Nonfiction4Life: Recent Episodes
Janet Perry: podcaster, blogger, nonfiction book lover
Nonfiction authors share compelling true stories & books with great ideas for living well. In addition to discussing captivating biographies & memoirs, these writers promote business & entrepreneurship, foster community-building, encourage health & wellness, strengthen home & family, and nurture personal development. Regardless of the genre, all the books we feature are insightful, inspiring, and uplifting. In the end, we save you time by curating long-standing classics, sleepers, and new releases. At Nonfiction4Life, we believe there's something for everyone!
Richard Louv, co-founder of the San Diego-based Children & Nature Network, author Richard Louv adds Vitamin N to his growing list of books encouraging us to get outside. Aimed especially at families eager to share nature with their kids, Louv’s practical guidebook offers "500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community." All are appropriate for Earth Day, but they're also fitting throughout the year.
Through his 2008 landmark book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv brought international attention to a backyard crisis. We are unnaturally detached from our natural surroundings. A decade later, this clarion call to parents, policymakers, and pediatricians continues to resonate. Sadly, society still suffers from obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Fortunately, however, Louv’s message has galvanized an international back-to-nature campaign to “Leave No Child Inside.”
City folks inclined to develop an adversarial relationship with nature find Louv's ideas comforting. For instance, dirt can strengthen immune systems; sticks are perhaps the world’s oldest toys; sunshine and water are for our use and pleasure. Louv invites these urbanites to step beyond their world of concrete and hand sanitizer, and, instead, gather courage as they build resilience and new outdoor skills.
Following Louv’s charge to return to nature, adults report regaining their own sense of wonder. Those stepping outside are feeling a greater sense of work-life balance and freedom from frenzied family schedules. (For more ideas aimed at adults, see The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age by Richard Louv.)
Just how much "Vitamin N" do we need? Louv believes “Some is good, and more is better.”
BUY Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life
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RECOMMENDATIONS
Check out other titles by Richard Louv:
- Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (2008)
- The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder (2011)
Read our blog about Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York’s Central Park.
Listen to Angela Hanscom (Episode 104) talk about her book, Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children, then buy the book.
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Amanda Ellison, a leading neuroscientist and physiologist at Durham University in the UK, explains head pain in her book Splitting: The Inside Story of Headaches.
What is the point of pain, especially the kind we suffer from headaches? Ellison addresses this age-old question and, combining humor with wide-ranging research, she also defines all kinds of headaches—from a “brain freeze” to much more serious cluster headaches—and their possible remedies.
Those with a science background will not be disappointed. Ellison serves up loads of research and technical terms (enough to give the less scientific a headache) to explain how different parts of the brain talk to each other. Best of all, her book is packed with practical advice and information any headache sufferer can use. Learn what causes migraines, how sinus pain happens, and whether to reach for the painkillers or try some other remedy.
QUOTES FROM ELLISON
- “Even from [an early age, we seem to attribute our headaches to emotional causes, and the biggest of these is stress.”
- "The most common fix for minor nagging headache comes out of your tap."
- “Posture, bad diet, dehydration, alcohol consumption, lack of sleep, and the wrong kind of exercise all put the body and particularly the head, brain, and neck region under stress, leading to tension headache.”
- “Cluster headache is four times more common in men than women.”
- “Prodrome symptoms [are] quite obvious, including pronounced yawning, drowsiness, food craving, adversity to light, increased thirst or blurred vision.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
Avoid headaches by lightening up and getting (back) in touch with your fun side!
- Listen to Nonfiction4Life Episode #76 with Dave Crenshaw discussing The Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done and buy his book.
- Read Catherine Price’s latest book, The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again.
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In her latest book, Thrivers, child psychologist Dr. Michele Borba identifies seven teachable strengths that can safeguard kids for now and the future. To find these traits, Dr. Borba combed scientific studies on resilience, spoke to dozens of researchers and experts in the field, and interviewed more than 100 young people from all walks of life.
Each strength is like a superpower that helps protect kids against the depression and anxiety that threatens to derail them. Better yet, when the superpowers are combined, they become even more potent, creating a Multiplier Effect that prepares children to succeed in our fast-paced, ever-changing world. And the best news of all: these strengths aren’t inborn. They can be taught – and Dr. Borba shows parents and educators how to do it so kids cope today and thrive tomorrow. Unlike raising strivers set on top test scores and other resume-packing accolades, parents can learn how to raise thrivers—young people who flourish in a rapidly changing, anxiety-driven, uncertain world.
Thrivers is a mix of keen cultural analysis of modern stresses and practical “how-to” strategies and everyday activities that build up kids’ mental strength, resilience, happiness, and success.
BUY Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine by Dr. Michele Borba
RECOMMENDATIONS
Listen to other parenting podcasts on Nonfiction4Life:
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81: “The Gift of Failure” by Jessica Lahey
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90: “Teach Your Children Well” by Dr. Madeline Levine
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96: “How to Raise an Adult” by Julie Lythcott-Haims
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As a Forbes Next 1000 entrepreneur and founder of the mentorship program Etre, Illana Raia connects girls directly to the leaders they want to meet and encourages them to ask the questions that are really on their minds. The result is The Epic Mentor Guide, a treasure trove of never-before-seen work/life advice from 180 boss women, each successful in her own sphere of influence.
Raia’s book includes advice from female astronauts, news anchors, CEOs, surgeons, engineers, Olympians, Wall Street wizards, world-renowned chefs, fashion designers, award-winning film directors, and more.
QUOTES FROM RAIA
- "Sometimes it's better to know what's coming even before you start."
- " We define a mentor as someone who takes an active interest in your future, someone who invests her time and energy to bolster your confidence, challenge your assumptions, and inspire next steps."
- "Oh, these women. Role models, champions, and rock stars one and all."
- "Answering girls' questions about diversity and inclusion, raising hands, speaking up and standing out, The Epic Mentor Guide is [the] inside track to the workforce before you get there.”
BUY The Epic Mentor Guide: Insider Advice for Girls Eyeing the Workforce from 180 Boss Women Who Know by Illana Raia
RECOMMENDATION
For a great companion book for women, read Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think) by Reshma Saujani.
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Urban economist Dr. Matthew Kahn in his latest book, “GOING REMOTE: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and our Cities,” shows us how the urban landscape is shifting in our favor. Whether we’re working from home, in person, or in a hybrid fashion, Kahn explains how the pandemic has created opportunities for everyone to have more freedom.
In fact, according to Kahn, the rise of remote work presents especially valuable chances for flexibility and equity in the lives of women, minorities, and young people. Working from home can significantly improve the standard of living for millions of people by changing the arc of how we live, work, and play.
For more, see the Nonfiction4Life website.
BUY Going Remote: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and our Cities by Matthew E. Kahn.
RECOMMENDATION
Compare Robert Putnam’s revised and updated book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
On a dare from his son, author A.J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone who contributed to bringing him a cup of coffee. The result is his book, “Thanks A Thousand,” and a TEDTalk viewed by more than a million people.
Jacobs’s “Gratitude Journey,” a timely exploration of our interconnectedness, illustrates our need to eschew tribalism and recognize the staggering number of people who make our everyday lives wonderful.
Read more on our website.
BUY Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (TED Books)
Watch A.J. Jacobs deliver his now-famous TEDTalk with over 1 million views!
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SUMMARY
In "WE GATHER TOGETHER: A Nation Divided, A President in Turmoil, and a Historic Campaign to Embrace Gratitude and Grace," beloved bestselling author Denise Kiernan turns her passion for history and unparalleled research to a topic that couldn’t be timelier: gratitude.
Spanning centuries, "WE GATHER TOGETHER" is anchored amid the strife of the Civil War and driven by the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother with no formal schooling who became one of the 19th century’s most influential tastemakers. Despite personal tragedy and ongoing political conflict, she campaigned for decades to make real an annual day of thanks.
For more, see the Show Notes on the Nonfiction4Life website.
BUY We Gather Together: A Nation Divided, a President in Turmoil, and a Historic Campaign to Embrace Gratitude and Grace
How have some businesses managed to thrive during the Covid-19 pandemic? New York Times #1 bestselling author Joseph Michelli scours 140-plus businesses worldwide to collect lessons in his latest book, Stronger Through Adversity: World-Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges. With his own life as “proof that you can become stronger through adversity,” Michelli identifies 20 ways organizations have managed to turn breakdowns into breakthroughs during these trying times.
Listening with empathy, using a sense of humor, and admitting errors are just a few ways leaders today are moving ahead with success, creating a new normal at work. “There is a link between growth and resistance...Leaders must push through habits and emotional resistance to grow themselves and their teams,” says Michelli.
BUY Stronger Through Adversity: World-Class Leaders Share Pandemic-Tested Lessons on Thriving During the Toughest Challenges
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch a funny clip about customer service from Meet the Parents.
- Check out this scene from Love Actually making fun of customer service overperformance.
SUMMARY
Dr. Fred Luskin, author of the bestselling book Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness, founded and currently serves as Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects.
His forgiveness work has been applied the world over in veteran’s hospitals, churches, in resolving legal disputes, with cancer patients as psychoeducation, and in psychotherapy. Luskin has had extraordinary success helping people recover from the murder of their family members as a result of political violence in Northern Ireland, as an aftermath of the attacks on 911, in Sierra Leone after their civil war, and in artic Canada where native populations deal with the loss of their ancestral lands.
LESSONS FROM LUSKIN
How do grudges start?
- “Renting too much space in our mind to a problem comes from taking something too personally. Blaming someone else for our feelings then takes away our power, and we progress to forming our grievance story. Behind the process lies our tendency to make unenforceable rules that the world or other people are supposed to follow.”
What stops us from forgiving?
- “The major obstacle to forgiving is a lack of understanding just what forgiveness is. Some of us confuse forgiveness with condoning unkind actions.”
What is forgiveness?
- “Forgiveness is the feeling of peace that emerges as you take your hurt less personally, take responsibility for how you feel, and become a hero instead of a victim in the story you tell.”
Why should we forgive?
- “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it changes the present. Forgiveness means that even though you are wounded you choose to hurt and suffer less. Forgiveness means you become a part of the solution. Forgiveness is the understanding that hurt is a normal part of life. Forgiveness is for you and no one else.”
BUY Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness
RECOMMENDATION
- Read the book, "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption."
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SUMMARY
Harvard-trained geriatrician and award-winning author Louis Aronson introduces a revolutionary perspective on growing old in her book, “ELDERHOOD: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life.” Sharing stories from her personal and professional life, and drawing from history, Aronson offers clarity and understanding about “elderhood,” the third and final stage of life after childhood and adulthood and a period that can span up to 40 years or more.
With new insights into aging, medicine, and humanity itself, Aronson teaches us how to move beyond wrinkles and baldness and reframe these later decades of elderhood so we can better prepare for and thrive during our final years.
QUOTES FROM ARONSON
- “In medicine, we spend most of most days really dealing with some pretty intense things that fill us with emotions and feelings and thoughts and experiences that are the stuff of literature.”
- “Elderhood, or the specter of being seen old by others,…pretty much starts somewhere between 60 and 70 for most people…but if you’re in Silicon Valley, and if you’re over age 30 or 35, you’re already old.”
- “People start getting happy in their late 50s, and their happiest time of life…is, hands down, the 60s and 70s.”
- “When asked the recipe for a good old age, I often give a list: good genes, good luck, enough money, and one good kid, usually a daughter.”
- “A majority of the most powerful people in politics and many other industries are people in their 60s and early 70s.”
- “We have created a society where we do everything possible to stay alive yet dread being old.”
BUY Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
RECOMMENDATIONS
Enjoy watching a TEDTalk of a mother and son’s tender photographic journey through dementia.
For a practical guide to living out the final years with joy and resilience, BUY Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives by Daniel J. Levitin.
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SUMMARY
Canadian astronaut, author, and CEO Dave Williams in Leadership Moments from NASA: Achieving the Impossible examines the resilient culture and diverse leadership styles at NASA. In an organization where decisions can literally be matters of life and death, leadership styles matter!
Using oral histories and interviews, Dave Williams and his co-author Elizabeth Howell help us understand many triumphs and tragedies spanning more than 50 years of space exploration. We learn how NASA was able to send a man to the moon in less than a decade of John Kennedy’s announcement and how it continues to daringly push the limits of space exploration with confidence and courage. Despite all its setbacks, NASA has persisted as a place that continues to attract the best and brightest minds.
KEY LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS
- Listen to your team; encourage people to speak up.
- Hire a diverse workforce using a competency-based model; empower bright, capable employees to use their expertise.
- Avoid the pitfall of “not saying we were wrong when we were wrong.”
- Organizational resilience and agility are critical and are often built through bouncing back from failure.
QUOTES FROM WILLIAMS
- “The NASA culture defies the limits of traditional leadership by creating peak-performing teams where each individual strives relentlessly to build their competency, to build trust and to create strong links in a chain that binds the team together.”
- “Leadership is the art of influencing others.”
- “The perspectives on leadership at NASA…have been validated through the results that were achieved with their widespread utilization over the past 60 years of human spaceflight.”
BUY Leadership Moments from NASA: Achieving the Impossible
RECOMMENDATION
- Learn of Williams’s personal experiences in space and NASA leadership in his memoir, Defying Limits: Lessons from the Edge of the Universe.
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SUMMARY
"In My Mother's Footsteps" by Mona Hajjar Halaby layers the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict with honest recollections of a Palestinian mother and daughter who both lived in their homeland at different times. Leaving California to spend a year teaching conflict resolution to schoolchildren in Ramallah, Halaby keeps a journal of her observations, feelings, experiences, and impressions of the challenges of living in a militarized, occupied town.
This sabbatical gives her a chance to claim a homeland where she'd never lived.: “For me—a Palestinian in the Diaspora, whose mother has been denied the right to return to her home lost in 1948—my coming back and living in Palestine was a way of reinstating my connection to the land of my mother and grandparents. Like a homing pigeon who always returns to its coop, it was a way of saying, 'I might be far away geographically, but I still belong here.'” Then, after 59 years of exile, Mona's mother also returns to Jerusalem where, in a poetic role reversal, Mona would guide her through the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City where she grew up.
Throughout the book, Halaby recounts seminal political decisions, such as the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine, all etching a deep and long-lasting mark on the country and her family. Ultimately, however, she has much deeper reasons for raising her voice: “I cannot turn a blind eye to the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians, or to any dispossessed or subjugated people. Can I forgive, or forget, what was, and is still being done to the Palestinians? With work, forgiving is doable, but forgetting is unthinkable. I cannot and do not want to forget the tragedies that have shaped my family and my people’s lives. I want to honor the memory of their forced exile and share their story with the rest of the world.”
QUOTES FROM HALABY
- “Jerusalem was known to be one of the most tolerant places in the world, where different cultures and religions lived side by side, and respected one another, living in balance and harmony.”
- “Mama was larger than life. The puffiness of her palm reminded me of a loaf of warm pita bread, and when she laced her fingers into mine like a pretzel, I felt safe. I would have walked with her to the ends of the earth.”
- “Refugees are like seeds that scatter in the wind, and land on different soils that become their reluctant homes.”
- “I kept trying to imagine what the Ramallah siege must have felt like for younger children...I would have anticipated the opposite. I always assumed that children experiencing trauma and military violence grow up too fast.”
- “Palestinians are strong and tough, like sabir, the cactus plant growing in their indigenous land, and which also means “patience” and “endurance” in Arabic. Not only have they survived the indignity and brutality of the Occupation, but they have also done it with dignity and pride. They will not surrender their struggle for Liberation.”
- “It’s not a conflict about ancient hatred, or religion, as it is a modern struggle over land and who gets to live on that land.”
BUY In My Mother's Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns Home
RECOMMENDATION
- Watch “Jerusalem, We Are Here,” a virtual tour created by displaced Palestinians, including Mona Halaby as English narrator.
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SUMMARY
In his book “Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less,” Leidy Klotz shows how we systematically overlook the concept of taking away. Instead, we tend to default to fixing through adding. Moreover, additive ideas come to mind quickly and easily; subtractive ideas require more cognitive effort.
So, Professor Klotz from the University of Virginia, where he directs the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative, has pioneered behavioral research pinpointing how and why we underutilize this fundamental approach to problem-solving. He also offers several tools for “using the minus sign” to gain greater satisfaction in our personal and professional lives.
KEY POINTS
- Providing proof of competence after subtracting can be challenging.
- Synaptic pruning, when our brains clean up unused connections between neurons, is an example of natural, physiological subtraction.
- By repeating the word “more” and asserting “Greater production is the key to prosperity and peace,” President Truman’s eschewed subtraction and set the United States on a path of accumulation.
- To subtract effectively, use “stop-doing” lists and “lesslists.”
- “Remove” first, then apply the popular trifecta of “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
QUOTES FROM KLOTZ
- “Subtraction is the act of getting to less, but it is not the same as doing less. In fact, getting to less often means doing, or at least thinking, more.”
- “When we subtract information from our mental storerooms, our processing speeds up like a computer after closing a memory-intensive program that has been running in the background. Working at full capacity, we can create new knowledge—and perhaps even distill it into wisdom.”
- “Subtractors need not be minimalists, laid-back, anti-technology, or possessed of any other philosophy that owes some of its popularity to its ease.”
BUY Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less
RECOMMENDATIONS
For a children’s take on subtraction, BUY The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
Watch this video to simplify your home by mastering Marie Kondo’s way of folding basic clothing items.
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At age 70, Letty Cottin Pogrebin felt fit as a fiddle on that fateful day she walked three miles to her routine mammogram. A founding editor of Ms. (magazine) and women’s rights activist, she had energy and to spare until she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Facing six weeks of radiation treatment, she was now obligated to join others in the waiting room of Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City. So, putting on her journalist hat, she began interviewing fellow patients. The result? How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick–an invaluable handbook about “The New Illness Etiquette” for both the sick and their friends.
00:10 Intro to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, book author and founding editor of Ms. (magazine)
01:15 Flu and cold season begins
01:45 Pogrebin gets a routine mammogram at age 70
02:10 Breast cancer diagnosis comes without warning signs
04:00 Shares news of cancer and radiation with close friends via email
05:00 Searches in vain for a book about sickness and friendship
05:50 Interviews waiting-room patients for How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick
06:31 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center attracts people the world over
07:45 Discovers discrepancies between their the experiences and wishes of sick people
08:15 Unexpectedly learns about caregivers’ needs
09:30 Illness has a ripple effect, touching families and friends
09:50 Bottom line: people want to be honest—both the sick and their friends
10:40 What a friend should be able to ask a sick friend
11:10 What a sick person should be able to say to a friend
11:55 Truth-telling and “The New Illness Etiquette”
12:30 A friend reacts perfectly to Pogrebin’s diagnosis
13:15 Asking “Do you want to talk about it?” gives a sick person control
13:25 Other lines that are both true and helpful
14:30 Sick people don’t want to hear or answer, “How are you?”
15:55 Their responses can overwhelm friends with TMI
16:15 Asking “What’s happening?” gives patient control over how much to disclose
17:30 Nobody wants to be labeled sick (such as “cancer girl”)
18:15 Saying, “You look great!” can give false reassurance and seem disingenuous
18:30 “Empathy translated into action equals kindness”
18:50 “Illness is friendship’s proving ground”
19:15 Guidelines for visiting sick friends – be considerate
20:40 Guidelines for giving gifts to sick friends – pay attention to diagnoses
21:00 Examples of inappropriate gifts and insensitive comments
22:30 Personalize a friend’s illness to the point you know what gifts to give
24:15 Humor and laughter depend entirely on how well you know the patient
24:50 Remembers laughing at Marlo Thomas’s funny jokes
26:00 Disparages fruit baskets and extols massages (and other sensitive gifts)
27:20 Why ice cream scoops adorn the book cover
28:50 Contrasts generous gifts with the gift she really wanted
29:15 Follow up “What would you like?” with “You know I’m bringing something.”
30:25 Illustrates differences between sick men and sick women
30:50 25% of men interviewed hadn’t disclosed their illness
31:15 Tells a heartbreaking story of Orthodox Jewish man hiding his cancer diagnosis
33:45 Cultural and gender barriers prevent many men from sharing the truth
34:10 Women tend to feel comfortable confiding in close friends
35:30 The book includes many lists for how to be helpful & honest
36:00 First step: learn what to say to a friend who’s sick (“Do no harm.”)
36:20 Also, learn appropriate things to say to the bereaved
37:10 Recommendation – Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face (on Netflix)
BUY How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick
RECOMMENDATION
Watch the trailer for Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face.
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SUMMARY
In her breakout memoir “HOUSE OF MUSIC,” Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, opens up about what it takes to create a family of Black classical musicians in a Britain divided by class and race. Mother to seven extremely gifted children, she describes the difficulties of navigating the professional world of classical music while raising a musical family in a normal home in Nottingham, England.
Rising above a family history pocked by prejudice and riddled with racism, she and her husband Stuart pour their love and support into their children through unwavering emotional, financial, and intellectual commitment. Although lacking the privilege and polish of elite music schools, all seven children have developed exceptional skills and brilliant stage presence, catapulting them into the toughest musical competitions, providing extraordinary opportunities, and earning undisputed world fame.
The Kanneh-Masons are a remarkable family. But what truly sparkles in this eloquent memoir is the joyous affirmation that children are a gift and we must do all we can to nurture them.
KEY MOMENTS
- “I saw from my [unwed] sister and my mother that motherhood was a state of determination and constancy, and that love of one’s children was the single urgent mission of life."
- “When over two billion people already agog at an English prince marrying an African-American, tuned into the wedding and saw this teenage Black cellist framed between the flowering arches and playing with all the love and passion he knew, it was clear the world was going to change.”
- [When the oldest six children played on "Britain’s Got Talent"], “they were determined to bring the message that the power and depth of classical music can be accessed by everyone.”
QUOTES FROM KANNEH-MASON
- “Playing music was an organic part of family life, rooted in the routine of the wildness of every day."
- “Children who are gifted are often gifted with more than one direction, and these gifts have to be discovered and chosen. We were keenly aware of how responsible we were for giving our children access to who they needed to be.”
- “Music encompasses a vast emotional and intellectual world, and spending time to know it and to be its instrument is a great privilege. But the cost is high.”
- “The family home has evolved almost organically into a house of music. Our conversations are about music: listening, playing, concerts, practice. Most of the jokes and teasing insults are musical, and no day can be planned or imagined without first working out the logistics of each music commitment.”
- “To become a classical musician is similar to training as an athlete. It demands intense physical discipline, being alert to injury and being mentally strong.”
- “It has taken generations of love and sacrifice to create the conditions and the confidence for our children to be classical performers.”
BUY House of Music
RECOMMENDATION
Watch and listen to Sheku Kanneh-Mason play “Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1” as he wins his title as 2016 BBC Young Musician.
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SUMMARY
In his memoir ONE BY ONE BY ONE, Dr. Aaron Berkowitz traces his journey as a young doctor grappling to bridge the gap between one of the world’s richest countries and one of the world’s poorest. On assignment in Haiti with Partners in Health, he meets Janel, a 23-year-old man with the largest brain tumor he or any of his colleagues at Harvard Medical School have ever seen. Trying to make the first big save of his medical career as a neurosurgeon, and determined to “to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need” and work toward “solidarity rather than charity alone,” Dr. Berkowitz aims to save Janel’s life by bringing him back to Boston for a 12-hour brain surgery.
With heart-wrenching twists and turns, the story of Janel’s uncertain medical future parallels Dr. Berkowitz’s own uncertainties as a doctor. Berkowitz brings the reader to the front lines of global humanitarian work as he struggles to overcome the challenges that arise when well-meaning intentions give rise to unintended consequences, when cultures and belief systems clash, and when it’s not clear what the right thing to do is, let alone the right way to do it.
KEY FACTS
- About 4 billion people lack access to basic healthcare.
- Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
- More than 10,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) work in Haiti (one for every 1,000 people), yet Haiti remains one of the poorest countries, with some of the worst health, education, and sanitation statistics in the world.
QUOTES FROM BERKOWITZ
- "I learned how a few individuals working together might just be able to make a small difference in those big billions, one by one by one.”
- “From illiteracy to entitlement and corruption, from going to the bathroom with the door open to refusing to sit near the bathroom, Haiti’s inequities and their juxtaposition are in plain view before even arriving there.”
- “PIH [Partners in Health] describes its work as being based on solidarity rather than charity alone. Charity is necessary, of course: those who have more should help those who have less. But charity means us giving to them, to some abstract all. Solidarity redefines this relationship. It invites all of us to share with each other because we are each part of the same all.”
- “PIH recognized early on that health is not only about medicine but also about combating poverty.”
- “If we frame problems in terms of their constraints rather than their possibilities, prioritizing risk avoidance above all else, we are less motivated to find solutions.”
BUY One by One by One: Making a Small Difference Amid a Billion Problems
RECOMMENDATION
Learn more about Partners in Health and their mission by visiting their website.
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SUMMARY
Christina Soontornvat thrills readers of all ages with her 2021 Newbery Honor Book, All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team. Winner of numerous nonfiction awards, All Thirteen is a gripping page-turner. What begins as a simple afternoon adventure for teenage boys exploring a cave escalates into a global life-or-death mission to save a soccer team and their coach.
Of Thai descent, Soontornvat happened to visit Thailand on the same day the boys were lost in the cave, and she returned to the U.S. the same day they were finally rescued. With the heart of a scientist and an author, she knew she needed to capture this compelling true story. In All Thirteen, Soontornvat combines science, culture, and real-life suspense to explain the complexities of the rescue operation while simultaneously sharing the emotional and mental struggles of the thirteen young people trapped underground.
RULES FOR CAVE DIVING (developed by Sheck Exley in the 1970s)
- Always use a single, continuous guideline from the entrance of the cave throughout the dive.
- Always use the “Thirds Rule”: Use one-third of your air supply on the way in, use one-third on the way out, and save one-third in case you run into an emergency.
- Avoid deep diving in caves.
- Avoid panic by building up experience slowly and being prepared for emergencies.
- Carry at least three lights per diver.
- Use the safest possible scuba equipment.
- Avoid stirring up silt on the bottom.
- Practice emergency procedures with your partner before diving, and review them often.
- Always carry equipment for emergencies and know how to use it.
- Never let overconfidence allow you to think it’s OK to break any of these rules.
QUOTES FROM SOONTORNVAT
- “For many of the people of northern Thailand, caves are particularly sacred places that deserve respect.”
- “Thailand’s tourism slogan is the ‘Land of Smiles,’ and visitors to the country often say that people here smile more than most. But in Thailand, smiling isn’t something you do solely to express happiness. Thai people may smile during an argument, or when they’ve just lost their wallet, or when they get into a fender bender. A smile is a way to make the people around you feel comfortable, to keep the situation cool, and to keep cool yourself.”
- “The lesson I wanted to share the most comes from Coach Ek and the boys, who—like their rescuers—defied impossible odds. They taught me that ‘impossible’ exists only in your mind. You are capable of so much more than you can even imagine.”
BUY All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team (Newbery Honor Book)
RECOMMENDATION
Watch the moment the two British cave divers found the thirteen stranded young men, a YouTube video that immediately went viral.
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SUMMARY
Emmy award–winning journalist and media expert Frank Sesno teaches how to question others in his book, Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change. Sesno shares the secret sauce to asking the right question at the right time. Mastering this simple skill sets apart successful people in all disciplines from the pack.
With more than three decades of diverse journalistic reporting under his belt, Sesno knows how to use questions to break down barriers, discover secrets, solve puzzles, and imagine new ways of doing things. He explores all different types of inquiries—from strategic and confrontational questions to empathy and creativity questions. Sesno’s advice will help you know what to ask and when, what you should listen for, and what you can expect as the outcome. By asking more, you can get people talking!
KEY INQUIRY SKILLS HELP YOU…
- Connect with strangers
- Enhance friendships
- Cement relationships
- Land career opportunities
- Interview candidates
- Advance short and long-term goals
- Improve dinner-party conversations
- Solve mysteries
- Challenge experts
- Learn to listen
- Develop sharp strategies
- Discover your legacy
- Invent and innovate
- Express empathy
- Convey interest
- Generate trust
- Hold people accountable
- Advocate effectively
- Project moral authority
- Drive creative thinking
- Confront power
- Develop mission statements
- Solve problems
- Generate trust
- Find meaning
- Shape the future
- Change the world!
QUOTES FROM SESNO
- “Questions are humanity’s unique attribute. They are our investment in ourselves and in the future. When we ask more, we open our minds and challenge others to open theirs. We organize our thoughts so we can tackle big ideas and probe with precision. We learn and lead and discover.”
- “Smart questions make smarter people.”
- “A few well-placed questions will jump-start a conversation. The more you ask, the more you get. You decide what and how much you want to serve up. The ingredients for this recipe are readily available and require just a little preparation.”
- “Questions are our way to connect with other human beings. I believe that inquiry, not imitation, is the sincerest form of flattery.”
BUY Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change
RECOMMENDATION
Get more tips for asking great questions by listening to Nonfiction4Life podcast episode #110: The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead by Warren Berger.
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SUMMARY For more than 20 years, Heather Lende has written obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in the tiny town of Haines, Alaska. Now, the New York Times bestselling author weaves her own life lessons together with recollections of the deceased. And we get Find the Good: Unexpected Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer, a gentle, insightful memoir mixed with humor and sensitivity.
More than a storyteller, Lende is a “story catcher” who knows the challenge of describing life with words that both honor the dead and bless the living. But she manages well. "Find the Good" reminds us all to live more gratefully by seeing life through the lens of optimism.
00:25 Intro to author Heather Lende from Haines, Alaska
01:25 Obituary writers describe a life in 500-600 words
01:30 Lende’s mantra: “Find the good.”
02:00 Writing our own obituaries, every day
02:25 Unpacking the title, “Find the Good”
03:45 Countering sadness
04:15 Lende’s career begins in 1996
05:45 Characteristics and qualifications of a good obituary writer
07:45 Be a “story catcher”
08:45 Who approves obituaries?
11:00 Lende’s own brush with death changes everything
12:20 Recovery breeds empathy and gratitude
12:45 Wounds, seen and unseen
14:00 Deaths hit close to home
15:00 “I’m just the chronicler of these tragedies,” trying to give families hope
15:40 Using her art to make a difference and move hearts
16:30 Lende faces her own grief with unwed daughter’s pregnancy
17:00 “Draw lines in the sand so you can move them.”
17:45 Wisdom from an elderly Southern lady
19:00 Sometimes the “Big Worry” isn’t a worry at all
19:40 “Practice staggered breathing”
20:25 Life lessons from choir metaphors
22:00 “Writing obituaries is my way of transcending the bad news.”
22:25 The story of Richard Boyce, a fisherman lost at sea
24:45 The power of a father’s love
25:20 Story of Russ, the town cemetery gardener
26:00 A long-lost son returns, dies, and gives his home to hospice
27:00 The power of simple greeting cards and the family Bible
28:32 The story of Rene—writing a pre-death obituary for a breast-cancer victim
29:02 What would you do with your remaining days?
30:42 Quantity vs. quality of life
30:59 Everyday blessings
31:20 Life’s two greatest regrets
31:45 Longing for small-town living
32:10 The downsides of small-town living
34:05 Navigating “spiritual boot camp”
35:00 Nurturing the skill of “finding the good”
35:20 Hearts turn to stone, but stones also turn to hearts
36:15 The story of Vic—proof people can change
37:15 How to get a good obituary
37:45 Who will write Lende’s obituary?
38:30 The immediate value of an obituary
39:10 What Lende hopes her readers feel
39:40 How to create small towns anywhere
QUOTES FROM LENDE
"If indeed all the wisdom I had in my heart was to be summed up in final words and it was difficult to speak more than, say, three, what would I rasp before my soul flew up the chimney? Find the good. I surprised myself with this pretty great notion. Find the good. That’s enough. That’s plenty. I could leave my family with that."
"Awful events are followed by dozens and dozens of good deeds. It’s not that misery loves company, exactly; rather, it’s that suffering, in all its forms, and our response to it, binds us together across dinner tables, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and even time. Bad doings bring out the best in people."**
"I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die."
“We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.”
"The invisible part of a mother’s heart is the strongest and most flexible because it enlarges with each child and grandchild. Rather than divide the heart’s chambers into smaller rooms as the family grows, love multiplies them."
"No matter how many obituaries I write, I will never get used to talking to someone one day and learning that they’ve left town, and the entire planet, the next. It may not shock me the way it does others, but that doesn’t make it any easier. There is no good in missing someone so badly you can’t even hum."
BUY Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer
Other Books by Heather Lende
BUY If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska
BUY Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: A True Story of Bad Breaks and Small Miracles
RECOMMENDATIONS
Listen to Nonfiction4Life podcast episode 102, Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers from a Leading Palliative and Hospice Physician by Dr. Edward T. Creagan with Sandra Wendel.
Check out Nonfiction4Life podcast episode 172, The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World by Anne Devereux-Mills.
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SUMMARY
“The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life” by Dr. Brian Goldman is the result of a veteran ER physician questioning his empathy quotient. Concerned his ability to be kind has diminished, Goldman travels the world looking for stories and data about empathy. Relieved to learn neuroscientists believe humans are hard-wired to experience empathy, he investigates why kindness is so vital to our very existence.
KEY TERMS
- Empathy – the ability or capacity to imagine what it’s like to be someone else and have your actions be informed by that
- Empathy Fatigue - can result from a barrage of media images and news coverage designed to make us care about one cause after another
- Compassion – the doing part of empathy, sometimes called emotional concern
- Validation - a method used to show empathy towards Alzheimer’s patients
- Synchrony - the superhighway that leads to connection and to kindness
- Apathy – the antonym of empathy
- The dark triad – those not kind at all: narcissisists, psychopaths and sociopaths, Machiavellianism
- Callousness – a general disregard for other and a lack of empathy
QUOTES FROM GOLDMAN
- “When I’m kind to people, I see them as being like me, and me like them.”
- “You’re more likely to empathize with members of another group if you discover reasons to like [them].”
- “Some of us are born extraordinarily kind. But most get there only after experiencing pain and then learning from it.”
- “If you want to be kind to others, the first person you must connect with is you.”
BUY The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life
RECOMMENDATION
Watch Dr. Brian Goldman’s TED Talk, “Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?”
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SUMMARY
Anne Devereux-Mills, once a powerful New York advertising executive, captures her story of creating authentic female connections in her book, “The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World.”
After experiencing a “trifecta of setbacks”—losing her job, health, and last child (to college)—Devereux-Mills found herself in a new city with no real female friends. Tired of transactional relationships, she was hungry for “four quarters instead of a hundred pennies.” So, she invited complete strangers into her home for food and conversation, and Parlay House was born.
In her words, Anne “set out to replicate [the] magic of growth through difference—and to do it by building a community of women. Ideally, the organization I envisioned would include a wide-ranging group of dynamic women and provide a safe place for us to gather, laugh, relax, talk about important ideas and, for at least a few hours every month, put ourselves first, something women rarely do. I wanted to explore this idea of self-expansion.”
KEY TERMS
- Parlay – to speak; a bet where the stakes are higher when you’re doing it together with others
- Parlay House – an inclusive series of in-person and digital gatherings for women that fosters authentic connections and supportive relationships, especially for women at inflection points and crossroads
- The Parlay Effect – goodness transferred one-to-one then often multiplied exponentially as people observe positive acts and begin to pass them on; an action from one person to another amplified and replicated at an exponential level that generates the hope that small actions can truly be part of a significant cascade of good
- One Small Thing – a single act of kindness
- Cascading – when one small thing triggers multiple empathetic acts
QUOTES FROM DEVEREUX-MILLS
- “When I lost power, I lost connections, and I didn’t want to have relationships that were based on transactions.”
- “Empowered by other women, women don’t just pay it forward; they pay it outward.”
- “I have a personal saying that goes like this: ‘We are stronger when we are connected.’ This is what inspired me to create the community of Parlay House. It taught me that the company of other women helps me to feel grounded, fulfilled and empowered.”
BUY The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World
RECOMMENDATION
To find how and where women are connecting with other women, check out the Parlay House website.
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SUMMARY
Pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, author of “Balanced and Barefoot,” urges parents, teachers, and administrators to embrace “free play” for children of all ages. Today, without merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters, time to roll down hills and get dirty, these modern kids are experiencing an alarming increase in sensory and emotional disorders. But Hanscom, comes to their rescue with “Balanced and Barefoot,” a book full of compelling reasons to encourage unrestrained outdoor play and movement. Not only is free play more fun, she argues, but, without it, cognitive and physical development are stunted.
As a mother and therapist, Angela Hanscom observed a steep decline in sensory-motor development among her children’s peers. So, she started TimberNook as a vehicle to get children outdoors where they could enjoy the rich sensory experiences nature offers. What began as a backyard experiment has now grown into a movement to inspire, restore, and challenge little minds and bodies in communities across the world.
KEY TERMS
- “Active free play”- being fully engrossed with our whole body in an experience
- “Deep play” – play that involves purpose and teaches social skills
- “Vestibular sense” – sense of balance controlled by little hairs in our inner ear; helps us effectively navigate and move around our environment
- “Proprioception” – the ability to sense what different parts of our body are doing without even looking at them; awareness of where our body is in space
- “Loose parts” – multi-purpose play items (e.g., a stick, planks, baskets)
KEY POINTS
- Research shows kids are in a seated position for about 9 hrs/day.
- Spinning helps kids to integrate all their senses and to organize their brains.
- Playgrounds have morphed into colorful, very safe, low-to-the-ground, low-risk places for play easily mastered by age four or five.
- The unpredictability of outdoors challenges and develops all the senses.
- Constantly keeping a baby upright endangers a child, including creating more ear infections.
QUOTES FROM HANSCOM
- "Active free play outdoors is a kind of play that promotes healthy sensory and motor development in children. It is the antidote to your child spending hours sitting indoors and staring at screens, and to you as a parent being too busy and overscheduled with kid activities to enjoy parenting. The outdoors awakens and rejuvenates the mind and engages all the senses."
- "In nature, children learn to take risks, overcome fears, make new friends, regulate emotions, and create imaginary worlds.
- "Active free play--particularly in the outdoors--is absolutely the most beneficial gift we as parents, teachers, and caregivers can bestow on our children to ensure healthy bodies, creative minds academic success, emotional stability, and strong social skills."
- "Having the ability to play away from the adult world opens up many opportunities and feelings of freedom."
- "When children play outdoors, they are naturally motivated to move--strengthening their muscles with each move, each step, and every encounter with nature."
BUY Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Check out the Playgroundology website and blog.
- Listen to Nonfiction4Life podcast #36 with Richard Louv, author of Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community.
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SUMMARY
“Strong Like Water: How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life,” by new author Laila Tarraf chronicles one woman’s painful struggle with emotional trauma. The eldest of three children of Lebanese immigrant parents, Tarraf takes on the dual role of mediator between a warring mother and father and bridge between two cultures and languages. Finally, in her forties, when life serves up the crushing loss of her husband and both parents in quick succession, Tarraf can no longer ignore her own powerful emotions.
In this “leader-sort of business book disguised as a memoir,” Tarraf tells her story with both brutal honesty and tender vulnerability. Her eventual transformation comes when
she learns to strengthen her heart while giving it “equal playing time” alongside her head. Connecting the two becomes the key to unlocking both personal and professional growth.
KEY IDENTIFIERS OF PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM EMOTIONAL TRAUMA
- Taking on the hero, helper, or fixer persona
- Disconnecting
- Overachieving
- Becoming self-reliant prematurely
- Keeping relationships at a distance; lacking intimacy and trust
- Pretending to not need comfort and nurturing
QUOTES FROM TARRAF
- “Overachieving is the probably the most acceptable and respectable coping mechanism there is.”
- “There was no room for pain in my world…I had to keep moving mentally, emotionally, and physically to avoid the inevitable hardships in life.”
- “I kept on pushing down my disappointment, one swallow at a time, until I actually forgot that I possessed the very basic need of wanting to be cared for by my parents—or anyone for that matter.”
- “We all need space to know how we feel.”
- “True power comes from connecting your head to your heart.”
- “When a leader shows vulnerability…[she] normalizes it for everyone around [her].”
BUY Strong Like Water: How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life
RECOMMENDATION
Check out She Writes Press, an award-winning publisher for women authors.
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SUMMARY
Not just another rags-to-riches story, “Unstoppable” by Joshua M. Greene is the unbelievable true story of “Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend.”
Initially reluctant to write another dark Holocaust-survivor story, Greene, was surprised to find the post-Auschwitz life of Siggi B. Wilzig full of great hope. A force of nature, this Holocaust survivor not only became a business behemoth in both the oil and banking industries but also a powerful example of how to live every day fully, joyfully, and generously.
“This is a book that will make you feel good about being an American,” says Greene. “He saw this as a place that gave immigrants a chance, a place where character was vaulted as a noble quality over cunning and cutthroat business practice.”
According to Greene, what Siggi would want us to know today is to never give in to despair; never give in to the darkness. In our time, when heroes are in short supply, Siggi provides hope and heroism.
SIGGI’S SALIENT QUALITIES
- Strong self-confidence that rebuffed any type of intimidation
- Early awareness of how adults thought and behaved
- Belief in the Almighty
- Authentic interest in caring for humanity
- Love of life (joie de vivre)
- Wicked sense of humor
- Drive for learning
- Foxlike intuition
- Fierce loyalty
- Extreme generosity
- Unstoppable!
BUY Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend
RECOMMENDATIONS
Check out The Blue Card, an organization founded by Siggi's daughter Sherry Wilzig to provide support and assistance to Holocaust survivors suffering from cancer.
Enjoy watching the YouTube video of Joshua M. Greene describing Siggi as he confronts the Federal Reserve.
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SUMMARY
Co-founder of the toy company Melissa & Doug, Melissa Bernstein reveals the raw truth she's hidden most of her life: for more than 50 years, she's grappled with existential anxiety and depression, bringing her to the brink of self-harm. In her book, "LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light," released March 16, 2021, Bernstein reveals the raw truth she's hidden most of her life.
Both haunting and hopeful, LifeLines is an unfiltered look at one survivor’s journey from deep darkness to liberating, rapturous joy.
From the time she was little, Bernstein never felt safe sharing her dark, despairing feelings. Instead, she turned to writing for solace. For decades, she kept these words private while vehemently denying her anxiety and depression and clinging to control in any form, especially perfectionism. But hiding behind that façade finally became too much to bear. Now, in her book Lifelines, she unapologetically pulls back the curtain to reveal how she has lived with and finally conquered her own terrifying demons.
Representing all creative misfits, Bernstein speaks out about her difficult journey so others can also find a way to save themselves from the black hole of mental illness. Although “we all have the power to channel darkness into light,” accepting our emotional selves is key to turning things around. Finally accepting her own mental challenges, Bernstein has learned to harness their power and channel them into brilliant, profound creativity and light. Four lines on the book cover summarize how Bernstein has turned her inward struggles outward:
"Today I saved a life; Although it was my very own; Which won’t serve a greater purpose; Till I rescue lives unknown."
Choosing life has allowed Bernstein to transcend pain and loneliness and courageously bridge into connection and joy. “This deep yearning for connection ushered in optimism I had never known. I now realized my mission extended well beyond the creation of toys.”
Melissa Bernstein has designed more than 5000 wildly successful toys. But, in the words of Bernstein’s husband Doug, “This book—authentic, unedited, and her own words—is her greatest gift yet.”
BUY LifeLines: An Inspirational Journey from Profound Darkness to Radiant Light
RECOMMENDATIONS
If you’re looking for support and authentic connection on your own journey toward mindfulness as well as a sense of purpose and meaning, join LifeLines.com, an online community, resource center, and content hub developed and underwritten by the Bernsteins. The website, launched March 1, 2021, is stunningly beautiful as well as a lot of fun to navigate.
Questions or concerns? Melissa would be glad to talk to you directly! Contact her at melissabernstein@lifelines.com.
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John Rocco, #1 New York Times bestselling children’s author and illustrator, shares his recent release, How We Got to the Moon. Organized in seven sections, the book takes readers from age ten to 99 through the years of Apollo, a decade of serious space exploration.
Using vivid illustrations and just the right amount of technical and historical information, Rocco highlights famous people such as Werner von Braun and President John F. Kennedy and many, many of the lesser-known 400,000 who helped America get to the moon. His artwork also simplifies complex scientific principles making them understandable for the casual reader and intriguing for the more serious.
The space race was more than a friendly competition with the Soviets. As Rocco says, “To the men and women working on Apollo, it was more than an exploration of this new frontier called space; it was a race for survival. The American way of life was at stake.” So, Americans went to work and, against all odds, made it happen!
Longlisted for the National Book Award and a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, How We Got to the Moon is also a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist and a Mathical Award Winner.
BUY How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Adventure
RECOMMENDATIONS
- For a taste of John Rocco’s illustrations and dozens of great resources, visit his website.
- To see how Americans handled a failed mission, BUY Apollo 13.
- For family viewing and a history lesson in rocket-building, BUY October Sky.
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SUMMARY
In The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It, Jason Karlawish, physician and writer, combines deep research with personal practice as Co-Director of the Penn Memory Center. Part case studies, part history, part present assessment, and part future projection, Karlawish’s book presents a strong argument for recognizing Alzheimer’s disease as a crisis. However, listing numerous biomedical breakthroughs, political gains, technological innovations, and formalized help agencies, the author leaves the issue shimmering with hope. We can, in fact, assign dignity to dementia, support caregivers and loved ones, and help patients reclaim autonomy and self of self.
