He outlines in detail the traditional American values that progressives hold, but are often unable to articulate. Lakoff also breaks down the ways in which conservatives have framed the issues, and provides examples of how progressives can reframe them. Lakoff’s years of research and work with leading activists and policy makers have been distilled into this essential guide, which shows progressives how to think in terms of values instead of programs, and why people support policies which align with their values and identities, but which often run counter to their best interests. Don't Think of an Elephant! is the definitive handbook for understanding and communicating effectively about key issues in the 2004 election, and beyond. Read it, take action—and help take America back.

     The time-tested secrets this book discloses include Cicero’s three-step strategy for moving an audience to action—as well as Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick of lowering an audience’s expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it’s also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians’ use of “code” language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges—including The Yoda Technique, The Belushi Paradigm, and The Eddie Haskell Ploy. Whether you’re an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Written by one of today’s most popular language mavens, it’s warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening. It not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis and a chiasmus when you hear them, but also how to wield such handy and persuasive weapons the next time you really, really want to get your own way.

    This is the "intelligence trap," the subject of David Robson’s fascinating and provocative book.The Intelligence Trap explores cutting-edge ideas in our understanding of intelligence and expertise, including "strategic ignorance," "meta-forgetfulness," and "functional stupidity." Robson reveals the surprising ways that even the brightest minds and most talented organizations can go wrong—from some of Thomas Edison’s worst ideas to failures at NASA, Nokia, and the FBI. And he offers practical advice to avoid mistakes based on the timeless lessons of Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and Daniel Kahneman.

    To achieve any goal, you need other people to help you do it. -- JUDY ROBINETTAs anyone in business knows, strategic planning is critical to achieving long-term success. In How to Be a Power Connector, super-networker Judy Robinett argues that strategic relationship planning should be your top priority.When you combine your specific skills and talents with a clear, workable path for creating and managing your relationships, nothing will stop you from meeting your goals. With high-value connections, you'll tap into a dynamic power grid of influence guaranteed to accelerate your personal and professional success.Robinett uses her decades of experience connecting the world's highest achievers with one another to help you build high-value relationships. She reveals all the secrets of her trade, including proven ways to:Find and enter the best network ecosystem to meet your goalsReach even the most unreachable people quickly and effectivelyGet anyone's contact information within 30 secondsCreate a 3-D connection that adds value to multiple people at the same timeAccess key infl uencers through industry and community eventsSubtly seed conversation with information about interests and needsUse social media to your best advantageRobinett has based her methods on solid research proving that social groups begin to break up when they become larger than 150 people, and that 50 members is the optimal size for group communication. As such, she has developed what she calls the 5+50+100 method: contact your top 5 connections daily, your Key 50 weekly, and your Vital 100 monthly. this is your power grid, and it will work wonders for your career.Nothing will stop you when you learn How to Be a Power Connector.PRAISE FOR HOW TO BE A POWER CONNECTOR:Unlike many books in this genre, this one is written by a woman who has lived it.. . . Judy Robinett offers guidance on how to form authentic relationships that bring mutual benefits. -- ADAM GRANT, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and TakeHow to Be a Power Connector is like an MBA in networking: an advanced course in finding and developing quality relationships with the people who can make the biggest difference in your professional success. -- IVAN MISNER, founder and chairman of BNITalk about power! Follow Judy Robinett's logical, straightforward, and helpfully detailed advice, and you can be a 'Power Connector' yourself! Great ideas, well presented, with no 'wasted space' in her argument! -- DON PEPPERS, coauthor of Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive AdvantageAbsolutely brilliant. A step-by-step guide to building a network that will be both invaluable to you and just as valuable to those whose lives you will now have the opportunity to touch. I can't imagine a more powerful book for one who truly desires to be a Power Connector. -- BOB BURG, coauthor of The Go-Giver and author of Adversaries into AlliesIn the C-Suite or in your personal life everything comes down to the quality of your relationships. Judy's book helps you attract and maintain the relationships that will get you what you want most. Be a super connector now! -- JEFFREY HAYZLETT, TV host and bestselling author of Running the Gauntlet

    Weinberg shows you exactly how to become a more effective consultant. He reveals specific techniques and strategies that really work.Through the use of vividly memorable rules, laws, and principles -- such as The Law of Raspberry Jam, The Potato Chip Principle, and Lessons from the Farm -- the author shows you how to-- price and market your services-- avoid traps and find alternative approaches-- keep ahead of your clients-- create a special "consultant's survival kit"-- trade improvement for perfection-- negotiate in difficult situations-- measure your effectiveness-- be yourselfYou will also find straightforward advice on marketing your services, including how to-- find clients-- get needed exposure-- set just-right fees-- gain trustThe Secrets of Consulting -- techniques, strategies, and first-hand experiences -- all that you'll need to set up, run, and be successful at your own consulting business.

    Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.--back cover

    But negotiation is also an integral part of our everyday lives, whether you are resolving a quarrel, creating a family budget, or simply deciding where to eat lunch. Yet it’s easy to believe we’re usually at a disadvantage—that others are born negotiators, while we are not.Nothing could be further from the truth. Negotiation is a skill that just about everyone can learn to do well. Some people enjoy it. Others do not. But everyone can cultivate it and learn how to handle common challenges such as these:Salary negotiations: Few situations are as awkward as salary negotiations when you’re being offered a new job. The employer has the upper hand, but there are reasonable steps you can take to ensure that you are treated fairly and get the going rate for your position.Sharp tactics: Aggressive negotiators are often not as sharp as they seem, since many rely on standard tricks that are easy to spot—if you know what to look for. Be alert for nibbling, limited authority, and double-talk tactics, among other gambits, and know how to counter them.Haggling: Haggling is what many people hate about negotiation. But it’s possible to turn a win/lose confrontation into a mutually satisfying agreement by focusing on the interests of the two sides, which can be complementary.Good negotiating goes beyond succeeding in the marketplace; these skills are crucial for solving conflicts of all types, getting fractious groups to work together, counseling friends in distress, persuading people to give to a charity, and generally getting anyone to accept your point of view—and they enable you to do it in ways that enhance rather than strain relationships.Wouldn’t a course that equips you with such valuable knowledge pay for itself many times over?The Art of Negotiating the Best Deal is exactly that course, taught by an expert negotiator, mediator, business school teacher, and former corporate attorney: Seth Freeman, an adjunct professor at New York University Stern School of Business and at Columbia University. In 24 engaging and practical lectures, Professor Freeman teaches you how to approach all phases of a negotiation and deal with a wide range of problems. You’ll learn how to negotiate effectively in both competitive and collaborative situations, always being “hard on the problem and soft on the person”—which is the key to achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.

    

    As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in this provocative book, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life—explanation that seem obvious once we know the answer—are less useful than they seem.Drawing on the latest scientific research, along with a wealth of historical and contemporary examples, Watts shows how common sense reasoning and history conspire to mislead us into believing that we understand more about the world of human behavior than we do; and in turn, why attempts to predict, manage, or manipulate social and economic systems so often go awry.It seems obvious, for example, that people respond to incentives; yet policy makers and managers alike frequently fail to anticipate how people will respond to the incentives they create. Social trends often seem to have been driven by certain influential people; yet marketers have been unable to identify these “influencers” in advance. And although successful products or companies always seem in retrospect to have succeeded because of their unique qualities, predicting the qualities of the next hit product or hot company is notoriously difficult even for experienced professionals.Only by understanding how and when common sense fails, Watts argues, can we improve how we plan for the future, as well as understand the present—an argument that has important implications in politics, business, and marketing, as well as in science and everyday life.

    But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas? In this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking Thinkertoys, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. Michalko’s techniques show you how to look at the same information as everyone else and see something different.  With hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, Thinkertoys will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.

    Their days are defined by a relentless barrage of incoming messages and back-and-forth digital conversations--a state of constant, anxious chatter in which nobody can disconnect, and so nobody has the cognitive bandwidth to perform substantive work. There was a time when tools like email felt cutting edge, but a thorough review of current evidence reveals that the hyperactive hive mind workflow they helped create has become a productivity disaster, reducing profitability and perhaps even slowing overall economic growth. Equally worrisome, it makes us miserable. Humans are simply not wired for constant digital communication.We have become so used to an inbox-driven workday that it's hard to imagine alternatives. But they do exist. Drawing on years of investigative reporting, author and computer science professor Cal Newport makes the case that our current approach to work is broken, then lays out a series of principles and concrete instructions for fixing it. In A World without Email, he argues for a workplace in which clear processes--not haphazard messaging--define how tasks are identified, assigned and reviewed. Each person works on fewer things (but does them better), and aggressive investment in support reduces the ever-increasing burden of administrative tasks. Above all else, important communication is streamlined, and inboxes and chat channels are no longer central to how work unfolds.The knowledge sector's evolution beyond the hyperactive hive mind is inevitable. The question is not whether a world without email is coming (it is), but whether you'll be ahead of this trend. If you're a CEO seeking a competitive edge, an entrepreneur convinced your productivity could be higher, or an employee exhausted by your inbox, A World Without Email will convince you that the time has come for bold changes, and will walk you through exactly how to make them happen.

    They're intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle--and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small "transactional flaws" performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith's straightforward, jargon-free advice, it's amazingly easy behavior to change. Executives who hire Goldsmith for one-on-one coaching pay $250,000 for the privilege. With this book, his help is available for 1/10,000th of the price.

    Hawkins details how anyone may resolve the most crucial of all human dilemmas: how to instantly determine the truth or falsehood of any statement or supposed fact. Dr. Hawkins, who worked as a "healing psychiatrist" during his long and distinguished career, uses theoretical concepts from particle physics, nonlinear dynamics, and chaos theory to support his study of human behavior. This is a fascinating work that will intrigue readers from all walks of life!

    But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better choices-whether dealing with a personal problem or a business negotiation; trying to save money or make money; working out what we do or don't want in life: and how best to get it.Simple, clear and always surprising, this indispensable book will change the way you think and transform your decision-making-work, at home, every day. It reveals, in 99 short chapters, the most common errors of judgment, and how to avoid them.

    Whether you want your customers to buy from you, vendors to give you a good deal, your employees to take more initiative, or your spouse to make dinner--a large amount of everyday is about getting the people around you to do stuff. Instead of using your usual tactics that sometimes work and sometimes don't, what if you could harness the power of psychology and brain science to motivate people to do the stuff you want them to do - even getting people to want to do the stuff you want them to do.In this book you'll learn the 7 drives that motivate people: The Desire For Mastery, The Need To Belong, The Power of Stories, Carrots and Sticks, Instincts, Habits, and Tricks Of The Mind. For each of the 7 drives behavioral psychologist Dr. Susan Weinschenk describes the research behind each drive, and then offers specific strategies to use. Here's just a few things you will learn: The more choices people have the more regret they feel about the choice they pick. If you want people to feel less regret then offer them fewer choices. If you are going to use a reward, give the reward continuously at first, and then switch to giving a reward only sometimes. If you want people to act independently, then make a reference to money, BUT if you want people to work with others or help others, then make sure you DON'T refer to money. If you want people to remember something, make sure it is at the beginning or end of your book, presentation, or meeting. Things in the middle are more easily forgotten. If you are using feedback to increase the desire for mastery keep the feedback objective, and don't include praise.