets. It’s not to say that everyone who reads it will have to go to the ends of the world. Because you don’t have to go to Mongolia to discover the truths that lie inside. No, those life lessons can just as easily be learned from the people all around you--the chap serving you coffee at Starbucks, the woman sitting next to you on a plane, your co-workers, family, and friends. There’s an entire world of people willing to teach you their lessons if you’re willing to learn. And by opening yourself up to new adventures, by recognizing that you have the freedom to choose your own road, you’ll find something else that has been hiding in plain sight: you’ll find the life of which you have always dreamed… and the curiosity and courage it takes to make that life happen.
Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys: The Songs That Tell Their Story
Mark Dillon - 2012
It is filled with new interviews with music legends such as Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Alan Jardine, Bruce Johnston, David Marks, Blondie Chaplin, Randy Bachman, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Lyle Lovett, Alice Cooper, and Al Kooper, and commentary from a younger generation such as Matthew Sweet, Carnie Wilson, Daniel Lanois, Cameron Crowe, and Zooey Deschanel. Even hardcore fans will be delighted by the breadth of this musical-history volume. Plans for celebrating the golden anniversary of "America's band" include the long-awaited release of 1967's Smile--the most famous aborted album in rock history--and concerts reuniting the group's five main surviving members. The band's music is as influential as it was 50 years ago, and this retelling of how the iconic rock group found itself in the annals of pop culture couldn't come at a better time.