KEY TERMS, EVENTS, AND PEOPLE
- Dementia – disabling cognitive impairments (memory, attention, concentration, multitasking)
- Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) – noticeable cognitive impairments causing inefficiencies in daily activities, but not disability
- Alzheimer’s Disease – one of the most common diseases of the brain causing dementia and MCI
- The Alzheimer’s Association – formed as a self-help group in late 20th century by seven families incensed by the poor quality of care of absence of support for patients and families affected by Alzheimer’s disease
- The National Alzheimer’s Project Act – enacted by Obama authorizing Congress to have all Federal agencies to come together to create a national Alzheimer’s plan
- The “founding fathers and mothers” of Alzheimer’s – early 20th century included mostly German-speaking psychiatrists and neuropathologists; late 20th century included women caring for family members who, encountering an indifferent healthcare system, formed self-help groups
- Robert Katzman - wrote “the essay heard round the world” reframing senile dementia as Alzheimer’s disease
- Jerry Stone – wealthy Chicagoan whose wife had Alzheimer’s helped bring together the seven family
- Hilda Pridgeon – formidable feminist force instrumental in organizing the Alzheimer’s Association
- Bobbi Glaze – partnered with Pridgeon to form the Alzheimer’s Association designed for the middle class—the neither rich or poor—who need help
QUOTES FROM KARLAWISH
- “[The] “physical, psychological, financial, and moral suffering…adds up to a humanitarian problem [and] the solution isn’t simply better medical care.”
- “Short of a cure, short of a cure for each and every cause of dementia, we will have to learn to live with the disease.”
- “People are desperate to hold on to something that is very essential at least moral agency which is what allows us to think and decide.”
- “[Over the last several decades] the risk of developing dementia has been declining…The data suggests it’s about access and opportunity.”
- “A very mature, sensible way to live is to [recognize] that some degree of cognitive changes is going to be part of our lives.”
BUY The Problem of Alzheimer's: How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It
RECOMMENDATION
For extensive resources offered to Alzheimer’s disease patients and caregivers, check out the Alzheimers’ Association website.
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SUMMARY
In her book Passports and Pacifiers: Traveling the World, One Tantrum at a Time, Kaitlyn Jain, mother of four and a world traveler, shares her travel tips and family adventures. On every trip, Jain brings along her positive attitude and sense of humor while she and her husband balance careful planning with spontaneity. To afford their globetrotting, the Jains find deals and hone their parenting and packing skills. Part memoir, part guide Passports and Pacifiers is sure to inspire even the most reluctant parents to pack up the kids and go!
KEY TRAVEL TIPS
- Meal-planning: take lots of snacks; realize peanut butter is considered a liquid and is not found in most other countries (“Every culture has something that’s bland…that the picky eater will eat.”)
- Sleeping: break up the day with scheduled naps; drive during naptime (“Parents lose forty-four days, or over a thousand hours, of sleep in in the first year of an infant’s life.”)
- Top priorities: budget is number one; packing what you need but not more than you can carry; having a flexible itinerary
- Packing: start a week in advance by using a list (always including a pair of pants, sturdy shoes, and a swimsuit); do laundry at least once on the trip; let older kids bring a backpack (one carry-on); minimize equipment
- Disciplining in public: remember kids have tantrums at home or abroad; welcome the kindness and help of strangers; don’t shame others
QUOTES FROM JAIN
- “As parents, we experience life again through the eyes of our children. Sometimes that may involve ghastly moments, but I have found that…more often, we get to relive the highlights.”
- “Travel exposes kids to so many intangible benefits—seeing and trying new things, expanding their perspective, learning compassion, and experiencing different cultures.”
- “Yes, sometimes there are tantrums and things don’t go according to plan…but, like raising kids, travel with them is rewarding. It is entertaining. It is memorable and awe-inspiring. I will take those occasional meltdowns for the opportunity to see my kids’ raw reactions….”
- “Not every baby likes to fly and not every kid will eat whatever they’re given. However, we find that when our kids get three essential things—sleep, food, and exercise—they tend to behave. Even while traveling.”
- “Pacifiers aren’t just the physical object a baby puts in her mouth to suckle. They are those things that soothe us, our comforts of home.”
BUY Passports and Pacifiers: Traveling the World, One Tantrum at a Time
RECOMMENDATIONS
Exciting news! Find Nonfiction4Life listed in the Top 30 Nonfiction Podcasts on Feedspot, a news and blog reader used by over 4.3 million users globally. Find all your favorite websites in one place.
For 25 Essential Tips for Traveling with Kids, look at the Momondo blog.
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SUMMARY
To be happy together, whether you’re starting a new relationship, weathering difficult times, or jump-starting a long-term marriage, Suzie and James Pawelski can help. Their book, Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts, isn’t the typical approach to romance. But this husband-and-wife research team has found how to ignite (or reignite) passion.
KEY POINTS
Together, the Pawelskis identify four key areas crucial to building and sustaining love over the long run:
- Harmonious passion: remembering who we are as individuals and seeking out new adventures together that both enjoy
- Positive emotions: feelings of joy, gratitude, and hope to help motivate couples to invest in each other’s well-being and engage in mutual care
- Mindful savoring: the importance of actively and consciously valuing another and expressing this appreciation to nurture and enhance the relationship
- Character strengths: why we need to define, find, and cultivate our individual potential and support our partner’s growth simultaneously
Happy Together is the first book to apply principles of positive psychology to create successful, satisfying bonds that last. It’s a roadmap for rewarding, long-lasting romance. Refreshingly upbeat, the Pawelskis encourage couples to focus on their strengths. In other words, rather than prescribe cures for failing relationships, they suggest exercises as simple as talking about each other’s strengths to build positive emotions.
From there, couples can further leverage strengths by planning dates that bring out the best in both partners. Another healthy exercise to lengthen and strengthen sweet moments of emotional closeness is slowing down to share your love story—the highs and the lows. Recounting how you’ve both conquered challenges and relished the good times can greatly increase your enjoyment of those experiences.
Of course, falling in love and even being in love doesn’t mean you will magically have your dream relationship. Rather, relationships improve over time when partners practice key skills and cultivate loving habits. The Pawelskis encourage us to practice these skills in our own “relationship gym” because all relationships need work.
BUY Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski, MAPP and James O. Pawelski, Ph.D
RECOMMENDATIONS
Check out the Pawelskis’ website Build Happy Together, and spend 15 minutes with your loved one taking the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.
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SUMMARY
A Mother’s Grace: Healing the World One Woman at a Time, by Michelle Moore, includes a collection of inspiring stories of a dozen everyday women who have transformed grief, crisis, and tragedy into an extraordinary passion to lift, love, and heal others. Linking arms with these contributing authors, Moore has formed the award-winning nonprofit Mother’s Grace, a consortium of women-led agencies that stand at-the-ready to offer families in crisis both financial and emotional support. True to the mission of Mother’s Grace, they strive to become an answer to the prayers of women in acute situations. Inspired by memories of her own mother’s grace, Moore continues to lead what was once a grass-roots effort holding garage sales. Today, Mother’s Grace is a powerful, $6-million organization making the world a safer, more hopeful, and more empathetic place.
KEY QUESTIONS
What is grace?
- The exercise of love, kindness, mercy, favor, a disposition to benefit or serve another.
How can you find your passion?
- Journaling
- Listening to yourself
- Taking one tiny step towards “that thing”
How can you help children learn to be giving?
- Start them young
- Include them in your own giving
- Encourage them to take leadership positions
- Involve them in adventure philanthropy
QUOTES FROM MOORE
- “You don’t have to set the world on fire to make a difference; if you go to your grave making a difference in one family’s life or one friend’s life, that’s something to be thankful for because that’s why…we’re put on this life.”
- “There is grace in this endeavor we call life…it’s a journey of love and light and we all need to constantly renew our appreciation for life.”
- “Each of the women in this book [is] a force to be reckoned with, a sterling example of resilience, and a beautiful, shining example of turning extreme loss and heartache into something positive, generous, and spiritually healthy.”
BUY A Mother's Grace: Healing the World, One Woman at a Time
RECOMMENDATIONS & RESOURCES
BUY Big Miracle
- Mother’s Grace - dedicated to the support of mothers and children who have endured life tragedies. By providing financial support and guidance, Mother’s Grace empowers these women to reach their goals of making a difference in their communities by helping others inflicted with similar circumstances.
- NotMYkid – a nonprofit organization that provides children and families with truly lifesaving programs, support, resources, and education with a mission to empower and educate youth, families, and communities with the knowledge and courage to identify and prevent negative youth behavior
- Eric’s House - a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing integrative grief care to people who have suddenly lost someone they love, with a specialization in suicide and substance-related losses
- For the Love of Conor - supports organizations that promote the prevention of substance abuse and promote positive life choices for youth and young adults
- TAPS – provides comfort, care, and resources to all those grieving the death of a military loved one
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SUMMARY
Dr. BJ Fogg, founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, unveils his breakout book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. A bright yellow sheath striping the book cover boldly claims, “This Book Will Change Your Life!” Inside the book, Fogg explodes myths promoting traditional approaches to change, explaining why old ideas such as exercising willpower, strengthening resolve, and getting motivated just don’t work. In their place, we learn the Fogg Behavior Model that cracks the code to human behavior by revealing how we actually form new habits. In brief, we can change by simply starting small. Indeed, by starting tiny! Beloved by more than 40,000 students, Fogg himself embodies his own teachings, finding success at every turn by creating Tiny Habits. His advice: “You don’t need to procrastinate changing your habits. It’s so simple and easy and straightforward!”
KEY POINTS
- Only three things can change behavior: having an epiphany; redesigning an environment; and making tiny, incremental changes that wire in habits.
- Tiny Habits don’t require tapping into willpower or sustaining high levels of motivation.
- Willpower is effective in helping us get things done, but it’s not good for creating habits over time.
- Focus on “wants” rather than on “shoulds.”
- Big aspirations or audacious goals are great, but the way to get to them is through Tiny (consistent) Habits.
- Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, creators of Instagram, found wild success because their original design was very simple.
- “After” is the best place to place a prompt, relying on a routine already in place. Action prompts (AKA: anchors or routines) work best for creating Tiny Habits.
- “Pearl Habits” originate with something that annoys us.
- To be most effective, Tiny Habits should be immediately followed by a celebration.
SOME MYTHS FOGG EXPLODES
- It takes 21 days to create a habit.
- I need to measure my progress in order to create a habit or break one.
- By setting a resolution I can change my habits.
- If I find what’s behind my habit — the craving — then I can break it.
- Changing behavior is painful or unpleasant.
- I must have an accountability partner in order to stick to my new habit.
- You should change only one habit at a time.
- The only way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something else.
- You need to track your behavior daily to form or break a habit.
- As you get older, you lose the ability to change your habits.
- If you repeat a behavior enough, it becomes a habit.
QUOTES BY FOGG
- “Information alone does not reliably change behavior (AKA ‘the Information Fallacy’).”
- “Help people do what they already want to do.”
- “Behavior change is a skill…but as you practice it, it becomes second nature—just like driving.”
- “Forget about everything you thought you knew about habits and behavior change, and start over! There’s a new and better way of thinking about this.”
BUY Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
RECOMMENDATION
BUY the movie What About Bob?
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SUMMARY
Howard Ross, a lifelong social justice advocate, has authored the Washington Post bestseller, Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives. Smashing long-time myths we hold dear, Ross addresses the many faces of unconscious bias. His book offers a plethora of data and anecdotes illustrating the urgency to develop a greater awareness of our own irrational beliefs and leanings. In short, Ross lays out a strong case for watching ourselves more carefully to notice and at least neutralize our biases.
SOME KEY TERMS
- Unconscious Bias - comes from social stereotypes, attitudes, opinions, and stigma we form about certain groups of people outside of our own conscious awareness; can be fed by snippets of information that we might get from biased media or social media or other sources, which are often taken out of context
- Theory of Mind - the ability to attribute beliefs, intentions, wants, and knowledge to others, and to understand when others have beliefs that are the same or different from our own
- Superego - the civilizing facet of the personality structure, controlling the id through rules that we have picked up during our life
- Selective Attention - a mental process through which we see some things but not others, depending upon our point of focus
- Diagnosis Bias - the propensity to label people, ideas, or things based on our initial opinions
- Pattern Recognition – the tendency to sort and identify information based on prior experience or habit (includes stereotyping)
- Confirmation Bias - a tendency for people to gather information or respond to a circumstance in a way that confirms their already established beliefs or ideas
- Priming - the implicit tendency to respond to something based on expectations created by a previous experience or association
- Anchoring Bias (AKA focalism) - the common tendency to rely too heavily or “anchor” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions
- Mirror Neurons – cause us to feel a deep connection to the experiences of others; sometimes called “the basis of civilization”
QUOTES FROM ROSS
- “Unconscious influences dominate our everyday life. What we react to, are influenced by, see or don’t see, are all determined by reactions that happen deep within our psyche. Reactions which are largely unknown to us.”
- “We are constantly making decisions that are influenced by unconscious biases. In fact, even when our biases seem conscious, they may be influenced by a pattern of unconscious assumptions that we have absorbed throughout our lives.”
- “Whether you think they should or not, qualifications rarely have anything to do with Presidential elections. In fact, since 1950 arguably the least qualified candidates won more often than they lost! Whether we should or not, we vote for president based on how the person makes us feel.”
- “We are trained to think we can talk people out of their points of view if we give them the right ‘evidence.’ But…political biases actually distort our ability to reason logically. In the battle between emotion and rationality, emotion usually wins!”
- “Most people I know like to think of themselves as ‘good people.’ We like to think that we treat everybody around us fairly, at least most of the time, and we shudder to think that we might be biased in our nature. And yet it is apparent that to be biased is almost as normal as breathing, and that our hidden fears and insecurities often get expressed in the various ways we react and respond to each other.”
- “We like to think we are rational, and that our emotions are secondary. This is not unusual in Western cultures. We have a long history of valuing the rational over the emotional.”
- “We tend to have much greater empathy for people who are similar to us, particularly racially.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart
BUY Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
Begin to identify your own biases, take the free, computer-based Implicit Association Test (IAT).
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SUMMARY
Ryan Atkins shares the true and difficult journey with quadriplegia in his memoir, One Step Closer: How a Life-Altering Accident Led Me to Everything I Almost Missed. A college student in 2009, Atkins has the world by the tail. But a freak car accident leaves him paralyzed below the shoulders, changing his life fundamentally. Even after working and fighting harder than most to regain his mobility, physical miracles continue to elude him. So, he has to reach deeper for help, hope, and meaning. His crumbled dreams are reshaped and his hope soars as he rediscovers the need for God and what matters most.
KEY POINTS FOR COPING
- Writing – process ups and downs of recovery and adjustment; overcome terror of being vulnerable
- Accepting help – realize others genuinely want to help/serve; take a dose of humility
- Turning to God – He reveals meaning and purpose while also helping us see our true identity
- Embracing an eternal perspective – see life beyond the here and now, recognizing mortality is merely a blip in eternity
QUOTES FROM ATKINS
- “As unbearable as a lifetime of paralysis sounded, having people think I was mentally compromised was even worse.”
- “Suddenly I was no longer viewing Jesus as a genie whose sole purpose was to grant my wish of walking once again. Unexpectedly, the healing itself began to take a back seat on my priority list. ‘Seek the Healer, not just the healing’ became my mantra."
- “It really took me getting flat on my back to develop a sense of empathy, a desire to have a purpose greater than just myself.”
- “Life took on a much deeper meaning and richer hope for the future.”
- “As it turns out, there is a thin line between allowing suffering to accomplish its purposes and adopting a scarcity theology that assumes hardship and lack in and of themselves are the central pillars of godliness.”
- “God can still allow me to have a purposeful life no matter what the abilities of my arms and legs.”
- “There’s a reason to have hope!”
BUY One Step Closer: How a life-altering accident led me to everything I almost missed
RECOMMENDATION
For more about Ryan’s journey being a quadriplegic, check out his blog, “Flat on My Back.”
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SUMMARY
In her award-winning book, Role Reversal: How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents, Iris Waichler blends her personal experience with her professional expertise as a licensed clinical social worker and patient advocate for over 40 years. Her book is designed to help caregivers who are now 53 million strong in America, 90 percent of whom are adult children or spouses. Realizing caregivers lose a loved one twice, the author teaches how to cope with and overcome the overwhelming challenges that arise while caregiving for a loved one—especially an aging parent. Packed with invaluable information, Waichler addresses a myriad of pertinent topics ranging from dealing with grief and estate planning to taking precautions to avoid scams and finding the right level of care for an elderly parent.
AVOIDING CAREGIVER BURNOUT:
- Pay attention to your body (headaches, body aches), emotional symptoms (increased irritability), and mental pressures (guilt).
- Have a backup/respite plan, and then revisit the plan frequently and adapt it to allow for changes.
- Incorporate weekly time off to recharge.
MORE IDEAS TO HELP CAREGIVERS:
- Hire a geriatric care manager.
- Identify people who live nearby who can help.
- Divide caregiving assignments, maximizing skill sets.
- Use reminiscence therapy.
- Reach out to get additional help.
QUOTES FROM WAICHLER
- “It doesn’t matter how old you are when you lose a parent. It can be a surprise even when you expect it. It remains a loss or an absence in your life regardless of the relationship you had. Your life is forever changed.”
- “This role reversal…can be emotionally difficult and stressful for all concerned. It can test everyone’s patience and commitment.”
- “The best thing you can do for a person with dementia is recognition of the person they were and are and be compassionate in your communication.”
- “The people we see in their old age today are an altered reflection of who they were when they were young.”
- “The intimacy of being with someone who is ill, and taking care of that person, is both a powerful and painful experience.”
RECOMMENDATION
Find a geriatric care manager and other resources to support caregivers at the Aging Life Care Association.
BUY Role Reversal: How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents
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SUMMARY
Radiologist, author, and speaker Linda K. Olson shares the story of becoming a triple amputee in her new book, Gone. On the cusp of becoming doctors, Olson and her husband are hit by a train in Germany, leaving Linda without three limbs. Uttered by her husband Dave just after the accident, the words “If you can do it, I can do it” become the couple’s mantra. Olson’s book, “A Memoir of Love, Body, and Taking Back My Life,” takes us through the arduous years of healing and rehab to the happy years of creating a family, pursuing a dream career, and traveling the world.
KEY MOMENTS FOR OLSON
- Losing three limbs
- Choosing humor and happiness over misery
- Making lists of things to attack
- Learning to walk
- Living alone to finish a medical residency
- Getting pregnant and having two children
- Going on high-adventure camping trips
- Becoming a world-renowned radiologist
- Being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease
- Giving motivational speeches around the world
KEY QUOTES FROM THE OLSONS
- From Linda’s husband Dave in his first conversation with her after the accident: “I didn’t marry your arms and your legs….I married you—what’s inside."
- From Linda’s daughter Tiffany from her online writing class at UCLA: “I wanted everyone to know that her disability was only physical, not mental, and that she could do everything that everyone else could do."
- From Linda’s son Brian in his personal statement for medical school: “As a couple, my parents reveal the dedication and effort required in a genuine partnership. I have learned that what some call sacrifice is actually a combination of compassion, respect, and willingness—even eagerness—to change for someone else.”
- From Linda: “Attitude was the only thing I had control of, so my mind went into overdrive trying to be optimistic and cheerful. I pretended my brain was a muscle, which, if squeezed tightly enough, would power my way through, all the challenges ahead of us.”
BUY Gone: A Memoir of Love, Body, and Taking Back My Life
RECOMMENDATION
- Watch Linda do 22 one-arm pushups!
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SUMMARY
Brad Aronson, author of the National Bestseller HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act a Time, discovered content when his wife was recovering from leukemia. Inspired by the many demonstrations of "humankindness" that supported their family through this dark time, he began writing a blog. Then, realizing that even the smallest of gestures from friends and strangers can lift, Aronson began seeking out simple acts of kindness across the globe. Collecting these good deeds of everyday heroes, Aronson now offers HumanKind. But it’s more than just a compilation of feel-good anecdotes. The book also provides a resource section filled with dozens of ideas, organizations, and service opportunities to motivate anyone wanting to “change the world one small act at a time.”
"The most uplifting and life-affirming book in years" (Forbes). All author royalties go to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.
KEY IDEAS
- Barriers to offering acts of kindness include feeling we can’t make a difference or feeling awkward reaching out to others.
- Small acts of kindness can have large ripple effects.
- The best way to start making a difference is by taking baby steps (e.g., sending a text, sharing a joke).
- Long-term follow-up is invaluable to those in long-term difficult circumstances.
- We don’t have to solve everyone’s problems; we just need to be there and be ourselves.
QUOTES FROM ARONSON
- “I believe that most people are good.”
- “We all have different gifts to give—what’s important is rising to the occasion, whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.”
- “Just doing anything matters!”
- “[Heroes] don’t command an army of helpers or have an abundance of free time. They’re everyday people who focus on what they can do to make a difference. Their acts of kindness change lives and even save them. These everyday heroes don’t just hope the world will get better—they make it better.”
- “Conversation is a medicine any of us can dispense and it provides lasting respite.”
- “No expression of love is wasted, and even the smallest gestures tend to go much further than we think they will.”
BUY HumanKind: Changing the World One Small Act At a Time
RECOMMENDATIONS
- For many ideas to change the world one small act at a time, check out JustServe.
- Consider giving to or getting involved with Mentors International.
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SUMMARY
Much-decorated professor and accomplished author, Charlotte Gray chronicles Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention. Bell originally hailed from Scotland, emigrated to Canada for better health, and eventually settled in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) where he acted virtually solo while inventing what we know as the modern telephone. Although Bell felt miserable having to keep careful notes, his writings proved essential to his landmark patent, which ultimately made him the winner of the tight race to transmit human voices over wire. Says Gray, “His imaginative breakthrough is…what makes Alexander Graham Bell the quintessential inventor of the nineteenth century—the era when an untrained individual working alone could dream up such a crucial scientific advance.”
KEY CHARACTERS
- Alexander Graham Bell – the father of modern communications and inventor of the telephone
- Melville Bell – Alexander’s father who taught him the physics and nuances of sound; inventor of “Visible Speech” to help the hearing-impaired assimilate into the hearing world; plagued by a degree of jealousy towards his son-in-law while also insisting Bell complete and submit his patent application
- Mabel Hubbard – student-turned-wife of Bell ten years his younger; went deaf at age five from scarlet fever
- Gertrude Mercer McCurdy – Alexander’s mother-in-law, a deaf woman, who insisted her daughter Mabel pursue rigorous intellectual achievements
- Gardiner Greene Hubbard – Bell’s father-in-law and business partner; instrumental in getting Bell to file a timely patent
- Samuel F.B. Morse – invented the Morse Code, an invention that catapulted the speed of communications
- Elisha Gray –rival inventor who first congratulated Bell then later disputed the win
- Thomas Edison – Bell’s contemporary and competitor; enjoyed the process of invention more than the inventions themselves
- Helen Keller – deaf and dumb genius; contemporary of Bell who often invited Bell to her own stage appearances
- Thomas Watson – Bell’s 22-year-old assistant of the famous “Watson, come here” moment
QUOTES FROM GRAY
- “Electricity seemed to them like an invisible power, and if they could harness it, they could go to the moon.”
- “European ‘oralists’ appealed to the notion of speech as God’s special gift to mankind, which it was cruel to withhold from deaf children. Since the Renaissance, the human voice had been regarded as an image of the divine soul, and language as the source of civilization.”
- “[Bell] never accepted the argument that sign language was ‘natural,’ and he continued to insist that most deaf children were better off if they remained in the speaking world.”
- “Today, we can understand the technological revolution of Bell’s day only if we compare it with the impact that microprocessors have had on our own lives.”
BUY Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch “Telephone Hour” from the musical Bye Bye, Birdie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPU3ymk2ms)
- BUY Dial M for Murder (DVD)
- BUY the '90s romantic comedy, Sleepless In Seattle, and see how the telephone plays an essential role in society.
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SUMMARY
In her memoir, The Smallest Lights in the Universe, author and astrophysicist Sara Seager shares her journey exploring both outer and inner space. An MIT professor standing on the cutting edge of discovering exoplanets, she is widowed at age 40 and plunged into deep grief. But with patience, time, and the help of a tight-knit widows’ group, Seager finds small lights to grasp while pulling herself out of overwhelming sorrow. When the piercing pain subsides, new connections serve as life-giving light.
As the story unfolds, we see Seager’s professional work providing a metaphor for her personal life: “At its essence, astrophysics is the study of light. We know that there are stars other than the sun because we can see them shining. But light doesn’t just illuminate. Light pollutes. Light blinds. Little lights—exoplanets—have forever been washed out by the bigger lights of their stars, the way those stars are washed out by our sun. To find another Earth, we’d have to find the smallest lights in the universe.”**
KEY POINTS
- In contrast to watching a baby grow and develop, watching someone die means taking steps backward every day.
- Helping our loved ones die peacefully is our gift to them.
- Timing and cause don’t really affect losing a loved one; grief is grief.
- Healing is enhanced when the person left behind has few or no big regrets.
- Finding like-minded people going through a similar experience of loss is very helpful.
- Being a widow is like having no emotional reserves—no extra emotional strength—so when anything goes wrong, widows can come unglued.
- Being there for a friend months and years after she loses a spouse might be even more important than helping her immediately after.
- Those who heal best from grief give into the feelings and exercise patience.
QUOTES FROM SEAGER
- “When you hit rock bottom through grief…or depression or anything, you have to hold on to those smallest lights…the smallest glimmer of hope to climb out.”
- “My life became a study in contrast, the light and the dark, the hopeful and the hopeless. I spent my days at MIT with my students, trying to see. I spent my evenings at home with Mike, pretending to be blind.”
- “When you lose someone, you don’t lose them all at once, and their dying doesn’t stop with their death. You lose them a thousand times in a thousand ways. You say a thousand goodbyes. You hold a thousand funerals.”
- “The lesson I took from it? The universe might be infinite, but our appetites for exploring it are finite, and so are our resources. Time is the most precious resource of all.”
BUY The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY or watch The Theory of Everything, the story of another brilliant astrophysicist and futurist Stephen Hawking.
BUY or watch Hidden Figures, the story of smart African American mathematicians who worked at NASA.
Author Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon, once a shy, timid child riddled by fear, shares her breakout memoir, Flying Free: My Victory over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team. Her book, 20 years in the making, features Aragon facing her fears head-on through learning to fly. With fierce determination matching her mathematical superpower, she becomes the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team. But her journey to "flying free" includes much, much more. Aragon not only overcomes her fear but she also conquers racial and gender prejudices as well as her own mental barriers to getting a Ph.D. in engineering from UC Berkeley.
KEY POINTS
- Life is unfair.
- Women are often taught to abdicate authority and not be in command.
- Change usually happens gradually, one day at a time, through doing daily, small, challenging tasks.
- Visualization costs nothing but is a very effective way of honing skills.
- Saying “no” to things too many times boxes us into a safe, boring life.
QUOTES FROM ARAGON
- “I had been living a very narrow life and letting my fear define me, and then, at one point, I realized that living life too safely was dangerous for my spirit, and I decided to do something that was terrifying to me.”
- “Flying became my art, my science, and my passion. I used my training in math to optimize split-second performances in the air.”
- “Everybody has something that can help them achieve anything.”
- “When you face your fears, and triumph over them, life opens up before you, becomes more exciting, larger, and more vibrant.”
- “I’ve learned this about having a dream: It doesn’t matter if you tell anybody or not. What matters is that you make some progress in that direction every day.”
BUY Flying Free: My Victory Over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team
RECOMMENDATIONS
Listen to Nonfiction4life Episode 86: Fly Girls by Keith O’Brien
Listen to Nonfiction4life Episode 137: Limitless Mind by Dr. Jo Boaler
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SUMMARY
Heidi Herman serves up her latest book, On With the Butter! Spread More Living onto Everyday Life. Taking the title from an Icelandic expression meaning “Carry on, keep doing what you’re doing, forge ahead, and keep moving!” and inspired by her nonagenarian mother who lived by this mantra, Herman compiles dozens of ideas to fully embrace each day with enthusiasm and curiosity. She includes both spontaneous and planned activities for a rich life filled with zest, offering a wide variety of activities and challenges for those in retirement or for anybody with a little free time looking to add some fun and adventure to everyday living.
SOME "BUTTER" IDEAS
- “Grandmas Project,” spearheaded by Jonas Pariente, allows families to capture videos of older family members sharing their heritage through cooking or sharing recipes and skills that they want to pass on.
- “Take the scenic route” by traveling by train or bus.
- Keep learning by taking advantage of free community classes, going to museums, or attending lectures at nature preserve.
- Volunteer in places you love—National Parks, libraries, gardens, and nonprofits.
- “Musicians on Call” connects musicians and singers who bring music to healthcare facilities.
- “Be a hometown tourist” by referencing brochures in hotels, using resources from the Chamber of Commerce, touring local factories, and checking online for nearby events.
QUOTES FROM HERMAN
- “Being spontaneous—even occasionally—also prevents us from getting into ruts and opens the door to more connection with our family and friends. And it turns out that playing life by ear can be beneficial for our health and happiness.”
- “There’s no reason that the lack of a companion should stop us from visiting someplace new. In most cases, if we’re enjoying a park, a museum, or a gallery alone, no one will take a second look. Likely, no one will care or find it odd if we’re alone…Let’s not worry about what other people think.”
- “There is no maximum age for new experiences and no expiration date for a challenge. To truly reach life’s full potential, we should never stop pushing ourselves toward something new. Testing our limits helps us determine what we’re fully capable of, whether that’s a physical accomplishment, a mental challenge, or a leadership achievement in a group.”
- “As adults, we often have to remind ourselves that it’s okay to play, laugh, and joke around and that, in fact, it’s healthy. Too often we avoid play because we’re self-conscious about looking silly, especially as we get older.”
BUY On With The Butter: Spread More Living onto Everyday Life
RECOMMENDATIONS
Listen to Episode 139 of the Nonfiction4Life podcast with Jo Giese, "Never Sit If You Can Dance."
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/139-never-sit-if-you-can-dance-jo-giese/
Listen to Episode 12o of the Nonfiction4Life podcast with Melody Warnick, "This Is Where You Belong."
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/120-this-is-where-you-belong-melody-warnick/
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SUMMARY
Little did Pushpendra Mehta know that by answering one simple question on Quora, his book, Observe to Unmask: 100 Small Things to Know People Better, would emerge.
The question: “What small thing can tell you a lot about a person?” Mehta’s answer would get over 1 million views and lead to his collecting bits of wisdom for understanding human nature. As a writer, marketer, and mentor, Mehta has been a lifelong observer, watching for subtle clues about people hidden behind their “masks.” Says Mehta, “Most of us wear a mask, a social mask to hide who we really are and what we’re feeling, to protect ourselves, to avoid conflicts, or to masquerade a personality trait that wouldn’t otherwise be appreciated or accepted. The fear that the world is going to find us out leads us to adorn a mask. This displays us in the best possible light—giving, kind, confident, secure, and humble.”
Although not backed by data or scientific evidence, Mehta’s experience and intuitive insights help us "observe to unmask."
KEY IDEAS FOR UNMASKING
- Gather as much information as possible about a person’s early years.
- Learn a person’s backstory by assessing his sense of humor.
- Notice body language for a tipoff for a person’s true nature and passions.
- Study social media posts that reveal who someone is.
QUOTES FROM MEHTA
- “Observe a person’s bookshelf or find out the type of books he or she reads, owns, borrows, or likes to discuss. It will tell you more about his or her personality, interests, and character.”
- “Ask a person to look back and share…the best and the worst days of his or her life. This will tell…a lot about what a person treasures most, what troubles them, and how they overcame crises and challenges.”
- “If you want to know a person really well, get the honest opinion of his or her parents, grandparents, children, siblings, spouse or partner—or ex-spouse or partner—best friend, household staff, executive assistant, or former friends.”
RECOMMENDATION
Listen to Nonfiction4Life Episode #110: The Book of Beautiful Questions by Warren Berger.
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Giving hope to the average achiever, Rich Karlgaard shares his latest book, "Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement." He observes, “We’ve created a new system of snobbery based on IQ scores and elite university degrees. To mitigate this crisis, we must stop excessively glorifying precocious achievement and seeing human development as a ‘fast track’ on ramp for early success. Not only is it unjust to the majority of us, it’s profoundly inhumane.”
Why? Because “it ignores the natural-born gifts that we all possess. It cuts off paths of discovery for our more latent or later-blooming gifts and passions. It trivializes the value of character, experience, empathy, wisdom, reliability, tenacity, and a host of other admirable qualities that make us successful and fulfilled. And it undercuts the majority of us who are potential late bloomers.”
Karlgaard warns, “We are in danger of losing a valuable narrative about our lives: that we are capable of blooming at any age and in any stage of our lives.”
KEYS FOR ENCOURAGING BLOOMING (at any age)
- Don’t buy into the national obsession with high IQ/SAT/ACT test scores.
- Nurture curiosity.
- Resist fast-tracking.
- Encourage gap years.
- Give self-doubt a name; consider it a superpower.
- Learn to reframe using positive self-talk.
- Embrace opportunities to fail.
KEY QUOTES FROM KARLGAARD
Why the push for early achievement?
- “In the past, success was not about becoming rich or famous, or about achieving as much as possible as early as possible. Rather, it was about having the opportunity to live to our fullest potential. It was about being appreciated for who we are as individuals. But that’s been corrupted by the Wunderkind Ideal and our obsession with testing, ranking, and sorting young adults; by our cultural fascination with youth, particularly youthful über-achievement; and by an increasingly algorithmic economy that rewards raw synaptic speed instead of experience and wisdom.”
What are the dangers of forcing early achievement?
- “We’re not wrong to recognize and congratulate early bloomers. Their achievements deserve acknowledgement. But our culture’s obsession with early achievement has become detrimental to the majority of the population—to the multitudes of us who develop in different ways and at different paces. It pushes the message that if you haven’t become famous, reinvented an industry, or banked seven figures while you’re still young enough to get carded, you’ve somehow made a wrong turn in life. This message, I believe, is far more dangerous than most people realize.”
- “By forcing adolescents to practice like professionals, to strive for perfection, and to make life choices in their teens (or earlier), we’re actually harming them. We’re stunting their development, closing their pathways to discovery, and making them more fragile. Just when we should be encouraging kids to dream big, take risks, and learn from life’s inevitable failures, we’re teaching them to live in terror of making the slightest mistake. Forging kids into wunderkinds is making them brittle.”
- “Early bloomers enjoy many advantages in affluent societies. But one huge disadvantage they face is that by dint of their youth and accomplishments, they give themselves credit for their success, more than the rest of us do.”
Why do most bloom late?
- “Truth is, many factors can slow our blooming early in life, including delayed physical or neurological development, early childhood trauma, nonstandard learning styles, socioeconomic status, geographical restrictions, illness, addiction, career turbulence—even plain bad luck. Many of us, growing up, are unable to reach our full potential at school—and therefore fall short of our university and professional potential—because we’re fed negative messages about our learning abilities.”
- “All of us know someone, care about someone, or love someone who seems stuck in life. The critical thing to remember is—we cannot give up on ourselves, or on others, even (and especially) if society has made it harder to catch up.”
When do people tend to bloom?
- “A parent might jump back into the workforce after a decade of child-rearing, feeling ten years behind but being ten years wiser. Or a retiree might find a deeper meaning in life by finally pursuing a childhood dream or mentoring others. Late-blooming can happen at any age, and it can happen more than once in a person’s lifetime.”
- “Every person needs to have the chance—multiple chances, really—to follow their unique timeline of evolving brains, talents, and passions.”
What are some characteristics of late bloomers?
- “Many late bloomers gain a greater sense of compassion. They show greater reflective thinking, diminished ego-centeredness, and a deeper appreciation of others’ challenges—what psychologists call greater prosocial behavior.”
BUY Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement
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SUMMARY
Early childhood and parent educator Rahima Dancy encourages parents to trust themselves in the 3rd edition of her book You Are Your Child's First Teacher: Encouraging Your Child's Natural Development from Birth to Age Six.Since its first edition, the book now includes advice about technology and even how to teach while the children are around--an environment millions of parents find themselves in during the pandemic.
However, long before this worldwide situation emerged, Dancy knew this: “In the nuclear or subnuclear family, far too much energy gets focused on the child because he or she is the most interesting subject around (try getting excited about waxing the kitchen floor!), but after a time many mothers find themselves getting cabin fever. It becomes increasingly difficult, both emotionally and intellectually, to be home day after day with this child. This is due, in part, to a lack of the perceived value of mothering, but also because children’s demand for attention expands to use up whatever might be available.”
So, tapping into the principles of Rudolf Steiner, educator and scientist who helped launch the now famous Waldorf Education, Dancy teaches us how to build the head, heart, and hands of our children. She rushes to our rescue, recognizing, “Our culture no longer provides a strong and unified message about how children should be raised. In addition, most of us live far away from our own parents or extended family, the people who traditionally provided wisdom, help, and continuity in rearing children.”
KEYS TO REPLENISHING
- Being in nature
- Sleeping
- Meditative practice
- Creating art
QUOTES FROM DANCY
- “The art of mothering has been replaced by the science of parenting, yet many parents have come to question the values their own parents embraced…they are at a loss as to what to do or wonder why being home with a young child can be so difficult.”
- “To expect a thirty-seven-year-old PhD candidate or a woman who has had an exciting career to be fulfilled spending her days in an apartment with a two-year-old is unrealistic.”
- “Modern life simply doesn’t support what young children need, which is to see us doing work that involves movement. What they actually see us doing isn’t satisfying to them. As a result, they seem to demand more attention, when in fact they are asking to observe us doing ‘real work’ that involves movement and transformation of materials—something they can both share in and then imitate in their play.”
- “Many parents try to develop their children’s emotions and their awareness of emotions by naming, expressing, and even practicing emotions with them. We also tend to expose young children to situations that are far too powerful for them emotionally; notice the unhappy children in the theater at the next movie you attend!”
- “One of our primary tasks as our children’s first teachers is to provide them with impressions of the world that are appropriate for them to take in and copy. This means guarding and protecting them from sensory overload in a world of urban frenzy, and surrounding them with experiences that teach them about the world in a gentle way by letting them do things directly themselves and later act them out in their play.”
Final words of comfort for parents:
- “Although you can’t go back in time and do things differently with your child, it is also important not to feel guilty about choices you have already made. You were just as good a parent then as you are now. You made the best decisions you could then, based on your knowledge and perceptions of your choices. Guilt only takes us out of the present moment and makes us less able to see what is needed now, thus perpetuating problems rather than leading to meeting the present creatively. If there is going to be the possibility of healing, it must take place in the present. We make the best choices we can for our children in each moment, just as our parents did for us.”
BUY You Are Your Child's First Teacher, Third Edition: Encouraging Your Child's Natural Development from Birth to Age Six
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
SUMMARY
Early childhood and parent educator Rahima Dancy encourages parents to trust themselves in the 3rd edition of her book You Are Your Child's First Teacher: Encouraging Your Child's Natural Development from Birth to Age Six.Since its first edition, the book now includes advice about technology and even how to teach while the children are around--an environment millions of parents find themselves in during the pandemic.
However, long before this worldwide situation emerged, Dancy knew this: “In the nuclear or subnuclear family, far too much energy gets focused on the child because he or she is the most interesting subject around (try getting excited about waxing the kitchen floor!), but after a time many mothers find themselves getting cabin fever. It becomes increasingly difficult, both emotionally and intellectually, to be home day after day with this child. This is due, in part, to a lack of the perceived value of mothering, but also because children’s demand for attention expands to use up whatever might be available.”
So, tapping into the principles of Rudolf Steiner, educator and scientist who helped launch the now famous Waldorf Education, Dancy teaches us how to build the head, heart, and hands of our children. She rushes to our rescue, recognizing, “Our culture no longer provides a strong and unified message about how children should be raised. In addition, most of us live far away from our own parents or extended family, the people who traditionally provided wisdom, help, and continuity in rearing children.”
KEYS TO REPLENISHING
- Being in nature
- Sleeping
- Meditative practice
- Creating art
QUOTES FROM DANCY
- “The art of mothering has been replaced by the science of parenting, yet many parents have come to question the values their own parents embraced…they are at a loss as to what to do or wonder why being home with a young child can be so difficult.”
- “To expect a thirty-seven-year-old PhD candidate or a woman who has had an exciting career to be fulfilled spending her days in an apartment with a two-year-old is unrealistic.”
- “Modern life simply doesn’t support what young children need, which is to see us doing work that involves movement. What they actually see us doing isn’t satisfying to them. As a result, they seem to demand more attention, when in fact they are asking to observe us doing ‘real work’ that involves movement and transformation of materials—something they can both share in and then imitate in their play.”
- “Many parents try to develop their children’s emotions and their awareness of emotions by naming, expressing, and even practicing emotions with them. We also tend to expose young children to situations that are far too powerful for them emotionally; notice the unhappy children in the theater at the next movie you attend!”
- “One of our primary tasks as our children’s first teachers is to provide them with impressions of the world that are appropriate for them to take in and copy. This means guarding and protecting them from sensory overload in a world of urban frenzy, and surrounding them with experiences that teach them about the world in a gentle way by letting them do things directly themselves and later act them out in their play.”
Final words of comfort for parents:
- “Although you can’t go back in time and do things differently with your child, it is also important not to feel guilty about choices you have already made. You were just as good a parent then as you are now. You made the best decisions you could then, based on your knowledge and perceptions of your choices. Guilt only takes us out of the present moment and makes us less able to see what is needed now, thus perpetuating problems rather than leading to meeting the present creatively. If there is going to be the possibility of healing, it must take place in the present. We make the best choices we can for our children in each moment, just as our parents did for us.”
BUY You Are Your Child's First Teacher, Third Edition: Encouraging Your Child's Natural Development from Birth to Age Six
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BUY Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
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SUMMARY
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World, by Maryanne Wolf, includes a treatise for deep reading in a world that has shifted from print to digital medium. In her book, Wolf addresses a myriad of attendant issues, concerns, and questions about the future of reading. While explaining the complexity surrounding the acquisition of reading skills, she also extols the virtues and joys of moving from information and knowledge to wisdom. Packed with research as well as sage insights from a multitude of sources, Reader, Come Home tackles themes “at the doorway of galactic changes over the next few generations” while also issuing the ever-alluring invitation to simply read.
KEY TERMS
- print medium – advantages slower, time-consuming, deep reading processes
- digital medium – allows for rapid skimming, word-spotting, and multi-tasking
- phonics vs. the whole language – “the debate that should never have been”
- deep reading – a system of inferential, abstract, empathic, critical analysis, perspective-taking processes
- neuroplasticity – brain’s ability to form new circuits by connecting older parts; “underlies just about everything interesting about reading”
- attention – concentration essential for developing deep reading skills
- annotating – (handwritten) slows us down; enhances reflection
- circuit-building – begins with lots of practice while learning foundational skills during learning-to-read phase; moves into reading-by and reading-to phrase and talking about the content
- biliterate brain – one that can switch between print and digital mediums
QUOTES FROM WOLF
- "Human beings were never born to read."
- “When language and thought atrophy, when complexity wanes and everything become more and more the same, we run great risks in society politic—whether from extremists in a religion or a political or, less obviously, from advertisers.”
- “There are no shortcuts to becoming a good reader.”
- “I want children to learn the capacity for…cognitive patience.”
- “Deep literacy is intrinsically connected to democracy.”
BUY Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
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SUMMARY
When Genevieve Piturro, jumped off the New York City corporate ladder, she didn’t know her burning passion to deliver pajamas and books to children in shelters would turn into the wildly successful, nationwide nonprofit Pajama Program. Her book, Purpose, Passion, and Pajamas: How to Transform Your Life, Embrace the Human Connection, and Lead with Meaning, tells the story of her rocky-road journey.
Since 2001, Pajama Program has delivered over seven million pajamas and books to children across the United States and Puerto Rico. Many of those children had never had a bedtime story; many had never owned a pair of pajamas. More than twenty years into her charitable endeavor, Piturro has become an international speaker, consultant, and author whose mission now includes inspiring others to find their purpose, pursue their passions, and find fulfillment.
KEY STEPS TO FINDING YOUR PURPOSE (“The Heart of the Matter”)
- Ask yourself, “Is this all there is to life?”
- Listen to your “heart-voice.” (Ask it to speak up!)
- Invite “that precious thing” into your life.”
- Write down five things that make your heart sing; winnow your list by giving time to the top three.
- Assemble a cheerleader squad to be on your side and to act as armor.
QUOTES FROM PITURRO
- “You can’t ignore that one thing that is your calling.”
- “Many of us feel there’s something missing in our lives—and often, too, in our work. It’s human nature to seek meaning, to feel we have a purpose on this earth.”
- “We all want to share in doing something that extends beyond our own wants, something that soothes others and has a lasting impact.”
- “You don’t need to see the whole path before you—you just need to take the first step and trust that the next ones will be revealed.”
- “You may doubt yourself at first and others may doubt you, but you’ll also find people who will support you.”
- “Leadership is not measured by how much you advance, but by how much you advance other people.”
- “It may be difficult to top the highs you’ll experience from encounters with amazing individuals who have the ability to support you and multiply your reach tenfold, but you can harness that exhilaration to reach even further and change even more.”
BUY Purpose, Passion, and Pajamas: How to Transform Your Life, Embrace the Human Connection, and Lead with Meaning
RECOMMENDATION
Watch Genevieve Piturro on Oprah tell her story and get a big surprise!
Listen to a related podcast:
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/141-disrupt-yourself-whitney-johnson/
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Nightingale Tales: Stories from My Life as Nurse, by Lynn Dow, spans 50 years of one nurse's career experiences–some funny, some sad, and all true. A registered nurse, Dow began her medical career reluctantly but eventually worked as a staff nurse, head nurse, teacher, and mentor at large medical centers on both the east and west coasts.
As handmaidens to physicians in the 1950s, nurses evolved into admired independent practitioners by the start of the new millennium. Nightingale Tales is a peek into that transition, as told by a nurse who lived it. Each chapter is a stand-alone story depicting the changes in the profession, brought about by time, the feminist movement, and advances in technology.
KEY CHANGES
- Recovery time: from weeks to days
- Smoking: allowed inside hospitals around machines and in breakrooms
- “Cracking the chest”: preceded CPR
- Hospital beds: manual cranks replaced with electric beds and remote controls
- Pharmaceuticals: borrowed from other patients or units; dispensed by nurses after 5 pm and weekends
- Uniforms: highly starched dresses and caps replaced with comfortable scrubs
- Gloves: rarely worn except in surgery; physician’s order required
- Leadership styles: dictatorial approach became more human and lenient
- Litigation: rarely used as an option for malpractice cases
KEY QUOTES
- “We had to do it all without ever losing sight of the fact that our primary concern was to nurture our patients. We did not have the high-tech equipment so common today when I first became a nurse; back then, we relied on our powers of observation. We looked at the patient instead of the computer readouts.
- “If aspirin were discovered today, it would most likely be banned by the Federal Drug Administration.”
- “I appreciate the advantages of technology, and no way do I wish nurses would go back to practicing the way I did—but I must admit, I long for a little more of the personal touch, a better understanding of what it is to be a patient. Machine-watching is important—but it would be nice if modern nursing involved a little more patient-watching as well.”
BUY Nightingale Tales: Stories from My Life as a Nurse
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BUY The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
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SUMMARY
With one feature article in The New York Times, journalist Nikita Stewart began telling the compelling true story of Troop 6000: The Girl Scout Troop that Began in a Shelter and Inspired the World. The book actually weaves together three stories: the history of Girls Scouts, the story of a family navigating the New York City homeless system, and the larger homeless problem plaguing our nation.
Chelsea Clinton, a former Girl Scout calls Troop 6000 “a book about dreamers and builders, about mothers who never give up, and daughters who hope for and demand more.”
Troop 6000 is told principally through the eyes of Giselle Burgess, a young single mother of five trying to provide for her family while living at the Sleep Inn in Queens, a hotel turned into a homeless shelter. Imprisoned by curfews and lack of amenities, Burgess and her family need something to belong to, something to feel proud of while making real contributions to their community. So, with a handful of excited girls and with the support of dedicated parents and advocates, Burgess starts Troop 6000.
“In Troop 6000, readers will feel the highs and lows as some families make it out of the shelter while others falter, and girls grow up with the stress and insecurity of not knowing what each day will bring and not having a place to call home, living for the times when they can put on their Girl Scout uniforms and come together. The result is a powerful, inspiring story about overcoming the odds in the most unlikely of places.” ~from Amazon summary
Inspired by Burgess and their shared experiences of poverty and hardship, others have created troops for the homeless not only throughout New York City but also across the country.
BUY Troop 6000: The Girl Scout Troop That Began in a Shelter and Inspired the World
RECOMMENDATION
Watch Jimmy Fallon surprise Giselle Burgess with a holiday donation.
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SUMMARY
J.W. (Terry) Freiberg, also known as “the Oliver Sacks of Law,” continues shedding light on connections in his latest “loneliness book,” Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer's Case Stories of Love, Loneliness and Litigation. Social psychologist turned lawyer and master storyteller, Freiberg explores chronic loneliness through five stories of faulty connections.
KEY POINTS
- Solitude is not the equivalent of loneliness.
- The word “loneliness” only came into the English language around 1800, probably because social structures did not leave much space for loneliness.
- John Cacioppo from the University of Chicago documented the lethality of loneliness.
- People are disinclined to admit their loneliness, often hiding it.
- Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General and author of Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World brought to light the loneliness epidemic.
- Loneliness hurts.
- Children hone time-specific connection skills around non-sibling other children.
- COVID-19 is preventing proper social development.
QUOTES
- “Chronic loneliness has become a public health crisis of the first order.”
- “Just as you cannot study hunger without researching and reporting about the food supply, you cannot study loneliness without thinking about the connections that people make—or fail to make—with one another.”
- “Loneliness is not an emotion but is, instead, a sensation. Loneliness…is the sensation of inadequate connections to others, just as hunger is the sensation of inadequate nourishment and thirst is the sensation of inadequate hydration.”
- “You can talk yourself out of being angry (an emotion) but you cannot talk yourself out of being hungry or thirsty—or lonely (three of the sensations).”
BUY Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer’s Case Stories of Love, Loneliness, and Litigation
RECOMMENDATION
Go to Dr. Freiberg’s website, “The Loneliness Books,” and check out the button “Articles” to find the “UCLA Loneliness Scale” to help measure loneliness and the “The Relational Assessment Worksheet.”
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SUMMARY
David Kamp shines light on a bright, optimistic movement in his book, Sunny Days: The Children's Television Revolution that Changed America.
When a group of progressive intellectuals, artists, and activists decided to focus on disadvantaged children, a children’s television revolution began. Driven by their agenda was to “do good,” this group also believed “the federal government could and should play a major role in early-childhood initiatives.” Fortunately, political winds blew in their sails, providing both funding and enthusiasm for a plethora of children’s television educational programming in the 60s and 70s.
Meanwhile, the social sciences were also gaining credibility, adding psychological and educational underpinnings to what may have otherwise been perceived as simply silly or fluffy. With the burgeoning popularity of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the political will to provide free access to learning, children’s television enjoyed the “Age of Enlightenment, Jr.” Further fueling this critical movement were “media professionals, thought leaders, and politicians alike prioritizing children and education as they never had before—and in so doing, changing the lives of millions.”
In short, Kamp’s Sunny Days, substantiated by interviews and research, helps paint a picture of a rare time in history when people chose to put the public good above their own careerism.
KEY PEOPLE & PROGRAMS
- Joan Ganz Cooney & Lloyd Morrisette – led the charge to leverage television for preparing preschoolers for school
- Bob Keeshan - founder, creator, and main character of the show Captain Kangaroo; eschewed using children’s television to promote children’s toy guns and other toys
- Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) – original American nonprofit responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-known, Sesame Street
- Sesame Street – the granddaddy of all children’s television programs developed in the 60s and 70s
- Jon Stone – original conceiver and key showrunner of Sesame Street; brought a certain hipness to TV, making the show popular with children and adults alike
- Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In – American sketch comedy show that inspired the pacing for Sesame Street
- Jim Henson’s Muppets – held magic in their abstract nature; stimulated imaginations
- Electric Company – a fast-paced spinoff of Sesame Street designed to teach
- Schoolhouse Rock – conceived by ad men at McCaffrey & McCall when they recognized children could easily memorize words to songs
- Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood - long-running children’s program conceived by Fred Rogers and informed by developmental pediatric psychiatrist Margaret McFarland
- Matt Robinson – creator of Muppet character Roosevelt Franklin whose mannerisms and speech were primarily representative of an African-American man
- Free to Be…You and Me – program hosted by Marlo Thomas; promoted a strong feminist agenda
QUOTE FROM KAMP
- “Children’s advocates…had high regard for children, believing them capable of intellectual and emotional engagement, and of seeing through cutesy artifice.”
BUY Sunny Days: The Children's Television Revolution That Changed America
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Puppet Pals, brightly-colored, oversized children’s puppets (designed and sold by Andrew Olsen).
BONUS PODCAST
LISTEN to a related Nonfiction4Life podcast: "The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers" by Maxwell King.
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SUMMARY
One of 75 top-performing real estate brokers in the country for the past ten years, Tracy McLaughlin reveals industry secrets in her breakout book, Real Estate Rescue: How America Leaves Billions Behind in Residential Real Estate and How to Maximize Your Home’s Value. After spending more than two decades helping her clients buy and sell homes, McLaughlin has had the highest-grossing sales in Marin County, California for 14 consecutive years. Now, with her hard-won expertise, she shares essential tips and tricks for both sellers and potential homeowners. McLaughlin also writes to influence key stakeholders who have the power to elevate industry standards for agents and brokers.
KEY POINTS
- Three big mistakes sellers make: getting too emotionally attached to a home, resisting professional advice, and not keeping homes up-to-date.
- Low standards required to become a real estate agent blight the reputation of the profession.
- Every 8-10 years, there’s a swing in what’s considered desirable home design; buyers, not architects, drive design.
- Accurately pricing a home not only helps it sell but usually drives up its market value.
- Staging is very effective for adding value and decreasing time on the market.
- “Resto” – verb created to describe using the Restoration Hardware design as inspiration
- In the past 50 years, square footage has increased by 1000 feet, and living space for each person in a home has nearly doubled.
QUOTES FROM McLAUGHLIN
- “Residential property accounts for 75 percent of the global value of property.”
- “According to a study by the Bank of Montreal, 80 percent of homebuyers know if a house is right as soon as they walk in the door.”
- “Just because something is unique or rare…doesn’t make it valuable. The market must value it.”
- “Both millennials and baby-boomer parents embrace modernism.”
- “For every dollar you invest in prelisting preparation, you get about $3.50 in your pocket.”
BUY Real Estate Rescue: How America Leaves Billions Behind in Residential Real Estate and How to Maximize Your Home’s Value (Buying and Selling Homes, Staging a Home to Sell)
RECOMMENDATION
Watch Home Improvement, a family-friendly humorous sitcom.
BUY Home Improvement - Complete 1-8 Season Box Set [DVD] [2016]
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SUMMARY
Dr. Leonard Sax, a premier child psychologist, peels back the veneer of successful families in his latest bestseller The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups. Originally intending to contrast American parents with those outside the U.S., Sax explains how and why bonds across generations have been broken. Today, American parents are confused about their role, resulting in status insecurity.
Having traveled and lectured frequently throughout Germany, Scotland, German-speaking Switzerland, and New Zealand, Dr. Sax extols the virtues of these foreign countries where the culture still supports strong families and parent-child bonds. American kids used to spend their weekends hanging out with grownups, being mentored, and learning values and skills. Now, they are now much less creative than they were 20 years ago and far more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness such as ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
Dr. Sax sends a clarion call to parents to renew their relationship with their children by asserting themselves as authority figures. He gives us a vision for how to better prepare our children to thrive. Parenting, after all, is for teaching children what matters not only now but in the future.
PARENTING IDEAS FOR BUILDING STRONG FAMILIES
- Having family dinners together
- Limiting social media and access to devices, especially in the car and in the bedroom
- Spending time together
- Helping kids connect with more adults
- Controlling the number of extracurricular activities
- Vacationing as a family without friends
- Teaching humility by showing interest in other people
- Assigning chores to children
- Installing parental monitoring apps
- Talking and listening
- Prioritizing character over grades
QUOTES FROM SAX
- “The job of the parent is to teach self-control. To explain what is and is not acceptable. To establish boundaries and enforce consequences.”
- “Kids need to value their parents’ opinion as their first scale of value, at least throughout childhood and adolescence.”
- “There is one inescapable truth: you must teach by example…To become a better parent, you must become a better person.”
BUY The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups
RECOMMENDATIONS
Watch Andy Griffith episode “Opie, the Birdman”
BUY Gidget: The Complete Series
Read or watch To Kill a MockingbirdBUY To Kill a Mockingbird (Harperperennial Modern Classics)
BUY To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition
OTHER BOOKS BY DR. LEONARD SAX
BUY Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls--Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Environmental Toxins
BUY Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men
BUY Why Gender Matters, Second Edition: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences
Send your parenting questions directly to Dr. Sax on his website.
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SUMMARY
In her newest book, The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Your Organization Back on Track, Liane Davey explodes the myth that “conflict” is a bad word or something to be avoided. She boldly claims, "Organizations require conflict." Without it, stagnation and resentment settle into the cracks of an original issue, making it hard to move forward. Even though conflict aversion seems to be baked into how we’re socialized, we can learn strategies for “fighting” in a productive, healthy way.
KEY POINTS
- Instead of "the good fight," conflict is translated into passive aggression.
- Societal messages teach us we should avoid conflict: “Mind your own business. Don’t upset her. Stay out of trouble. Bullying is bad. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
- Conflict tends to be the least costly way of working through issues.
- Conflict debt: the sum of all the contentious issues that need to be addressed to be able to move forward but instead remain undiscussed and unresolved
- A wide predictor of the success of teams is how many women are on the team.
- Three-step strategy for managing conflict: validate; ask question(s); pivot
QUOTES FROM DAVEY
- “At its essence, conflict is just the struggle between opposing wants, needs, and demands.”
- “Conflict isn't bad for organizations; it's fundamental to them."
- “Don’t measure the health of your relationship based on whether you have conflict or not. Instead, pay attention to the quality of the conflict.”
- “The longer you leave the original problem unresolved, the more interest you pay.”
BUY The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Back on Track
RECOMMENDATION
Find “new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy” in Dr. John Gottman’s New York Times bestseller.
BUY The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert
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SUMMARY
Craig Borlase, a New York Times* and international bestselling author of more than 60 books, co-authors the unexpected worldwide bestselling memoir, "Finding Gobi: The Little Dog with a Very Big Heart*."
This true story features co-author and ultramarathoner Dion Leonard who crosses paths with a stray dog while racing 150 miles across the Gobi Desert in China. The dog he later names “Gobi” unexpectedly runs for miles alongside him in the scorching hot desert. Gobi’s instant loyalty and love win over Leonard, a hardened Aussie man, and eventually turns him into a tender-hearted advocate for dog adoption.
Co-author Borlase, a prolific and renowned memoirist, specializes in crafting dramatic, engaging stories and has collaborated with a wide range of people all over the world. Some of these include a two-time Grammy-winning songwriter, an Iranian refugee who spent four months in a Turkish jail, a female transatlantic rower, a World War II veteran, and a former Muslim woman who was one week away from becoming a suicide bomber.
Leonard praises Borlase’s attention to detail that turns a simple memory into something that makes us feel we were there. “Craig turned words into gold.”
QUOTE FROM BORLASE
- “What makes a good story? Courage. A willingness to face pain, not hide. Saying 'yes' to all that's good in life. When you start here, the writing takes care of itself.”
BUY Finding Gobi: A Little Dog with a Very Big Heart
OR
BUY Finding Gobi: Young Reader's Edition: The True Story of One Little Dog's Big Journey
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Stranger No More: A Muslim Refugee’s Story of Harrowing Escape, Miraculous Rescue, and the Quiet Call of Jesus
BUY Becoming Mama: How I Found Hope in Haiti's Rubble
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SUMMARY
Bilha Chesner Fish, M.D., an Israeli-American immigrant and distinguished radiologist, shares her new book, Invincible Women. Based on personal "Conversations with 21 Inspiring and Successful American Immigrants," Invincible Women is a collection of stories illustrating the grit, willpower, and conviction of women fighting to achieve the American dream. Dr. Fish manages to interview immigrant women of all stripes: artists, doctors, fashion designers, authors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, business executives, chefs, scientists, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and even an opera singer. Each tells her struggles and triumphs while taking risks and struggling to assimilate into a new country. All the while, the common thread among them is giving back.
Dr. Fish, a longtime advocate for community service and women’s empowerment, honors and celebrates these women through the careful reconstruction of her interviews. The book Invincible Women is especially critical and this moment in America's history when immigrants are often mistreated, misunderstood, and undervalued. The stories align with Dr. Fish's own commitment to stand up to hate, racism, and fear born of misinformation.
QUOTES FROM THE WOMEN
- "This country is huge; you can have millions of immigrants and still the country would be half empty, and still there will be space for everybody." ~Isabel Allende, Chilean-American New York Times best-selling author and advocate for the rights of women and girls
- "When I came here, I stayed with a friend of a friend that I had never met...But it was just us; we knew no one. We had no 'Vitamin P' as we say in Israel, meaning P for protection or help." ~Einav Gefen, Israeli-American chef and food services executive
- “In my mind, a successful immigrant is one who takes things from her culture that are useful and powerful and meaningful to her. But she also looks at the world that she is inhabiting and she uses what’s there.” ~Chitra Divakaruni, Indian-American author and women’s rights defender
- " I think this is tied to the business of the immigrant experience. I think it is so important that I bring something different to the American culture." ~Mi Jong Lee, Korean-American clothing designer and businesswoman
- “By voting, by acting, I feel like a true American immigrant.” ~Hung Liu, Chinese-American painter
- "America is the country that has always been proud to be a country of immigrants." ~Jacqueline Murekatete, Rwandan-American attorney and human rights leader
BUY Invincible Women: Conversations with 21 Inspiring and Successful American Immigrants
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom
Listen to the podcast: https://www.nonfiction4life.com/newcomers-helen-thorpe/
BUY Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
Listen to the podcast: https://www.nonfiction4life.com/117-spare-parts-joshua-davis/
BUY Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother
Listen to the podcast: https://www.nonfiction4life.com/119-enriques-journey-sonia-nazario/
BUY Wish You Happy Forever: What China’s Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains
Listen to the podcast: https://www.nonfiction4life.com/wish-you-happy-forever/
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SUMMARY
Whitney Johnson, named one of 50 leading business thinkers in the world, shares her groundbreaking work in Disrupt Yourself: Master Relentless Change and Speed Up Your Learning Curve.With a new introduction, the book is endorsed by business heavy-hitters such as Eric Ries, Clayton Christensen, Liz Wiseman, Adam Grant, Steve Wozniak, Susan Cain, and Tom Peters.
Aware that all companies--large and small--need high-growth individuals to implement high-growth plans, Johnson helps us apply the theory of disruptive innovation to our own path. Specifically, understanding how to master the S-curves in our lives will propel us upward as we move forward in time. In other words, when we disrupt ourselves, we jump, learn, leap, and repeat! Johnson warns, "If you don't disrupt when you feel you are called to do so, you'll die inside just a little. There's even a name for it: the innovator's dilemma. Whether you innovate or not, you risk downward mobility."
KEY POINTS
- Consider jumping to a new S-curve if you can’t “carry your dreams to work.” (Functional and emotional jobs both need to get done.)
- Focus on market risks rather than on competitive risks. (“Play where no one else is playing.”)
- Motivate yourself to jump to a new S-curve by asking, “What are the bad things could happen if I don’t disrupt myself?”
- Other points: play to your distinctive strengths; embrace constraints; battle entitlement (“the innovation killer”); step down, back, or sideways to grow.
QUOTES FROM JOHNSON
- "The whole point of disruption is to move up the y-axis of success...over the x-axis of time."
- “The fundamental unit of disruption is always the individual."
- "When you're being disruptive, the best possible start-up scenario is to be dismissed, even ignored.
- "A distinctive strength is something that you do well that others within your sphere don't."
- "When we believe we are owed something by life...we get caught in a vortex of narcissism that makes personal disruption impossible."
- "Every constraint, whether physical or mental, external or internal, can be a catalyst for moving up our learning curve."
BUY Disrupt Yourself, With a New Introduction: Master Relentless Change and Speed Up Your Learning Curve
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY How Will You Measure Your Life?
BUY Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
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SUMMARY
Codi Shewan, a former funeral director and embalmer, encourages us to live fully today. In his new book, Everyday Legacy: Lessons for Living with Purpose, Right Now, he shares personal anecdotes and no-nonsense insights to show us how to live our legacy rather than just leave a legacy. His book helps us be more intentional and recognize the impact we’re having on others right now. In short, Everyday Legacy is meant to inspire conversations with ourselves and to encourage us to live the way we want to be remembered after death.
What’s the job of a funeral director?
- Stand in support of those grieving their loss of another human
- Listen, listen, and (mostly) listen!
- Hear “echoes of regret” of those left behind
- Lead with the heart
- Open people up to experience grief
What can we do to live an everyday legacy?
- Manage our “echoes of regret”
- Ask ourselves how we want to be remembered
- Write our own obituaries
- Decide who and what is important
- Tell others how they affect us positively: “My life is better with you in it because…”
QUOTES FROM SHEWAN
- “Funerals matter to people and people matter to people.”
- “Legacy is a matter of how you show up.”
- “There is such a thing as a good funeral that includes ceremony and ritual, meaningful stories, good eulogies—all of these things that are key, poignant parts of a funeral service.”
- “We have little control over our death, but we’re entirely in control of how we live.”
- “Every single day we have the currency of time…to spend wisely.”
- “Controlling ‘echoes of regret’ means saying the things we want to say; it means having experiences that we intend to have; it means sustaining relationships that are meaningful in our lives.”
- “Legacy is something we leave when we’re dead…When we shift that narrative to something we live every single day, we hold the power to understand the influence we’re having on others in our world.”
BUY Everyday Legacy: Lessons for Living With Purpose, Right Now
RECOMMENDATION
Listen to Heather Lende in Nonfiction4Life podcast Episode #39 discuss her book, Find the Good: Unexpected Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer.
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SUMMARY
For our special Mother’s Day episode, award-winning journalist Jo Giese shares her delightful memoir, Never Sit If You Can Dance: Lessons from My Mother. Late in life, Giese realized what a treasure she had in her mother (nicknamed “Babe”). So, she began collecting her mother’s life stories and instructions that she had internalized, including “Never sit if you can dance.” Babe’s joie de vivre inspired everyone around her, friends and family alike, to take chances and live life fully. The book inspires us to appreciate our mothers right now rather than wait until we and our mothers grow old.
A FEW MORE LESSONS FROM BABE:
- “We all need someone waiting for us in the parking lot.”
- “Never show up empty-handed.”
- “Thank-you notes are never too plentiful.”
- “Sharing fun is the whole thing.” (AKA “Celebrate everything!”)
- “People don’t like to be around depressed people.”
- “Don’t be drab.”
QUOTES FROM GIESE
- “Today, in an era that stresses individual self-fulfillment and achievement, hardly anyone is willing to be the one sitting in the car, stitching. But the simple truth is that maybe we all need someone waiting for us in the parking lot.”
- “Babe had a rare ability to really make the best of it.”
- “My parents would always arrive at a friend’s house with their arms loaded. ‘It’s a nice way of welcoming yourself into someone’s home,’ Babe explained. ‘Be sure and bring something you’ve made, too.’”
- “When you write a thank-you, you don’t need to drool or get all touchy-feely. Just a few nicely worded one-liners will do the job.”
- “Later in life, Babe had evolved. I looked around: Where was the depressed mother I’d spent so much time complaining about in therapy? Babe had outgrown the mental mom I carried with me, and it had taken me a while to catch up.”
- “In spite of what’s happening, it’s okay to be happy today.”
- “Because I know how it hurts not to receive a positive comment, I’ve adopted a different behavior: I try never to let a compliment go unsaid. If I ever think something positive about someone or something—even the most fleeting thought—I share it before it vanishes.”
- “The beauty of learning a lesson and incorporating it so fully that it becomes part of you, as if it were your original chromosomal material, is that you can casually pass it on without even noticing.”
BUY Never Sit If You Can Dance: Lessons from My Mother
RECOMMENDATION
Enjoy watching Jo Giese in the book trailer video talking about some of the lessons from her mother.
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SUMMARY
Bridgett Miller, with almost two decades of experience as a teacher and parent, writes What Young Children Need You to Know: How to See Them So You Know What to Do for Them. Supporting adults to nurture the children in their lives using their heads and their hearts, Miller brings to the table her credentials, including being an authorized Facilitator of the Neufeld Institute and the creator of Look with Love and Parenting with Intention on Facebook and Instagram.
In essence, Miller says about children, “What they desire and deserve most is to be in the presence of a caring adult who acknowledges and validates what they are feeling. Most important, they need an adult who stays connected to them in a heartfelt way by resisting the temptation to suppress or judge their behavior in their most vulnerable moments.” In short, children crave a strong and loving connection, and “we keep showing up because we love them.”
KEY POINTS
- Connection – the most important key to good parenting
- Parental stumbling block – expecting to be on top of our game all the time; antidote – giving ourselves some grace
- Children’s development is not entirely up to us; Mother Nature helps by working on the inside to help our children mature.
- Temper tantrums – “gifts in disguise”
- Young children are incapable of filtering mixed feelings (exercising self-control).
- Tears show extreme vulnerability, indicating a healthy emotional sense of self.
- Children live in the moment, so countdown warnings aren’t always helpful, especially because adults often stretch and condense the time for their own benefit.
- Bedtime – perceived as a time of separation from the people they’re deeply attached to
- Cellphones – perceived as a competing attachment
- Interruptions – younger children get in our physical space; older children use words because they can’t hold their thoughts in their mind
- Light physical contact helps ground children when they’re upset.
- Parenting (doing) isn’t the same as being with our children.
QUOTES FROM MILLER
- “As Gordon Neufeld often states, your children never feel lost when they are sure of the person who is leading them.”
- “Emotions need to move…[they] are better out than in, especially when children are very young.”
- “Attempting to teach a young child something they aren’t yet capable of doing fuels a sense of disconnection between you and your child.”
- “Every interaction is an invitation to teach and to learn.”
- “What [children] want most is for you to give them the sense that you ‘get’ them, even when they are struggling to express themselves.”
- “Parenting can become a daily reminder of the importance of getting to know ourselves better so that we can become more conscious in all of our relationships.”
- “Parents often have to release the deluded notion that children are here to make us happy and that their behavior needs to be a certain way in order for us to experience the joy of parenting.”
- “Putting some of our energy into understanding the needs that drive young children’s behaviours and then doing what we can to meet them, will—in the long term—serve us much better than a weekend away at a spa.”
- “The key to understanding our child is to become very good at observing them and not to cling to the outcome of how we think things need to go.”
- “The beauty of play is that it teaches…children more than we could ever hope to.”
- “The children who stir us up and the ones who wake us up…If they’re pushing our buttons, it’s because those buttons need to be pushed.”
- “One of the greatest unexpected by-products of raising children is the opportunity to grow into the people we’re capable of being.”
BUY What Young Children Need You to Know: How to see them so you know what to do for them
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Listen to Nonfiction4Life Episode 15 with Erica Komisar, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters
- Listen to Nonfiction4Life Episode 30 with Rebecca Eanes, The Positive Parenting Workbook: An Interactive Guide for Strengthening Emotional Connection
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SUMMARY
In her latest book, Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers, Dr. Jo Boaler, Professor in the School of Education at Stanford University, explodes myths surrounding “giftedness." She asserts,“The myth that our brains are fixed and that we simply don’t have the aptitude for certain topics is not only scientifically inaccurate; it is omnipresent and negatively impacts education and many other events in our everyday lives. When we let go of the idea that our brains are fixed, stop believing that our genetics determine our lives’ pathways, and learn that our brains are incredibly adaptable, it is liberating.”**
KEY POINTS
- Neuroplasticity means brains are continually forming new pathways every time we learn.
- Multidimensional learning is the best way to connect with any content.
- “Speed is out and flexibility is in.” (Speed does not equal good intelligence.)
- Labeling a child as “smart” causes children to develop a damaging fixed mindset.
- A “growth mindset,” a concept made famous by Carol Dweck, improves when you’re at the edge of your understanding, especially when you struggle and make mistakes.
- Giving feedback is much more helpful to learners than giving grades is.
- Albert Einstein, who constantly talked about not having any special gift, was, instead, constantly curious.
- Connecting and collaborating with others strengthens our brains.
QUOTES FROM BOALER
- “Whatever [brain] you’re born with is eclipsed by the millions of opportunities people have to develop and strengthen their brains.”
- “Anyone can learn anything!”
- “Every year millions of children start school excited about all they will learn, but quickly become disillusioned when they get the idea they are not as ‘smart’ as others.”
- “If you refuse to accept labels and these limiting ideas, and you give kids rich learning environments and the right messages, anything can happen.”
- “Researchers now know that when people with math anxiety encounter numbers, a fear center in the brain is activated—the same fear center that lights up when people see snakes or spiders.”
- “Anxiety in any subject area has a negative impact on the functioning of the brain.”
- “It is fine to praise children, but always praise what they did and not them as people.”
- “The more we struggle, the better learning and brain growth.”
- “Everyone is on a growth pathway. There is not a cutoff to giftedness.”
BUY Limitless Mind: Learn, Lead, and Live Without Barriers
RECOMMENDATIONS
Watch the video, "Rethinking Giftedness."
For “limitless” resources, visit Boaler’s website (youcubed.org).
Listen to a related Nonfiction4Life podcast: Episode 70 - “Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying."
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SUMMARY
In The Quest for Eternal Sunshine: A Holocaust Survivor's Journey from Darkness to Light, Myra Goodman shares her father’s story of transformation posthumously. As a Polish Hassidic Jew, Mendek Rubin is the object of anti-Semitism even before Hitler closes in on the Jews. After surviving the Holocaust, he becomes a brilliant inventor who revolutionizes the jewelry manufacturing industry, generating numerous patents in the 1960s and 1970s.
When he retires, he invents the equipment to wash and package baby greens for Earthbound Farm―the largest grower of organic produce in the world and the first company to successfully market ready-to-eat salads for retail sale. Yet, now in his sixties, Mendek still carries all the trauma, pain, and despair of childhood and the concentration camps. Finally, applying his genius to his own psyche, he starts to change, discovering and implementing practices that enable him to fully let go of the bad and embrace only the good life has to offer.
To round out her father’s neglected manuscript, Goodman spends four years researching, interviewing, and gathering historical information. By publishing the book as a co-author, she chronicles Mendek’s transformative healing journey while also creating an inspiring roadmap for herself and others seeking self-awareness and inner growth.
KEY POINTS
- The years leading up to concentration camps during the Holocaust are also traumatic.
- Mendek serves in seven different slave-labor camps during WWII.
- Dyslexic, he is beaten by his father for doing poorly in school, failing out in the sixth grade.
- Afraid of both living and dying, Mendek is mired for years in hopelessness and fear.
- He helps launch Earthbound Farm, Goodman’s organic farming business, by using parts from a local junkyard to invent an automated process for washing and bagging salads.
- Mendek, with only bad memories of his childhood, begins to change when he purposefully goes back in time to remember and replay the good, kind, gestures of love.
- Goodman’s sister, while living with her parents as an adult to recover from sickness, manages to captures her father’s stories of forgiveness in recordings.
- To tap into love, Rubin learns to practice mindful presence.
- The fallacy of progress: human beings have not figured out how to live peacefully, realizing we are all interdependent.
- Positive thinking and emotions can be just as contagious as the coronavirus.
- It’s never too late to write a new narrative for our lives.
- Affirmations and visualization provide Mendek the power to release his negative emotions and embrace all that is good in the world, including joy and love.
QUOTES FROM GOODMAN
- “My dad was my sunshine!”
- “He discovered that the cold, indifferent universe he had lived in for so long was nothing more than his own projection, and that he had the power to change it.”
- “I hear my dad’s voice inside my head all the time!”
- “My father’s deepest intention was to turn away from darkness and toward the light—to constantly embrace all that is beautiful.”
QUOTES FROM RUBIN
- “Love has transformed my inner landscape, so that now I have only to look within myself to find satisfaction and the source that is all that is good in life. My inner splendor dazzles me.”
- “My plan was to build an inventory of new, joyful thoughts and experiences in the same way I’d have learned to play the piano: through practice and repetition.”
- “There are no bad people, only bad ideas.”
- “It’s not that I deny the past; I just don’t live in it.”
BUY Quest for Eternal Sunshine: A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Darkness to Light
RECOMMENDATION
Read Myra Goodman’s article, “Healing Generations of Pain.”
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SUMMARY
Award- winning journalist and six-time author Matthew Algeo brings us Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip. By retracing the Trumans’ 2500-mile journey from Independence, Missouri to the East Coast and back again, Algeo captures the ordinariness of an extraordinary former U.S. President and his wife Bess. Although the Trumans could not reasonably travel incognito, as they had planned, they travel on a tight budget, staying in simple hotels and eating at everyday diners along the way.
Truman, our last citizen-president, uses his road trip to visit old friends as well as to capitalize on the chance to secure a retirement pension for himself and future ex-presidents. He also becomes “the first ex-president to engage in partisan politics in the age of modern mass media.” Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure is a great read-aloud for families who want to understand 1950s American history and all its tangents and contradictions.
LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS
- With only a high-school diploma, he’s the last American president to not attend college.
- When Truman leaves the White House in 1953, he has no plan for the rest of his life and his only income is a small army pension of $111.96/month.
- Truman, a “road scholar,” campaigns vigorously to improve the U.S. transportation system.
- Truman loves driving (fast), but he gets rusty in while in the White House.
- In spite of getting many lucrative offers, Truman refuses to “commercialize” the presidency or “exploit or trivialize the office in any way.”
- The Trumans travel without Secret Service protection.
- In the early 1950s, no two hotels and motels are alike, and even finding one could be difficult when road-tripping.
- Cold-War fear and carefree optimism co-exist in the 1950s.
- Truman, in all practical terms, invents the modern press conference.
QUOTES FROM ALGEO
- “Harry Truman was the last president to leave the White House and return to something resembling a normal life.”
- “Harry and Bess Truman’s road trip…marked the end of an era: never again would a former president and the first lady mingle so casually with their fellow citizens.”
- “The [road] trip was…part of his effort to make the transition…from Mr. President to Mr. Citizen.”
- “[In Truman’s day,] you worked until you couldn’t work anymore, in which case your family, probably large, provided for you. Or you worked until you died. No gold watches, no pensions, no Social Security.”
BUY Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip
RECOMMENDATIONS
- BUY "Truman" by David McCullough (Hardcover, 1992 Edition)
- BUY All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy's 1968 Tour of Appalachia by Matthew Algeo
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SUMMARY
Branding expert Jeremy Miller shares his trade secrets in his second book, Brand New Name: A Proven Step-by-Step Process to Create an Unforgettable Brand Name. Miller’s book outlines how to name or rename anything through his practical how-to guide that includes loads of examples and inspirational stories. Miller himself had to “eat his own dog food” by naming his book using his own carefully designed branding process, which he describes this way: “Brand New Name takes the guesswork out of name selection. Using a set of exercises and tools, you will shortlist, evaluate, test, and select the right name for your brand.”
Because branding is so inherently visual, Miller designed the book to have almost every other page to showcase key quotes, logos, photos, and graphs—a visual treat for the reader! Above all, Miller strongly asserts, “Everyone is creative.”
KEY IDEAS
- Try developing a brand name before starting a company or service.
- Avoid using the phrase, “One-stop shop.”
- A company tagline is like the subtitle of a book.
- George Eastman, “the godfather of marketing,” created the word “Kodak.”
- A name is a vessel holding all the contents of a company.
- When renaming, you need a minimum of 18 months to “pour the contents” into a new name.
- Descriptive brand names: Netflix, The Dollar Store
- Suggestive brand names: (experience) Pampers, Twitter
- Abstract brand names: (empty vessel) Bluetooth, Nike
- The Flynn Effect of IQ and The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking – two long-term studies that reveal our creativity is plummeting worldwide
QUOTES FROM MILLER
- “Names are like poetry. In a word or two, you are capturing the essence of your company, product, or idea. It’s a simple phrase that contains so much meaning.”
- “Names create the story you want to share.”
- “It’s not about the business you’ve built. It’s about the business you’re building. What are you going to do next?”
- “Names often outlive products and strategies, especially in old firms.”
- “A name is the longest-living artifact inside any business.”
- “The beauty of naming is it’s immensely creative. You can use real words, take words from stories or history, or create words. There really are no limits when it comes to naming.”
BUY Brand New Name: A Proven, Step-by-Step Process to Create an Unforgettable Brand Name by Jeremy Miller
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Sticky Branding: 12.5 Principles to Stand Out, Attract Customers & Grow an Incredible Brand by Jeremy Miller
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SUMMARY
In her first book, *Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team that Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory, Lydia Reeder captures the gripping true story of an underdog women’s championship basketball team.* Boxes of family history documents introduced Reeder to Sam Babb, her great uncle and the underdog team’s coach during the Depression. An exceptional recruiter, Babb targeted talented, hard-working, strong, smart young women—many off the farm, many of Native American descent. By offering them basketball scholarships to Oklahoma Presbyterian College (OPC), Babb also gave them not only a chance to get an education while playing a sport they loved but also a shot at a better life. In time, he helped them “stop seeing themselves as small-town high school athletes and start imagining victory.”
Although powerful political figures, as well as medical and educational professionals, denounced the “unladylike” sport, these female trailblazers paved the way for future generations of women basketball players. More than just a captivating sports story, Dust Bowl Girls also layers in the history of women’s rights and women’s sports, the Depression, along with several personal stories of struggle and triumph.
KEY CHALLENGES
- Poverty – families needed young women to stay home and help work the farms
- Homesickness – living away from home, especially during the holidays, affects the players on a Christmastime road trip
- Victorian-era modesty restrictions – long skirts, bustles, hoops, and corsets
- Male chauvinism and feminine expectations
- Special rules – e.g., coaching from the sidelines was disallowed
- Other women and women’s physical education organizations – e.g., Blanche Trilling, Lou Henry Hoover
- False scientific beliefs – e.g., women’s reproductive organs would be damaged through playing sports
KEY QUOTES
- “Most country girls loved basketball. At school, friends and teachers didn’t give a second thought to girls picking cotton or running the buck rakes…so no one ever bothered to consider if it was unfeminine for them to play basketball. They practiced on dirt patches behind barns or on playgrounds, in small schoolrooms, or in large converted warehouses.”
- “God forbid a cherished daughter would practice softball or track-and-field over dancing the foxtrot…But the worst game a girl could ever get good at was basketball.”
- “A girl shouldn’t work too hard to get good at anything because by her very nature she didn’t have, and would never develop, the courage, power, and self-knowledge to succeed. This dark philosophy grew from the deep-seated belief that women were God’s rejects.”
BUY Dust Bowl Girls: A Team's Quest for Basketball Glory (Thorndike Press Large Print Popular and Narrative Nonfiction)
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Wonder Girl: The Magnificent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias
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Med student turned public health detective, Dr. Karen K. Lee chronicles her decades-long professional journey in her recent book, Fit Cities: My Quest to Improve the World's Health and Wellness—Including Yours. As a built environment advisor, she helps gather data about how we eat, build, and move. Typical assessments include walkability, availability of healthy food sources, lunch menus, physical education curricula, work-site amenities, and building design. From her work, she has developed "Active Design" principles to build environments that promote a healthy lifestyle.
IDEAS FOR CREATING FIT CITIES
- Offer multiple transportation options that include opportunities to walk.
- Post signs to encourage more stair-climbing.
- Dance with your children.
- Limit sugary drinks, including juices.
- Eliminate food deserts; make healthy food accessible and affordable.
- Pedestrianize congested spaces.
- Plan open-street events (e.g., “Summer Streets” in NYC).
- Help citizen voices for “Fit Cities” be heard.
- Offer exercise equipment for parents as they watch their children play sports.
- Incentivize street vendors to offer healthy food options.
- Organize “Fit City” conferences to build cross-discipline relationships.
QUOTES FROM LEE
- “If our cities and towns become fit and healthy, we will find it easier to become fit and healthy too.”
- “Physical activity experts suggest that, if the average adult was to climb [stairs] just an extra two minutes per day, we could offset the average weight gains that most of us are experiencing in an average year.”
- “We must recognize that we are not alone in the battle to stay fit and healthy, and that solving the problem will require a concerted, cooperative effort across many disciplines.”
- “Disasters…illustrate for us just how important it is that our homes, schools, workplaces, and grocery stores be at walkable distances from each other.”
- “In a disaster, people walk. They walk because they have to. Cars are often ordered off the roads and public transportation often has to shut down, even if temporarily.”
BUY Fit Cities: My Quest to Improve the World's Health and Wellness--Including Yours
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Take a look at the bright, lime-green sign used to entice New Yorkers to “Take the Stairs!”
- Check out the list of “The Ten Fittest Cities in the U.S.” from U.S. News & World Report.
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SUMMARY
Radical Spirits: India’s First Woman Doctor and Her American Champions is Nandini Patwardhan’s first full-length biography. “Based on original letters, university archives, and newspaper accounts, Radical Spirits draws a textured portrait of the relationships that Indian, British, and American individuals forged by bridging cultural and class boundaries.” (from the back cover)
Born into a high-caste Indian family, Anandi becomes a nine-year-old child bride. Just a few years later, she loses her own first child shortly after giving birth. Now painfully aware of millions of other Indian women who have had a similar experience, she makes the radical decision to become India's first woman doctor. Still a teenager in 1883, Anandi sails alone from Calcutta to New York to attend a medical school for women. In America, she encounters kindness, cruelty, and curiosity about her dark skin, vegetarian diet, Hindu religion, and unusual wardrobe. Nonetheless, Anandi presses single-mindedly toward her goal. Not only does she want to do good among her own people but she also aches to “disprove the false doctrine which keeps Hindoo women in ignorance and degradation.”
KEY PEOPLE
- Anandi Joshee - a reluctant though brilliant student who, after losing a child, transforms into a fiercely focused young woman bent on alleviating the widespread poor health care suffered by Indian women
- Gopal Joshee – husband of Anandi; unflinching in his goal to educate his wife; postal worker in India under British rule
- Nandini Padwardhan – author by avocation; arrives in the United States from India in the early 80s when immigrants are subjected to vaccinations, strict health checks, and even quarantines
- Charles Eliot – President of Harvard University who believes female education is bad for both women and men
- Theodocia Carpenter - Anandi’s pen pal American friend who acts as mentor and adoptive aunt while sharing a deep attraction to the tenets of Spiritualism
- Google Books – invaluable resource for biographers such as Patwardhan
QUOTES FROM PARWARDHAN
- “Gopal hoped to create a remarkable and irrefutable example by educating a female, thus establishing his claim that women were capable of learning and thinking.”
- “Gopal and Anandi became equal partners in a shared mission—to become empowered in order to ease the burdens of women’s lives.”
- “The Americans who came to know them [the Joshees] were, in their own ways, radical [spirits] as well.”
BUY Radical Spirits: India’s First Woman Doctor and Her American Champions
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch this short video for an overview of Anandi Joshee’s courageous life. (Spoiler alert!)
- Read this blog post to find out which feature on the planet Venus is named after the heroine of the book.
BUY Radical Spirits: India’s First Woman Doctor and Her American Champions
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch this short video for an overview of Anandi Joshee’s courageous life. (Spoiler alert!)
- Read this blog post to find out which feature on the planet Venus is named after the heroine of the book.
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SUMMARY
In her nonfiction children’s picture book, Natascha Biebow uncovers the little-known story of The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons**. In addition to Steven Salerno's brilliant illustrations, Biebow's narrative includes "fact boxes" to embed extra information for the curious reader and inquiring adult.
More than a century ago, inventor Edwin Binney (also known as “The Crayon Man”), listened well to what people wanted. From all his listening emerged the invention of the crayon. Later, Binney’s schoolteacher wife coined the brand name “Crayola,” which has since become synonymous with “crayon.”
The Crayon Man was passionate about replicating the colors he saw in nature. Boasting 120 colors, the Crayola factory located in Easton, Pennsylvania, makes 12 million crayons every day. Labels printed in three different languages carry crayon names such as “Robin Egg’s Blue,” “Tickle Me Pink,” and “Tropical Rain Forest” as well as the most recent crayon color, “Bluetiful.” Paraffin wax and non-toxic pigments became game-changers for the crayons children still use today. Now ubiquitous, crayons are inexpensive, safe, durable, and endlessly creative toys for children and adults alike.
QUOTES FROM BIEBOW
- “The average child wears down 720 crayons by his tenth birthday, which is a lot of crayons!”
- “Crayola is typically classed as one of the world’s most iconic toys, and it’s also one of the most recognized smells for adults.”
- “Funny and bighearted, Edwin kept on listening and creating all his life; but of all his inventions, he loved the Crayola crayons most of all.”
BUY The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons
RECOMMENDATIONS
Take a virtual tour of the Crayola factory in Easton, Pennsylvania.
BUY Crayola Ultimate Crayon Collection Coloring Set, Gift Age 3+ - 152 Count
BUY Crayola Twistables Colored Pencils Coloring Set, Gift Age 3 + - 50 Count
BUY Crayola Silly Scents Scented Markers, Washable Markers, 12 Count, Gift for Kids, Assorted
BUY Crayola Ultra-Clean Washable Markers, Broad Line, 12 Count
BUY Crayola Model Magic, Deluxe Craft Pack, Clay Alternative, Gift for Kids, 14 Single Pack
BUY Crayola Washable Kids Paint, 6 Assorted Colors, 2 Oz Each (Pack of 2) Total 12 Bottles + Bonus 8 Crayola Paint Brushes
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SUMMARY
Celebrated science journalist Lydia Denworth coalesces decades of research to bring us her book, FRIENDSHIP: THE EVOLUTION, BIOLOGY, AND EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF LIFE’S FUNDAMENTAL BOND. Studies in history, biology, neuroscience, genetics, sociology, and epidemiology confirm we humans are deeply wired to connect with others. Furthermore, we now know making and keeping those connections is critical to our health.
KEY POINTS
- Friendship is a biological imperative. We must invest in it accordingly.
- Like diet and exercise, friendship is equally essential to staying healthy.
- Three qualities marking a friendship: long-lasting, positive, and cooperation/reciprocity
- Gift-giving – often a sign of true friendship
- Friendship styles – discerning, independent, acquisitive (selectively and unconditionally)
- Loneliness – the opposite of friendship (increases mortality and depression, blood pressure, aggressiveness, stress and decreases sleep quality)
- Kids do better in school when they collaborate with friends.
- Social buffering – the protective, positive effect of one individual on another; the power of one person to reduce another’s stress
- After puberty, parents no longer buffer stress for children; friends can take their place.
- The strength of relationships at 50 predicts health at 80.
QUOTES FROM DENWORTH
- “The need to belong and the desire to connect really does unite us all.”
- “Learning to be a good friend and make a good friend is one of the most important skills [for kids] as they get older.”
- “At its best, friendship makes you feel valued and supported.”
- “A friendship’s rewards should outweigh its costs.”
- “Women…are more likely to expect their closest friends to offer emotional nourishment and support.”
- “We must make friendship a priority and factor it in to the way we plan our time—and our children’s time. Yes, you can choose your friends, but you must also more generally choose friendship—embrace it, invest in it, work at it.”
- “People vary in their appetite for friendship.”
- “Put time and attention into building quality relationships. Be mindful of your social convoy. You cannot afford not to.”
- “Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies, they protect our brains.”
- “Shared interest and purpose are some of the best ways to connect with people.”
BUY Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond
RECOMMENDATIONS
Watch the short YouTube video from “The Loneliness Project” in Britain. (#endloneliness)
Listen to author Mary Pipher discuss friendship, marriage, and aging and her book WOMEN ROWING NORTH (Episode 75 of Nonfiction4Life).
BUY Still Connected: Family and Friends in America Since 1970
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SUMMARY
Maria Ross, brand strategist and founder of Red Slice, shares her latest book, The Empathy Edge. Going beyond warm fuzzies, Ross shares hard data affirming the need for companies to understand what their customers really want and need. Seeing things from the customer’s perspective is not only a good idea and the right thing to do; it’s becoming increasingly essential for those looking for a competitive edge.
KEY TERMS & POINTS
- Empathy – a mindset of taking another person’s perspective, seeing the world through their point of view to shape the actions (a feeling, lens, and mindset)
- Compassion – applying empathy to actions
- PFCC – Patient and Family Centered Care; structure/philosophy embraced and practiced by University of Washington Medical Center that gives patient lots of choices and autonomy; reduces readmissions and malpractice suits
- Kindness – niceness that may or may not include empathy
- Empathy nudges – tiny, cumulative actions capable of sparking empathy within a company
- Presence – a practice that keeps your head in the moment; instrumental in taking on another person’s point of view
QUOTES FROM ROSS
- “Building a brand is about building a brand story…It’s fundamentally the core of an organization.”
- “The very qualities that make us uniquely human will become our competitive advantage.”
- “Many classical thinkers and modern thought leaders believe empathy in all its forms is essential to human survival and to making the world a better place.”
- “Empathy is a power muscle for a leader to flex in order to better connect with customers as well as their own team.”
- “Empathy does not mean ‘caving’ to the demands of all stakeholders, but empathetic leaders do try to find a good balance by considering all viewpoints and then making informed decisions.”
- “[Becoming an] empathetic leader requires restraint to listen to people’s experiences, stories, and perspectives and draw patterns from that information, over and over again.”
- “Sitting down with individuals to uncover what truly motivates them to do their best work is the key to a more empathetic culture.”
- “Yes, empathy is innate to human beings…but it can be taught or, as I prefer to term it, cultivated.”
- “Catalyzing empathy in our workplaces gives us a huge advantage over our less compassionate competitors, but the real endgame is to make the whole world more open, curious, and understanding.”
BUY The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success
RECOMMENDATIONS
Watch Maria Ross speak to Google about her book Rebooting My Brain.
BUY Rebooting My Brain: How a Freak Aneurysm Reframed My Life
Click here to get your free guide to “Five Ways Empathy Benefits Your Brand, Performance, and Culture.”
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Investigative health journalist Judy Foreman brings decades of experience and hundreds of scientific studies to her latest book, Exercise Is Medicine: How Physical Activity Boosts Health and Slows Aging. Even though we know of more centenarians now than ever before, we’re also growing fatter and older faster than ever. Through extensive research into evolutionary biology, exercise physiology, and the new field of geroscience, Foreman uncovers why exercise is so powerful. So, if you’re looking for that push to get out and exercise, this is the book for you!
KEY POINTS
- “Sitting Kills” – sitting makes visceral fat that acts as an endocrine organ, pumping out chemicals that stimulate chronic inflammation
- Epigenetic clock – determines whether a gene has been activated or not
- Heart disease – leading cause of death in the U.S., preventable with exercise
- Healthspan – the number of years we’re healthy
- Disability, disease, and dysfunction – create a long, slow (miserable) slope to aging
- “Squaring the curve” – making a long, straight line to aging (minus the misery)
- 10K steps/day – arbitrary measurement
- We have more leisure hours than we think when we can choose what to do
- High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) – helps compress exercise time
- Sarcopenia – not enough muscle mass
- Brain health – most improved by physical exercise (vs. brain games)
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Supreme Court Justice who uses rigorous exercise to help fight cancer and stay fit
- Falls – the leading cause of injury and injury-related deaths
- BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) – AKA “Miracle-Gro for the brain”; released when we exercise and pumped to the hippocampus
- Resistance training & endurance training – best done in tandem
QUOTES FROM FOREMAN
- “Exercise is the closest thing we have to a magic bullet. No pill is ever going to match it.”
- “The ability to exercise and the need to do it are built into our genes.”
- “Our sedentary Westernized lifestyle of too much food and too little exercise is killing us and making us die sooner than we need to.”
- “There’s no nice way to put this. The United States is a fat, fat, fat country with 70.7 percent of Americans now officially obese or overweight.”
- “[Doctors] consider someone with diabetes the equivalent of someone who’s already had a heart attack.”
- “The dangers of exercise are vanishingly small."
- “We lose a quarter of our fitness within 3-4 weeks of not training, so…start—and don’t stop!”
BUY Exercise is Medicine: How Physical Activity Boosts Health and Slows Aging
RECOMMENDATION
Watch this video of Jack Lalanne, who dubbed himself “The Godfather of Exercise.”
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SUMMARY
In The Red Rose Crew, former crew team member and rowing coach, Daniel Boyne, tackles the compelling true story of the female athletes who came together to form the first U.S. Women’s National Crew Team. It was 1975, just when Title IX began to crack open doors to American women in sports and at universities across the nations. This formidable group of tough women battled for international success at the World Championships while also battling for equality at home where sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination also stood firmly in their path to victory.
Fiercely determined to participate in one of the most grueling and competitive sports, this brave crew not only withstood all the rigors of hard training but also fought the uphill battle to take their rightful place as premier athletes. Tapping into each individual’s inner strength, the ingenuous coach Harry Parker (from Harvard’s men crew) also ignited an unlikely but powerful sense of team unity among the women, propelling them to participate in their first Olympic Games in 1976. With raw honesty combined with authentic dramatic tension, Boyne tells "A True Story of Women, Winning, and the Water.”
KEY POINTS & CHARACTERS
- Unbeknownst to many, American rowing has its original roots among the working class.
- When crews row well, it’s difficult for onlookers to tell just how hard the oarsmen are rowing.
- The Head of the Charles Regatta – happens every October and the largest race in the world
- Gail Pierson – brilliant MIT professor and champion sharpshooter; assumes the role of elder statesman and organizer for the women’s team; a pioneer for rowing who suffers the slings and arrows of criticism
- Carie Graves – stands 6’1” by her sophomore year in high school; the team’s Amazon bohemian; channels her darkest places to compete at her top level, becoming the strong powerhouse of the team
- Anne Warner – Yale student stronger than most male rowers at Harvard; fierce feminist who takes dramatic measures to get equal amenities and recognition for the team
- Lynn Sillman – 16-year-old coxswain whose quiet but strong leadership skills steer the team literally and figuratively
- CLAC – women’s row club began in late 1800s that trained at Mission Bay in San Diego
- Harry Parker – without aspiring to the role, takes coach position of the first women’s truly competitive crew
QUOTES FROM BOYNE
- “In order to understand competitive rowing, you first had to understand pain. Not the common ordinary sort that visits most people on an occasional basis…the real pain of rowing, the one required for a racing effort, was far more internal and intense.”
- “A crew coach is utterly useless during a crew race, unable to communicate with his crew. Even if it were possible to talk to them as they raced, it was not permitted.”
- “Harvard University…had one of the finest facilities in the entire United States, if not the world.
- “Most of these women had already paid their dues. Most had not only experienced the normal rigors of rowing but had also borne the additional hardships of being denied the basic privileges that came with it. They hadn’t needed to walk into boathouses and prove themselves. They’d had to bang on the doors just to be let in.”
- “In rowing, explaining the success of an underrated crew is almost as difficult as accounting for the poor performance of a highly rated one.”
BUY Red Rose Crew: A True Story Of Women, Winning, And The Water
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY the DVD "Miracle" (2004)
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/86-fly-girls-by-keith-obrien/
Check our podcast interview with Keith O'Brien about his book Fly Girls -- another nonfiction book heralding the accomplishments of strong women.
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SUMMARY
Dr. BJ Fogg, founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, unveils his breakout book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. A bright yellow sheath striping the book cover boldly claims, “This Book Will Change Your Life!” Inside the book, Fogg explodes myths promoting traditional approaches to change, explaining why old ideas such as exercising willpower, strengthening resolve, and getting motivated just don’t work. In their place, we learn the Fogg Behavior Model that cracks the code to human behavior by revealing how we actually form new habits. In brief, we can change by simply starting small. Indeed, by starting tiny! Beloved by more than 40,000 students, Fogg himself embodies his own teachings, finding success at every turn by creating Tiny Habits. His advice: "You don't need to procrastinate changing your habits. It's so simple and easy and straightforward!"
KEY POINTS
- Only three things can change behavior: having an epiphany; redesigning an environment; and making tiny, incremental changes that wire in habits.
- Tiny Habits don’t require tapping into willpower or sustaining high levels of motivation.
- Willpower is effective in helping us get things done, but it’s not good for creating habits over time.
- Focus on “wants” rather than on “shoulds.”
- Big aspirations or audacious goals are great, but the way to get to them is through Tiny (consistent) Habits.
- Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, creators of Instagram, found wild success because their original design was very simple.
- “After” is the best place to place a prompt, relying on a routine already in place. Action prompts (AKA: anchors or routines) work best for creating Tiny Habits.
- “Pearl Habits” originate with something that annoys us.
- To be most effective, Tiny Habits should be immediately followed by a celebration.
SOME MYTHS FOGG EXPLODES
- It takes 21 days to create a habit.
- I need to measure my progress in order to create a habit or break one.
- By setting a resolution I can change my habits.
- If I find what’s behind my habit -- the craving -- then I can break it.
- Changing behavior is painful or unpleasant.
- I must have an accountability partner in order to stick to my new habit.
- You should change only one habit at a time.
- The only way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something else.
- You need to track your behavior daily to form or break a habit.
- As you get older, you lose the ability to change your habits.
- If you repeat a behavior enough, it becomes a habit.
QUOTES BY FOGG
- “Information alone does not reliably change behavior (AKA 'the Information Fallacy').”
- “Help people do what they already want to do.”
- “Behavior change is a skill…but as you practice it, it becomes second nature—just like driving.”
- “Forget about everything you thought you knew about habits and behavior change, and start over! There’s a new and better way of thinking about this.”
BUY Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
- RECOMMENDATION
BUY the movie What About Bob?
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SUMMARY
After learning important communication skills, author Michael Sorensen decided to “pay it forward” by writing I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships. Especially powerful is the skill of validation, which Sorensen packages in a 4-Step Validation Process.
KEY POINTS
- Validation – showing we understand another’s emotions; the act of helping someone feel heard
- Validating ourselves – practicing self-compassion; vital for getting past our own self-criticism and for allowing space to feel our emotions without judgment
- Micro validation – a short comment or response showing engagement and understanding that affirms the validity of a person’s emotions or opinions
- Re-validation – reiterating your initial understanding of others, including expressing appreciation for any vulnerability they may have exposed
- “The iPhone Effect” – the mere presence of a smartphone can lessen the quality of a conversation—even if it’s just sitting on the table (2014 study)
- Listening mistakes: leading responses with “I”; inserting “but” between understanding and your feedback; using absolutes such as “always” and “never.”
QUOTES FROM SORENSEN
- “There’s a difference between being listened to and being heard, and…we as humans crave both.”
- “Communication experts suggest that as much as 70 percent of our communication is nonverbal—meaning it’s delivered via body language, tone of voice, etc.”
- “While rephrasing what you’ve heard is a valuable tool, validation shows an understanding of the other person’s emotions and the ‘why’ behind them.”
- “Giving unsolicited advice or assurance—especially before you validate the other person’s emotions—trivializes their experience.”
- “Claiming to know ‘exactly’ how someone feels nearly always puts the other person on defense.”
- “Learning to identify your own emotions will increase your ability to feel empathy for others.”
- “Matching another person’s energy is a critical part of effective validation.”
- “When someone shares a personal experience or emotion with you, they make themselves emotionally vulnerable…in an effort to find support.”
BUY I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships
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BUY How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk - a book for parents and non-parents alike!
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SUMMARY
Issuing a warning against “global cooling,” world-renowned Italian psychotherapist Piero Ferrucci offers a guide for individual and societal well-being in his book, The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life.
In his tenth-anniversary edition, Ferruci delivers in great depth 19 distinct facets of kindness. With his own gentle and genteel demeanor, he offers up solutions to help turn us away from cynicism, violence, and narcissism. “Writing with a rare combination of sensitivity and intellectual depth, Dr. Ferrucci shows that, ultimately, kindness is not a luxury in our world but rather a necessity for us all.”
KEY POINTS
- At a United Nations conference, experts discussed forgiveness as a medical issue since withholding forgiveness correlates directly with serious health threats such as hypertension.
- In this age of digitization, we diminish conversations and detract from opportunities to connect with others through verbal and nonverbal cues even by merely leaving a cellphone on the table during a meal.
- Reading novels helps us develop both emotional and cognitive empathy.
- Humor can help us take ourselves less seriously and develop humility.
- A sense of awe, especially when we feel it in nature or experience it with beauty, helps put us in perspective.
- Time opulence – a feeling of having all the time in the world – increases as we serve others.
- Represented by water, adaptability (also seen as flexibility and availability) is the paramount virtue in Taoism.
QUOTES FROM FERRUCCI
- “Kindness is the simplest way of coping with so many hurdles, of feeling better, of enjoying life. It is problem solver #1.”
- “Kindness is its own reward.”
- “Forgiveness is a positive quality. It contains joy and faith in others, generosity of spirit. Illogical and surprising, sometimes sublime, it frees us from the ancient chains of resentment. Whoever forgives, feels uplifted.”
- “The quality of attention you give to a person is the quality of the relationship.”
- “Empathy is the best means of improving any relationship.”
- “We’re completely equipped, programmed, and built to be empathic. It’s what we are!”
- “When people experience a sense of awe, their ego begins to shrink.”
- “In these times of accelerated pace…patience is an unpopular and seemingly tedious quality.”
- “One component of kindness is a happy disposition. And akin to happiness is humor—a capacity to see the contradictions and absurdities of our life and not take ourselves too seriously. Anyone who has this quality is safe from emotional inflation and the dramas of everyday life.”
- “Getting married and having children made me more human…and put me much more in touch with the reality of feelings.”
BUY The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life--Tenth Anniversary Edition
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Be Kind: You Can Make the World a Happier Place! 125 Kind Things to Say & Do
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SUMMARY
Embedded deep in the heart of Northern Arizona with the Chinle High School boys’ basketball team, sportswriter Michael Powell gives us a behind-the-scenes look in Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation. Given access to the team through coach Raul Mendoza, Powell is able to pull back from the game and see the larger Native American culture for both its flaws and strengths. As a mechanism for describing the tugs and pulls of the Navajo people, Powell uses “rez ball,” a unique brand of basketball characterized by intense running and the passion of the entire community. Hovering above all the fierce competitions, he sees the boys' dreams and fears of leaving the reservation.
KEY POINTS AND CHARACTERS
- Raul Mendoza – as much counselor and mentor as he is the Chinle High School team coach and strategist
- Parsifal – high school English teacher determined to stay on the reservation; gifted at “setting young brains on fire”; never worries about having a real purpose in life
- Cooper Burbank – the team star whose parents decide to prioritize family unity over money
- Perhaps more than economics, fear and worry hold kids back from leaving home.
- Navajo kids live with the tug and pull of twin worries: “Will you leave? And, if you leave, will you be able to make it?”
- Being “functionally homeless” make it tough for kids to attend school and get a good education.
- For every game, the fans--from grandparents to cousins--drive long miles to fill every seat in a stadium.
- Families fight against splintering from alcoholism, drugs, suicide, and fathers who work far away from home.
- Still alive in the Navajo Nation is long-standing pride and a profound sense of belonging.
QUOTES
- “There was no grander sport on the reservations of the Southwest than rez ball, a quicksilver, sneaker-squeaking game of run, pass, pass, cut, and shoot, of spinning layups and quick shots and running, endless running, with an athleticism that found its origin in that Native American time before horses.”
- “Suicide is a door ajar on native reservations, where its incidence is well above the national average. It is the second-leading cause of death for Navajo teenagers.”
BUY Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Goods Galore Navajo Mother and Child 8.5x11 Photo Print Ansel Adams Native American History
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Bestselling author and clinical psychologist Dr. Susan Albers hits on a topic familiar to all of us in her latest book, Hanger Management: Master Your Hunger and Improve Your Mood, Mind, and Relationships. An expert in mindful eating, she sheds light on the causes of “hanger” (a toxic combination of hunger and anger) and shares 45 tips for “turning hungry into happy.”
Instead of being another diet book, Hanger Management offers “a set of strategies and a way of being.” Albers confronts many of the common moments when “hangry” can turn a great day into a disastrous day. Combining her personal parenting experience with extensive research, she shares ideas for traveling with kids, having healthy snacks on hand, avoiding marital stress, learning how to deal with long lines at restaurants, getting back on track after holiday feasting, and more strategies for approaching everyday interactions. In the end, she teaches us how to tackle negative relationships with food so our relationships with people can thrive.
KEY POINTS
- Cinnamon regulates our blood sugar.
- Magnesium is involved in more than 300 chemical reactions in our body, in particular, our insulin regulation, metabolism, and mood regulation.
- A couple of the “Ten S’s of Mindful Eating” include: always SIT while you eat, and SLOW down while you eat by eating with your non-dominant hand.
- When traveling, be sure to stay hydrated with water or water-rich foods.
- People who have fruit bowls on their counter end up weighing 14 pounds less than the average person.
- Putting smiley faces on healthy foods can draw people to eating better.
- Some power food suggestions: avocados, almonds, apples, pumpkin seeds, and puffed chickpeas.
QUOTES FROM ALBERS
- “When we are running on empty…we are distracted constantly by thoughts of food. Or when we are just plain too busy to make eating well a priority, hunger-induced moodiness can take over. Often we chalk our bad moods up to stress. In fact, it’s the impact of being undernourished—or filled with foods that completely wreck our mood.”
- “Always eat off of your feet.”
- “Hanger can lead us to overeat, which leaves us feeling what I call ‘regretfull’…the physical and emotional discomfort that comes from overeating in a mindless way.”
- “Ditch dieting and eat mindfully.”
- “Mindfully choosing foods that give the body and mind the fuel they truly need to function feels good. It gives us greater clarity and better emotional stability.”
BUY Hanger Management: Master Your Hunger and Improve Your Mood, Mind, and Relationships
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Saver Food Storage Containers to keep your healthy snacks fresh!
Find Dr. Susan Albers on social media and online: IG:@drsusanalbers, Twitter: @DrSusanAlbers Facebook: @eatdrinkmindful
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SUMMARY
Melody Warnick's debut book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, chronicles her experience navigating a cross-country move while also providing the rest of us a practical guide for loving the place we live—wherever that may be. With humor, candor, and loads of data, Warnick takes us through her personal exploration of the fairly new social concept of place attachment. Wanting to feel more connected to her new hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia, she fashions a social experiment, which she dubs “Love Where You Live." After creating a list of ten behaviors of place-attached people, she dives headlong into doing the very same things to see if she can make herself fall in love with where she lives. In the end she discovers how much relationships matter to be able to say, "This is where you belong!"
KEY POINTS
- Americans have a certain degree of restlessness, with 12 percent moving every year. They’re plagued with a fear of missing out.
- Apps and surveys about best places to live can confirm people’s choice to land in the “right place.”
- People tend to be either “Movers” or “Stayers.” When things don’t work out well, Movers are inclined to believe changing location will solve their problems.
- “Place attachment” – the emotional bond people develop with the place they live
- “Placemaking” – things people do in a community to make it better (DIY citizenship); usually done from the ground up (grass roots); on the rise
- “Place satisfaction” – never wanting to leave a place; feeling a place really works for you
- Examples of placemaking include sharing a Little Free Library, preserving green spaces, painting murals, repurposing abandoned buildings, etc.
- Walking is one of the most fundamental activities that makes us feel at home in a community. It forces you to slow down, notice things, and talk to people.
- “Windshield perspective” – found in people who are always driven places rather than walking the streets of their neighborhood
- Showing up for town events creates success and makes a town thrive.
QUOTES FROM WARNICK
- “Places really are a little like people. They have different personalities. So, finding the right people feels a little like finding your tribe, finding the right friend group.”
- “Every time you move is kind of traumatic. You feel really lost and lonely and alone for a while.”
- “Two-thirds of college-educated Millennials say they’d pick the city where they want to live first, then find the job to get them there.”
- “No matter where you live, you have a hand in creating the kind of place you want to live in.”
- “Every town has something it’s good at. But we may have to shift our mindset about social offerings.”
- “Even in the Great Recession, the happier residents were with their town, the more the town prospered economically.”
- “’Falling in love with your town’ is a set of strategies that you can use wherever you live…even if you lived in a place a million years already.”
BUY This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Warnick writes for livability.com, which often features “Top 10 Cities…” articles.
- The “CityData”website is now usa.com, which features forums by state and town.
- “The Soul of a Community” – a three-year study conducted by Gallup, Inc. that answers what makes people like where they live and that the town is providing for their needs. Determines the factors that attach residents to their communities and the role of community attachment in an area's economic growth and well-being.
- Insert your home address on the Walk Score website to get a sense of your town’s walkability.
- Civic Dinners is a website designed to help strangers get together for a meal and meaningful conversation to spark real and lasting change.
- ArtPlace America offers large grants for placemaking as do The National Association of Realtors, AARP, and many other organizations.
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SUMMARY
Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winner for her feature story about immigration, turned her articles into her bestselling memoir, Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. By physically retracing the very steps and train rides of teenage immigrant Enrique, Nazario faced the same obstacles and dangers. Her bravery and authenticity make her book a standout among immigrant literature.
Historically, immigrants on the southern border have been mostly men. However, Nazario joined the newest wave of American immigrants—single moms who have left their children to find work. Consequently, their abandoned children eventually follow, desperate to find their absent mothers. So, from the beginning, Nazario insisted on publishing Enrique’s Journey in both Spanish and English in order to inform the women migrating. They need to know, she insists, both the advantages and potential costs and dangers of such a choice. Simply put, “For most migrants, the biggest downside to coming to the United States is the damage caused by years of separation for parents and children.”
Evenhanded and honest about a hotly debated topic, Nazario manages to transcend the details of Enrique’s story and to invite us to consider vetted solutions that can stem the exodus at its source. She proposes we provide economic opportunities to keep people stay in their countries; help stop the flow of drugs; reduce gang violence; bolster good governance; promote foreign aid to nonprofits; be more compassionate towards those trying to escape harm; make it easier to get to our immigration courts, including providing attorneys for children.
Although Nazario still carries post-traumatic stress from riding the rails, the price she paid to capture this raw memoir continues to pay dividends. Today, thousands of readers are not only armed with powerful immigration statistics but also emotionally charged to improve immigration policies.
KEY POINTS
- Train trips on El Tren de la Muerte (“The Train of Death”) through Central America and Mexico characterize a modern-day immigrant odyssey in which children face perils such as gangsters, drug lords, corrupt cops—a whole cast of characters out to rob, beat, rape, and deport them.
- Mexico reports 40K children are traveling alone from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala—the most violent countries in the world. Most don’t make it but, instead, end up back in Central America.
- Biggest danger – gangs who see a business opportunity in controlling the tops of trains and shaking down migrants who ride on top
- Emotional distress is rampant among children who reunite with mothers. Having once idealized their mothers, they feel angry, resentful, and distrusting. They say they would have preferred having their mothers stay to having received money from them.
- One in four Fortune 500 companies has been founded by immigrants who are full of gumption, willing to take risks, and able to see things from a different perspective.
- As a result of immigration, two groups lose out: 1) Americans without a high-school education whose wages meet a downward pressure and 2) migrants themselves (who, ironically, often lose their children’s love)
QUOTES FROM NAZARIO
- “[Today’s immigrants] are not coming here for a better life; they are fleeing for their very lives.”
- “Whatever [immigration] policies we have…should involve keeping families together whether it’s finding a way to keep more of them together in their home countries or having folks migrate here as a unit.”
- “Walls do not work. Ask China. They built the mother of all walls, and it did not keep out the Mongols.”
- “Republicans need an immigration policy that has more heart, and Democrats need a policy that has an element of the rule of law—we can’t take in everyone from around the world, but don’t deport people who’ve been here 30 years.”
BUY Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch Sonia Nazario’s TEDx Talk, “Solving Illegal Immigration [For Real].”
- Read Nazario’s New York Times articles about immigration.
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SUMMARY
Author Flynn Coleman, attorney-at-law long interested in the intersection of human rights and technology, brings us A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining Who We Are. She examines the immense impact intelligent technology has and will have on humanity. These machines, while challenging our personal beliefs and our socio-economic world order, also have the potential to transform our health and well-being, alleviate poverty and suffering, and reveal the mysteries of intelligence and consciousness. In essence, Coleman explores what it means to be human. Because technology is developing so quickly, we have much less time than we once did to assimilate the technologies bringing us artificial intelligence (A.I.). So, Coleman argues that it is critical we instill values, ethics, and morals into our robots and other forms of A.I. to create a human algorithm.
KEY POINTS & DEFINITIONS
- The A.I. Effect – the point reached when we’ve integrated A.I. into our lives so much that we no longer want to call it A.I. (e.g., Google)
- Machine Learning – often used synonymously with A.I.; study of algorithms and models used to perform certain tasks on a computer
- Exceptionalism and other-ism – detrimental thinking that some lives matter less than others
- Encoding empathy, equality, fairness – an urgent prerequisite to A.I. design. For example, coders need to think of how their tools are affecting humans.
- Future data privacy – transparency and accountability will be key in developing new paradigms
- Nonhumans deserving rights and needing responsibility – rivers, ecosystems, self-driving cars, corporations, etc.
QUOTES FROM COLEMAN
- “We need to be more inclusive in bringing more diverse voices and ideas and working across silos and having 'courageous conversations’ about not just how to build the technology but building it for good.”
- “Technology is advancing inexorably, and our best course of action is to embrace it and to insist that it be designed with integrity. I don’t know if we will ever move past fear, but we can understand that we all have a stake and can build a brighter future.”
- “Optimism and hope are a rebellion in these times…No one of us has all the answers, but, together, there’s no star we can’t dream of exploring.”
- “Technology is a mirror of its designers.”
- “We should bestow dignity, rights, and esteem on nonhuman beings. Becoming more inclusive involves widening our lens to say, ‘We’re not the only ones that matter.’ But that doesn’t make us matter any less.”
- “When we don’t pay to use a platform online, we are the product! Our data is being collected and used and bought and sold. As the saying goes, ‘Data is the new oil.’”
- “It’s imperative we develop tools with the future of our children and planet in mind.”
BUY A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are
RECOMMENDATION
BUY 2001: A Space Odyssey [Blu-ray] by Warner Home Video
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From a cryptic press release from Carl Hayden Community High School, former contributing editor for Wired magazine Josh Davis discovers a true David-and-Goliath story. Originally intended to be a historical document of 2014 immigration reform legislation, Davis’s magazine article goes viral and becomes the beginning of his bestseller Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. This underdog story of a ragtag team of poor illegal Mexican immigrants from West Phoenix, Arizona inspires even those most skeptical of the American Dream.
With little money, the boys scavenge spare parts and beg for donated materials from strangers to build an underwater robot (dubbed “Stinky”), which they enter in the National Underwater Robotics Championship. Even though the annual contest sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Navy attracts Ivy-League teams such as MIT, these underserved young men emerge as the unlikely winners. In Spare Parts, Davis captures their fierce determination, strict discipline, bright intellect, good humor, and unparalleled ingenuity.
KEY CHARACTERS
Christian
- The brains of the robotics team; enamored with how things work
- Lives next to a junkyard in an 8x8 plywood box slapped onto the side of a trailer
- Makes use of the random parts landing in his yard during the monsoon season
- Fan of the Bob Vila home-repair T.V. show
Oscar
- Team leader and highly patriotic ROTC member
- One of three Arizona State University 2009 graduates to receive “special honors,” presented by President Barack Obama
- Deports himself to Mexico, leaving behind his American wife and daughter
- After receiving permanent residency, serves in the United States Army
Lorenzo
- Turns his back on a gang to join the robotics team, feeling a sense of true belonging for the first time in his life
- Learns the importance of creativity by watching his cousins repair cars in the driveway—their impromptu auto shop
- Nicknames the team’s underwater ROV “Stinky”
Luis
- Big guy initially conscripted onto the team to do the heavy lifting, literally
- Quiet emotional ballast; peacemaker
- His love of cooking and cooking shows almost pulls him away from participating on the team
Fredi Lajvardi and Allan Cameron
- Create the Carl Hayden robotics club
- Aim to inspire a new generation of scientists, explorers, and astronauts
QUOTES FROM DAVIS
- “In the fall of 2013, Hollywood began filming a movie about the Carl Hayden robotics team….The attention paid to the team as a result of their victory coincided with a backlash against immigrants in Arizona. The state’s voters passed propositions 200 and 300, making it more difficult for immigrants living in the country illegally to attend college.”
- “It seems to me…that [immigration] can only be a good thing when people want to come to this country and contribute and build and drive economic activity. I would much rather they do that here and contribute to American society…or not have the opportunity where they come from.”
- “It doesn’t seem like we’re any closer now than we were four years ago to passing immigration reform.”
- “Supporting scholarships is a fantastic way for encouraging…hope for students who wouldn’t otherwise go to school.”
BUY Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Spare Parts (DVD)
Get a sneak-peek into Spare Parts (the movie).
Listen to Josh Davis describing the real characters' reactions to the filming of the movie.
Listen to Josh Davis describe the real characters' reactions to the filming of the movie.
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SUMMARY
Coming from a long line of junk dealers, Adam Minter explores the “afterlife” of billions of tons of used goods in his second book, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. Minter evaluates both the monetary and emotional value of things that we use then give away. Sobering and hopeful at the same time, his findings unveil why we feel both repelled and pulled toward used goods. His travels throughout the world lead him to vintage shops in Tokyo, used -goods enterprises in Ghana, and thrift stores in the American Southwest—all of which play a part in the multibillion-dollar reuse industry.
KEY POINTS/STATISTICS
- Hoarders contribute to the unhealthy side of consumption, contributing to the surplus of environmental waste.
- “Cleanouts” can be very painful because the process breaks bonds with things, stripping a person of who he is and rendering him almost anonymous.
- Mini-storage units are proliferating rapidly to meet the ever-growing demand from Americans for space to store their stuff, with the rental cost per square foot often exceeding that of their homes.
- According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2015, Americans tossed out 24.1 billion pounds of furniture and furnishings—a flood yet to crest.
- “Shoddy” – word assigned to low-quality wool textile recycled from earlier wool
- Small secondhand shops are often the dominant form of commerce across rural towns in Southeast Asia.
- Africa is the largest market for secondhand clothes globally.
- Older consumers are less willing to buy fast-fashion clothing, but the online fashion reseller thredUP is finding millennials are the demographic most likely to discard a garment after one to five wearings.
- Thirty percent of clothing tossed out in the U.S. is turned into rags, which are especially useful to big industries such as oil and gas; hotels, bars, and restaurants; auto manufacturers; painters; and healthcare.
- Goodwill began in Boston as a retraining program for wayward youth.
- Asians have a high reverence for Japan’s reputation for excellent manufacturing and design.
- Pyrex has become highly collectible among younger Americans with some pieces selling for thousands of dollars.
QUOTES FROM MINTER
- “The world is filled with more things than at any time in history.”
- “Americans are prone to keep things longer, and sometimes value them more than they value themselves.”
- “The things that we buy tend to create [an] identity for us….We build up who we are by the things that we acquire.”
- “People value the things that they saw as children. We’re all kind of nostalgic in our hearts.”
BUY Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade
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In his latest book, Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last, David Edwards unveils elements essential to the creative process employed by the world’s best innovators. As a creator, writer, and educator, Edwards attributes his deep and persistent love affair with creativity to his father who took time to play with him, take his five-year-old world seriously, and believe in his dreams. Consequently, as an adult, Edwards has created breathable insulin, edible food packaging, and digital scents. Edwards is the founder of Le Laboratoire in Paris, France and later in Cambridge, Massachusetts where his culture lab includes the experimental restaurant Café ArtScience.
KEY POINTS
- Creating is highly expressive! It’s a way we learn, discover, and communicate.
- We need to create beautiful solutions to our challenges—solutions that are so compelling that we adopt them.
- Combining art and science is a process.
- Culture labs – a place for experimenting using the creator’s cycle (ideation, experimentation, and exhibition or expression)
- Within the culinary experience, Edwards finds rich opportunities to push the boundaries of serving and eating food, making it not just interesting but truly delicious.
- Healthcare needs to move out of the clinic and into everyday lives for it to be accessible.
- Aesthetics of creation have become essential to things that matter now and to those that will last over the long haul.
- Being mindfully aware of our own environment helps us see things afresh and can lead to surprising expression.
- Major creators tend to be quite generous, such as Danny Hillis, inveterate inventor of the universal “pinch-to-zoom” technology on smartphones.
- Richard Garriott, early game developer who wanted to embed morality into games
- The Grassroots Creators Movement (GCM) is giving all of us the ability to express ourselves.
- Makers and "Maker Faires" have proliferated.
QUOTES FROM EDWARDS
- “Most things we create will not matter.”
- “Changing the human condition today will be harder than it was in ages past.”
- “Creation stirs within us the profound biological sense that we are not alone, that we are wired for relationships, and that we rely on each other for our mutual well-being.”
- “Making things that matter—not just to you or me—is fundamental to the survival of the human condition. It’s something our biology has programmed us to do.”
- “Creating what matters and has not existed before starts with what matters to us. We don’t create…by coercion. We create because we feel like it.”
- “Creators love frontiers because a frontier has no boundary.”
- “There’s nothing as fun as creating tomorrow.”
- “As creators, we all need a Florence…What we most lack is the oxygen, or culture, which can give people everywhere the confidence that what matters to them can matter to many others, and the guidance that point their aspirations in fruitful directions.”
- “Over the last decade, people have started to make things without being told they should and on a scale never seen before.”
BUY Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Watch David Edwards’s TEDTalk, “Eating Better with Digital Scent.”
- Learn more about the World Frontier Forum here.
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SUMMARY
Historian and memoirist Duncan Barrett, after spending three months on the Channel Islands interviewing more than 100 people directly affected by the WWII Nazi Occupation, layers the islanders’ true stories in his latest book, “Hitler’s British Isles: The Real Story of the Occupied Channel Islands.” Beginning in the summer of 1940, coming perilously close to invasion, the people of Guernsey, Jersey, and Sark endure, instead, a five-year “model occupation” by the Germans. Watching the swastika flag draped on their buildings and being forced to give up their homes, vehicles, and food to the enemy elicits a wide array of reactions (and shenanigans) from the resourceful Brits. Their particular challenges have, until now, been largely forgotten and certainly underappreciated, even with the release of the popular book and movie “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” However, Barrett’s thorough research woven into a compelling memoir captures the complexity of this unique history, engendering new respect for the resilient people of the Channel Islands.
KEY POINTS
- The sudden evacuation of 2K British troops, most of the children, and many adults leaves the economy in dire straits.
- The Germans and British begin as “frenemies,” although aggressions—small and large—become stark reminders the countries are at war.
- The Germans requisition houses, cars, farms, animals, and more for their own use, but some plucky islanders find creative ways to undermine the takeover.
- Monotony (the “mental blackout”)—for many, the hardest part of the Occupation—pervades every day, resulting in poor diet, loneliness, crippling boredom, and depression.
- Fraternizing between the British women and German soldiers leads to some relationships, but most young women demur in order to honor the wishes of their WWI veteran fathers.
- The Germans, many of who had left their own children at home, tended to treat British children kindly.
- Today, some British still worry they’ll be judged unfairly for their friendly intermingling with German soldiers.
QUOTES FROM BARRETT
- “For five years during the Second World War, almost seventy thousand British subjects…feel the full force of the German yoke…show[ing] us what so nearly came to pass for the rest of Britain.”
- “The islands were in an unfortunate position, stuck between two warring countries, neither of which accepted responsibility for their welfare.”
- “In many ways, the occupation of the Channel Islands was seen as a dry run for the eventual administration of a conquered Britain, and those who were in charge were keen to make a positive impression, to prove that they would be fair and measured rulers rather than tyrants.”
- “All over the Channel Islands, those who had witnessed the German attack at close range would bear the scars—both physical and mental—for years to come.”
RECOMMENDATION
READ The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
WATCH The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society [DVD] [2018]
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SUMMARY
An underdog herself, Krista Beth Driver discovers the surprising history of how Vietnamese women helped American nail salons proliferate. In her first book, Mani/Pedi: A True-Life Rags-to-Riches Story from Boat to Beauty Salon, Driver tells the story through the experiences of Charlie Vo, a Vietnamese salon owner in Los Angeles. Beginning with Charlie escaping from Communism, the tale extends to present-day with Charlie as a mani/pedi mogul and multi-millionaire. “Charlie would end up employing hundreds of technicians in a career that allowed those who wanted to work hard the opportunity to make as much money as they wanted to earn. She also gave many the skills and the opportunity to open their own shops, creating dozens of entrepreneurs throughout Southern California.”
KEY POINTS
- Tippi Hedren, an actress and humanitarian at Camp Hope (a transitional refugee camp in Sacramento), is the first to create mani/pedi employment opportunities for Vietnamese women.
- The mani/pedi tradition dates back 3000 years ago to Egypt and Asian countries where nail color indicated societal status (e.g., red = upper class).
- Men are first to paint their nails, but the practice eventually spreads out among women.
- Vietnamese salons democratize the exorbitant cost of getting a mani/pedi.
- Charlie Vo, a gritty and resourceful Vietnamese refugee, continually looks for opportunities to improve her family circumstances as well as her own skills.
- Olivett Robinson, an exuberant African-American woman whose racial background should have put her at odds with Charlie, moves instead from customer to business partner.
- The number-one driving force among women becoming manicurists is to provide a better life for their children.
- Charlie and Olivett open several mani/pedi salons while overcoming racial tensions, standing up to bullying inspectors, and knocking down language barriers.
QUOTES FROM DRIVER
- “She was making this trip…so that her children could dream. She wanted them to imagine all the dreams she had for them. She wanted them to believe in this new life.”
- “The passengers came from every economic level—rich and poor—it didn’t matter…They all had the desire to escape Communism and build a new life in America. Escape was the great equalizer.”
- “Olivett Robinson…has an infectious soul and being around her let me believe anything was possible.”
- “ManTrap…not only provided good [mani/pedi] service, but they got you in and out. It was a salon that valued a woman’s time.”
BUY Mani/Pedi: A True-Life Rags to Riches Story
RECOMMENDATION
Watch Charlie and Olivett discussing the documentary about their partnership that led to ManTrap, a nail salon chain based in Los Angeles.
SUMMARY
Josephine Ensign shares her own story in Catching Homelessness: A Nurse’s Story of Falling Through the Safety Net. Even though she’s a nurse trained to keep an emotional distance from her patients “to prevent being so overwhelmed that it cripples the provision of proper health care,” Ensign works tirelessly to treat and keep track of the homeless in the South during the beginning of the homelessness epidemic in the 1980s. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to even her close friends, the well-educated Christian wife and nurse Ensign becomes homeless herself, living on the edge under the noses of the privileged. Now, decades later, Ensign writes this medical memoir “to provide a framework for the empathy necessary to create positive change for people pushed to the margins.”
KEY POINTS
- We need to learn to ask ourselves why people are homeless; most don’t choose that lifestyle.
- Many homeless keep pets (mostly dogs, sometimes cats; some even keep rats snakes, or even crickets) to provide protection and company.
- Foot problems almost universal among the homeless since they often have to walk places. Coupled with unsanitary conditions and inclement weather, socks and shoes wear out quickly and feet contract infections and get frostbite.
- Identifying and dealing with childhood trauma can help prevent mental illness and subsequent homelessness that can often follow.
- “Voluntary poverty” – choosing to live in spartan conditions similar to those of the homeless in an effort to better understand that demographic.
QUOTES FROM ENSIGN
- “Homelessness is exhausting and soul-sucking…[It] is a type of deep illness, a term coined by sociologist Arthur Frank for an illness that leaves you feeling dislocated, an illness that casts a shadow over your life. That shadow never completely goes away.”
- “The business of nursing brings us into the messy swampland of human suffering, illness, and death.”
- “People do not want to have to depend on handouts, on the kindness of strangers.”
- “Sometimes I felt that I was literally and figuratively putting Band-Aids on the problem of homelessness, patching people up, and sending them back out into a life that was breaking them again. I was frustrated that I couldn’t do more to address the bigger issues that were causing homelessness.”
- “Charity care further fragments and separates us as members of society—sorts us into haves and have-nots, into worthy and unworthy citizens. Charity care perpetuates poverty.”
- “Our country’s healthcare safety net is built on the principles of poverty medicine.”
- How to help the homeless: “Respond with a smile and a kind word—even if it is ‘No—sorry’ when you are asked for a handout…There’s nothing worse than for a person to be ignored.”
BUY Catching Homelessness: A Nurse's Story of Falling Through the Safety Net
RECOMMENDATION
Check out the first seminal book about homelessness written by Nels Anderson who, as a boy, was taken in by a family.
BUY The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man
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SUMMARY
In his first book, Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife shares his unique role as The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London. Upholding traditions that have stood for centuries includes keeping and protecting six (or more) ravens on the grounds of the Tower. Each year, millions of tourists come to see these famous corvids. Personally responsible for the corvids, Skaife shares for the very first time an intimate look behind the scenes, describing the ravens’ unique personalities, antics, and escapades at the Tower of London.
KEY MOMENTS
- The ravens “pick” Skaife instead of the other way around. The former Ravenmaster identifies Skaife as one the ravens like, and his attraction and mettle are tested by being invited to enter into the enclosure for the ravens.
- For the first time in history, in 2019 a raven breeding program begins, and four ravens are hatched at the Tower of London.
- Skaife blows up social media when he starts a Twitter account with one picture of the ravens on his Twitter account (@ravenmaster1). And so begins his connection with people all around the world who share his fascination with corvids.
- Skaife is appointed as the only sixth Ravenmaster in modern history.
- Merlin (AKA “Merlina”), a naughty raven, comes to the Tower where she gains the trust of Skaife and builds a special bond with him.
- In 2014 at the Tower of London, England commemorates the beginning of the first world war by putting 88,246 ceramic poppies into the moat, each representing a soldier who died in the war.
QUOTES FROM SKAIFE
- “As the Ravenmaster, I’ve been granted a privileged insight into the life and behavior of some of the world’s most extraordinary nonhuman creatures….They’re surprisingly like us: they are versatile, adaptable, omnivorous; they are capable of great cruelty and great kindness; and on the whole they manage to get along with one another.”
- “Legend says, should the ravens leave the Tower of London, it will crumble to dust, and a great harm will befall the kingdom.”
- “Ravens are some of the most intelligent birds on the planet.”
- “I’ve seen ravens express, joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure. I have seen them learn and remember and solve challenges involving principles of cause and effect, I know them to be capable of self-sacrifice, of caring, chivalry, and great courage.”
- “Ravens are a law unto themselves—and they’re not here for our entertainment.”
- “When people ask what it’s like being the Ravenmaster, I sometimes say that it’s like going to a supermarket with seven young children, all of whom run off up and down the aisles in different directions. You have to be keyed up and switched on the whole time. You have to develop a sixth sense.”
- “Searching for the birds when they go missing is a bit like a game of hide-and-seek. Except you’ve got eighteen acres of the Tower to search. And you’re looking for a creature that can fly. And blends into the shadows.”
BUY "The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London" by Christopher Skaife
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Find Christopher Skaife on social media:
- Twitter: @ravenmaster1
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Watch the Ravenmaster with six-week-old Poppy, the newest raven at the Tower of London.
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SUMMARY
A self-proclaimed “questionologist,” Warren Berger promotes the power of inquiry in his latest, “The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead.” Having studied some of the world’s best innovators, leaders, and creative thinkers, he presents essential questions for making the best choices and for connecting on a deep level. As Berger himself says, “When we are confronted with almost any demanding situation, in work or in life, simply taking the time and effort to ask questions can help guide us to better decisions and a more productive course of action. But the questions must be the right ones—the ones that cut to the heart of a complex challenge or that enable us to see an old problem in a new light.”
KEY POINTS
- Profile of a master questioner: a typically curious four-year-old girl who fearlessly asks hundreds of questions each day
- Fear = big obstacle to asking questions
- Google is limited to answering mostly close-ended, fact-based questions.
- Asking and answering questions can quickly build a feeling of intimacy, yet we often don’t ask questions of the people close to us.
- W.E. = “And what else?” (the classic follow-up question)
- When we ask ourselves questions we can’t answer, our minds begin to start working on them, setting things in motion, and putting us on the road to finding answers.
QUOTES FROM BERGER
- “Increasingly, we turn to technology as a means of generating more connections. But more is not necessarily deeper—and when it comes to life-enriching connections, deeper is better. In the effort to forge deeper, more meaningful human connections, one of the great, under-appreciated tools available is the low-tech question.”
- “Good interviewers learn that within each answer you receive may be the seeds of the next question you should ask—a follow-up questions that dig a little deeper or tease out a few more critical details.”
- “Listening is not a competitive sport, though we sometimes treat it that way.”
- “The simplest and most powerful thing that happens when we ask ourselves questions is that it forces us to think.”
BUY "The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead"
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Find loads more information about how to ask “A More Beautiful Question" on Warren Berger's website.
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Harriet Cabelly’s book, Living Well Despite Adversity: Inspiration for Finding Renewed Meaning and Joy in Your Life, began as a blog entitled, “Rebuild Life Now.” Seeking to represent a “diversity of adversity,” the author conducted monthly interviews with the likes of Cheryl Strayed, Temple Grandin, Meredith Viera, and other lesser-known people, all who have adversity in common. Now, collecting her 36 conversations in a book, Cabelly shares stories of heartbreak and grief, pain and persistence. These interviews illustrate how some have managed to transcend grand challenges by choosing to not only live through adversity but to thrive because of it.
KEY POINTS
- When shattered dreams become adversity, we need to rebuild new dreams around our new reality.
- Unloading = painful journey of going into “a dark pit” of heart-wrenching feelings, which you must go through in order to come through; a liberating experience that releases toxicity
- Integrating (vs. overcoming, putting behind) - incorporating a challenge by making it part of your new normal with new dreams and goals
- Asking “Why?” is a waste of energy; instead, ask “How…?”
- Asking for help to get the support you need takes strength and courage.
- Writing can be a coping tool for grief and a mechanism to make sense of hard times.
- Starting an organization to help others who go through similar challenges can be healing.
- Regardless of why people are hit by adversity, their grieving experience is very similar.
- By going deep into the pain and allowing yourself to feel hurt, small openings let you see new possibilities, helping you repurpose yourself.
- Having a newly discovered purpose allows you to go forward living a life with real meaning (Viktor Frankl)
- When we let down our guard and become vulnerable, we morph into genuine human beings with authentic emotions, which connect us on the deepest human level.
QUOTES FROM CABELLY
- "It’s no big deal to live well when all is going well in our lives, but my keen interest has been in those who have a lot of pain and hardship to deal with, yet still manage to—dare I say—thrive. I am in awe of such people."
- “What does it mean then to live well? It means living with a sense of meaning and purpose, with an ability to experience joy and satisfaction. It means to embrace the positive and deal with the negative; to live aligned with one’s values; to live with intention and be an active creator of our life, to put our best self forward so we can positively impact and be of service to others while we occupy a place on this earth.”
- “When adversity knocks us for a loop, living well means taking on the challenge and integrating it into our life. It’s not about succumbing to the problems and becoming a victim, or deciding on some level that our life is over because of them. It’s not about becoming bitter; it’s about becoming better.”
- “Each story is one of success since the people in them have all been able to not just live, but thrive. I offer them as inspiration and as a way for you to see and learn that you too can do it. We are not fixed human beings. We all have the capacity and potential to be more than we are, and to change—even in baby steps.”
RECOMMENDATION
Search Harriet Cabelly's book for many additional books written by the people she interviewed.
BUY Living Well Despite Adversity: Inspiration for Finding Renewed Meaning and Joy in Your Life
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SUMMARY
Denis Shackel’s book, Five Seconds at a Time: How Leaders Can Make the Impossible Possible, is a hybrid, combining compelling memoir with applied business practices. Borne out of a harrowing mountain-climbing accident on Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand, the book captures leadership principles Shackel has been teaching for decades. Left alone after his brother-in-law, a much stronger and experienced climber fell to his death, Shackel managed to stay alive by breaking the solitude and long hours into five-second intervals. Taking this same approach to business, executives and corporations now use this same measured approach to success by “eating an elephant one bite at a time.”
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM SHACKEL
“Today, effective leaders need the ability to anticipate and quickly adapt to change. Perhaps most important, in this new, flattened world, standout leaders are no longer found in the corner office alone. Leadership happens throughout the enterprise, from top to bottom; we are all leaders, no matter what our title.”
“Leaders must be exceptional team players. More than ever, they must be able to influence and persuade those over whom they have no power. They need to build, foster and influence a complex web of relationships across all levels—from employees, partners, and suppliers to customers, citizens, and even competitors.”
“The literature on vision sometimes confuses it with mission. Vision is the future desired state. Mission, on the other hand, is the means by which the vision is realized—for example, the reason a person, department, team or organization exists.”
“Next time you are faced with something difficult, step back and pause before you act. Take at least five seconds to reflect on the issue from a broader view. Use this time to look at the whole forest and not just the trees. This will help you gain a clearer perspective before you step forward to face an overwhelming challenge.”
“We need to strive for excellence, not perfection. Excellence tolerates mistakes, perfection doesn’t.”
"Celebrations should be frequent and involve doing something that gives you pure joy and restores your energy, perhaps going to your favourite class at the gym, picking up a new book, taking a rejuvenating nap, or socializing with friends. Your mind and body need the reward of rest and recharging to function optimally."
“Morale and productivity are much higher when people see the results of their efforts sooner and use the energy produced from those results to move on to the next project.
“Whereas mountain climbers must focus on the rocks, mountain bikers quickly learn that when on a narrow trail, if they look at the loose rocks, they will likely hit them, so they focus on the spaces between the rocks, and that’s where they ride…It is our imagination that creates the reality—our imagined crash facilitates the real one.”
“It is unrealistic to expect to accomplish the impossible alone, which makes developing leadership skills essential since you will need the support and guidance of people who believe in you, believe in your vision and believe in your ability to accomplish the challenge. They must know that when you make a mistake, you will take personal ownership and act to correct it…People want to be led, not managed. The only person we manage is ourselves—that’s self-discipline.”
BUY Five Seconds At A Time: How Leaders Can Make the Impossible Possible
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BUY Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
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SUMMARY
In her book Born Survivors, bestselling author Wendy Holden pulls back the curtains on the gripping true story of three young Jewish mothers who manage to conceal their pregnancies as they enter a concentration camp, narrowly escape the knife of Dr. Josef Mengele, and bravely give birth in appalling conditions to babies weighing under three pounds each. Miraculously, all three mothers leave the camp alive and go on to build new lives with their children after World War II. Unlike much Holocaust literature, this is a book with a happy ending—truly an “Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope.” Sixty-five years later, the three “miracle babies,” with the help of Holden, share this inspirational story of their three mothers who defied death at the hands of the Nazis to give their “born survivors” a life filled with love, hope, humor, and happiness. Today, their legacy is to be the voices of the voiceless and the last-ever survivors of the Holocaust.
KEY POINTS
- Weighing no more than 70 pounds, three young Jewish mothers give birth to “born survivors” while en route from Auschwitz to a gas chamber in Mauthausen.
- When the Nazis discover pregnant women among the prisoners, they typically gas them or take and kill their newborn babies almost immediately.
- Even Dr. Josef Mengele doesn’t detect the pregnancies, allowing the born survivors a chance at life.
- In a small Czechoslovakian town, the people make 3000 loaves of bread and some potato soup, undoubtedly saving the lives of many of the prisoners trapped in the "death train."
- The Nazis run out of gas to use in their gas chambers, making it impossible to exterminate thousands of Jewish prisoners—the greatest miracle of all!
- Compassion among the Allied troops moves them to share their food rations, which ends up unwittingly killing thousands of starving prisoners.
- After the war, the mothers teach their children to nurture a sense of humor, compassion, and forgiveness.
- School children today are gripped by hearing this true story and by being in the presence of someone who should have been murdered as a baby.
QUOTES FROM HOLDEN
- “I can’t help thinking [giving birth] must have been the worst moment for each of [the mothers] because, up until then, they’d been able to keep their babies a secret inside of them….There was nothing they could do to stop it; there was nothing they could do to protect this infant they were about to deliver.”
- “All three ‘babies’ are twinkly-eyed, life-enhancing, joyful people. They’re the kind of people, when you think about them, you smile. When you know you’re going to meet them, you anticipate it with great relish. And everybody feels that way in their company.”
- “They could have so easily grown up bitter and the kind of people who see the glass half empty rather than half full.”
- “We are in a dangerous situation in the world at the moment with the rising global nationalism and hate speech… There needs to be this compassion and understanding and tolerance that emanate from the book.”
BUY Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance, and Hope
RECOMMENDATION
Watch a book & author night with the “babies” and Wendy Holden held at the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
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SUMMARY
In his book, When There Is No Cure: How to Thrive While Living with the Pain and Suffering of Chronic Illness, author Craig K. Svensson answers the crucial question: “How do you live well when the physical foundation of your life is crumbling?” This is the challenge for millions who live with diseases for which there is no cure. These incurable ailments produce a life of constant pain, fatigue, numbness, dizziness, and other debilitating symptoms that create chronic suffering. In When There Is No Cure, Dr. Svensson guides readers to a path of thriving when life’s journey includes an incurable ailment. Drawing on his expertise as a pharmacist-scientist, as well as a fellow sufferer with several incurable diseases, Svensson helps patients steer through the twists and turns of life with chronic illness.
KEY POINTS
- Living well – even thriving- is possible and important.
- Some estimate that 10 percent of the population suffers from a disability or limitation that’s “invisible” (not obvious) to even the people closest to them.
- Before sharing your condition, ask yourself why someone would want to know and what would happen if they found out from another source.
- Instead of focusing on your level of pain, focus on how your condition affects your function and goals.
- Prepare a summary of your health condition--much like an elevator pitch.
- To avoid developing friction, everyone touched by the chronic illness must communicate openly.
- Pain specialists look at things holistically and help you understand what the pain is limiting in your life, direct you to resources that can help alleviate pain or compensate for challenges.
- Plan ahead to make inevitable shifts in recreational activities or professional pursuits.
QUOTES FROM SVENSSON
- “I have a nice triad of diseases that impacts the way that I live life but also has taught me how you can thrive in the midst of living with a variety of chronic illnesses.”
- “Thriving gets down to the valued relationships that we have…as well as being able to enjoy the diversity of things in life that we can experience.”
- “We’re always faced in life with the things we can and cannot do, so we need to put these things in perspective.”
- “When you’re living with pain, it’s more than just physical; it moves into the relational.”
- “Hope is the seed from which victorious living can grow in the bed of affliction.”
BUY When There Is No Cure: How to Thrive While Living with the Pain and Suffering of Chronic Illness
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With help from the Mayo Clinic, find a support group that works for you.
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SUMMARY
In her memoir, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Katrina Kenison becomes a voice for all women who begin motherhood blowing bubbles and tickling tiny toes but are all-too-soon pulled into the tumultuous years of teenage angst. Looking back, Kenison is surprised to find her most precious memories are “the ones no one ever thought to photograph.” Fortunately, she had the good sense to slow down enough to relish "the gift of an ordinary day.” Then, while transitioning from mothering teens and emptying her nest, Kenison simultaneously experiences physical upheaval as well. For three years, her family lives in a state of “constant impermanence” as they leave one house, tear down another, and build a new one. In this “Mother’s Memoir,” Kenison gives us a front-row seat to her intense, maternal emotions while “stumbling through the intricate dance of holding on and letting go.”
KEY MENTORS
- Olive Ann Burns: after being newly diagnosed with cancer, this author of Cold Sassy Treeteaches Kenison how to live in the moment
- Krishna Das: leads the only retreat Kenison ever attends; in spite of traveling 300 days/year, he proclaims he is “always home”
- Kenison’s parents: offer to let Kenison and her family live with them for three years during their home construction; help her “pick her battles” while raising teenagers
QUOTES FROM KENISON
- “The idea of an ordinary day as a gift was profoundly powerful to me, and it didn’t change the way I parented in any way my sons would particularly notice, but it changed everything for me because I didn’t want to miss a single minute. I didn’t want to find myself looking back someday with regret because I’d been too busy racing through my life when I could have been enjoying it and savoring it.”
- “My job [as a mother] was to make sure that my family was always ‘home.’ So, when we were feeling a little uprooted and at loose ends, I realized ‘home’ was something we could create wherever we were.”
- “[To bring love into our home], I did a lot of work on myself, my own 'soul aerobics.'"
- “We have so much practice with “lasts,’ and they begin in infancy…so by the time we send them off to college, we’ve had a lot of experiences with ‘lasts,’ and yet that is such a huge transition.”
- “It’s about process, not product….The more we can let go of attachment to outcomes, the happier we are.”
BUY The Gift of an Ordinary Day Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry
BUY Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment
BUY Moments of Seeing - Reflections from an Ordinary Life
BUY Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
Watch Kenison read a chapter from her book, "The Gift of an Ordinary Day."
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SUMMARY
Pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, author of “Balanced and Barefoot,” urges parents, teachers, and administrators to embrace “active free play" to benefit children of all ages. Today, without merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters, time to roll down hills and get dirty, these modern kids are experiencing an alarming increase in sensory and emotional disorders. But Hanscom, comes to their rescue with “Balanced and Barefoot,” a book full of compelling reasons to encourage unrestrained outdoor play and movement. Not only is free play more fun, she argues, but, without it, cognitive and physical development are stunted. Furthermore, Hanscom believes "unrestricted outdoor play makes for strong, confident, and capable children."
As a young mother and therapist, Angela Hanscom observed a steep decline in sensory-motor development among her children’s peers. So, she started TimberNook as a vehicle to get children outdoors where they could be balanced and barefoot, enjoying the rich sensory experiences nature offers. What began as a backyard experiment has now grown into a movement to inspire, restore, and challenge little minds and bodies in communities across the world.
KEY TERMS
- “Active free play”- being fully engrossed in whole-body experiences
- “Deep play” – play that involves purpose and teaches social skills
- “Vestibular sense” – a sense of balance controlled by little hairs in our inner ear; helps us effectively navigate and move around our environment
- “Proprioception” – the ability to sense what different parts of our body are doing without even looking at them; awareness of where our body is in space
- “Loose parts” – multi-purpose play items (e.g., sticks, planks, empty baskets)
KEY POINTS
- Research shows kids are in a seated position for about 9 hrs/day.
- Spinning helps kids to integrate all their senses and to organize their brains.
- Playgrounds have morphed into colorful, very safe, low-to-the-ground, low-risk places for play easily mastered by age four or five.
- The unpredictability of outdoors challenges and develops all the senses.
- Constantly keeping a baby upright endangers a child, including creating more ear infections.
QUOTES FROM HANSCOM
"Active free play outdoors is a kind of play that promotes healthy sensory and motor development in children. It is the antidote to your child spending hours sitting indoors and staring at screens, and to you as a parent being too busy and overscheduled with kid activities to enjoy parenting. The outdoors awakens and rejuvenates the mind and engages all the senses."
"In nature, children learn to take risks, overcome fears, make new friends, regulate emotions, and create imaginary worlds.
"Active free play--particularly in the outdoors--is absolutely the most beneficial gift we as parents, teachers, and caregivers can bestow on our children to ensure healthy bodies, creative minds academic success, emotional stability, and strong social skills."
"Having the ability to play away from the adult world opens up many opportunities and feelings of freedom."
"When children play outdoors, they are naturally motivated to move--strengthening their muscles with each move, each step, and every encounter with nature."
BUY Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children
RECOMMENDATION
Check out the Playgroundology website and blog.
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SUMMARY
Brian Jay Jones brings us “Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination,” the sweeping biography of the iconic American children’s book author and illustrator. More than 80 years after Theodor Geisel (also known as “Ted” then later by his pen name “Dr. Seuss”) published his first children’s book, his books continue to resonate with readers of all ages. But far from being a born to write children’s books, he takes a circuitous journey to becoming Dr. Seuss: from high-school journalist to advertising agent to Pulitzer Prize winner. How did he create some of the best-loved children’s works ever printed? By eschewing “bunny books” (the books adults think kids want to read) and refusing to talk down to kids.
KEY EXPERIENCES
- Theodor Geisel learns his love of language and plays on words from his German mother; he likely gains his love of animals from his father who often takes him to the zoo.
- “Flit Insecticide” ad campaign for Standard Oil becomes his 17-year-long gig, providing him with a bread-and-butter job while he sells cartoons.
- His most useful training in storytelling comes while serving in the Army under commanding officer Frank Capra. Together, they make “Private Snafu” training films designed to educate illiterate troops.
- A seminal moment comes while teaching at a writers’ workshop at the University of Utah where Geisel formulates then articulates his treatise for becoming a children’s author.
- Seuss and his wife Helen could never have their own children, so they invent an imaginary child they call “Chrysanthemum Pearl.”
- The Cat in the Hat - breakout bestseller aimed at early readers; includes 280 educator-approved words as well as bouncy, whimsical illustrations that would soon come to characterize all his books
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas – one of Dr. Seuss’s “big books” and one whose main character captures much of his own persona—a villain turned hero.
- Oh, the Places You’ll Go – the last published book in Dr. Seuss’s lifetime and a type of benedictory at the end of his career
QUOTES FROM JONES
- “Plot would always be king for the rest of his life because of [Frank] Capra.”
- “You have them; I’ll entertain them.” (Dr. Seuss’s quip when asked if he liked children.)
- “He had the ability to create very organic-sounding words that were made up but sounded like they always existed.” (e.g., “grinch,” “lorax,” “sneetch”)
- “The Cat in the Hat is the book that changes everything—not just for him but for children’s literature.”
- “I think his message, more than anything else, was ‘Reading doesn’t have to be a task; reading doesn’t have to be dull; reading can and should be exciting; reading should be something you want to do.’”
BUY Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination
RECOMMENDATION
BUY The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss
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SUMMARY
Dr. Edward T. Creagan, author of Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers from a Leading Palliative and Hospice Physician, has literally dedicated his life to death. The first Mayo Clinic physician to become board-certified in palliative care, Creagan examines death and events beyond our control from both a medical standpoint and an acutely emotional perspective. His forty years at the bedside of dying patients gives him expertise in "how to die a good death." His observations and learnings, captured in his latest book, Farewell, inform both the dying and their loved ones. As he describes it, "This is a cookbook, a GPS of the soul, an MRI of the human experience to teach how to do [death] the right way.” By putting his suggestions into practice, we can navigate those last days and say “farewell” with hope, love, and compassion.
KEY POINTS
- Without an advanced directive and a will or living trust prepared ahead of time, a death in the family can leave a rift that can last for generations.
- Death = “the cessation of normal bodily functions which cannot be sustained with interventions” (as defined by the medical profession)
- Many millennials may be more impacted by the death of a pet than by the death of a loved one.
- “A good death” includes asking for forgiveness, forgiving yourself, and giving thanks.
- At the time of death, most talk about regrets rather than focusing on achievements.
- Hearing is the last sense a dying patient loses.
- The advanced directive should include who will speak for the dying person if he is unable to speak for himself.
- Hospice – care that is given to patients expected to die within six months; no focus on life-promoting or life-extending intervention; paid for by Medicare
- After saying "farewell" to a loved one, most say they wish they had started hospice care sooner.
- Palliative care – a branch of internal medicine designed to provide comfort and well-being in conjunction with potentially curative treatment
- In addition to and physical-therapy training, caregivers absolutely must get daily exercise, proper nutrition, adequate rest, and occasional respite.
QUOTES FROM CREAGAN
- “We are a death-denying culture…we are a culture that worships the athlete, the celebrity, the millennial, and we worship at the altar of technology. We somehow believe there is a guru, a potion, or a pill that will provide eternal life.”
- “Grandma is not dying because she’s not eating. She’s not eating because she’s dying.”
- “Everyone comes to the terminally-ill table with baggage, mistakes, and painful decisions that they’ve made. And if those issues are not reconciled and addressed and dealt with, all the morphine in the world or all the marijuana in Canada will not heal that wound.”
- “No one can sustain caregiving 24/7 without their own health and well-being deteriorating.”
BUY Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers from a Leading Palliative and Hospice Physician
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
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SUMMARY
Astrobiologist, planetary scientist, and award-winning science writer David Grinspoon captures the bigger-than-life true adventure story of the pioneer flight to Pluto in Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto. According to Grinspoon and coauthor Alan Stern, “The effort to explore Pluto was an unlikely and sometimes harrowing story, with so many unexpected twists and turns, seeming dead ends, and narrow escapes that it hardly seems possible that it actually succeeded—but it did.”
At a now-legendary dinner at an Italian restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland, a small group of “Plutophiles” meets to strategize how to increase public interest in planning a space mission to Pluto. The same people eventually become the New Horizons team. But first, they implement letter-writing campaign to flood NASA Headquarters and political stakeholders, giving evidence of broad public interest in Pluto. They also organize conferences for presenting serious academic papers about Pluto exploration. Finally, after years of fighting an uphill David-and-Goliath battle, the New Horizons team celebrates its victory against Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). But not for long. Winning the tough, competitive bid is only the beginning. The underdogs continue to face hundreds of unprecedented challenges, and they must avoid even the smallest snag, or they risk losing the opportunity to build the first spacecraft to reach Pluto.
Somehow, however, against all odds, in 2006 New Horizons is on the launchpad in Florida ready to make the epic first flyby mission to planet Pluto, marking the beginning of reigniting the thrill of space exploration. In the words of authors Stern and Grinspoon, “Nothing quite like New Horizons has occurred in a generation—the raw exploration of new worlds. And nothing quite like it is currently planned to happen, ever again.”
KEY PLAYERS & TERMS
- Alan Stern – known as “Mr. Pluto” and THE insider of the mission
- Clyde Tombaugh – a poor young farm poor from Kansas and unknown American hero who discovers Pluto at age 24
- “Pluto Underground” – a group of young underdogs who politick NASA to fund a mission to the outer planet
- Ted Nichols – a high-school teenager who starts a “Save-the-Pluto-Mission” website and uses his own initiative, pluck, and a knack for publicity to persuade NASA to explore Pluto
- JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – (in Pasadena, California) the premiere U.S. center for planetary exploration that is behind almost all the greatest space missions
- APL (Applied Physics Laboratory) – (in Baltimore, Maryland) a small upstart lab that outcompetes JPL by pushing the boundaries to design a less expensive spacecraft ready to launch more quickly
- New Horizons – spacecraft the size of a baby grand piano (with no moving parts) designed by APL for the 9-year flyby mission to Pluto
- Bill Nye, the Science Guy – one of many celebrity influencers who helps ignite and communicate public excitement and interest in Pluto exploration
- Brian May – guitar player from rock band Queen and card-carrying PhD astrophysicist who is involved in the science team and who writes an original song for New Horizons
- Gravity assist – a cost-saving technique using the gravity of Jupiter to fling New Horizons out towards Pluto
- Hibernation mode – another cost-saving technique that shuts down communication with the spacecraft intermittently, resulting in a decreased need for the ship’s energy in the air and fewer ground-team personnel on Earth
QUOTES FROM GRINSPOON
- “Once a mission gets flown, then everybody pulls behind it.”
- “The public reaction to the exploration of Pluto helped to reawaken something partially forgotten since Voyager and Apollo: that people across the world love bold space exploration, are inspired by missions to never before explored places, and that such missions even have the power to inspire people and change lives.”
BUY Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto
RECOMMENDATION
Watch "Pluto in a Minute" YouTube videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6BBgLGgB7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qUMY1oEvY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-zurr9PHKg&t=8s
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Dr. Thomas Caulfield, academician and father, shares his memoir, “Ephphatha: Growing Up Profoundly Deaf and Not Dumb in the Hearing World: A Basketball Player’s Transformational Journey to the Ivy League.” A compilation of personal journal entries Dr. Caulfield painstakingly wrote over a twenty-year period, Ephphatha documents the legendary journey of his Deaf son Christopher and his family's valiant attempts at helping Christopher be the best he could be. We learn that only 1/10 of one percent of the world knows sign language. So, early on, the Caulfields intentionally chose oral language training for Christopher, believing that path would better equip him to handle written academic and professional materials in the future.
KEY POINTS
- “Ephphatha” – to be open, to open up
- After receiving a cochlear implant at 16-months-old, Christopher began 1500 hours of therapy before age nine.
- Alexander Graham Bell Association – a national support network for families of Deaf children
- Not all sports are suitable for kids with cochlear implants; however, Deaf kids often develop and leverage acute sensitivity with other senses.
- Rochester Institute of Technology – Christopher’s alma mater where ten percent of 13K students are profoundly Deaf
- At Cornell, Christopher’s team won $100K for developing glasses with real-time voice-recognition captioning that have an almost unbelievable 99.8% accuracy!
QUOTES FROM CAULFIELD
- “Everyone has the right to be understood.”
- “It has been well documented that deaf kids can suffer serious bouts of loneliness and alienation.”
- “To be on the basketball floor was somewhat of a sanctuary for [Christopher].”
- "Some of the world’s best scholars believe that the true measure of our society is determined by how we treat the needy and disenfranchised.”
BUY Ephphatha: Growing Up Profoundly Deaf and Not Dumb in the Hearing World: A Basketball Player’s Transformational Journey to the Ivy League
RECOMMENDATION
Listen to Christopher Caulfield's graduation speech at Cornell Tech.
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SUMMARY
Jason Chin is both author and illustrator of Grand Canyon, a Caldecott Honor Book, and a Robert R. Sibert Honor Book. Combining imaginative storytelling with intriguing science, Chin creates books that both enchant and educate. To research this book, he camped with scorpions at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and was “hit by the geology bug.”
In order to tell the origin story of the vast region, Chin invites us to follow a father and daughter hiking along the trails of the Grand Canyon, passing through extremes in climate and temperature all within a 5-mile walk. Along the way, they spy fossils (discovered through ingeniously placed die cuts) trapped in rock layers. Then, on the subsequent pages, they find themselves transported into ancient environments.
Throughout the book, Chin embeds rich secondary information using sidebar illustrations of flora and fauna to surround the main picture. Serious science students will enjoy exploring the dozens of books, websites, and papers he lists at the end of his book. And every reader will find the four-page spread illustrating the magnificent vista overlooking the Grand Canyon!
Targeted at children, Grand Canyon is equally appealing to adults. Hiking the Grand Canyon with Chin’s book in hand will make the region come alive for all ages!
Other books by Jason Chin include Redwoods, Island: A Story of the Galápagos, Gravity. Most recently, he illustrated Miranda Paul’s book, Nine Months, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor.
BUY Grand Canyon by Jason Chin
RECOMMENDATION
BUY National Parks of the USA
ALSO BY JASON CHIN
BUY Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born
Listen to Nonfiction4Life Episode 8 with Annette Pimentel
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SUMMARY
Ron Hall and his once-homeless friend Denver Moore chronicle the story of their friendship in "Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together." Through word-of-mouth, the book became a New York Times #1 platinum bestseller and stayed on the list for more than three and a half years. Now, with more than a million copies in circulation, the book is inspiring many to reach out to help the homeless in their own communities. With the strong urging of his wife Debbie, Ron Hall, a modern-day Good Samaritan, has spent the last 20 years replacing his high-society lifestyle with authentic concern for the downtrodden and tireless effort to lift the homeless.
KEY POINTS
- Some homeless people genuinely like the freedom of not having to conform to rules and expectations and of circumventing responsibility and accountability.
- Denver would have none of the white man’s “catch-and-release” type of friendship.
- What the homeless want more than anything is to be dignified and to be humanized.
- Denver’s coins the phrase “Same kind of different as me” to describe how we all have more in common than not.
- We make the homeless invisible by not looking at them and connecting with them as humans.
- Ways to help humanize and give dignity to the homeless: ask their name; sit down and have a conversation with them; offer to let them use your cell phone to call their mother; buy them a bus ticket home; pray for what it is they most want; don’t judge them.
QUOTES FROM HALL AND DENVER
Ron Hall
- “While I dedicated my life to making money and spent a few minutes parked in a church pew on Sundays, she spent hours at Brian’s House, a ministry to homeless babies with AIDS. When I stormed Europe impressing billionaires with my art savvy, she stormed heaven, praying for the needy. My passion was recognition and success. Her passion was to know God.”**
- "But he [Denver] remained absolutely convinced that his way of life was no worse than mine, only different, pointing out in the process certain inconsistencies: Why, he wondered, did rich people call it sushi while poor people called it bait?"**
- "Driving home, [Debbie] reflected aloud on how society generally regards the homeless as lazy and foolish, and maybe some were. But she felt there was so much more below that surface image: dysfunction and addiction, yes. But also gifts—like love, faith, and wisdom—that lay hidden like pearls waiting only to be discovered, polished, and set."**
- "It’s just a simple fact that in America drugs and booze cost money, but food is free to anyone willing to snooze through a gospel message."
- “You don’t become homeless because you run out of money; you become homeless when you run out of friends and family who will take you in.”
Denver Moore
- "If you took a normal fella and dropped him off in the hobo jungle or under the bridge, he wouldn’t know what to do. You got to be taught to live homeless."**
- "You…feel like nobody in the world cares nothin about you. Don’t matter if you live or die. People with that spirit get mean, dangerous. They play by the rules of the jungle.”
- "I didn’t scare everybody, though. I slept in the doorway of that United Way over on Commerce Street for a whole lotta years. And every mornin for all that time, a lady who worked there brought me a sandwich. I never knowed her name and she never knowed mine. I wish I could thank her. Funny, though. That United Way buildin was right next door to a church, and for all them years, nobody at that church ever looked my way."**
- "The Word says God don’t give us credit for lovin the folks we want to love anyway. No, He gives us credit for loving the unlovable. The perfect love of God don’t come with no conditions, and that’s the kind of love Miss Debbie showed the folks at the mission."
- “I want to know why all you Christians worship one homeless man on Sunday, then you turn your back on the first one you see on Monday.”
- “We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless—just workin our way toward home."**
BUY Same Kind of Different As Me (book)
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Same Kind of Different as Me (DVD) or watch it on Netflix.
Other books by Ron Hall
BUY Workin' Our Way Home: The Incredible True Story of a Homeless Ex-Con and a Grieving Millionaire Thrown Together to Save Each Other(sequel to Same Kind of Different As Me and story of the 10 years Ron and Denver lived together and traveled across America helping to raise nearly $100 million for the homeless)
BUY What Difference Do It Make?: Stories of Hope and Healing
Visit Ron's foundation to make a difference and bless the homeless.
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SUMMARY
Dr. Louann Brizendine’s bestselling, seminal book “The Female Brain” has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold over a million copies. Brizendine guides us through all the stages of a woman’s life, from birth to menopause, explaining what hormones trigger her feelings, skills, and behaviors. Beyond male-female stereotypes, Dr. Brizendine cites solid research to substantiate some commonly held beliefs about women and to explode some myths as well. “The female brain has tremendous unique aptitudes—outstanding verbal agility, the ability to connect deeply in friendship, a nearly psychic capacity to read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of mind, and the ability to defuse conflict,” says Brizendine. “All of this is hardwired into the brains of women.”
KEY POINTS
- “Overlapping speech” – when women pick up and continue a line of thought for other women; by men, this form of spoken language is mistaken as interrupting
- Botox treatments and facelifts – interrupt the tiny muscles in the face, making it very difficult to pick up on nonverbal cues and can change our very essence
- Estrogen escalation during the first two weeks of the menstrual cycle makes women more flirtatious and verbal.
- Childbirth triggers gargantuan hormonal changes, including overwhelming protectiveness, and makes women more flexible, adaptive, and courageous and increases their spatial memory.
- Postpartum, new mothers lose an average of 700 hours of sleep in the first twelve months!
- About 80 percent of women get “the baby blues” (day 7-9 postpartum) when hormones drop dramatically before the brain regains its normal balance.
- Sleep and bright sunlight can help women combat postpartum depression.
- Social isolation postpartum can be devastating to a woman, especially if she has left the workplace to have a baby.
- Perimenopause is “like adolescence without the fun” (e.g., night sweats, heavy bleeding, mood swings).
QUOTES FROM BRIZENDINE
- “The male and female brain are more alike than different. After all, we are the same species.”
- “Language is the glue that connects one female to another.”
- “Sleep has to be your touchstone for being your best brain you can be while you’re awake, so anything you can do to improve your sleep and the baby’s sleep will follow… You need to focus intensely on sleep postpartum.”
- “[Childbirth] is a complicated time in a couple’s relationship, especially the first baby.”
- “[Getting] social interaction is like taking an essential daily vitamin.”
- “[I believe in] honoring who you are and whatever it is that makes you feel normal after you’ve had a baby.”
- “Tears in a woman make evoke brain pain in men, and the male brain registers helplessness when they see a woman crying.”
- After menopause: “There’s a regrouping…you’re in a different state where you’re able to embrace that authenticity of who you are again. It’s really an upgrade. It’s wonderful. So, you have that to look forward to.”
BUY The Female Brain
BUY The Male Brain: A Breakthrough Understanding of How Men and Boys Think
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Steel Magnolias (DVD)
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SUMMARY
Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Dean of Freshman at Stanford University, offers her New York Times bestselling anti-parenting manifesto, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. In the book, Lythcott-Haims explores how and why hyper-attentive parenting, or helicopter parenting, has taken parents and their children hostage in this country. This trend of well-intentioned parents who hover is creating real-life dangers for 21st-century smart kids who can’t even make their own beds. Their parents have been lured into creating "check-listed childhoods" or "redshirting" their kindergartners. Left inept in essential life skills because their parents watch, handle, fix, and organize everything for them, these kids are unprepared to work, lead, and take their rightful place as the next generation of adults. So, here to stop the madness of overprotecting, overscheduling, and overparenting is Lythcott-Haims. She speaks with the compassion of a parent yet the unapologetic urgency of someone who spent a decade observing some of our brightest young people fail to launch. In short, Lythcott-Haims teaches us how to change the definition of success and how to raise an adult.
KEY POINTS
- “Existential impotence” – a state of being among young adults who remain, effectively, small children-in-arms lovingly attended to almost 24/7 and who feel perfectly content to be cared for by parents indefinitely
- Helicopter parenting is borne of five causes during the 1980s: 1- the playdate, 2 - the self-esteem movement, 3 - “stranger danger” 4 - seatbelt and bicycle helmets laws, and 5 - A Nation at Risk.
- Three types of overparenting: overprotecting, overdirecting, and hand-holding.
- The shift to round-the-clock parenting has short-term gains but long-term losses.
- Four-step method for teaching children skills: do it for them, do it with them, watch them do it, and they do it themselves.
- Baby Boomers started helicopter parenting, and the movement has now continued into the present when Millennials are parenting.
- Give kids unstructured time for free play with no adult supervision.
- Kids are more likely to be harmed as a passenger in a car than to be abducted.
- Normalizing struggle by allowing small setbacks to teach is what leads to having autonomous kids and independent adults.
QUOTES FROM LYTHCOTT-HAIMES
- “The most loving thing we can do as parents is to prepare ourselves to fend without us.”
- “Short of the disasters that can befall them, we’re supposed to let life teach our kids lessons.”
- “We have to as a community, as a neighborhood, as a school district, as a town—we have to call time out…and blow the whistle. We need to do things differently!”
- “Free play is essential the developmental wellness of children, so this is not some fuzzy thing…They will be mentally unwell (compromised) if their childhood doesn’t include a pretty regular dose of free play.”
- “A long-term study conducted over decades [the Harvard Study] shows that a kid who did chores in childhood is more likely to be professionally successful later in life. Why? Because chores build a work ethic and also a mindset of ‘Pitch in, and be useful!’”
- “What’s really best for a child is to figure out, ‘What do I want? What am I good at? Let me craft my life accordingly.’”
Connect with Julie Lythcott-Haims on her website, and check out her wildly popular TEDTalk (with over 4 million views) about how to raise a successful kid without overparenting.
Check out the Wilton Connecticut Free Play Matters Task Force website.
Read articles by Peter Gray, the guru of free play, found at the Natural Child Project website.
Visit the Let Grow website for “future-proofing our kids and our country.”
BUY How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success
RECOMMENDATION
For student-centered college searches, visit the Colleges That Change Lives website, OR BUY Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges.
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SUMMARY
Together, T. Colin Campbell and Howard Jacobson have written the book Whole to revolutionize the way we think about food. Jacobson’s early Amazon review of The China Study put him in contact with the author Dr. T. Colin Campbell. Now, years later, the two have collaborated to write Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition. Although the book is a second plea to get us to fundamentally change our approach to eating by adopting a whole foods plant-based (WFPB) diet, Whole is not a diet book. Instead, it’s organized to convince both the lay reader and the most serious student of nutritional science that our bodies are designed to thrive when we eat real food found in nature.
KEY POINTS
- “Reductionism” – looking at science in bits and pieces instead of at the whole picture
- Individuals and entities with a huge stake in the food industry feel threatened by the scientific findings gathered in the book.
- Campbell is touted as a visionary while also being vilified, including efforts by his employer Cornell University to block him from teaching certain classes.
- The whole species hangs in the balance because of the food we eat.
- The ideal human diet can be summarized in 66 words.
- Some foods considered “unhealthy” can still be called “safe”; others are not even considered safe.
- Our bodies are equipped to absorb from foods what we need in the moment. Like catching a ball, our bodies just know what to do with real food without thinking about it.
- “Lifestyle medicine” recently became a board-certified sub-specialty of primary care.
QUOTES FROM JACOBSON
- “The reason that Whole needs to exist is because of the resistance to this movement [to eat a WFPB diet].”
- “Our system is set up to provide profit to for-profit corporations, and everyone else in society has allowed them to dictate.”
- “Every other animal on the planet that feeds itself…[is] not reading books on nutrition. They are not walking around with calculators. They are simply eating what they enjoy eating and what’s available in the quantities available to them…We humans evolved [that way, too].”
- “Our bodies can interact with a peach, and they know what to do with the peach.”
- “We will never have enough information to know it all, and we don’t need it…Just eat foods in accordance with nature and our nature, and we will most likely be lean and healthy.”
- “If human beings needed to combine foods in order to live, we’d all be dead!”
BUY Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition
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BUY Forks Over Knives (DVD)
Connect with Dr. Howard Jacobson at Well Start Health, his online lifestyle medicine program to help people change their health destiny.
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SUMMARY
Harvard-trained geriatrician and award-winning author Louis Aronson introduces a revolutionary perspective on growing old in her book, “ELDERHOOD: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life.” Sharing stories from her personal and professional life, and drawing from history, Aronson offers clarity and understanding about “elderhood,” the third and final stage of life after childhood and adulthood and a period that can span up to 40 years or more. With new insights into aging, medicine, and humanity itself, Aronson teaches us how to reframe these later decades so we can better prepare for and thrive during our final years.
KEY POINTS
- Everyone approaches the topic of aging with some degree of negativity, illustrated by Berkeley professor Guy Micco.
- “Old” and “elder” have identical denotations but very different connotations.
- Elderhood has multiple stages, so we need to adopt clearer nomenclature, such as “senior,” “old,” “elderly,” and “aged.”
- Health and function and how we engage with life can best define our age.
- Good caregivers connect with older people the way those in a good marriage would: they let the older person speak for him/herself; the two look at each other; they laugh with each other.
- Just as we learn to take care of children, we need to become comfortable taking care of people in the last stage of life.
- Choosing to not dye gray hair is one way to let go of internalized ageism.
- Data shows that becoming socially isolated is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day your whole life.
- A Harvard longitudinal study on happiness shows that happy adults accept changes and adapt as they go, resulting in optimism and good health.
- Making friends and creating new relationships makes for happier adults.
- The number one fear adults have is getting cancer; the second is getting dementia.
- Exercise is the best way to prevent or delay dementia.
QUOTES FROM ARONSON
- “In medicine, we spend most of most days really dealing with some pretty intense things that fill us with emotions and feelings and thoughts and experiences that are the stuff of literature.”
- “Elderhood, or the specter of being seen old by others...pretty much starts somewhere between 60 and 70 for most people…but if you’re in Silicon Valley, and if you’re over age 30 or 35, you’re already old.”
- “People start getting happy in their late 50s, and their happiest time of life…is, hands down, the 60s and 70s.”
- “When asked the recipe for a good old age, I often give a list: good genes, good luck, enough money, and one good kid, usually a daughter.”
- “A majority of the most powerful people in politics and many other industries are people in their 60s and early 70s.”
- “We have created a society where we do everything possible to stay alive yet dread being old.”
BUY Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life
RECOMMENDATION
Listen to this TEDTalk of a mother and son’s tender photographic journey through dementia.
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SUMMARY
David Delbert Kruger, Agricultural Research & Instruction Librarian at the University of Wyoming, captures the life of entrepreneur and retail giant in his biography of J. C. Penney: The Man, The Store, and American Agriculture. Kruger illuminates this entrepreneur’s humble beginnings as a poor farm boy, an identity he never lost, and traces the story of his creating and sharing wealth. From his humble rural upbringing not only did he start JCPenney, the first nationwide department store chain, but he also improved cattle breeding and farms all throughout America. In spite of many setbacks, J. C. Penney was able to live an enthusiastic, largely successful life for the better part of a hundred years.
KEY POINTS
- The Golden Rule, a principle he increasingly embraced over time, served as J. C. Penney’s “North Star” to the very end of his life.
- In his early years, when he was required to earn money to buy his own clothes, his father taught him to never put people before profits.
- Christian business principles soaked in deep, becoming official company policy.
- His honest way of dealing with people and helping them make money spanned to communities, suppliers, and even competitors.
- Penney’s heart was always in farming but didn’t feel cut out for it, mostly because of his poor health. Instead, he became the means of generating wealth for rural America.
- Breeding Guernsey cows was his response to the grossly inferior American livestock holding back families from having a better life. Furthermore, having a cow on a farm gave farmers potential year-round income, minimizing risk for the rural family.
- Integrity and efficiency were hallmarks of both his retail and agricultural projects.
- Penney had the ability to dive deep into and operate several operations concurrently.
- After a close scrape with debilitating deep depression, Penney had a miraculous healing experience and renewed faith in God, which painted his life forever after.
- Penney balanced great generosity with a fierce belief in self-sufficiency, never missing a chance to help someone willing to help himself.
- Giving gratuities seemed patronizing to J. C. Penney.
- His humility was evident in the way he forged relationships with the common worker, mentored young boys, and took public transportation.
- Free-market capitalism can elevate others and leave the world better than you found it.
QUOTES FROM KRUGER
- “The world isn’t simply about you making money; it’s about other people.”
- “He felt if he could offer honest value to…customers, [they] would trust you and…would come back.”
- “Mr. Penney was very much about partnerships—mutually beneficial partnerships that weren’t one-sided. It gave people the opportunity to move up through the business that he had created and to share in its success rather than just simply being an employee.”
- “Not all his endeavors were designed to make a profit; they were designed to have a positive impact.”
- “On the surface, some people thought he was less than benevolent because he didn’t believe in blanket charity.”
- “You can be a good man or a good woman and still ‘finish first.’ You don’t have to compromise your principles in order to be successful.”
BUY J. C. Penney: The Man, the Store, and American Agriculture by David Delbert Kruger
RECOMMENDATION
Read “The Cowboy Capitalist,” a book review of Kruger’s biography in The Wall Street Journal.
DEDICATION
To Ken Woolley, Janet's brother-in-law who has many striking similarities to J. C. Penney.
If you don’t have time to watch or listen to the entire talk but would like to get a sense of who Ken Woolley is, start at 11:30.
Utah State Dean's Convocation Speech by Ken Woolley
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SUMMARY
Business writer turned memoirist, Carol Bodensteiner felt compelled by her mother’s insistence to gather childhood stories, which she compiled in Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl. Each story stands alone, depicting Bodenstein’s happy childhood on a small, family-owned dairy farm in the late 1950s. Her stories help us step back in time, giving us a slice of history and portraying a time of innocence as Bodensteiner experiences farm life between ages ten to twelve. For her, growing up country meant working hard and eating off the land while finding adventures in her own backyard.
KEY POINTS
- Along with cows, animals of all kinds—cats, dogs, geese, and pigs—are important characters on a predominantly dairy farm.
- A rooster who attacked Bodensteiner’s little sister Sue is eaten for dinner.
- Growing up country includes fried chicken for Sunday dinner, a widespread tradition among farm families.
- Lunch is a meal served several times a day, both between meals and for guests before they went home. Lunch also provides an opportunity for farm workers to rest a bit.
- Sunday visiting is customary for people who work the other six days of the week.
- Bodensteiner cannot recall a time when she did not work on the farm, at first alongside her parents, until she becomes a productive member of the farm.
- These stories capture a way of life disappearing from the American landscape.
QUOTES FROM BODENSTEINER
- “If you grew up on a farm, this [book] will be a trip down memory lane. If you didn’t grow up on a farm, this is a trip into what may seem like foreign territory, but you’re going to enjoy it so much!”
- “Animals were our livelihood—and the food on our table.”
- “When you went to someone’s house or they came to your house, you were going to get food. It was just part of the deal…. It was part of the [farm] hospitality.”
- “Dinner is at noon; supper is at night. It’s a very important distinction that has been lost in modern society.”
- “Church in our neighborhood, regardless of what religion you were…when Sunday came around, you went to church…. It was part of life.”
- “Age ten was a rite of passage [because] we got to start carrying milk.”
- “Dad and Mom involved us kids in everything. If they were outside doing something, we were out there doing it with them. Until a certain age, kids really want to be around our parents, and to be around our parents was to be doing work.”
- “Kids develop resiliency by being in situations where they have to figure things out. They have to face challenges and overcome and develop that confidence. If kids live in a bubble, I don’t know how they develop that.”
- “Kids growing up on farms today don’t have the same experience…that insulated family-unit life a small community because now we have media 24/7…. We’re surrounded by contact with the world, and we weren’t then.”
RECOMMENDATION
“One of the most brutally revealing records of an America that was ignored by society—a class of people whose level of poverty left them as spiritually, mentally, and physically worn as the land on which they toiled. Time has done nothing to decrease this book’s power.” —Library Journal
BUY "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families" by Walker Evans and James Agee
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SUMMARY
A formerly food-obsessed psychologist, Dr. Glenn Livingston delivers his free book, Never Binge Again: Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. (Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice). Borne out of his own disillusionment with traditional psychological approaches to overweight and/or food-obsessed individuals, the book cracks the code on binge eating. Contrary to the popular thought that focuses on healing and self-love, Livingston proposes a different approach. After spending several decades researching the nature of bingeing and overeating and self-funding a research program with more than 40,000 participants, Livingston has finally found a way to help us cage the “food monster.” Most importantly, his own personal journey out of obesity and food prison has led him to a normal, healthy weight and a much more lighthearted relationship with food.
KEY POINTS
- “Exercise bulimia” = purging by working out really hard
- Everyone could blame bingeing on some trouble or life trauma.
- Find the voice of justification, and disempower it.
- Control of the middle-brain impulses; take charge and assert superiority.
- “Pig” = reptilian brain; “pig slop” = unhealthy food; “pig squeals” = powerful arguments filled with persuasive lies to get us to overeat
- Your personal food plan should include when you eat foods: never, always, conditional, and sometimes.
- Written laws make it possible for people to get along in society. Similarly, we need to write our “laws” for interacting with food.
- Like an archer aiming for a bullseye, we need to commit to a specific target before eating.
- Dependency on others to police our eating doesn’t work and leads to failed diets.
- The deprivation trap: what don’t and do get by not eating certain foods
- Taking control and deciding the kind of person we want to be is at the center of our personalized food plan.
- This approach to eating is a codification of common sense.
QUOTES FROM LIVINGSTON
- “I figured there must be a hole in my heart, and if I could figure out how to fill the hole in my heart, then I could figure out how to fill the hole in my stomach.”
- “I went about trying to love myself thin.”
- “Ask yourself, ‘Do you eat beyond your own best judgment, and would you like to take control over that?’”
- “Ambiguity is the Pig’s best friend.”
- “Commit with perfection, and forgive yourself with dignity.”
- “The way to get started with this is to think about the single worst trigger-food behavior that dogs you, and then make one rule.”
Get a free copy of Never Binge Again along with starter templates for developing food plans and recorded coaching sessions, OR go to Amazon to buy a print copy by clicking the link below:
BUY Never Binge Again: Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice!
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BUY Thirst: A Story of Redemption, Compassion, and a Mission to Bring Clean Water to the World
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SUMMARY
Psychologist Madeline Levine, in her latest book, Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or “Fat Envelopes,” remains a staunch opponent of hyper-parenting. Sadly, while rates of mental illness escalate among kids and teens, parents continue to insert themselves into their children’s levels of performance. Levine, speaking on behalf of children debilitated by such behaviors, urges parents to stop. Just stop! Instead, backed by mounds of data and 30 years of clinical experience, Levine insists parents let kids explore and help them develop a genuine sense of purpose and well-being. Above all, parents need to express confidence and joy in their child’s unique abilities.
KEY POINTS
- Parents who smooth the path to college send a vote of “no confidence” to their kids.
- Research shows that top-level universities only significantly benefit under-resourced students and first-generation immigrants.
- Consider reframing intelligence by asking in what way a child is smart.
- Pay attention to strengths rather than to relative weaknesses.
- Schools send strong messages about what’s important by what they show off in their entries.
- In hiring today, knowing content has gone to the bottom of the list. What matters now is working in a group, being creative, connecting the dots, being extremely curious, and evaluating content.
- Parents need to have the good sense to set boundaries, expectations, and demands.
- A dearth of collective community activities is creating a lonely landscape for parenting.
- Work ameliorates boredom while also giving a child a sense of worth. Set an expectation for contribution.
QUOTES FROM LEVINE
- “We are spending way too much time worried about our children's performance and grades--their heads--and not nearly enough time paying attention to their hearts.”
- “The skill set is changing. It’s not just knowing the right answer; it’s also being able to ask the right question.”
- “The best thing you can do is cultivate your child’s particular talents.”
- “We learn more than we fail than when we succeed.”
- “The implicit value of attending a certain school is no longer a consideration as it once was historically.”
- “Having an involved father is a strong predictor of a child's eventual level of empathy. Optimally, this involvement should begin when children are starting elementary school.”
- “After 30 years of counseling, I believe most parents know in their gut when something is wrong with their kid.”
- “What will make you feel you did your [parenting] job right is having a kind, empathic, creative, interested, curious, open-minded kid. And the rest of it is kind of window dressing.”
BUY Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More Than Grades, Trophies, or "Fat Envelopes"
Click here to request your copy of the Challenge Success white paper. Get even more articles supporting Dr. Levine’s ideas in Teach Your Children Well.
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SUMMARY
Dr. Bob Nelson (AKA “The Guru of Thank You”) shares his third book, 1001 Ways to Engage Employees. Although Gallup originated employee engagement identifiers, Nelson bases his findings on research from HR Solutions conducted among 6 million employees. Now, having sold 5 million books on management, Nelson boasts working with 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and presenting on six continents. As the leading authority on employee recognition, he’s gathered the ten top drivers of employee engagement and hundreds of anecdotes to illustrate how to “Help People Do Better What They Do Best.”
KEY POINTS
- To attract good talent, you have to find ways to increase employee engagement.
- Recognition (feeling valued) is the key element in an engaging environment and the most powerful motivator by far.
- All the top motivators are behavioral and don’t require a big budget.
- About 75% of workers are millennials, and 88% say money is not the top motivator.
- To engage employees, base rewards on their performance, not their presence.
- Obligatory award programs, such as “Employee-of-the-Month,” can turn sour and boring in short order.
- To enhance employee engagement, ask, “If we could do something about that, what would it look like?”
- “Label & Link,” a strategy from American Express, connects employees to tasks that specifically interest them and can align their aspirations with the needs of the organization.
- Knowing ‘why we do our work’ is critical to increasing employee engagement.
- 92% of employees want to be involved in decision-making.
QUOTES FROM NELSON
- “What you’re paid sets your standard of living; your benefits give you security should something happen. But what motivates you at work and to come to work and do your best work is recognition.”
- “The average worker spends fifteen percent of their time at home complaining about their boss.”
- “We learn from the Japanese that ‘the slower you go, the faster you get there.’”
- “The larger or older an organization is, the harder it is to bring that sense of recognition to bear.”
- “Praise progress towards the end goal you want, and you’ll get there!”
BUY 1,001 Ways to Engage Employees: Help People Do Better What They Do Best by Dr. Bob Nelson
RECOMMENDATIONS
Peruse the 2018 Winners of Fortune 100 Best Companies
Fortune 100 Best Companies listed by Great Places to Work
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SUMMARY
Trainer Craig Case and author Jennifer Beckstrand collect best practices for generating inspiration in their book, Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments. Drawing deeply on brain science theory, they share thinking models proven to unleash solutions and spawn profound, focused, life-changing ideas. And, as a bonus, the book is peppered with anecdotes of famous and not-so-famous people who’ve come upon fascinating discoveries and big ideas.
KEY POINTS
- Inspiration, epiphanies, and aha! moments are synonymous.
- History shows monumental changes in thinking come from people who’ve felt perplexed.
- Identifying the right problem is the first critical step.
- When you’re truly inspired, you don’t have to push yourself. Instead, you’re consistently energized to act.
- Sleeping enough, eating well, and relaxing makes your mind fertile for inspiration.
- “Mental downshifting” = allowing the brain to slow down enough to gather information and “consolidate” (learn)
- Every two hours, you should take about ten minutes to stop the inflow of sensory input.
- Daydreaming can be very productive!
- Overworking our brains makes us anxious and depressed.
- Einstein, Mozart, and Beethoven all took breaks, which gave them all the ability to be innovative and creative.
- The best way to identify a problem is to handwrite (not type) in a journal.
- Creativity = new connections
- Anxiety = the natural response from the brain pushing back from not being treated right
- At night, the brain cleanses itself and prepares itself for generating big ideas.
QUOTES FROM CASE
- “Problems are a foundation of all creativity and all insight.”
- “Motivation is about push, and inspiration is about pull.”
- “The brain is an energy hog!”
- “In North America…we’ve become corporate athletes. We wake up in the morning early; we go all day; we stay up late; we pull all-nighters. And we think we are doing…our employers a favor when the brain says, ‘I don’t work this way!’”
- “We don’t even know what it’s like to have a brain work at one hundred percent because we’ve habitualized getting six instead of eight hours a night.”
- “Writing allows wisdom to flow into the consciousness.”
BUY Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Big Ideas: How to Unleash Your Creative Self and Have More Aha! Moments
BUY Aqua Notes Water Proof Note Pad
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SUMMARY
Erik and Emily Orton, parents of five children and authors of the new release, Seven at Sea, explain “why a New York City family cast off convention for a life-changing year on a sailboat.” Together, these parents plan a way to bounce back from a career failure while also creating kids with character who are armed with lasting family memories. Leaving their two-bedroom, one-bath apartment in New York City, this audacious, courageous family of seven buy a boat they name Fezywig. If they waited until "the time was right," the opportunity would be gone. So, the Ortons set sail from New York to and around the Caribbean--more than 2500 miles! As a result, they learn more than how to sail together; they also learn to live together—joyfully and simply.
KEY POINTS
- Because the whole family is involved in making plans, the dream moves forward.
- The Ortons learn to genuinely like the small spaces of New York City, and, in fact, feel lonely and overwhelmed by the work inherent in big houses.
- Living “vertically” in New York, helps them adapt to living on Fezywig where space is minimal.
- “Earbud cocooning” – a strategy for creating personal space and privacy
- Easy ocean access gives the Orton kids a natural playground as well as room to stretch and grow.
- Beach walks give Erik & Emily a place and space for private conversations.
- The work of sailing and living on Feziwig creates real confidence and character-building experiences.
- A three-day supply of water takes the entire family five hours to ferry.
- The Orton family emerges with three kinds of confidence: competence, credibility, and calm.
- As parents, their credibility is on the line: would they be doers or just talkers?
- They share meals and swap stories with other “cruisers,” unexpectedly making lasting friends.
- One daughter learns to feel “more comfortable with being uncomfortable” and showed her how to dream big and have the tenacity to hold on to a big vision.
QUOTES FROM THE ORTONS
- “When the people you love need you, you show up for them.” - Emily
- “We realized we liked being in close quarters. And, yes, it does lend itself to a certain kind of friction and tension, but it also lends itself to a certain kind of coziness and connection.” – Erik
- “Once we got out there, we realized we were the biggest family on the smallest boat.” – Erik
- “What is the ratio of things we say we’re going to do versus things we actually do?” – Erik
- “I know that all of life is a risk…but, at the end of every day that we were illness- or injury-free, I felt grateful. I tried to take it just one day at a time.” - Emily
- “The main difference [to making friends on the water] is time…you’re all open and vulnerable. You need each other!” – Erik
- “I was really interested in trying to expand time…by having unique memories [of the same experiences].” – Emily
- “We knew we only had our children for a certain amount of time…and we realized this window was small and getting smaller. And we could wait for a convenient time; we could wait to have more money on hand. It would just be easier if our kids were older…but they would be gone!” - Erik
- “We knew if we made this investment now, it would compound over time, and it would only go up in value.” – Erik
- “[Home] is the feeling of connection we have with each other.” – Emily
- “What my family and husband all wanted from me was to know I was hearing them, and seeing them, and encouraging them. They just wanted me to be an emotional touchstone, and that’s very mobile.” – Emily
- “The memories that last are the ones we carry with us, and we’re very grateful to have a lot of those.” – Erik
BUY Seven at Sea: Why a New York City Family Cast Off Convention for a Life-changing Year on a Sailboat
RECOMMENDATION
Strengthen your family in your own way:
- Look in each other’s eyes.
- Eat dinner together.
- Sit around the kitchen table together and talk about what’s important to you.
- Go on a walk with your spouse.
- Create questions that will bring you closer.
- Strengthen faraway children by complimenting them or by just listening.
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SUMMARY
In his book Fly Girls, author and journalist Keith O’Brien brings to life the almost-forgotten, inspiring true stories of female aviators. Danger and discrimination were only two of the many obstacles they faced as they fought for their right to compete in air races popular during the 1920s and ‘30s. By following a small thread in The Astronaut Wives Club, O’Brien now weaves together Fly Girls, the unique history of “Five Brave Women Who Defied the Odds and Made Aviation History.”
KEY POINTS
- In 1928, just eight years after the women's suffrage amendment passed, 30 million women were registered to vote. That same year, less than a dozen American women held pilot licenses.
- Women learning to fly had to put up with catcalls, odd looks, and snide remarks repeatedly.
- Most flight instructors were men who complained or wrote openly about how much they disliked teaching women how to fly.
- Air races (not air shows) were a real sport with winners and losers, lots of money for the victors, and enormous crowds—like the Super Bowl of our time.
- Sexism revealed in the nicknames given to female pilots: “ladybirds,” “sweethearts of the air,” “petticoat pilots,” and “powder puff girls.”
- Department of Commerce (predating the FAA) created a regulation that women could not fly a plane within three days of menstruating.
- Sabotage of women’s planes, though unproven, presented yet another obstacle to those wanting to participate in the air races.
- Women exerting freedoms, such as wearing pants and cutting hair short, went against the norms for the times.
- Aviation was potentially a very lucrative hobby or career.
- Radio communication was spotty and weather reports unreliable in the 1920s and ‘30s, and people were making planes “in their backyards.”
QUOTES FROM O'BRIEN
- “Before they even got in a plane, they had to weather discrimination on the ground.”
- “To be a woman walking across an airfield in 1928…would have put you into one of the rarest of categories.”
- “These women were true radicals, true renegades who were pushing the envelope of what society expected of a woman.”
- “These women had to be better pilots than the men…When the women crashed, they were questioned at every turn.”
- “They came from different backgrounds…but there was a commonality in how they were raised…At a time when parents—in particular, a father—could tell a teenage girl whom she would or would not date or marry…these parents either turned the other way and allowed their daughter to pursue this unusual interest in aviation, or they actively encourage it.”
- “Many died in the air races—sometimes right in front of the crowd—and still the races would go on! They had an appetite for death and disaster that we simply would not tolerate today.”
BUY Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
BUY Fly Girls Young Readers’ Edition: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade's trailer advertising Fly Girls(with live footage)
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SUMMARY
Blogger and author KJ Dell’Antonia knows “How to Be a Happier Parent.” With four children under her own roof, she was compelled to discover keys to “Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute.” By surveying 1000 parents, Dell'Antonia tracked down common behaviors and attitudes among happier parents. She also found common pain points parents face. So, her self-help book contains her own story "of finding a place of joy and satisfaction with [her] life and [her] family life." For the rest of parents, it serves as a guide for becoming happier parents while striking out on their own journey.
KEY POINTS
- Happiness is not a goal of achievement but a goal of motion.
- Our goal should be “efficacy” = when we feel satisfied we’re doing something right but not necessarily perfectly
- Parents can be happier by changing the stories they tell.
- Notice the things we wanted and planned for.
- KJ’s “Ten Mantras for Happier Parents” include:
- You can be happy when your children aren’t (vs. You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child).
- You don’t have to get it right every time.
- What you want now isn’t always what you want later.
- Soak up the good.
- You as a parent need to be OK with disappointment so your kid sees you model control and tap into long-view perspective.
- To instill grit, kids have to experience some unhappiness while they’re young.
- Happier parents
- keep an adult perspective
- take time to notice the things going right
- keep their own interests alive
- take into account all the family (including themselves) when making decisions
- Some pain points for parents include mornings, siblings, homework, chores, and discipline.
- Be glad you have time to help/coach your kids while they’re still living with you.
- In times of crisis (if you have time): laugh, cry, breathe, think, plan, or talk to your partner before talking to an erring child.
QUOTES FROM DELL’ANTONIA
“[Happier parents] revel in the meaning and excitement that comes from the adventure of raising a family instead of trying to measure our success.”
“We are all looking to be a little happier around the experience that we’re having right now.”
“Nobody wants to bear the burden of somebody else’s happiness.”
“The truth is that you do not want to raise a child who’s been happy for their entire childhood. You don’t want to raise a child who’s never so much as lost a balloon. That is…the worst college roommate in the history of mankind.”
“Siblings…they all want all of us!”
“Parents of younger kids describe themselves as happier when they’re a little more involved; parents of older kids describe themselves as happier when they’re a little less involved in the day-to-day responsibilities. So, that evolution of independence is important for the kid and it’s the right thing for us!”
“Soak up the good by paying attention. Even when things are going wrong, overall things are pretty good…The ordinary days are really good!”
BUY How to be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute
RECOMMENDATION
BUY How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
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SUMMARY
British journalist and marathon addict Phil Hewitt extols the multiple virtues of running in his newly published book, Outrunning the Demons: Lives Transformed Through Running. His “celebratory exploration” of running includes 34 compelling true stories from runners around the world whose reasons run the range from overcoming trauma to honoring the death of a loved one.
In each story, Hewitt champions the power of running to steady a life rife with trouble and trauma or to simply help access joy and exhilaration. Every story is proof positive that running provides power to outrun demons, transform lives, and unlock resilience needed to face life’s everyday challenges. Even more, “running can so often be the answer to everything when we find ourselves in extremis.”
- Whether heartwarming or heartbreaking, the stories in the book inspire us to believe in the transformative power of running.
- After attending a cricket championship in South Africa, Hewitt is brutally mugged walking through Cape Town and, as a result, suffers severe PTSD.
- Even when his physical wounds heal, Hewitt’s emotional and mental wounds beleaguer him until he returns to running.
- “Outrunning the demons” can mean leaving them behind OR, more often, finding a way to live with them.
- The universal appeal of running may lie in its ability to transport us back to the present moment (like mindfulness).
- Running can feel like a sacred experience, giving yourself time and space to process.
- The National Health Service in England is increasingly recommending running as better than low-level antidepressants.
- Running can restore a sense of control, power, and reconnection.
- Camaraderie is a powerful pull for runners.
- The sport of running can be either solitary or social—or both!
- “parkruns” – (started in London and now wildly popular in England and Australia) allow people to simply show up at a park or green space to run a few miles without paying a fee
- Running can give us a safe place to grieve.
- Many healed and strengthened through running have formed nonprofit organizations to help others.
- Men tend to bottle up feelings, causing them to become subject to staggering suicide statistics.
- Rapper “Professor Green” writes a song about the terrible effects of his father committing suicide.
QUOTES FROM HEWITT
“Something lifted, something just cut through the total mess in my mind…[that] I sensed the power of running.”
“Being able to come back [from a run] physically tired was bliss—absolute bliss!”
“Running to me seems to be such a terrific answer to trauma…that horrible past is like this endlessly rerunning, constantly replaying present, and running is one of the things cuts through that.”
“Since the trauma, I’ve stopped running to music. [Now,] when I run, I just want to attune to the surroundings, to just look at the trees, smell the roses, be present in the moment.”
“I love being part of a pack at the start of a race. You don’t know all these people…but in that race you are united in a really profound, spiritual, uplifting way.”
“People who’ve been to hell discover that the quickest, surest, safest way back is to run.”
“If you’re firmly in the mid-pack where I am, there is a terrific camaraderie—a great ‘looking after’ [each other.]”
“Ever since what happened to me, I’ve become terribly un-British. I don’t remotely have a stiff upper lip now. I talk about my emotions and struggle to stop talking about them!” 30:00 ish
“It’s all about awareness that it’s OK not to be OK.”
“Running is a privilege. Obviously, it’s not something that everyone can do. But if you’re fortunate enough to do it, you might just find that running is potentially a big part of the solution to whatever you’re going through.”
BUY Outrunning the Demons: Lives Transformed through Running
RECOMMENDATION: A book for beginning runners as well as those aspiring to qualify for the Boston Marathon
BUY Galloway's Book on Running
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SUMMARY
From an early age, Dr. Dave Walker, author of God in the ICU, believed two things: that God loved him and that he wanted to be a doctor. But even as a successful anesthesiologist, when personal tragedy struck not once but three times, Walker became disillusioned with God. Gone was his trust in a personal, intimate God. However, when he returned to his childhood practice of praying, Walker could not deny the miracles that unfolded. God in the ICU: The Inspirational Biography of a Praying Doctor reveals the open faith of a man who relies on both science and spirituality to help heal his patients and to become a believer again.
KEY POINTS
- When personal tragedy strikes, Walker’s strong belief in God morphs into cold anger and leads him into a period of spiritual loneliness, and life begins to consist of only random joy and pain.
- Although he recommends his patients pray for comfort, he doesn’t personally believe God will hear them.
- A powerful atmosphere of love in church creates a turning point; disillusionment and resentment begin to melt into acceptance and belief.
- South Africans are more willing to talking about spiritual things than those in the U.S., so offering to pray in the ICU is comfortable.
- In the ICU, sick people tend to be desperate for people to pray for them.
- Touching patients when praying for them confirms research that laying hands on a person can enhance healing.
- Walker learns to pray for patients regardless of the outcome.
- In the United Arab Emirates, where Muslims highly respect “holy Christians,” Walker prays with and for Christians and Muslims alike.
QUOTES FROM WALKER
“From early on, I really wanted to help people, and I guess I thought that medicine was the best way I could do that.”
“The surgeon gets all the glamour…but actually, it’s the anesthetist that actually keeps the patient alive…[and] who looks after the care of the whole patient.”
"When fighting for your life, you need more than medicine."
“The patients in the ICU--and their relatives as well—needed more than I could give them.”
“We always expect God to be dramatic in His healing, but sometimes miracles happen slowly, and sometimes God wants us to be intensely involved in the working of His miracles.”
“There’s nothing like prayer to change you as you connect with God.”
“If you want to get a tan, sit under the sun; if you want to get a spiritual tan, sit under the Son.”
“The more we pray, the more we see God coming through, and the more we see God coming through, the more we’re able to trust Him and to live a life of trust.”
"Nothing can shield us from the unpredictable experiences of a fallen world. How we respond, however, especially to God, will determine how it affects us."
BUY God in the ICU: The Inspiring Biography of .a Praying Doctor
RECOMMENDATION
BUY Learning to Play God: The Coming of Age of a Young Doctor
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SUMMARY
Patient H69: The Story of My Second Sight, Vanessa Potter’s memoir, captures her journey from light to dark and back again. Within 72 hours, Potter moves from keeping up the high-paced lifestyle of a freelance TV producer and mother of two small children to being blind and paralyzed in a hospital bed. Having suddenly contracted NMO (an extremely rare neurological disorder that affects the optic and spinal nerves), Potter becomes both deeply curious and fiercely determined to get better. So, enlisting a team of neuroscientists, she provides real-time data to help solve the mystery illness.
KEY POINTS
- Sensory loss – the official term for what Potter experienced – completely disorients Potter to the point she didn’t know if she was up or down or where she was. She couldn’t feel where she was! The very information we live our lives by shuts down.
- Meditation is a reflex. Her visual sanctuary is a beautiful beach, which, by seeing in her mind, keeps her visual system alive.
- Our brain does the business of seeing.
- Creating audio recordings then later blogging her story in real time become therapeutic.
- Potter’s narration turns into critical scientific data.
- Deep curiosity propels her to seek medical answers.
- “Patient H69” becomes her pseudonym for her writing and blog.
- She “piggybacks” the vision of everyone who walked in the room to “see,” and her knowledge filled in the gaps.
- Her children’s touch is “medicine in a bottle” for Potter. Children naturally lavish touch and have an intuition about what to do when they walk in the room.
- Before being released from the hospital, Potter has to pass the “tea test” to make sure she has sufficient coping strategies at home.
- Humor is a resource—buying her time and helping her relax.
- Potter’s experience corroborates years of visual science—the inside of vision.
- Collaborates with Cambridge University scientists on EEG project to help others see how their mindful brainwaves convert into music and art.
QUOTES FROM POTTER
“I remember one time asking my husband, ‘This might sound like a crazy question, but am I still here?’”
“Meditation was my lifeline because this was one of the most active things I could do—given I couldn’t move, I couldn’t feed myself—so the meditation was a very, very powerful resource to have inside my mind.”
“I was so determined that we were going to see this through and that I was not going to be coming home [from hospital] until I was better.”
“The U.K. has the most amazing NHS (medical system), but you have to fight for it.”
“Physical closeness was not only a way of being physically close [to visitors] but also communicating with them…a soft warm hand holding my hand says a thousand words.”
“We think we’re often helpless…[but] even in the worst situations, you have a choice…which leads to opportunity…I’ve learned to carve opportunity in the darkest place because then the rewards are so much more.”
Don’t miss “Part 2: Diary of the Science” to learn how Potter now applies what she’s learned!
BUY Patient H69: The Story of My Second Sight (Bloomsbury Sigma)
RECOMMENDATION
World Book Day, celebrated in the U.K. on the first Thursday in March. A nonprofit whose aim is to give every child and young person a book of their own. Find out how you can contribute to the cause as an author, illustrator, teacher, parent, or mentor.
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SUMMARY
Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure, gives parents a multitude of reasons to let go so their children can succeed. As an educator, author, and mother, Lahey sees this delicate balancing act from all angles. But with modern parents embracing overprotectiveness like never before, she recognizes the danger of cushioning falls and being overly responsive to children’s needs. Truth be told, a child not allowed to fail will never learn to solve his own problems and become an autonomous, competent, independent adult.
As a teacher, Lahey noticed a disturbing pattern among parents who constantly raced to the rescue of their children, causing them to lose their love of learning. At the same time, she was dismayed to discover some of the same detrimental effects from her own parenting when her nine-year-old son could not tie his own shoes. Find out "How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed."
KEY POINTS
- All parents want their children to succeed, but parents themselves can become the biggest roadblock to their success by teaching them to fear failure.
- We parents have become used to getting feedback on our performance; now we look at our own kids for feedback. But kids are not our report card.
- A three-step process to help kids believe we care more about the learning: step back, focus more on the long term than on the short term, and start thinking more about the process of learning rather than the end product.
- Be willing to learn from your own mistakes by making some goals that are a little bit scary.
- Extrinsic rewards erode long-term motivation.
- Praise kids for very specific behaviors; even positive, general praise (especially labeling) can be especially damaging for low-self-esteem kids.
- Formative assessment is difficult for kids unaccustomed to hearing anything negative about themselves.
- Do not pay kids for “family contributions” (tasks around the house).
- Kids who help have a sense of control (self-efficacy).
- PPP = “Pressured Parents Phenomenon” (how parents have become each other’s worst enemy)
- Middle-school kids have nowhere near the executive brain function they need to handle all the tasks required of them.
- Children grow by doing their own college search and living by hard and fast deadlines. Keep your hands off their essays!
QUOTES FROM LAHEY
“When we are too directive…when we tell them exactly how to do things…that renders kids a lot less able to cope with their own frustration.”
“Kids who can get frustrated are a lot more likely to finish things that are frustrating, and the most powerful teaching tools we have are things like desirable difficulties.”
“They need to start being able to look to themselves as their own sort of compass for what is quality.”
“Failure is a fact of life in middle school, so embrace it!”
“Every single moment you feel an impulse to jump in and do for your kid…you’re telling him—without meaning to—'I don’t think you’re capable of handling this yourself.’”
BUY The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed
RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Freaky Friday (2003)
BUY Freaky Friday (1976)
BUY Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
BUY The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money
BUY Pressured Parents, Stressed-out Kids: Dealing With Competition While Raising a Successful Child
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Author Erica Wagner, a New York City native, celebrates the story of constructing the Brooklyn Bridge in her book, Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge. Nearly 150 years after being built, the Brooklyn Bridge remains a wonder. Notably, its iconic image is still displayed on tourist brochures, film posters, and even Italian chewing gum wrappers. In fact, many consider the Brooklyn Bridge one of the greatest symbols of 19th-century progress, and how it was made is a dramatic tale of vision, innovation, and endurance in the face of extraordinary odds.
Although she never knew Roebling personally, Wagner, at age sixteen, fell in love with the bridge’s engineer Washington Roebling, carrying his picture in her wallet for decades and even to this day! However, writing his biography, though a great pleasure, required her to understand not only literature but also to become steeped in engineering and history.
When David McCullough published The Great Bridge in the early 1970s, he was surprised no one had written a biography of the great Washington Roebling. Yet, at that time, even McCullough did not have access to the writings of Roebling. Those would not come to light until the early 2000s when they were discovered in the archives of Rutgers University in Trenton, New Jersey, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. So, Wagner, being a lifelong aficionado of Roebling, seized the opportunity to study his memoir, which was very intertwined with the life of his tyrannical father John A. Roebling, the bridge’s designer. Finally, out of Wagner’s intensive research emerged the biography, Chief Engineer.
- Washington Roebling was frustrated all his life by the confusion between himself and his father John Roebling, a great and famous engineer who got the contract to build the Brooklyn Bridge.
- John A. Roebling’s invention of steel wire cables made the family’s fortune and allowed him to build suspension bridges.
- Early in the project, John Roebling had an accident and died 10 days later of tetanus, leaving the mammoth construction project to his son Washington.
- When he became sick with “caisson disease,” Washington and his wife Emily became close business partners by default with Emily acting as his intermediary at the engineering site.
- The original four cables, now over 135-years-old, are still holding up the Brooklyn Bridge.
- Washington Roebling’s great passion was not engineering but was, in fact, geology and mineralogy, and his mineral collection was donated to the Smithsonian Museum.
QUOTES FROM WAGNER
“All of his life, his father’s reputation got in the way of him, and people were always confusing him and his father to his great annoyance.”
“Washington Roebling didn’t have a choice; he was raised to be his father’s lieutenant.”
“Any structure is only as good as the maintenance devoted to it. Infrastructure has to be maintained…you don’t just pay for it once.”
BUY Chief Engineer: Washington Roebling, The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
RECOMMENDATIONS
- A children's nonfiction book about bridges, complete with illustrations, photos, and historical material: BUY 13 Bridges Children Should Know by Brad Finger
- Our podcast with Brad Finger discussing several children's nonfiction books he has written for Prestel Publishing
Original movies made by Thomas Edison from the train crossing the Brooklyn Bridge
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Garth Callaghan, author of Napkin Notes: Make Lunch Meaningful, Life Will Follow, did not know how long he had to live. Although he began his writing career tucking simple notes to his daughter Emma’s lunchbox, the notes took on new meaning when he was diagnosed with cancer--four times! Seemingly out of nowhere, his school-day ritual went viral. News media inundated the Callaghans, and, just months later, the book Napkin Notes became a runaway bestseller.
00:15 Nonfiction4Life celebrates Valentine’s Day sharing a book about love
00:30 Intro to Napkin Notes: Make Lunch Meaningful, Life Will Follow by Garth Callaghan
00:35 Janet shares surprising true story of contacting Garth Callaghan for the podcast
01:00 How Callaghan begins writing napkin notes to his daughter to affirm his love and teach her how to live
2:30 After he’s diagnosed with cancer, Callaghan puts more thought into notes
4:00 Emma, who saves all the notes, reads some favorites in the audiobook format
05:00 Notes evolve to include quotes “from the greats,” dad jokes, and inspirational and motivational thoughts
06:00 Discussing uncomfortable topics (e.g., prostate cancer, death)
09:30 Reads in-flight article about Alex Sheen, founder of nonprofit Because I Said I Would
10:30 Promises to write 826 notes, enough to carry Emma to high school graduation
12:00 Avoids duplicates by creating a spreadsheet
13:00 Intent on writing (vs. merely verbalizing) positive, encouraging, and affirming words
14:00 Tangible, written notes carry enduring power
14:45 “I don’t need to beat cancer; I just need to tie it.” ~ Callaghan
15:00 “A tie counts as a win.” ~ Emma
16:00 Advice for well-intentioned parents with multiple children: “Just copy me!”
17:00 Takes pictures of napkin notes; posts them online and share with others
17:30 Website offers a free download of monthly notes
18:00 Writing a simple note takes five seconds
18:15 “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.”
18:45 “Napkin notes” idea goes viral
21:00 Family heads to NYC for interviews with NPR, The Today Show, Fox & Friends, etc.
21:30 Callaghan’s national exposure offers the opportunity to share an idea he believes in wholly
22:00 He quiets his mind and prays and before writing notes, recognizing his purpose is Emma
25:45 Going viral and taking the story public is a family decision
28:30 Writes the book for Harper Collins in 80 days; meets deadlines to ensure he sees the book before dying
31:00 Book is a wakeup call to people who procrastinate or feel uncomfortable sharing feelings
32:00 Most people die without wills and life insurance. (“Last time I checked, everyone is going to die.”)
33:00 If you die without sharing your thoughts and feelings with loved ones, “it all goes away.”
35:00 A seven-time cancer patient, Callaghan faces his uncertain future with purpose and positivity
36:00 Movie rights to Napkin Notes sold
36:30 Napkin Notes message aligns with Nonfiction4Life goals: finding insightful, inspiring, and uplifting ideas that attract people seeking goodness
37:25 “I’m the most boring man in the world!”
38:30 Callaghan’s promise to write many notes is one everyone can make and keep
39:15 “You can strengthen your relationship with anyone through the written note.”
39:30 Finds an old file full of notes from a manager who celebrated successes in writing
40:30 Callaghan keeps lots of pens and paper handy, writing notes often--even to strangers
41:45 Recommendations: two books about love (see below)
42:50 More recommendations: lunch box note packs for all ages (see links below)
BUY Napkin Notes: Make Lunch Meaningful, Life Will Follow
BUY Everything I Need to Know About Love I Learned From a Little Golden Book
BUY Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
Best Paper Greetings Pack of 60 Lunch Box Notes - Colorful Inspirational and Motivational Cards for Kids (Young & Old)
BUY Juvale Pack of 60 Lunch Box Notes - Colorful Inspirational and Motivational Cards for (Younger) Kids
BUY Love Note Card Deck - Cute Sentimental Quote Cards - Set of Thirty 2" x 3.5" Cards - Assorted Designs
For more information about Garth Callaghan and his mission, go to The Napkin Notes Dad website
Check out Alex Sheen's website, Alex Sheen's website Because I Said I Would.
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Months after the dreadful attacks of 9/11, Jim DeFede moved to Gander, Newfoundland. There, he discovered deeply kind Canadians had helped thousands of perfect strangers through that fateful day and several days following. Interestingly, less than one year later, DeFede first published this true story in his book "The Day the World Came to Town." Yet, perhaps now more than ever, we need to revisit 9/11 through the lens of the people in Gander, Newfoundland and consider the book's unavoidable probing question: How willing are we to help strangers in crisis?
00:15 Intro to Jim Defede, author of The Day the World Came to Town
02:10 Why 38 planes were diverted to Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11
04:00 “You can always add a little more water to the soup.”
05:00 Gander boasts the busiest airport during WWII; later, the town later grows up around it
06:30 Newfoundland today: poorest Canadian province with highest unemployment & poverty rate
07:30 When U.S. airspace closes on 9/11, pilots continue flying forward anyway
08:45 Knowing planes from Europe potentially hold more terrorists, Canada takes a risk
11:00 The rural Gander airport, with its long runways, suddenly finds a new purpose
11:30 38 planes land, dropping off 7K passengers in a town of 10K people
12:00 Schools, churches, clubs, and even homes absorb the strangers
12:30 Bus drivers walk off picket lines to help transport passengers
13:30 Authorities organize security to reduce chaos and calm nerves
15:30 Passengers protected from video images of burning towers until after debarking
17:00 Confluence of some 40 cultures, religions, and languages necessitates charades
18:00 Strong spirit of wanting to get through the crisis together
18:45 O’Rourkes, NYC Irish couple, wait for news about their NYC firefighter son
19:30 Locals go out of their way to visit, crack jokes, and console the couple
21:00 Darkest days of worry for O’Rourkes infused with light by townspeople
21:30 Before leaving Gander, two Beatles impersonators (“The Beatle Boys”) sing “Imagine”
23:30 “The plane people” continue to stay in touch with the people of Gander
24:15 Spontaneous charity and working together deeply embedded in Newfies
25:00 Is a similar strong community spirit replicable?
25:30 Do we assume the government will handle crises?
26:30 How willing are we individually to contribute and to help perfect strangers?
27:50 President George W. Bush’s speech emphasizes America’s strength
28:00 DeFede trumpets the strength of western society and the basic goodness of man
28:50 Current refugee crisis challenges our moral goodness, generosity, and kindness
31:00 “I don’t doubt for a second the goodness of America…but we’re all constantly being tested.”
31:30 We’re still trying to create “a more perfect union”
33:00 Recommendation #1: Broadway musical Come From Away
33:45 Recommendation #2: TV special with Tom Brokaw featuring Gander (aired during 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada)
BUY The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
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Meet Catherine Price, recovering phone addict and author of "How to Break Up with Your Phone." She shares her own story of being too digitally connected and too out of touch with people and passions. What follows is her "30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life," steps all of us can follow to start living and loving our lives the way we should and tapping into our own creativity.
00:15 Intro to Catherine Price, science writer and author of How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life
01:15 Price’s tongue-in-cheek “Open Letter” to her phone
02:35 Old enough to remember the world before smartphones but young enough to not imagine life without it
03:15 Pivotal moment: Price’s baby gazes up at her while she’s staring at her phone
04:15 Begins taking 24-hour breaks from her phone, but has no plan for an end game
05:20 A decade since smartphones hit the market, we feel a paralyzing tension
06:00 “Breaking up with your phone” doesn’t mean throwing technology under the bus
06:25 Smartphones designed to keep us tethered to them, to trigger dopamine
07:45 Just being near someone checking phone can trigger the need to check our own
08:15 Smartphones = “slot machines in our pockets” – the most addictive machine ever invented
08:40 Determining if you’re addicted to your phone using “The Smartphone Compulsion Test”
(David Greenfield, 1998)
10:00 Stress from being on phone releases cortisol, impeding rational thinking and increasing risky behavior (e.g., texting while driving)
11:05 Likening checking phone to other addictive behaviors (using heroin, smoking)
11:40 “FOMO” drives us to check phones incessantly without considering other options
12:20 Auto-response for texts still requires a third-party app
13:15 We fear our own minds, leading us to numb our thoughts with a phone without asking bigger questions about how to spend our time
14:00 Study finds people prefer getting electric shocks to being alone (with own thoughts)
15:15 Social apps show our willingness to give up lots of personal information/background
16:00 Our attention is the commodity taken from us
16:45 Others channels to keep in touch with family & friends without compromising info
18:00 Need to speak up against the attention economy, decide what’s meaningful to us
19:40 “Phubbing” = phone snubbing; seemingly acceptable rude social behavior
21:05 Price’s experiment concludes breaking up with a phone can change your life
21:40 The more attention you pay to how you use your phone, the more attention you pay to how you want to live your life
22:05 Trial separation – a “Digital Sabbath” – at first causes withdrawal
22:30 Creates time and space to help us remember what we really like to do
23:40 Take Price’s intake quiz: www.phonebreakup.com
24:15 With spare time, Price takes up the guitar and finds new joy and new community
25:00 Dave Crenshaw’s book, The Power of Having Fun, also emphasizes finding our passions
25:40 “I realized I was giving up my life in five-minute increments.”
25:55 Checking phone can be a knee-jerk reaction
26:10 We can’t have creative thoughts without boredom, stillness
26:40 Brain actually creates proteins to create long-term memories – a process easily disrupted by distractions
28:00 Serendipitously, Price meets neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel
28:45 Others may push back against our decision to disconnect
29:30 First, decide your own boundaries; use autoresponders
30:30 Price’s book provides a 30-day plan to take back your life
31:00 Recommendation: a short video about the book that will make you smile…and give you pause
BUY How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life
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In his latest book, The Power of Having Fun, productivity expert Dave Crenshaw gives us permission to have fun. Seriously! According to Crenshaw, we all need to take breaks—lots of them—every day, week, month, and year. In fact, the best way to be productive is to have fun every day all year long. So, Crenshaw teaches us how to incorporate having fun into every aspect of our lives. After you listen to him, you’ll be back in the sandbox taking back your recess time!
00:15 Intro to Dave Crenshaw, author of The Power of Having Fun
01:10 Having fun helps us be more productive
02:10 Crenshaw uses “desert” and “oasis” metaphors
02:25 “Desert” = an extended period of deprivation and/or chaos (as defined by you)
03:45 Most common deserts: career and retirement
05:40 59% of people unhappy at work but push hard to retirement anyway
06:20 Taking time for an “oasis” actually helps us get to the other side
06:50 Oasis = a planned, scheduled break (as defined by you)
07:20 Taking a vacation can perpetuate the “desert” mentality
08:00 More than 600 million vacation days go unused annually
08:30 Hard work necessary for success
08:40 10% of our awake time should be “oasis” time
09:25 Prescheduled times to step away from work refreshes us
09:45 “W.I.S.H.” - worth it someday, hopefully
10:25 Permission – the first stage of having fun (not feeling guilty)
10:45 Research shows those deprived of dopamine get worse at task
12:10 Short breaks (not a vacation) help us perform better
13:30 Clearly defined fun time (not one activity coupled with another)
14:00 If you’re traveling through the desert, is water something you earn for good behavior?
14:15 Fun is a requirement!
15:05 Playing is almost a human right
15:45 “W.I.N.” – worth it now
16:05 Discovery – tough step for adults who’ve forgotten how they like having fun
17:00 “Recess” has been stolen from us
17:10 World Health Organization (WHO) determined playing is a basic right of children
17:30 Children with recess time pay attention and have fewer behavioral problems
18:40 Children always find a way to play, have fun, and entertain themselves
20:10 Lean away from costly breaks; save those for yearly play
20:30 Oasis intervals (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) determine time and money spent
21:25 Most of our fun should be free to very inexpensive
22:10 It’s not time management; its focus management
22:30 Massive difference between being distracted and having fun
23:10 Trap: waiting to finish everything before having fun
23:35 Oasis should be one of the first things on the schedule
24:25 How to create and honor a family oasis
25:15 Relationship deserts let them dry up and fall apart while driving toward success
26:25 Spending time in loving relationships enhances our business endeavors
26:30 If you want children to succeed in school, have fun with them
27:00 “Me” time vs. “them” time: planning family oasis time that suits the needs of others
30:00 We have far more control over our own time than we think
31:10 Discover your “ultradian rhythm” – work/activity cycle within a day (90-120 min.)
33:20 Trust that fun and play truly makes you more productive
34:10 Staying at home with children can be its own desert
34:40 Find a moment – a gap in the day – then reserve it, guard it
35:30 Anticipating the fun can help get us through the desert (a “pre-ward,” not a reward)
37:10 Recommendation: “How to Have Fun Like Children: 15 Joyful Tips” by Nan Nanton
BUY The Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done
Check out Dave's website!
Get 15 ideas for how to have fun like children, a blog post on the “Tiny Buddha” website
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BUY The Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done
Get 15 ideas for how to have fun like children on the “Tiny Buddha” website.
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From Mary Pipher, bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia, we now get Women Rowing North, a guide to wisdom and authenticity for women as they age. Cultural therapist Pipher, age 71, understands how women growing older contend with ageism, misogyny, grief, and loss. Yet her message is clear and hopeful: most older women are deeply happy and filled with gratitude for the gifts of life. Their very struggles help them let go of stereotypes and grow into authentic, wise, and empathetic women.
Pipher's own life and her many roles have schooled her in ways women can cultivate resilient responses to their challenges. "If we can keep our wits about us," she writes, "we will experience a joyous time of our lives. If we have planned carefully and properly, if we have good maps and guides, the journey can be transcendent."
00:15 Intro to Mary Pipher, author of Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age
00:50 Other books by Pipher: Reviving Ophelia, The Shelter of Each Other, and Another Country
01:45 Chooses the metaphor of “rowing north” as a bookend to Reviving Ophelia
02:20 Younger and older women all live with cultural stereotypes and scripts
03:30 What does it mean to be old?
04:00 All of Pipher’s books stem from a deep curiosity about her own life
04:20 “Young" old age” vs. “old" old age
05:40 Women 65-75 are the happiest people in America
06:15 Most women deny being old in order to distance selves from cultural script and stories
07:20 Older women tend to be social connectors and experience a time of tremendous growth
08:00 Age can be a source of happiness, bliss, and satisfaction
08:30 Choosing happiness—a skill set often found among women in 70s
10:30 Jane Jarvis, musical prodigy (pianist), had everything she needed to be happy right between her ears
12:00 Age brings changes in body image, social invisibility, and loss of abilities
12:45 How women can reclaim their power
13:00 Story of Michelle Obama’s mother coming to live in the White House
13:45 Exploding the tired, old mother-in-law myth
14:45 "Solutions can’t be legislated; they come from the human heart."
15:15 Female friends give women power and support
15:45 Older women can rescue themselves using decades of practice fighting back against negative messaging
17:00 The power of saying “No” (walking out of any situation we don’t want to be in)
17:45 The power of saying “Yes” (instead of stilling the inner voice)
18:15 Taught to be “good girls” instead of learning to take care of ourselves
19:30 Finding a healthy approach to caregiving, which is very hard work
21:10 Contradictory research on caregiving
21:40 Caregivers need respite and creative strategies for bringing friends into the home
23:50 Keeping connections as lifelines
24:50 True secret of happiness is managing expectations
25:30 Defining happiness on your own terms
26:50 Old age is catalytic for growth
27:00 Suffering increases capacity for bliss, gratitude, empathy, moral imagination, and authenticity
28:30 Stories of resilience, gratitude, and perspective
30:40 How to lean into lessons of suffering without denial
31:20 Taking a gentle approach to our own pain and suffering
31:50 “All of us keep so many appointments we did not make, but we always have choices about how to reframe those experiences.”
32:00 Crafting resplendent narratives: we can’t have a better history, but we can have a better story
32:30 Older women tend to joke around very well and unselfconscious about their bodies
34:20 Time (the most valuable resource of all) = wealth
35:50 Many older women happy because, for the first time in their lives, they can do what they want with their time
36:50 Women becoming intentional moral storytellers for their families
41:00 A great gift of old age: the long view of family and a lifetime
41:55 Blessing of old age: the freedom to be honest
43:30 Small things can bring enormous joy
44:15 Book contains discussions of death, loneliness, and more
44:50 Recommendation: The Trip to Bountiful (1985 movie)
BUY Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age
MORE BOOKS BY MARY PIPHER
BUY Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
BUY The Shelter of Each Other
BUY Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders
RECOMMENDATION
BUY The Trip To Bountiful (movie)
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On a dare from his son, author A.J. Jacobs set out to thank everyone who contributed to bringing him a cup of coffee. The result is his book, "Thanks A Thousand," and a TEDTalk viewed by more than a million people. Jacobs's "Gratitude Journey," a timely exploration of our interconnectedness, illustrates our need to eschew tribalism and recognize the staggering number of people who make our everyday lives wonderful.
00:15 Intro to A.J. Jacobs, author of Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey
01:15 Jacobs finds the Nonfiction4Life podcast expensive—buying books we feature!
01:45 Story begins with a cup of coffee and morphs into a high-adventure journey
02:15 Jacobs, an immersive journalist, likes to dive deeply into his studies
02:30 Learns of psychological and physical benefits of gratitude, and gives it a try
02:45 Rather than thanking God, Jacobs offers prayers of gratitude to helpful people
03:45 Begins thanking over 1000 people involved in making his morning cup of coffee possible
04:45 “Deceptively simple quest”
05:15 His quest supports the gratitude research, improving many aspects of his life
05:55 Our brains divided: pessimistic, cynical, (“Larry David”) side vs. optimistic, positive (“Mr. Rogers”) side
06:45 Gratitude a practice that doesn’t tend to come naturally; negative bias gets in the way
08:00 Notices hundreds of things that need to “go right” to produce a cup of coffee
09:20 People who say, “I am grateful” (vs. “Thank you”) perceived as more genuinely grateful
10:00 Recommends including details in words of appreciation, especially in thank you notes
11:30 Making someone else’s day gives him a dopamine boost
12:15 His grumpiness abated by expressing gratitude
12:45 “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.”
14:10 Loves the genuine passion some have for their jobs (e.g., coffee lid inventor)
16:05 His family welcome the personal transformation in Jacobs
17:10 Now a “gratitude extremist” – makes kids thank Amazon “Alexa”
18:45 “Almost everything good in the world is the result of teamwork.”
19:00 As a writer, would have liked to add many names to the cover of his book
20:15 Responsibility bias – we like to (falsely) credit just one person
21:00 “Lead singer bias” applies to marriage
22:15 Connectedness becomes increasingly important to Jacobs
22:30 Replaces “YOLO” with “WOLO" - being aware of others
22:30 Jacobs’s book, It’s All Relative, also includes the theme of connectedness
24:50 Counters tribalism: "There’s just US!"
26:15 Nobody too opposed to being thanked
27:00 Start being grateful by following the gratitude trail
27:30 Small acts help: looking people in the eye to thank them
28:15 Technology, with its pros and cons, can making thanking people easier
29:15 Personal thanks can be emotionally rewarding (e.g., write a letter; read it aloud)
30:30 Examines how gender affects gratitude
31:30 We underestimate how meaningful being thanked can be, and we underestimate how awkward it can be
33:00 End of the book includes a list of the 1000+ people he thanks
33:30 What Jacobs might do differently the next time
35:00 Janet receives two separate notes of gratitude for the Nonfiction4Life podcast
35:30 How to leave a podcast review
36:20 Recommendation: Shari’s Berries (free printable thank you notes and 85 ways to say “Thank you”)
BUY Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (TED Books)
Watch A.J. Jacobs deliver his now-famous TEDTalk with over 1 million views!
Other books by A.J. Jacobs:
BUY The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
BUY It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree
Get free printable thank you notes from Shari’s Berries
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Dr. Victoria Sweet intended to stay at Laguna Honda, America's last-standing almshouse, for only a couple months, but she stayed for 20 years! Now, she's captured her stories and observations in her book, God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. Today, her experience with the sick poor at Laguna Honda continues to profoundly influence the way she perceives, patients, doctors, hospitals, and medicine.
00:15 Intro to Dr. Victoria Sweet, author of God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
00:30 Sweet lays out a radical approach to healthcare
01:15 God’s Hotel is the predecessor to Sweet’s second book, *Slow Medicine*
02:10 Sweet practices at Laguna Honda, a hospital in the middle of San Francisco that looked like a medieval monastery
03:30 Laguna Honda, the last U.S. almshouse for the sick poor, predates health insurance
04:00 Monks and nuns took care of the sick poor as part of their vocation
05:50 Sweet stays at Laguna Honda for 20 years!
06:30 Sweet, an intellectual, moves from Jungian psychology to medicine
06:55 Effective modern medicine methods juxtaposed to deficits in doctor-patient relationship
08:10 Open wards with nurses allow time for good physical exams, understanding patient history
09:00 Slowing time down becomes critical to healing
09:30 Medieval writer Hildegard becomes Sweet’s primary mentor and medical muse
10:00 During her Ph.D. program, Sweet “meets” Hildegard, a 12th-century nun, abbess, mystic, theologian, and medical practitioner
11:00 The body as a plant vs. a machine; the doctor as a gardener vs. a mechanic
12:00 Split in views between good and evil
13:00 Modern medicine assumes the doctor is a healthcare provider, implying healthcare is a commodity and patient is a consumer
14:20 While the doctor examines the patient, the patient is examining the doctor
16:10 Doctors spend the same amount of time they’ve always spent with patients, but time is now used differently
16:30 Doctor-patient time together down just 2.5 minutes, but doctor spends far less time looking at the patient and far more time logging data into a computer
18:15 Electronic medical records - “a disaster”
18:30 Losing continuity with patients
20:15 The efficiency of inefficiency (e.g., Christmas Day gift exchange)
23:15 Terri Becker’s severe, hopeless story inspires Sweet to write God’s Hotel
24:30 Terri’s bedsores, “as big as your head,” take 2.5 years to heal
26:30 Nondemanding love at Laguna Honda allows patients to heal emotionally and physically
27:45 Sweet learns to remove what’s in the way of body’s own natural healing powers
28:15 Medieval approach: allow “Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman” to heal a patient
30:40 Recommendation: Yoga for Beginners (DVDs by Element)
BUY God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
BUY Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing
BUY Element: Yoga for Stress Relief & Flexibility
BUY Element: Hatha & Flow Yoga for Beginners
BUY Element: AM & PM Yoga For Beginners
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We've taken a departure from nonfiction books to curate "Just 3" digital sources for nonfiction learning. With literally thousands of options, both free and paid, you're sure to find many topics that pique your interest. Here's to a Happy New Year full of learning!
00:20 Point yourself toward the New Year with nonfiction in mind
00:30 Just 3 sources for nonfiction books and learning
00:40 2010 study by Kaiser Family Foundation underscores the importance of nonfiction
01:10 How much leisure time does the average U.S. child spend reading nonfiction?
01:40 Future requires research skills, including exposure to nonfiction information
02:00 Common Core requires high school seniors spend 70 percent of their school reading time on informational nonfiction material
02:30 Influence young people by getting them excited about nonfiction you’re reading
02:45 Just 3 sources for nonfiction books and learning include free, hybrid, and paid models
03:05 “The Great Courses”: found on RB Digital, a free library app with “Education” button
03:30 30-minute video modules covering history, science, food & wine, health & nutrition, etc.
04:00 Skillshare: unlimited access to more than 25K online classes (paid or free)
04:30 Topics include animation, photography, leadership, productivity, web development, etc.
04:45 Blinkist: paid subscription service to help you stay ahead of new nonfiction releases
05:05 Read or listen to experts provide 15-minute book summaries with key takeaways from bestselling nonfiction
05:25 Blinkist adds 40 new titles every month
06:00 Give one more gift this season: Recommend Nonfiction4Life to a friend!
Get free access to THE GREAT COURSES through your library’s RBDigital app
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First-time author Phyllis Lawson tells the story of her black heritage in Quilt of Souls, a memoir of growing up as a child in the South during the 50s. Sent to Alabama at age four to live indefinitely with her maternal grandparents she'd never known, Lawson is one of "grandma's other babies. Fortunately, Grandma Lula's quilts and family stories bring healing.
00:15 Intro to Phyllis Lawson, author of Quilt of Souls
01:15 As one of “grandma’s other babies,” Lawson sent to Alabama to live with grandparents
01:45 Family part of the “Great Black Migration” in the 40s and 50s, seeking fortune in North
03:00 Typical of African-American families to send “extra” children away
04:30 Migration causes “very, very extended” family to live together just to get by
05:15 Lawson aches for mother, then meets “Miss Lula” (grandmother) for the first time
06:00 Grandma Lula gives Lawson lots of attention and warmth
06:50 She uses a special “quilt of souls” to warm and comfort young Phyllis
08:50 After hungering for maternal love, her mother arrives but Lawson fears being taken from her grandmother
10:40 Learns how to quilt while also learning family stories
11:15 While quilting, Lula intentionally passes on oral family history so the stories wouldn’t be lost
12:00 Today, Lawson encourages every eldest family member to share stories with the youngest
13:45 Warns of losing stories by either neglecting to talk about them or to listen and record the stories
15:10 In Quilt of Souls, Lawson sprinkles stories of Southern racism
16:05 Lula intentionally stays away from color terms (“black” & “white”); respects all people
16:50 “Don’t ever look at the bad in a person and work backward; look at the good and work forward.”
17:10 When the Ku Klux Klan shows up, Grandma Lula invites them in to eat, averting the capture of a young black boy
18:50 Pecking order among blacks is still a hidden dilemma of the black community
20:20 Fair-skinned blacks don't mind letting people know of their white ancestry
20:55 Mixed genealogy often not discussed (e.g., Miss Hattie)
21:45 Discovers that Miss Hattie, a strong-willed woman, is grandmother’s stepsister stolen in slavery
22:35 Grandma Lula teaches Lawson to love her dark black skin
23:00 Eavesdropping provides an informal education of original-source history lessons in slavery
24:50 Local black school receives “the dreaded Dick and Jane” secondhand books
26:00 Black teachers abandon textbooks; begin teaching kids from the Britannica encyclopedias
27:40 Returns to Detroit public schools; discovers she loves poetry, especially Langston Hughes’ poem, “A Dream Deferred”
28:45 Her mother attends Alabama Teaching College, but she marries, moves to Detroit, and gives up teaching dream for cleaning houses
30:25 Lawson carries her grandparents’ truisms (e.g., “Trouble don’t last always, chile.”)
32:15 The quilt becomes a symbol of more than family history
32:45 How Lawson stays connected to the trauma of past while still looking to a bright future
34:10 Grandma Lula's early, strong foundation later lifts her up and moves her in the right direction
35:00 Ancestors make Lawson who she is and destine her to write their stories
35:15 Unsung, Lawson's next book slated for publication in late 2019
35:45 Recommendation: The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco (author and illustrator)
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By "The Keeping Quilt" by Patricia Polacco
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Engineering professor and bestselling author Barbara Oakley, PhD, with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, bring us a handbook for Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All your Time Studying. This guide is all you need to tackle your least favorite subject in school or take on that class you’ve been dreading. The authors, also co-instructors of the wildly popular online courses “A Mind for Numbers” and “Mindshift,” share techniques that train our brains to take on the hard stuff. Written for students from grade school to high school, Learning How to Learn breaks down the science of how our brains process and recall information and reveals how to make the most of our studying time.
00:15 Barbara Oakley, author of Learning How to Learn
00:30 Book aimed at the younger set but valuable for all ages
00:55 Oakley teaches the world’s most popular MOOC (massive open online course)
02:05 Shares her story of being a “lopsided learner”
02:30 Liked books but hated math; chalked it up to not having “the math gene”
03:20 Joins Army to study Russian at the Defense Language Institute
03:30 Becomes a Signal Core Officer with no experience in technology
04:50 Learns remedial algebra and eventually becomes a professor of electrical engineering
05:20 “It’s really possible to change your brain!”
06:20 Becoming proficient in video games can improve attention and focus
08:00 Video games (approved by FDA for older adults) improves metabolism
09:20 Small short-term memory improves creativity
11:20 Poor working memory forces us to simplify and compress information
12:45 Taking breaks from learning
13:15 Procrastination common worldwide
13:40 Having to learn something unpleasant activates pain center of the brain
14:00 Using the “Pomodoro” study technique to alternate learning with rewards
15:00 Learning modes: focus vs. diffuse
17:00 Learning new things keeps mind supple and open
17:55 Reading means we always have something to talk about, a way to find commonalities
18:20 Oakley lunches with Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer author, genius, and true polymath)
19:20 Learning more gives us overlays for what we already know
19:55 Some anxiety accompanying test-taking can be helpful
20:25 Two reasons tests can cause anxiety
22:15 How to move material from the page to our brains (long-term memory)
22:35 The key to good test performance: active practice (recall from our own brains)
24:00 Oakley defines “active learning”
26:00 What’s the best kind of recall practice?
27:15 “Picture Walk”: paging through chapter subheadings & pictures to get a framework
29:30 Forty percent of our brain is visual
30:15 Westerners tend to struggle with math; Easterners tend to struggle with language
30:45 Practice using a variety of methods to build up neural circuits
31:35 Are there any shortcuts to practicing?
33:00 “Eat your frogs first,” a test-taking strategy for attacking hardest problems
36:50 Not getting enough sleep will negate all other efforts to learn
38:15 Sleeping allows brain cells to shrink and have toxins washed away
39:15 Recommendation: Coursera (100% online learning from the world’s best universities and companies); AKA: “MOOCs” – massive open online courses
BUY Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens
For free online learning in almost any subject, check out Coursera.
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BRIAN CURTIS, author of FIELDS OF BATTLE: PEARL HARBOR, THE ROSE BOWL, AND THE BOYS WHO WENT TO WAR, captures the true story of the one-and-only Rose Bowl Game played outside of Pasadena, California. The bombing of Pearl Harbor had ripple effects, including in the world of football. But this story goes beyond football. Curtis follows dozens of the players into more fields of battle. We see the WWII theaters turn young athletes into men as they fight with extraordinary valor. Following the war, they fight to live ordinary lives.
00:15 Honoring Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in America
00:20 Intro to Brian Curtis, author of Fields of Battle: Pearl Harbor, The Rose Bowl, and the Boys Who Went to War
01:25 Book endorsed by the late Senator John McCain
01:45 Curtis discovers this little-known story through “Did You Know?” fact
02:45 Book begins as Sports Illustrated article; morphs into military war story; becomes a human-interest story
04:00 Curtis’s deep dive on WWII uncovers veterans' struggles in dealing with the harshness of war
06:00 What made these men great?
06:30 Some football players go to basic training within hours after finishing a game
07:30 Ordinary guys from all backgrounds end up in pivotal battles
08:00 Extraordinariness found in how they live ordinary lives after the war
08:30 William Few, President of Duke University, predicts they’ll develop true character in storms
09:15 Winds of WWII blowing before Pearl Harbor is attacked
10:00 America ramping up for what most believed would be eventual involvement in WWII
11:30 Pearl Harbor bombing, just weeks before the 1942 Rose Bowl, creates chaos
12:30 Governor cancels the Rose Bowl game in deference to military authorities
13:30 Transferring Rose Bowl game and Rose Parade is a logistical nightmare
13:45 Should a game be played at all when war is raging that boys will soon enter?
14:20 Wallace Wade, Duke Head Coach, lobbies to move the Rose Bowl game to North Carolina
15:00 Should the Japanese scare them away from traditional game and festivities?
15:20 Similarities to September 11
16:00 Setting a precedent for the American spirit to supersede the threats of war
16:15 Duke Coach Wallace Wade: discipline and excellence paramount
17:45 Shocks the world when he leaves the University of Alabama to go to Duke University
18:45 Wade ends up sacrificing to serve his country
19:05 Oregon State Coach Lon Stinar, a “player’s coach”: laidback style, witty
20:55 Tracks approximately 80 players who participate in 1942 Rose Bowl game
21:25 Curtis asks three key questions to pare down the characters in the book
22:10 Charles Hanes, Jr., a key character, both player and military hero
22:35 Curtis follows the men from football fields to battlefields and to life after the war
24:25 Jack Yoshihara, Japanese American on OSC team who didn’t get to play
24:35 Yoshihara a symbol of racist America (Japanese internment camps)
26:00 Federal agents disallow Yoshihara’s participation with OSC team
27:45 Janet, from South Pasadena, has strong connections to Rose Parade and Rose Bowl
28:25 West Coast team once allowed to choose its opponent
29:45 Selling tickets almost paramount to choosing the competition
30:15 How has the game of football changed since 1942?
32:00 How has the game has remained the same?
33:20 Most players-turned-troops had never seen death
33:45 OSC players have first exposure before being shipped off to battle
35:45 Frank Parker and Charles Hanes are opposites
36:50 Parker and Hanes meet in Italy; discover a mutual connection to 1942 Rose Bowl game
37:35 Parker rescues Charles Hanes but Parker tells no one of his heroics
38:45 Reunite 50 years later in Corvallis, Oregon; Hanes attends to thank Parker
39:30 After the war, Parker and Hanes’ lives take very opposite directions
40:30 War affects people differently
41:15 Jack Yoshihara’s contribution is a life well lived
45:15 Curtis comes to see the football metaphor for war as insulting
47:00 Recommendation: Little Free Library
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Cara Brookins, author of Rise: How a House Built a Family, breaks the shame of silence common among domestic violence victims. Ten years after she and her four children build a 3500 square-foot house with the help of YouTube videos, Brookins tells what went into the house besides nails, doors, and windows. She also shares the triumphs and lasting love and friendship the family forged through the gritty, hard work of constructing a house while they rise above their past and rebuild their home and family.
00:20 Intro to author Cara Brookins, author and single mother who builds a house using YouTube tutorials
00:40 Story goes viral; viewed more than 2 billion times!
01:20 Building the house feels like a natural, obvious decision
01:35 Once married to one man with paranoid schizophrenia and another one that's abusive
02:40 Motivations to build the house go beyond getting a roof overhead
03:00 Kids had seen nothing but terror for a decade
04:00 Crafty family makes a small model of dream house using sticks and bits
06:40 Wants all the children to have the satisfaction and success of building
07:25 Toughest challenge: “absolutely the foundation”
08:00 Physical challenges include building muscles and facing bad weather
08:30 Emotional challenges include trying to develop healthy communication skills
09:30 Unintended consequence: heavy sacrifice of time
10:30 “Mommy guilt” wiped away by kids’ future courageous choices
12:15 Writing story releases shame; empowers Brookins to heal and build a better life
13:30 Her divorced parents are her most unexpected helpers
14:45 Having another adult on site incredibly reassuring
15:30 Family learns to stop hiding things (feelings, experiences)
16:15 Trauma causes a family to pull bad inward and hide the good things
17:20 Constructing the house releases laughter, humor, and, eventually "the tough stuff"
19:30 Physical threats from ex-husband continue while the family builds the house
21:10 Now, Brookins most proud of all the juggling she managed
22:00 To earn very needed money, she writes newspaper articles with her eyes closed
23:00 The house ("Inkwell Manor") more than a place to live
23:10 Wants to have peace of mind about what she gives her children to take out into the world
23:45 Today, family strength still comes through constant communication
25:00 Brookins now keynote speaker about leadership, procrastination, big goals
25:30 Main message: You can build a better life--exactly the life you want!
26:15 Recommendations: three articles about resilience and strengthening families
BUY Rise: How a House Built a Family
Three Articles About FAMILY RESILIENCE:
- Family Stories That Bind Us
- What Makes Families Resilient
- The Secrets of Resilience
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Emmy-award winning sportswriter Amy Bass shares One Goal, the story of a high-school soccer team uniting the racially divided town of Lewiston, Maine.* With many Somali refugees on the roster, this underdog team wins not one but two state championships! But to reach that level, both the team and the town have to flex in order to accommodate and embrace new talents, skills, religion, passion, and soccer styles. In the process, we see A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together.***
00:15 Intro to Amy Bass, author and sportswriter
01:20 Multiple meanings of the title, “One Goal”
02:30 Bass has a personal connection to the town of Lewiston, Maine
03:30 She spends four undergraduate years at Bates College in Lewiston, unaware of the middle school across the street
04:45 At the beginning of the 21st century, Somali refugees slowly begin populating the town
05:10 The influx causes every group in town to face certain fears
05:55 The Somali diaspora includes some of today's 60 million displaced people
06:25 Demographic changes create fears about differences
07:00 Even the school cafeteria accommodates new diets
07:30 Refugees represent a particular kind of immigrant
08:30 Some immigrant stories about assimilation; this is a story of negotiation
08:50 Coach McGraw emphasizes the “advantage of the ball” and putting the game first
09:05 The very nature of the game enables everyone to work out dissimilarities, aiming for "one goal"
09:40 Tolerating vs. embracing differences
10:15 Lewiston team capitalizes on variations in how to play, talents, passion
10:30 Leveraging competitive advantages often creates the most successful teams
11:30 McGraw flexes to meet challenges
12:00 Team members’ challenges include PTSD, poverty, confusion, isolation, instability
13:00 Coach Mike McGraw, a legend in Lewiston, is a combo of both heart and head
14:45 While the players understand their parents’ sacrifices, they also want to win soccer games
15:55 Ironic forgetfulness pervasive among Quebecois immigrants, now long-settled in Lewiston
17:00 Somali refugees pour into Lewiston in an unplanned way
18:45 Coach McGraw deals with players' torn loyalties (between team and family)
20:00 Partnership of team is also a partnership with community = one goal
21:20 Understanding Islam; respecting Ramadan and commitment to daily prayers
22:10 Athletic Director Jason Fuller sets the bar high to accommodate athletes
23:10 Dealing with signing permission slips, getting physicals
24:00 All players learn team cheer (in Arabic and Swahili)
25:00 “Direct Soccer” (AKA “boot and scoot” or “kick and chase”)
25:50 “Possession Game” (played in Kenyan refugee camps) a sophisticated, unselfish style
27:00 Lewiston team just wins its third state championship!
27:30 Four players all help score the final goal (thanks to Lewiston Sun Journal)
28:55 “Soccer first”
29:05 U.S. only second only to China in kids participating in soccer
30:20 Sports are never just about sports; they involve many community members
31:30 Community is work!
32:30 Last-minute postscript includes the 2016 state-championship victory
34:45 Netflix owns movie rights to One Goal: A Coach, a Team, and the Game That Brought a Divided Town Together
35:45: Recommendation: www.JustServe.org (volunteer website)
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Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools by Heather Staker (with co-author Michael Horn), is a practical field guide for implementing blended learning. While grounded in Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation, this dynamic reference book will not be easily outdated. Real-life examples, clear learning models, and sensible advice for all stakeholders implementing blended learning make the book more than just a one-time read. In short, Staker articulates both a vision and plan that empower next-generation learners and reenthrone teachers as coaches and mentors.
00:15 Intro to Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools
00:45 The wave of our educational future
00:55 Intro to Heather Staker, Founder and President of Ready to Blend
01:15 Also wrote companion book, The Blended Workbook (2017)
02:45 Bookbased on Clayton Christensen’s theory of “disruptive innovation”
03:40 Sustaining vs. disruptive innovations
04:25 Disruptive innovations offer a new value proposition and improve over time
05:10 What blended learning is and what it isn’t
05:45 Disrupting Class (2008) by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson
06:00 Online learning, a technology enabler, poised to disrupt traditional class
07:00 Accessibility gives online learning its foothold
08:00 Key to academic achievement and overall well-being
08:50 First time disruptive technology has entered K-12 since the printing press
10:40 “Paris” metaphor can help persuade stakeholders to embrace blended learning
11:50 Focus on the “why” of redesigning schools
13:00 Efficiency: technology enables the blended approach
14:40 Agency: students no longer passive, sit-and-get learners
15:35 Inhumanity of current model: teachers now free to be individual mentors, coaches
17:00 Occasionally, pre-convinced parents advocate for blended learning
18:00 Online courses can fill a gap when no other option is available
18:45 Using electronic devices in school can meet some resistance
20:30 Nuanced rules for using electronic devices
21:35 Who are the teachers adopting blended learning?
22:25 Learning models (station & individual rotation, flipped) breathe new life into the classroom
22:40 Some teachers pioneer flex model, moving as “guide on the side”
23:20 Cage-busting leaders can drive online learning vision forward
24:25 Going after the “low-hanging fruit” in your educational environment
25:00 Educators: look for non-consumption areas (where there’s nothing at all)
26:00 Parents: implement after-school options, create flexible in-class arrangements
28:30 Common pain point: teachers feel replaced
30:25 First, articulate outcome (What student experience do you want?)
31:20 Students given control and accountability for own active learning
33:30 Teachers’ new role (just now being articulated) includes coaching
34:45 Benefits extending beyond the classroom
35:35 Equipping students with complexities yields lifelong learners
36:10 Risk: exposure to technology and virtual destinations not in learners’ best interest
36:30 Turning lifelong learners into “long life” learners
37:30 Recommendation: “Cool Facts” app (~12K fun, nonessential facts)
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In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley captures the compelling true story not only of his father John Bradley but also of the five other Marines who planted an American flag atop Mt. Suribachi in Iwo Jima, Japan. These men simply raised a flag to mark their victory. However, with the help of photographer Joe Rosenthal, this particular moment was immortalized forever. Even on the very day of its first printing, The Photograph ignited unprecedented patriotism. Indeed, The Photograph would quickly become the most reproduced photo in history and the model for the world's tallest bronze monument. Yet, it would also be fundamentally misunderstood. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley explains why.
00:15 A special Veterans Day podcast
00:25 Intro to James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers
00:30 Story of six men who fought in Battle of Iwo Jima and raised a flag on Mt. Suribachi
00:45 Moment immortalized by photographer Joe Rosenthal
01:05 Bradley, historical nonfiction author specializing in WWII Pacific Theater
02:10 “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” – Harry S. Truman
2:30 Bradley unaware of his father’s part in WWII history and reality of Iwo Jima
03:45 Why veterans tend to not discuss war
04:30 Horrors of war incomprehensible and repulsive to civilians
05:45 “The real heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who didn’t come back.” – John Bradley
06:10 Flag-raisers put on tour by President Truman (survivors vs. heroes)
06:45 “Doc” Bradley’s friendship with bosom buddy Iggy, a clumsy misfit also from Wisconsin
07:15 When Iggy is tortured to death, “Doc” has to identify the body and inform the family
09:00 Book organized around biography of each of the six flag raisers
09:30 Sergeant Mike Strank works to get the “boys” home to their mothers
10:15 All the men accustomed to hard work and some form of religion
11:00 Marines turn small-town mama’s boys of the ‘30s into a fighting spearhead
11:30 Native American Ira Hayes – most prolific letter-writer of all; intensely shy; volatile
12:30 Difficult time to be an Indian; mocked as “Chief Falling Cloud”
13:15 Hayes very literate and articulate, but lives an interior life as a cotton picker
14:15 Bradley joins John Wayne on Hollywood movie set of The Sands of Iwo Jima
15:55 Who is San Franciscan photographer Joe Rosenthal?
17:00 Famous flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi actually a very ordinary, non-event
18:00 “It was the happiest moment of my life.” – John Bradley, speaking of the first flag-raising
19:00 Second flag raising, accidentally captured in Rosenthal photo, ignites the populous
19:45 The Photograph has electrifying effects at home, but not among the troops
21:00 Three surviving flag raisers enlisted to go on a bond tour to help pay for the war
21:10 Flags of Our Fathers movie by Clint Eastwood – fourth movie based on The Photograph
21:20 Fame of The Photograph emblazoned everywhere – Americana!
22:20 Famous photo is fundamentally misunderstood
22:45 “It was about as significant as going to the post box to pick up the mail.” – Rene Gagnon
24:10 Battle of Iwo Jima – one of the most vicious in all of history
24:50 James Bradley has a personal connection to Japan via Notre Dame program
26:10 Humble, quiet Japanese culture would have resonated with John Bradley
26:45 Bradley returns to Iwo Jima, Japan with mother and three brothers
27:35 “You can’t write about a battle until you walk the battlefield.” – Stephen Ambrose
28:15 John Bradley awarded Navy Cross for his actions on Iwo Jima
30:15 Takes Americans five days to get from beach to top of the mount
31:00 How John Bradley taught patriotism and religion in small-town Wisconsin
32:00 How the flag raisers want would want to be honored on Veterans Day
32:30 Recommendation: Taking Chance, a 2009 movie (historical war drama with Kevin Bacon)
Trailer for "Taking Chance"
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Ruth Reich writes Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, chronicling her six years as a famous food critic. After a stint in L.A., Reichl is delighted to return to her New York roots and even to some of the same places she frequented as a child. To go to eateries undetected, over time, she develops six different disguises that take on their own personalities and personal histories. Using these costumes, Reichl is able to go to restaurants incognito. Her very believable masquerades become her best weapon against getting favored treatment in the finest restaurants of New York City and allow her to see the genuine quality of the service and food.
00:10 Happy Halloween—a day to celebrate tricks and treats
00:25 Intro to book, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
00:35 Reichl uses disguises while a celebrated New York Times restaurant critic
00:45 She eventually leaves the Times to become editor of Gourmet, a long-standing magazine
01:00 Reichl’s six disguises transform her into different people with unique backstories
01:45 “Molly” disguise – conservative, Midwestern woman
02:00 “Miriam” disguise – Reichl’s mother personified
02:20 “Betty” disguise – frumpy, old lady ill-treated by New York restaurateurs
03:00 Book includes actual restaurant reviews, showcasing her exquisite writing
03:20 Small “taste” of her review of Daniel, a famous 4-star New York City restaurant
04:20 Mouth-watering critiques are an amalgamation of at least five visits
04:45 Reichl includes husband and son Nicky in her visits to restaurants
05:05 Takes Nicky on the prowl to discover the best potatoes in the world
05:40 Book includes recipes, including simple ones, such as one for hash browns
06:25 Recommendation: Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering by Joanna Gaines
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Maxwell King brings us The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, the first full-length biography of American's unique and enduring icon. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Rogers' program that changed the face of children's television and influenced tens of millions of children, reaches its 5oth anniversary. Now, beginning with Rogers' childhood, King captures his life of kindness, compassion, and authenticity by drawing on original interviews, oral histories, and archival documents. Fred Rogers, whose life and work continue to be loved by multiple generations, is captured in The Good Neighbor as, above all, a champion of children.
00:15 Intro to Maxwell King’s book, The Good Neighbor
00:25 Background of Fred Rogers, children’s television personality
01:00 King given permission to write first full-length biography of Mr. Rogers
01:30 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
02:00 Intro to Maxwell King: author, journalist, former President of Heinz Endowments, former Executive Director of the Fred Rogers Center, CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation
03:00 King designs the book to have two lives: biography and academic source
03:30 How King gets involved in writing the book after meeting Rogers only twice
05:30 Rogers’ early life and background profoundly affect his life and work
06:45 King aims to explain how Fred becomes “Mr. Rogers”
08:00 His understanding mother listens to Fred, not as an adult but as an equal
08:45 Family’s wealth makes Rogers more of a target for mean kids
09:10 Bullies chase and call him “Fat Freddy”; runs to safety at neighbor’s house
09:40 Adults wrongly advise him, “Just pretend you don’t care.”
10:00 Transformative moment: refuses to adopt a strategy of not caring
10:30 Teenage Rogers turns sensitivities into strengths; becomes leader and scholar
11:30 Great reader and student of French and philosophy
12:40 At 10 years old, selects an ebonized Steinway concert grand piano
14:25 Wealthy grandmother keeps her promise to buy him piano, transforming his life
15:55 Rogers’ piano now sits in the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent’s College
16:45 Fills lonely early years with music and puppets
17:20 Channels his personas in iconic puppets (Lady Elaine Fairchilde, King Friday, Daniel Tiger)
18:30 Packs away puppets for years until he needs them in an emergency
20:00 Josie Carey, live character on The Children’s Corner, forms relationship with puppets
20:50 Carey and puppets model adult/child relationship
21:35 Unlikely friend: John Pastore of Senate Subcommittee of Communications
21:45 Their televised encounter becomes most studied clip of all time
22:30 Fred testifies to help save funding for public television
23:00 First and foremost, Rogers considers himself a friend and neighbor
23:20 Most important thing in Fred Rogers’ life
25:30 Rogers’ key tactic for presenting on television
26:10 Dr. Margaret McFarland, child psychologist, becomes Rogers’ lifelong mentor and friend
26:50 Works with Univ. of Pittsburg scholars: Benjamin Spock, T. Berry Brazelton, Erik Erickson, McFarland
27:30 Group dramatically reshapes child development philosophies and practices
29:00 They depart from Victorian notions; determine ages 0-3 most critical for development
29:30 Rogers longs to do more than entertain
29:50 Weaves child development learnings into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
30:00 Rogers’ program goes national in 1968
30:30 Helps promote what really matters in child development
31:40 Cares much more about content than presentation (in contrast to Sesame Street)
32:15 Opposes fast pacing in children’s television
32:45 Designs “theme weeks" to discuss difficult topics (divorce, war, loss) for 5 consecutive days
34:30 Leans into tough topics and keeps an intentionally slow pace, including silence
35:30 Story of Rogers’ courage: “Feeding the Fish”
37:15 Children never tire of lyrics from Rogers’ signature opening song and closing remarks
38:45 Recognizes universal values of respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and kindness
39:15 Rogers' core philosophy: “Slow down. Be kind.”
41:00 Teaches human values, letting Christianity shine through
42:00 Rogers character, style, and personality congruent (on and off screen)
42:45 King surprised by Rogers’ simple exterior and deeply complicated interior
43:15 After his death in 2003, Mr. Rogers’ ideas and influence live on
45:35 Recommendation: YouTube video of Fred Rogers testifying before the Senate committee
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Authors Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen teach skills for receiving feedback in their book, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Subtitled Even When It Is Off Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered, and, Frankly, You're Not in the Mood, the book strikes at the heart of why getting feedback can be uncomfortable, awkward, and even painful. Stone and Heen hit the troubles and triggers that surround the skills we need to accept opinions and advice from others.
00:15 Intro to Doug Stone, author of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
00:25 Founder of Triad Consulting Group and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School
02:00 Janet’s daughter-in-law read Feedback at Vivint (company) book group
02:20 Vivint employees share their feedback with Stone
02:40 Book includes good advice for feedback givers, too
02:50 How should we give feedback to those who don’t want to receive it?
04:20 Why Stone focuses on receiving rather than on giving feedback
06:00 Receiving feedback can be both really hard and really helpful; an active skill
07:00 Long subtitle explains the feedback conundrum
07:45 Most don’t really want feedback; life experiences tell us it can be painful or wrong
08:20 Receiving feedback not the same as taking feedback
09:30 Types of feedback: appreciation, coaching, evaluation (We need all three!)
09:45 We get emotionally tangled when we hear one kind and need another
10:45 Coaching: at the heart of feedback; helps us improve; can be specific
11:10 Evaluation: ranks or places us; comparative
13:00 Receivers should elicit from feedback givers the kind of feedback they need/want
15:10 Norman Rockwell’s triple self-portrait included at end of book
16:00 How to amplify our own blind spots
17:00 Paradox – think we know ourselves best, yet feedback often reflection of unknown parts
17:45 Unbeknownst to us, body language and facial expressions can belie our true selves
19:15 Increase awareness of our silent messages by actively soliciting help from others
21:20 Use language that elicits the precise type of feedback you’re seeking
24:40 Genuine, truthful feedback can jeopardize relationships
25:10 Book’s teachings can give voice, confidence, and power to strengthen relationships
25:30 Asking for workplace feedback can make you easier to work with
27:15 Feedback can enhance our “growth mindset” (Carol Dweck)
28:45 Unclear feedback (coaching vs. evaluation) – receiver can choose which to hear
29:45 Coaching feedback easier to take in than evaluation
30:45 “Constructive criticism”
31:20 Two kinds of coaching: how to improve you and how to improve a relationship with you
34:00 How to avoid the “Google bias”
38:50 Receiving feedback requires a degree of courage
40:45 Reframing feedback makes it easier to receive
41:30 In business, make the topic of feedback easy to discuss
44:30 Recommendation: True Colors Card Game: What Do Your Friends Really Think of You?
BUY Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
BUY True Colors Card Game
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From 30 years of coaching, teaching, and parenting, Karl Subban knows how to ignite potential in young people. He captures his strategies in How We Did It: The Subban Plan for Success in Hockey, School and Life. In the backyard and the schoolyard, Subban has spent his life encouraging kids to dream big, set goals, and accomplish great things.
00:15 Intro to Karl Subban – author, coach, teacher, and parent
00:55 Intro to the five accomplished Subban children
01:20 How Karl’s dreams morph through time (from cricket to basketball to teaching)
01:55 All three Subban boys play professional hockey
02:20 Back to school, hockey, and kids chasing dreams
03:10 Jamaican family of origin built on a foundation of hard work, giving, love, care, safety
04:35 Learns early about discipline, right and wrong
04:50 Hockey skills vs. life skills
05:15 Everyday parenting never ends, even when children are grown
05:50 Giving unconditional love, support, and time
06:15 Can’t influence kids without spending time with them
06:30 Discipline and boundaries part of raising a healthy child
06:50 “It takes a village” to raise a child, including resources such as time
08:15 Giving wings to kids’ dreams starts with potential
08:45 Coaches in Greater Toronto Hockey League
09:30 The three-legged stool of potential: dreams, belief, and action
10:10 Son P.K. Subban dreamt to play hockey (NFL Nashville Predators)
10:30 Belief vs. doubt requires reinforcing our belief system
11:00 “Designer” parenting (bulldozer, helicopter, or lawnmower) not the answer
11:30 What do kids say about their own motivation and ability to learn and grow?
12:00 Potential – our gift at birth; fulfilling potential – our gift to the world
12:50 Action activates the dream
13:55 Parents’ dreams vs. kids’ dreams (story of middle son Malcolm)
14:10 O.K. to have a dream for a child
14:45 “Clear the way, pave the way, and get out of the way!”
15:50 Malcolm wants to be a goalie, but Karl sees him as a hockey field player
16:40 Now, Malcolm plays goalie for the NHL Las Vegas Knights
17:15 Attributes family success to strong marriage & loving relationship with wife Maria
17:35 Raising five children a key ingredient to the Subbans' marital success
18:55 Karl and Maria agree on a problem but not on an approach
19:35 The “24-Hour Rule”
22:25 Most important life lessons: learning to respond to conflict, handling adversity
23:40 1 in 1000 boys who register to play hockey goes on to play an NHL game
23:55 How realistic is it to help kids chase dreams when odds are against them?
25:00 One dream leads to another; always keep dreaming
26:10 Subban girls pursue own dreams while helping brothers fulfill theirs
28:30 Children must be good at something in addition to school
29:30 Subban values practices more than games (winning)
29:55 You are what you practice; practice makes you better (in every area)
30:30 Every child needs a balance of pushing and inspiration
31:15 What Subban would do differently (as an educator)
32:05 Seeing children's potential influences how they see themselves
32:15 Ascribes to Carol Dweck’s Mindset approach to growth
32:55 Successful parenting also requires believing in children’s potential
34:15 Subban wants his kids to continually move on with dreams, not just play hockey
34:50 Making it professionally important, but so is "making it in life"
36:10 Recommendation: “Nights Up” (a parenting tip)
BUY How We Did It: The Subban Plan for Success in Hockey, School and Life
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At age 70, Letty Cottin Pogrebin felt fit as a fiddle on the fateful day she walked three miles to her routine mammogram. A founding editor of Ms. (magazine) and women's rights activist, she had energy and to spare until she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Facing six weeks of radiation treatment, she was now obligated to join others in the waiting room of Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City. So, putting on her journalist hat, she began interviewing fellow patients. The result? How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick--an invaluable handbook about "The New Illness Etiquette" for both the sick and their friends.
00:10 Intro to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, book author and founding editor of Ms. (magazine)
01:15 The Flu and cold season begins
01:45 Pogrebin gets a routine mammogram at age 70
02:10 Breast cancer diagnosis comes without warning signs
04:00 Shares news of cancer and radiation with close friends via email
05:00 Searches in vain for a book about sickness and friendship
05:50 Interviews waiting-room patients for How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick
06:31 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center attracts people the world over
07:45 Discovers discrepancies between their the experiences and wishes of sick people
08:15 Unexpectedly learns about caregivers’ needs
09:30 Ripple effect of illness touches families and friends
09:50 Bottom line: people want to be honest—both the sick and their friends
10:40 What a friend should be able to ask a sick friend
11:10 What a sick person should be able to say to a friend
11:55 Truth-telling and "The New Illness Etiquette"
12:30 A friend reacts perfectly to Pogrebin's diagnosis
13:15 Asking “Do you want to talk about it?” gives a sick person control
13:25 Other lines that are both true and helpful
14:30 Sick people don’t want to hear or answer, “How are you?”
15:55 Their responses can overwhelm friends with TMI
16:15 Asking “What’s happening?” gives patient control over how much to disclose
17:30 Nobody wants to be labeled sick (such as “cancer girl”)
18:15 Saying, “You look great!” can give false reassurance and seem disingenuous
18:30 “Empathy translated into action equals kindness”
18:50 “Illness is friendship’s proving ground”
19:15 Guidelines for visiting sick friends – be considerate
20:40 Guidelines for giving gifts to sick friends – pay attention to diagnoses
21:00 Examples of inappropriate gifts and insensitive comments
22:30 Personalize a friend’s illness to the point you know what gifts to give
24:15 Humor and laughter depend entirely on how well you know the patient
24:50 Remembers laughing at Marlo Thomas’s funny jokes
26:00 Disparages fruit baskets and extols massages (and other sensitive gifts)
27:20 Why ice cream scoops adorn the book cover
28:50 Contrasts generous gifts with the gift she really wanted
29:15 Follow up “What would you like?” with “You know I’m bringing something”
30:25 Illustrates differences between sick men and sick women
30:50 25% of men interviewed hadn’t disclosed their illness
31:15 Tells a heartbreaking story of Orthodox Jewish man hiding his cancer diagnosis
33:45 Cultural and gender barriers prevent many men from sharing the truth
34:10 Women tend to feel comfortable confiding in close friends
35:30 The book includes many lists for how to be helpful & honest
36:00 First step: learn what to say to a friend who’s sick (“Do no harm.”)
36:20 Also, learn appropriate things to say to the bereaved
37:10 Recommendation – Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face (on Netflix)
BUY How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who's Sick
Watch the trailer for Ryan Hamilton: Happy Face.
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Dr. Sharon Saline, licensed clinical psychologist and top ADHD expert, draws on her 25 years of expertise to offer her insightful and practical book, What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life. After listening carefully to ADHD kids express emotions, successes, and motivations, Saline knows how to share proven models of strength-based parenting and attentive awareness. Full of useful exercise and easy-to-remember techniques, the book serves as a must-have handbook for anyone dealing with ADHD kids ages 6-18.
00:15 Intro to Dr. Sharon Saline, licensed clinical psychologist and ADHD expert
02:00 Why Saline chooses to give voice to ADHD kids
02:55 ADHD kids spend lots of time hearing what they’re doing wrong
03:05 Adults tend to give suggestions and interventions that don’t resonate
04:00 Saline’s goal in writing the book is to bridge the gap between adults and kids
04:30 ADHD = hyperactivity or impulsivity that interferes with executive brain functions
06:00 No. of kids vs. adults diagnosed with ADHD today
06:45 How adults deal with ADHD
07:15 ADHD kids today have parents with access to resources
07:45 Saline includes direct quotes from ADHD kids
08:30 Adults often don’t read tantrums well or correctly
09:30 Saline develops “The 5 Cs of ADHD Parenting”
10:00 5 Cs based in strength-based thinking and attentive awareness
10:30 How to develop the ability to connect more & argue less
10:50 1st C: Self-Control – parents needs to regulate/manage themselves first
11:30 Breathing techniques (belly, alternative nostril, etc.)
11:55 The “Bathroom Technique”
12:30 2nd C: Compassion – both for yourself and your child
13:10 3rd C: Collaboration – adult & child create plan based on real incentives
14:00 Only try to change one thing at a time
14:50 4th C: Consistency – mean what you say and follow through
15:30 “Efforting” vs. achieving – keep trying!
16:05 5th C: Celebration – notice efforts and progress (give praise)
17:00 Positivity ratio should be between 3-5 to 1
17:30 Countering negativity by verbally observing positive behavior
18:00 Combined, the 5Cs = “secret sauce for success”
18:15 The toughest “C” for parents
19:40 “Medicine can help, but pills don’t teach skills.”
20:00 Skills need to be taught directly; medicine can help prepare brain for learning
20:40 ADHD kids have frontal lobes that mature up to three years behind the norm
21:30 The brain’s executive functions may not be fully developed until age 28
22:35 Book’s hopeful message is that ADHD kids are trying hard to do well
23:25 One sad constant among ADHD kids: shame (feeling different)
23:55 Medication facilitates connection between neurons to make learning skills easier
25:25 ADHD exterior often masks interior feelings
26:50 “Accepting the ADHD Brain You Have”
27:15 Clients name their brains and what they really like about them
28:15 Parents and kids to work together to make positive things “bigger”
29:00 Debunking myth that everyone else has no challenges
30:00 ADHD kids want their parents to “be real”
30:15 How to form an alliance with ADHD kids
31:50 Addressing the homework hurdle
32:30 School usually hardest area of functioning for ADHD kids, especially writing
33:00 Timing medication is critical to having success with homework assignments
35:00 Developing a homework routine with your ADHD child
36:30 Using quick fixes vs. developing a big plan to “walk through the valley”
Recommendation: Hoopla Digital to access 8 free books/month (without a wait!)
BUY What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life
For more information about dealing with ADHD, go to Dr. Saline's website.
For 8 free e-downloads/month, check out Hoopla Digital.
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Janet shares Just 3 books in the "Personal Development" category to help improve yourself and your life. She also announces "Recommendations," a brand-new feature on Nonfiction4Life podcasts.
00:20 Another episode of “Editor’s Picks” from the “Personal Development” category
00:25 Two other EP episodes (#20-Home & Family; #47-Biographies & Memoirs)
00:40 N4L adding “Recommendations” to the podcast; stay tuned to the end!
01:10 Just 3 Personal Development books
01:40 1st book: How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon
01:50 Impressive resume includes being named “the world’s most influential thinker
02:50 Health fails; he’s a Harvard Business School professor, but he can’t write or speak
03:20 Relearning is demanding, slow, and discouraging
03:35 Arrives at a “fork in the road” where he decides his true purpose in life
03:50 1. Encourages his students to use time at school to figure out their lives’ direction
04:30 2. Gives smart people permission to make family and home life top priority
06:00 HBS class reunions full of extremely successful, very unhappy people
06:55 3. Helps students use theories to predict the trajectory of their lives
07:30 Bottom line: he helps people choose happiness and joy over everything else
07:50 2nd book: Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
08:10 Authors teach popular design course at Stanford University
08:15 Apply design principles and processes to help people design their own lives
08:45 1. Visual dashboards: how you’re spending time; “Odyssey Planning 101” (5-year plans)
09:30 2. Emphasizes the positive (look back at “peak experiences"; focus on offers, not jobs)
10:00 3. Being, Doing, and Becoming cycle emphasizes growth
10:55 3rd book: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
11:05 Good news for non-geniuses working hard: grit can be learned!
11:15 Duckworth supports ideas with research
11:25 1. Found grittiest adults in their late 6os, and the least gritty in their 20s
12:15 2. Finding your true passion takes time, sometimes years
12:40 3. How to grow grit from the inside out
12:50 “Grit Grid” charts commitment to outside activities and attached recognition
13:45 Follow-through & commitment to extra-curricular requires selection and cultivation
14:35 Discover your own level of grit using Duckworth's 10-Question Grit Scale.
14:50 Intro to N4L’s first-ever Recommendation
14:55 Janet’s mother, Mrs. Tanner, just turned 98 years old and has dementia
15:10 Story of her forgetting how many children she has
15:30 Janet chooses to laugh; takes comfort knowing part of her brain works really well
15:45 Mom knows all the lyrics to hundreds of songs
16:10 Other older people suffering from memory loss can also be amazing, but changed
16:20 Teddy from the UK got Alzheimer’s and became aggressive and ill-tempered
16:30 His son Simon wanted to remember his father’s better side and his strong tenor voice
16:45 Simon takes Teddy for drives, plays music familiar to his father
16:50 Simon records father-son duets of Teddy’s signature songs; posts on YouTube
17:00 Teddy named “The Songaminute Man”
17:10 Videos go viral
17:15 Janet recommends "The Songaminute Man" YouTube video "Cuando, Cuando, Cuando"
17:25 Simon crowdsources to fund professional recordings; proceeds help Alzheimer’s research
BUY How Will You Measure Your Life?
BUY Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
BUY Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
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On his own from age 13, Chris Singleton had to fight to survive. Channeling all his youthful grit, determination, and perseverance into becoming a nationally recognized top salesman, he captures lessons learned in his bestselling book, All Is Fair in Love and Sales: Six Steps to Sales Success. Listen to his personal story of overcoming difficult challenges and how he lives to help others succeed.
00:15 Invitation to add to Janet’s 56th Birthday List
01:15 Intro to Chris Singleton
01:35 Singleton’s sales credentials
02:00 Begins sales career selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and Cutco knives
02:40 Lives by the mantra that life’s meaning comes from our impact on others
03:20 Young Singleton learns supply and demand in “free lunch” line
05:15 Rough times with poverty, homelessness, incarceration helps him learn to hustle
05:45 Explains why sales book is valuable to everyone
06:25 Selling is as universal as love
07:00 Communication part of everyone’s life
07:25 The #1 Rule of Sales
07:40 “Sell me this pen” test
08:45 The most common mistake salespeople make
09:40 How subconscious projection gets in the way
10:35 Singleton lists his most important mentors
12:15 Making an effective introduction
12:45 What makes a good first impression
13:00 Explains confirmation bias
14:15 Maximizing first impression opportunities
14:30 One of the biggest first-impression mistakes
15:15 How facial hair affects impressions
17:00 Effective presentations likened to doctor knowing symptoms
19:00 How to close the deal by knowing five personality types
19:30 Easiest personality to deal with is “The Entertainer”
20:20 Most difficult personality to deal with is “The Fighter”
22:00 What everyone needs to know about body language
24:00 Why "silence is golden" in salesmanship
25:00 Not allowing a customer adequate time to respond perceived as pressure
26:30 Networking: who you know vs. how you know
28:50 Getting referrals without asking for one
29:15 Using “golden nugget” as a bridge between you and the new client
31:00 The importance of following up
31:15 Joe Girard, sets the record for most automobile sales in one year
32:00 Kept in touch with every customer, remembering names & key dates and writing personalized notes
32:15 Stats on how well people remember the name of their realtor and car salesperson
34:20 Advice for aspiring authors or entrepreneurs
34:30 Don’t give up on your dreams
34:50 Invest in yourself by getting a coach
BUY All Is Fair in Love and Sales: Six Steps to Sales Success
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Nonfiction4Life Host & Founder Janet Perry celebrates her 56th birthday along with the posting of the 56th episode. She shares her story of falling in love...with learning! Connecting words to books and books to ideas, she takes listeners along her journey and explains how she chose to become a podcaster of nonfiction books.
She also invites all to subscribe to the email list so she can share a gift with them--"Janet's List of 56 Things"--that includes book lists, apps, movies, and other things that shaped her and her love of learning.
00:15 Taking a departure from standard author interviews
00:25 Today is Janet Perry's 56th birthday and N4L’s 56th podcast episode
00:35 She’s celebrating by sharing her own story
01:25 Welcome to those just discovering N4L
01:50 Two moments that illustrate Janet’s love for learning
02:30 The story of how Janet fell in love…with words, books, and ideas
02:55 She can’t remember not knowing how to read
03:20 Instead of collecting dolls, Janet collected words (homonyms)
03:45 Her mom was a natural grammarian who loved words
04:15 Parents’ teachings made Janet’s Modern American Usage college course a breeze
04:25 Pronunciation of words also important
05:00 Janet fell in love with the world of books in Tanner Manor, her childhood home
05:45 The Tanner Manor library was filled with solid-oak bookshelves and ceiling beams
06:20 One of her favorite assignments was dusting the library
07:00 A nondescript downstairs closet was filled with paperbacks of classics and new releases
07:50 South Pasadena Public Library was funded by Andrew Carnegie
08:15 Library built in same Classic/Mediterranean Revival style as Tanner Manor
08:30 Boasted columns on separate entrances for adult library and children’s library
09:05 Tanner family culture included frequenting the public library
09:40 Library located across the street from El Centro, Janet’s elementary school
09:50 Lost a library book and panicked she’d have to pay for overdue fines
10:30 Spent Wednesdays after school listening to children’s librarian read aloud
11:15 Loved sneaking up inside staircase to the adult section
12:00 Books led her to the world of ideas
12:15 Feared turning into “an economic zero” by becoming an English major
12:45 Found people discussing books and ideas – the “white noise” of Tanner Manor
13:10 Collected and memorized quotes of great thinkers
13:45 Book groups and podcasts sparked her love of great ideas
14:00 Gave herself permission to read books, even when busy and sick
14:30 Podcasts helped her satisfy the itch to learn
14:45 How she narrowed the scope of Nonfiction4Life
15:30 Summary of Janet (from About page on Nonfiction4Life website)
15:45 “So many books, so little time!”
16:20 To celebrate her 56th birthday, she offers a gift to all email subscribers
16:50 All subscribers will receive “Janet’s List of 56 Things”
17:20 Janet invites all listeners to stay on the journey to discover and discuss great nonfiction books
Subscribe here to the Nonfiction4Life email list.
For more stories about Tanner Manor, go to Janet’s personal blog.
For pictures mentioned in the podcast, go to the Nonfiction4Life Website.
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Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It by Dr. JoAnn Deak unveils exciting truths about our brains: we can stretch and shape them as long as we continue to learn. According to educational consultant and psychologist Deak, if we take advantage of 0pen "windows" in the brain, we'll keep our minds "plastic." Complete with colored illustrations and diagrams, this children's nonfiction book targets children ages 3-9, but middle schoolers and adults as well are reading it, too.
Deak's simple language coupled with Sarah Ackerley's engaging illustrations belie the complex subject matter of Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. Although the human brain is, indeed, multifaceted, Deak does not shrink from introducing high-level vocabulary to youngsters. This includes learning anatomical parts of the brain such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala.
Best of all, Deak alleviates kids' fear of failure by assuring them making mistakes is one of the best ways to stretch "your fantastic elastic brain." Now, children the world over are taking courage and trying new things without giving up! And, because of Deak, they understand every interaction they have influences the adults they will become.
BUY Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It
BUY The Owner's Manual for Driving Your Adolescent Brain
BUY how girls THRIVE
BUY Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters
BUY the Fantastic Elastic Brain App for iOS
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Tim Harford, economist and author of Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy, shares just a few of the inventions that have had far-reaching and unexpected consequences for all of us. His stories—part economics, part history, and part biography—give us fascinating facts and behind-the-scenes glimpses into inventions that have become integral and essential to our everyday work and play. Harford also cautions us about embracing all inventions as good. History shows that, for all their benefits, inventions often carry a dark downside, too.
BUY Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy
BUY Bleak House by Charles Dickens
BUY More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave
Harford's podcast episode - the 51st invention
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Dr. Gillihan, author of "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple," shares easy-to-understand practices for dealing with mental health issues. He offers "10 Strategies for Managing Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Panic, and Worry" that can be accessed on an as-needed basis. Void of psychobabble, Gillihan's book is written in layman's language for everyday issues and situations so readers can self-evaluate and help themselves find relief.
BUY Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple: 10 Strategies for Managing Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Panic, and Worry
BUY Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety
Dr. Seth Gillihan’s podcast: “Think-Act-Be”
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Dr. Chris Winter, an international sleep expert, combines traditional medicine with more than two decades of research and practical experience to give us The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It. Packed full of proven techniques applied to the most current sleep science, the book is designed to help you rest well and sleep better than ever before.
Winter maintains that, unlike many ailments, sleep skills can be learned. And, with proper sleep, you can eliminate pills, pain, and fatigue. What’s more, a good night’s sleep can improve your overall heart and brain health.
In The Sleep Solution, Winter helps you discover which tips and tricks suit you best so you can get customize a plan for optimal sleep. Like many professional athletes and Dr. Winter’s more than 10K+ patients, you can also learn how to get all the ZZZs you need.
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Matthew Dicks, a bestselling author, shares "superhero" secrets in his latest book, Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling. He reminds us that we all have stories to tell. In fact, sometimes the smallest moments in our lives make the most compelling stories. Leave it to Dicks to help us find the ones that are "storyworthy" and share them through our own storytelling powers.
BUY Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
Speak Up Storytelling
YouTube Channel for Matthew Dicks
BUY Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
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Wish You Happy Forever chronicles Half the Sky founder Jenny Bowen's personal and professional journey to transform Chinese orphanages—and the lives of the neglected girls who live in them—from a state of quiet despair to one of vibrant promise.
After reading an article about the thousands of baby girls languishing in Chinese orphanages, Bowen and her husband adopted a little girl from China and brought her home to Los Angeles, not out of a need to build a family but rather a commitment to save one child. A year later, as she watched her new daughter play in the grass with her friends, thriving in an environment where she knew she was loved, Bowen was overcome with a desire to help the children that she could not bring home. That very day she created Half the Sky Foundation, an organization conceived to bring love into the life of every orphan in China and one that has actually managed to fulfill its promise.
In Wish You Happy Forever, Bowen relates her struggle to bring the concept of "child nurture and responsive care" to bemused Chinese bureaucrats and how she's actually succeeding. Five years after Half the Sky's first orphanage program opened, government officials began to mention child welfare and nurturing care in public speeches. And, in 2011, at China's Great Hall of the People, Half the Sky and its government partners celebrated the launch of The Rainbow Program, a groundbreaking initiative to change the face of orphan care by training every child welfare worker in the country. Thanks to Bowen's relentless perseverance through heartbreak and a dose of humor, Half the Sky's goal to bring love the lives of forgotten children comes ever closer.
BUY Wish You Happy Forever: What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains
One Sky
https://onesky.org/
20th Anniversary
https://onesky.org/this-mothers-love-turned-an-adopted-childs-life-around-then-inspired-a-miracle/
China Care Home & Orphanage Model
https://onesky.org/anjing-sunshine-girl-1/
Village Model
https://onesky.org/yutong-1/
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Journalist Katja Pantzar, author of The Finnish Way: Finding Courage, Wellness, and Happiness Through the Power, introduces the powerful Finnish concept of “sisu.” This unique form of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity helps Finns stay happy and healthy all year round.
After spending her 20s working in the media industry, Pantzar decided to leave the stressful environment of the Americas that was fueling her anxiety and depression. She moved to Helsinki, Finland, returning to her Finnish roots. In this Nordic country, she discovered rituals and a way of life that ultimately transformed her body, mind, and spirit.
In The Finnish Way, Pantzar shows us how to embrace the simple, sensible daily practices that place Finland at the top of the annual World Happiness Report, year after year. Sisu is a national virtue in Finland, but its meaning varies. To some, it refers to mental toughness and the ability to endure stress. To others, it’s the habit of actively transforming challenges into opportunities. But you don’t have to live in Finland to reap the benefits of sisu. No matter who you are or where you live, you can incorporate elements of sisu into your everyday life.
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Parker J. Palmer looks back on eight decades to explore his life in On the Brink of Everything. He shares lessons learned about "Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old" as he travels the arc toward the sunset of his life. Some of his discoveries for a happy life include:
- Cultivating a rich inner and out life
- Finding meaning in both suffering and joy
- Forming friendships across the generations
With earned wisdom counterbalanced with honest, unanswered questions, Palmer expresses himself in prose and poetry. Also, collaborating with songwriter/singer Carrie Newcomer, Palmer shares three free, downloadable songs that amplify themes in his book.
Go to The Growing Edge to find services offered by Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer and to access Newcomer’s three free, downloadable songs.
BUY On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old
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In our latest “Editor’s Picks” podcast, we focus on Biographies & Memoirs. To celebrate America’s Independence Day, we’re showing our patriotism by highlighting famous Americans.
First, we recommend the biography Benjamin Franklin, An American Life by Walter Isaacson (2003). Franklin is known for a myriad of things, but here are just three:
- He always acutely aware of his weaknesses but never too hard on himself. Nevertheless, using his now-famous 13
- He was a Renaissance man of great proportions but weak in math.
- He was the wise senior statesman of the Constitutional Convention.
BUY Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Our next recommendation is Abigail Adams, Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober (1995).
We see Abigail is worth revering for many reasons. Here are just three:
- She was a brave, independent thinker.
- Abigail was a fierce, informed champion of women’s rights.
- She was equally dedicated to both her familial and civic roles.
BUY Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution
Finally, we recommend Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation by Cokie Roberts (2017).
In Roberts’ own words, these are “a few of the women who helped keep the brand-new United States together, working to make it a nation where everyone could pursue the happiness promised when America declared independence and proclaimed its freedom from tyranny.” Here are just three:
- Judith Sargent Murray, activist and writer who fought publicly for women’s rights.
- Isabella Graham, creator of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.
- Sacagawea, explorer and helper on the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
BUY Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution
After their own share of ups and downs, Marc and Angel Chernoff capture tricks, strategies, and skills for "Getting Back to Happy." The Chernoffs are the creators of Marc & Angel Hack Life, recognized by Forbes as "one of the most popular personal development blogs." Through their writing, coaching, and annual live events, they've spent the past decade sharing proven strategies for getting unstuck in order to find lasting happiness and success.
Dr. Robert Zembroski, functional medicine specialist and clinical nutritionist, discusses his book Rebuild. After his own bout with cancer and surgery, Dr. Z. developed Five Proven Steps to Move from Diagnosis to Recovery and Be Healthier Than Before. Navigating his own health journey, coupled with the struggles, frustration, and confusion his patients have experienced in the typical healthcare system, inspired him to create unique personalized protocols focused on results. Rebuild outlines proven ways to both prevent disease and recover from chronic health issues or diseases.
BUY Rebuild: Five Proven Steps to Move from Diagnosis to Recovery and Be Healthier Than Before
Listen to Episode #28 with Dr. Mark Hyman (Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?).
Listen to Episode #32 with Max Lugavere (Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life).
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In her coming-of-age memoir Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, A Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship, Michelle Kuo chronicles her time in Helena, Arkansas.
Kuo is a Chinese-American woman of privilege teaching English at an alternative high school in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. There she develops an unlikely friendship with one of the teenage students who is arrested and imprisoned for murder. For seven months, the two of them study literature, memorize poems, and consider the complexities of education, race, poverty, and social justice.
BUY Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship
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At Nonfiction4Life, we're celebrating the one-year anniversary of our first podcast. Today, we're rolling out our brand new YouTube channel! This new platform will help us extend our reach to readers and listeners who aren't on podcast platforms or who just don't know how to use them.
Also, YouTube's "closed caption" feature makes it possible for many to "listen" without using the volume control. We're especially happy the hard of hearing and deaf community now have equal and easy access to all our content.
Look for videos of our full-length podcasts as well as our "Tidbits." These short audio clips from the podcasts are both reminders and teasers, which are great to share with others. Most are less than one-minute long.
Soon, we'll be posting short book reviews and video streaming with authors. We also hope to feature you with your book groups, sharing your opinions and recommendations for great nonfiction.
SUBSCRIBE to our Nonfiction4Life YouTube channel here.
In addition to publishing podcasts, Nonfiction4Life posts book blogs so you can find even more content in your favorite categories:
- BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS
- BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- COMMUNITY-BUILDING
- HEALTH & WELLNESS
- HOME & FAMILY
- PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
- CHILDREN’S NONFICTION
Our blogs feature true stories and great ideas, but these are a little different from standard book reviews. Instead, we give you some background about the book, then we offer just three points or highlights. From there, we let you decide if you want to read it or move on to another compelling true story or a different book with great ideas for living well.
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/true-green-at-work-100-ways-environment-business/
BUY True Green at Work: 100 Ways You Can Make the Environment Your Business (National Geographic)
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/shelter-rebuilding-families-mary-pipher/
BUY The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families
https://www.nonfiction4life.com/prize-winner-defiance-ohio-terry-ryan/
BUY The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan, Foreword by Suze Orman
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Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail is the sensational true account of Emma Gatewood, the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail (A.T.)
Ben Montgomery, Gatewood’s blood relative and now Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter, bases his New York Times bestseller on personal diaries, trail journals, newspaper articles, and countless personal interviews. We learn that Emma Gatewood “through-hiked” the Appalachian Trail not once but twice, and then a third time in sections—all after the age of 65 and each time alone.
Literally and figuratively a trailblazer, Emma Gatewood provided vocal criticism that drew the necessary attention which very likely saved the A.T. from extinction.
BUY Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
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In The Magic of Tiny Business,written by Eco Bags Products, Inc. founder Sharon Rowe, we learn "You don't have to go big to make a great living." Speaking from her own experience, Rowe tells would-be entrepreneurs how to build a profitable business without compromising personal values. Women especially like her advice: rather than fantasizing about going into business while fretting about going into debt, start by going tiny.
As a young mother with a newborn child, Rowe was most concerned about putting family first. She wanted a flexible schedule, ample family time, work-free vacations, and financial security. This "less is more" approach also meant she wanted to give back to her community, to the planet. So, despite limited capital and business experience, even in the pre-Internet days before going green was cool, Rowe pioneered the reusable bag movement. In the end, she built a $2.2 million-dollar business of impact from scratch.
The Magic of Tiny Businesswalks readers step by step through the process. Starting tiny, preparing for upturns and downturns, managing money, and being laser-focused on the essentials are some of the keys to Rowe's success. Listen to the podcast to learn more.
For more than 20 years, Heather Lende has written obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in the tiny town of Haines, Alaska. Now, in her latest book, Find the Good: Unexpected Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer, the New York Times bestselling author becomes as vulnerable as the grieving she interviews. Weaving together her own life lessons with recollections of the deceased, we get a memoir mixed with humor, sensitivity, and insight.
More than a storyteller, Lende is a “story catcher” who knows the challenge of describing a life with words that both honor the dead and bless the living. But she manages well. Her book can help us all live more gratefully by seeing life through the lens of optimism and finding the good.
00:25 Intro to author Heather Lende from Haines, Alaska
01:25 Obituary writers describe a life in 500-600 words
01:30 Lende’s mantra: “Find the good.”
02:00 Writing our own obituaries, every day
02:25 Unpacking the title, “Find the Good”
03:45 Countering sadness
04:15 Lende’s career begins in 1996
05:45 Characteristics and qualifications of a good obituary writer
07:45 Be a “story catcher”
08:45 Who approves obituaries?
11:00 Lende’s own brush with death changes everything
12:20 Recovery breeds empathy and gratitude
12:45 Wounds, seen and unseen
14:00 Deaths hit close to home
15:00 “I’m just the chronicler of these tragedies,” trying to give families hope
15:40 Using her art to make a difference and move hearts
16:30 Lende faces her own grief with unwed daughter’s pregnancy
17:00 “Draw lines in the sand so you can move them.”
17:45 Wisdom from an elderly Southern lady
19:00 Sometimes the “Big Worry” isn’t a worry at all
19:40 “Practice staggered breathing”
20:25 Life lessons from choir metaphors
22:00 “Writing obituaries is my way of transcending the bad news.”
22:25 The story of Richard Boyce, fisherman lost at sea
24:45 The power of a father’s love
25:20 Story of Russ, the town cemetery gardener
26:00 A long-lost son returns, dies, and gives his home to hospice
27:00 The power of simple greeting cards and the family Bible
28:32 The story of Rene—writing a pre-death obituary for a breast-cancer victim
29:02 What would you do with your remaining days?
30:42 Quantity vs. quality of life
30:59 Everyday blessings
31:20 Life’s two greatest regrets
31:45 Longing for small-town living
32:10 The downsides of small-town living
34:05 Navigating “spiritual boot camp”
35:00 Nurturing the skill of “finding the good”
35:20 Hearts turn to stone, but stones also turn to hearts
36:15 The story of Vic—proof people can change
37:15 How to get a good obituary
37:45 Who will write Lende’s obituary?
38:30 The immediate value of an obituary
39:10 What Lende hopes her readers feel
39:40 How to create small towns anywhere
Great Quotes
"I pretended I was on my deathbed. (I’m fifty-four, have survived being run over by a truck, and I had a headache, which I worried might be a brain tumor, so this was not such a big leap.) I imagined I’d already said good-bye to my husband, children, grandchildren, and all the great-grandchildren I hadn’t even met yet. If indeed all the wisdom I had in my heart was to be summed up in final words and it was difficult to speak more than, say, three, what would I rasp before my soul flew up the chimney? Find the good. I surprised myself with this pretty great notion. Find the good. That’s enough. That’s plenty. I could leave my family with that."
"Awful events are followed by dozens and dozens of good deeds. It’s not that misery loves company, exactly; rather, it’s that suffering, in all its forms, and our response to it, binds us together across dinner tables, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and even time. Bad doings bring out the best in people."**
"I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die."**
“We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.”
"The invisible part of a mother’s heart is the strongest and most flexible because it enlarges with each child and grandchild. Rather than divide the heart’s chambers into smaller rooms as the family grows, love multiplies them."
"No matter how many obituaries I write, I will never get used to talking to someone one day and learning that they’ve left town, and the entire planet, the next. It may not shock me the way it does others, but that doesn’t make it any easier. There is no good in missing someone so badly you can’t even hum."
BUY Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer
Other books by Heather Lende:
- BUY If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska
- BUY Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: A True Story of Bad Breaks and Small Miracles
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SUMMARY: After years of running children’s film festivals, educational innovator and media guru Nicole Dreiske developed “Screen Smart” workshops kids. She includes the program in her new book, The Upside of Digital Devices: How to Make Your Child More Screen Smart, Literate, and Emotionally Intelligent. Aptly nicknamed “The Essential Survival Kit for Parenting in the Digital Age,” Dreiske’s book helps not only parents but also teachers, pediatricians, and other adults train children how to view screens in healthy, safe, and useful ways.
SHOW NOTES
00:26 Who is Nicole Dreiske?
03:00 Why did Dreiske write The Upside of Digital Devices?
04:40 Emotionally charged screen time
05:15 Teaching healthy screen time using dialogue
06:15 Explaining the “Screen Smart” program
08:55 Self-awareness is the key to being screen smart
09:15 Learning from a “Screen Smart” primer
11:15 Forming “Screen Smart” playgroups to improve literacy skills
13:35 Using read-aloud skills while watching screens
15:40 Weston Woods creates short videos based on books
16:45 Co-viewing builds bonds of trust
17:10 Using the Pause & Question (P&Q) method
17:20 Developing emotional intelligence
18:20 Handling family movie nights
19:05 Categorizing movies: fun, bad, sad, scary
19:55 Using a 15-second pre-screen orientation
20:30 Building a trusting relationship between child and technology
21:55 Teaching digital manners
22:10 Building a positive feedback loop
23:15 Dealing with fears, protecting from inappropriate content
25:00 Using “navigation buoys”
27:30 Expressing soothing statements as a catch-all
28:50 Helping adults master their own screen time
31:20 Recognizing where the magic happens
32:35 Helping schools benefit from the “Screen Smart” program
33:10 Building sensory and emotional intelligence
33:20 Leverage literacy, inferential reasoning, critical thinking skills
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Relationships are the key to successful screen viewing.
- Screen viewing skills can be likened to read-aloud skills.
- Categorizing movies (fun, bad, sad, scary) creates a conversational springboard.
- Taking an offensive, positive approach to screens empowers children to share feelings, opinions, and questions.
- Pre-screen orientation leverages cognitive skills.
BUY The Upside of Digital Devices: How to Make Your Child More Screen Smart, Literate, and Emotionally Intelligent
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After decades of doing business, Joel Peterson has distilled his most powerful learnings in The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great. At the core of all strong business relationships, we find trust. According to Peterson, it means "willingly ceding a measure of control to another.... Trust is a leap of faith rooted in optimism."
This deeply held belief in the goodness of others drives us to choose trust over skepticism and negativity. Then we allow trust to become the “lubricant” for accelerating decision-making and for creating durable, flexible agreements.
Trust is also at the center of our strongest personal associations. “But,” says Peterson, “trust doesn’t just happen.” Instead, creating such trust requires an investment. In other words, “It takes initiation, nurture, evaluation, and repair. Trust is earned. Trust builds over time.” Even when we’ve built good relationships characterized by an abundance of trust, Peterson warns us to not take it for granted.
With illustrative anecdotes, Peterson clarifies each of the 10 Laws of Trust:
- Start with Personal Integrity
- Invest in Respect
- Empower Others
- Measure What You Want to Achieve
- Create a Common Dream
- Keep Everyone Informed
- Embrace Respectful Conflict
- Show Humility
- Strive for Win-Win Negotiations
- Proceed with Care
Peterson sums up his life of learning to trust and of becoming trustworthy by concluding that trust is worth all the risks it requires. He continues, "Indeed, living life without deeply trusting others is even riskier, a whole lot less satisfying, and much less likely to result in maximizing potential."
Peterson has been on the faculty at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University since 1992, teaching courses in real estate investment, entrepreneurship, and leadership. He's the Chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways. He’s also the Founding Partner and Chairman of Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City-based investment management firm with $1 billion under management.
BUY The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great
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Richard Louv, co-founder of the San Diego-based Children & Nature Network, author Richard Louv adds Vitamin N to his growing list of books encouraging us to get outside. Aimed especially at families eager to share nature with their kids, Louv’s practical guidebook offers "500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community." All are appropriate for Earth Day, but they're also fitting throughout the year.
Through his 2008 landmark book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv brought international attention to a backyard crisis. We are unnaturally detached from our natural surroundings. A decade later, this clarion call to parents, policymakers, and pediatricians continues to resonate. Sadly, society still suffers from obesity, attention disorders, and depression. Fortunately, however, Louv’s message has galvanized an international back-to-nature campaign to “Leave No Child Inside.”
City folks inclined to develop an adversarial relationship with nature find Louv's ideas comforting. For instance, dirt can strengthen immune systems; sticks are perhaps the world’s oldest toys; sunshine and water are for our use and pleasure. Louv invites these urbanites to step beyond their world of concrete and hand sanitizer, and, instead, gather courage as they build resilience and new outdoor skills.
Following Louv’s charge to return to nature, adults report regaining their own sense of wonder. Those stepping outside are feeling a greater sense of work-life balance and freedom from frenzied family schedules. (For more ideas aimed at adults, see The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age by Richard Louv.)
Just how much "Vitamin N" do we need? Louv believes “Some is good, and more is better.”
BUY Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life
Consider donating to Nonfiction4Life by visiting our Patreon page.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Check out other titles by Richard Louv:
- Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (2008)
- The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder (2011)
Read our blog about Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York’s Central Park.
Listen to Angela Hanscom (Nonfiction4Life Episode 104) talk about her book, Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children, then buy the book.
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Prestel Publishing curates what “Children Should Know” about art. So far, the “13 Series” includes 20 books about architecture, photography, design, fashion, craft, culture, history, and ethnography. Each volume is filled with colorful double-page spreads, highlighting 13 of the most important, famous, or influential things around a single art topic. For example, in the books, we discover the 13 most famous “Bridges” and “Skyscrapers” and the 13 most influential “Modern Artists” and “Art Materials.”
Although the Prestel “13 Series” is specifically designed to whet children’s appetite for learning more about art, this ever-growing set of photo-rich books appeals to adults as well. As coffee-table books, these can be perused slowly, a few pages at a time. Designed to make each topic accessible, Prestel packs the books with detailed descriptions, representative illustrations, and, at the top of most pages, a timeline to help put the topic in a historical context.
The gorgeous color reproductions are enough to keep any reader engaged for hours, but the books are packed with so much more. Quiz questions sprinkled throughout keep children guessing, and supplemental sources such as book and movie recommendations and suggestions for museums, websites, other places to visit accompany each topic. Finally, tips for projects, a glossary, and “Good-to-Know” sidebars offer something for every reader. The “13 Series” set aims to spark a lifelong interest in the arts.
Prestel Publishing has been part of the Random House Publishing Group since 2008 with its head office in Munich and branches in London and New York.
Brad Finger, contributing author, discusses how his background in art history and love of architecture helped qualify him to write six of the books in the “13 Series” coTitpyedit 11 others. Finger worked 15 years as an editor at World Book Encyclopedia (1991-2006) in Chicago and has spent much of his freelance career working for the Alzheimer’s Association.
Titles by Brad Finger:
BUY 13 Skyscrapers Children Should Know
BUY 13 Art Movements Children Should Know
BUY 13 Photos Children Should Know
BUY 13 Bridges Children Should Know
BUY 13 Modern Artists Children Should Know
BUY 13 American Artists Children Should Know
Discover more children's books by Prestel publishing.
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Business consultant Jesse Lyn Stoner partners with Ken Blanchard to write bestseller Full Steam Ahead!: Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Company and Your Life. Using a parable format, they illustrate the ongoing need for “visioning.” Unlike the one-time experience of creating a mission statement, visioning is a process, a journey.
Visioning requires three essential elements:
- A significant purpose. This explains why you do what you do rather than just explaining what you do. In other words, your purpose clarifies what business you’re really in from the customer’s point of view. A deep and noble purpose will inspire excitement and commitment.
- Clear values. These answer the questions “What do I want to live by?” and “How?” Although values may begin as broad guidelines, when they are clearly described, specific behaviors follow.
- A picture of the future. This works when the focus is on what you’re trying to create, not on what you’re trying to get rid of. Similarly, the emphasis is on the end result, not on the process for getting there. An excellent example is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
So, why is visioning important? According to Stoner and Blanchard, “Less than 10 percent of...organizations...[have] a clear purpose, a set of operating values, or a picture of the future.” In other words, most companies don’t really know where they’re trying to lead people.
Shaping and sharing a compelling vision relieves leaders of pressure to be charismatic or to have a similar personality or leadership style as their predecessors. Instead, a clear vision will ignite and focus everyone in an organization on the same thing and all will help carry the charge into the future. As Stoner and Blanchard put it, “The mark of a true visionary leader is that the vision continues beyond the lifetime of the person who articulated it.”
Since its first publication in 2003, Full Steam Ahead! has sold over 300,000 copies and has been translated into 22 languages.
BUY Full Steam Ahead! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life, 2nd Edition
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To capture stories of immigrant students for her book The Newcomers, journalist Helen Thorpe spends a year in a beginner-level ESL classroom of South High in Denver, Colorado. Day by day and layer by layer, she pulls back the curtain on unimaginable hardships and atrocities suffered by immigrant teenagers. With resilience and fortitude, they not only learn English but they also adapt to a new country and adopt a new culture. With help from their exceptional teacher Mr. Eddie Williams, the students do more than learn English. They also discover they are not alone in building a new life from nothing. Indeed, they "find refuge, friendship, and hope in an American classroom."
From Syria to El Salvador, the classroom is a microcosm of the global refugee crisis. So, treading lightly, Thorpe hires 14 translators to interview subjects in their own languages. Along with their families, most students eventually disclose their harrowing journeys through war, subsequent displacement, and eventual resettlement. And, occasionally, case managers and aid workers help fill in the unspoken portions of their own personal refugee stories.
Countering America’s escalating xenophobia, Thorpe reveals the hearts of foreigners who have unwittingly left the lands they love. She also debunks the idea they are terrorists in disguise. Instead, she explains stringent U.S. immigration policies, which are strictly enforced. With Thorpe's help, statistics become humans deserving credit for overcoming adversity.
The Newcomers creates an urgent portrait of the real crisis displaced people around the globe are facing. It's a reminder that wars overseas inevitably send refugees to our shores. In the end, the book is a message of hope because America still welcomes newcomers. She still offers them a safe home. True to the inscription on our Statue of Liberty, Americans are still asking the world to give us "your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."
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In his new book, Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life, Max Lugavere teaches us how to use food to achieve optimal brain performance. What's more, he says, following such a regimen has the pleasant side effect of minimizing dementia risk.
When Lugavere's own mother was diagnosed with a mysterious form of dementia in her 50s, this filmmaker turned journalist went on the warpath to learn everything he could about brain health. His research among leading clinicians and in top neurology departments around the world helped him discover ten "Genius Foods."
Combining solid science with his Hollywood flare for entertainment, Lugavere walks us through common health conundrums. For example, he debunks myths about low-fat and cholesterol-free products, and he makes scientific connections between Type 2 diabetes and dementia. He also makes sense of words newer to the health field such as "epigenetics," "microbiomes," and "probiotics."
Highly recommended by the likes of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Mark Hyman, Genius Foods is the first of its kind to weave together pioneering research not only on dementia prevention but also cognitive optimization, and nutritional psychology.
In addition to being a brain health expert, Max Lugavere is the director of the upcoming film Bread Head, the first-ever documentary about dementia prevention through diet and lifestyle.
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Even as digital technology is disrupting workplace culture, Crystal Kadakia, author of The Millennial Myth: Transforming Misunderstanding into Workplace Breakthroughs, is aiming to solve the biggest human capital trend of our next decade: millennials in the workplace. To remain competitive, we not only need generational diversity; we need to embrace, harness, engage modern talent.
As a thought leader and trainer, Kadakia rebuilds a backdrop for millennials, reminding us that every generation had benefited from innovations. Now, by having their basic needs met, millennials are also able to self-actualize. She also debunks five commonly held myths about millennials:
- It’s not lazy; it’s productivity redefined.
- It’s not entitled; it’s entrepreneurial.
- It’s not hand-holding; it’s agility.
- It’s not disloyal; it’s seeking purpose.
- It’s not authority issues; it’s respect redefined.
Approaching each misconception using her “One Coin, Two Sides” model, Kadakia treats the issues with equanimity. She gives us new language and positive attributes to reframe each of the stereotypes.
According to Kadakia, millennials are primarily driven by two prevalent philosophies: “YOLO” and “FOMO.” The former, “You Only Live Once,” drives them to seize opportunities, even if it means moving switching jobs frequently. On the other hand, FOMO (“Fear of Missing Out”) causes them pain because they have so many choices. To balance the two, they collect experiences first and material goods later (or not at all). Contrast these motivations with those of older workers who went without not by choice but by circumstance and whose choices were severely limited, and you have a conflict of interest and misunderstanding.
In the span of one decade, the “digitally enabled” generation moved from pagers to flip phones to smartphones. Remembering this lightning-fast shift can ease tensions in the workplace and can help us know what these workers expect. For example, they look for constant feedback and transparency; they expect flexibility and access; they count on growth opportunities and recognition.
To create genuine workplace breakthroughs, Kadakia proposes we create environments characterized by “co-versity.” She explains, “Instead of a millennial network, it’s having a generations network, where people of all generations can come together and converse, connect, and collaborate.”
Using traditional parenting techniques, author Rebecca Eanes felt disconnected from her children. Frustrated and discouraged, she decided to trust her gut instead. She documented online her newfound success with positive parenting and quickly found her message resonated with countless parents. In fact, she gained over a million followers on her “Positive Parenting” Facebook page and plenty of material for her first book, Positive Parenting: An Essential Guide.
Now, two years later, Eanes shares her Positive Parenting Workbook: An Interactive Guide for Strengthening Emotional Connection. This companion guide or stand-alone book offers a place for parents to reflect on motivations, reactions, and goals. Ultimately, Eanes writes to help parents connect (or reconnect) with their children in order to create calmer, happier familial relationships.
Since research shows healthy parents help children thrive, the author encourages all parents to “look within” first. In other words, before blaming society or our children, it’s imperative we engage in proper self-care. To take good care of ourselves, Eanes suggests we slow down in one way or another. This can include taking deep breaths, doing push-ups, calling a friend, or asking for a hug. After all, as American author Robert Brault once said, “In our happiest childhood memories, our parents were happy, too.”
The Workbook is replete with insightful exercises to help parents, such as:
- Build a foundation of trust
- Identify and change damaging, negative thought patterns
- Implement calm-down techniques instead of succumbing to anger and frustration
- Reconnect with partners, then approach parenting on a united front
- Create a positive family culture that allows kids to feel safe and loved
- Trade punishments for solutions
- Engage in daily loving rituals that strengthen family bonds
In addition, Eanes addresses how to face proactively “Top Parenting Challenges.” These include tough cases such as Aggression, Whining, Not Listening, Back Talk, and Tantrums.
Designed to reduce the drama, stress, and resentment all too common in families, Eanes’s book shows parents how to intentionally chart a new path. Then, with greater emotional awareness, clear communication, and genuine connection with loved ones, parents are equipped to create joyful family moments.
Eanes is the founder of Positive-Parents.org.
BUY The Positive Parenting Workbook: An Interactive Guide for Strengthening Emotional Connection
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A bestseller for more than 20 years, A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong provides guidelines for handling customer grievances. As the subtitle reminds us, when doing business, things can, do, and will go wrong. With a foreword by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, the book focuses on pleasing customers by first listening to what they have to say.
Rather than bristling at customers’ unmet expectations, authors Janelle Barlow and Claus Møller encourage us to welcome all feedback, especially complaints. In fact, by reframing criticism as a gift, businesses actually tap into one of the least expensive marketing tools available. Moreover, in contrast to static market research, talking directly to customers in real time can provide razor-sharp insights to hone current products and services. Such interactions can also shine bright lights on a company’s roadmap for the future.
Surprisingly, satisfied customers are the ones most likely to complain, yet they’re also most likely to remain loyal. Truly, when they speak up, we know they care.
To handle complaints, companies have taken to outsourcing call centers. But reduced expenses can’t compensate for language and culture barriers standing in the way of begrudged customers feeling fully understood and cared for. In the 21st century, we continue to use the phone to express our complaints, but with the advent of technology, we’ve added many other options. Whatever the method of communication--emails, online chats--every response tool should be easy to find and just as easy to use.
While reducing common complaints is valuable, we should make hassle-free complaining a business cornerstone. After all, without the gift of complaints, we cut ourselves off from our most reliable, honest, perceptive advice for improvement.
Now available in 25 languages, the book covers a wide range of solid principles and practices to help both customers and companies deal with unmet expectations. But perhaps the authors’ greatest gifts to us are their “gift formulas.” Whether verbal or written, these begin with saying “Thank you.” Taking this step alone can begin to help calm even the angriest, most aggressive customers.
Barlow predicts the future of business will depend heavily on how well companies can handle customer complaints in timely, personal way. Those who actively seek complaints, act on the feedback and deliver the best solutions for recovering goodwill will thrive.
BUY A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong by Janelle Barlow
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Dr. Mark Hyman debunks food myths and answers the question, “What the heck should I eat?” As a functional medicine doctor, Hyman believes food is the best medicine. His practical guide to achieving optimal weight and lifelong health includes plenty of do’s and don’ts, always acknowledging what the experts have got right so far.
Packed with solid research but also replete with sensible ideas, Hyman’s book Food is endorsed by dozens of high-profile experts, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and authors. Their accolades are well deserved. Hyman takes on controversies surrounding GMOs, hormones, antibiotics, chemicals, salt, and spices. He also speaks about why we need to choose organic foods and how to afford them. Readers will find dozens of recipes for detoxing and to help create new eating patterns for overall well-being.
With decades of clinical experience, Hyman untangles conflicting research and opposing dietary philosophies. For example, should we eat wheat and other grains or avoid products with gluten? Is it important to get recommendations for dairy, or are many people lactose-intolerant? Specifically, he dives deep into categories that confuse most of us: meat; poultry, and eggs, dairy; fish and seafood; vegetables; fruit; fats and oils; beans; grains; nuts and seeds; sugar and sweeteners; and beverages. A bit tongue-in-cheek, Hyman recommends a “Pegan” diet. Based on his research and experience, Hyman has found this hybrid of Paleo and vegan diets has tremendous power to reduce inflammation and, therefore, eliminate many common illnesses.
But beyond nutritional science, Hyman puts food in a larger context---how it affects our health, environment, economy, and social fabric. He even broaches touchy subjects such as how food is affecting our children’s capacity to learn and our youth’s fitness readiness for military service.
Above all, Dr. Hyman advocates eating simple meals using real food prepared at home. Using his “eater’s guide,” millions who suffer unnecessarily from our current food system can find relief.
BUY Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?
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SUMMARY
To be happy together, whether you’re starting a new relationship, weathering difficult times, or jump-starting a long-term marriage, Suzie and James Pawelski can help. Their book, Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts, isn’t the typical approach to romance. But this husband-and-wife research team has found how to ignite (or reignite) passion.
KEY POINTS
Together, the Pawelskis have identified four key areas crucial to building and sustaining love over the long run:
- Harmonious passion: remembering who we are as individuals and seeking out new adventures together that both enjoy
- Positive emotions: feelings of joy, gratitude, and hope to help motivate couples to invest in each other’s well-being and engage in mutual care
- Mindful savoring: the importance of actively and consciously valuing another and expressing this appreciation to nurture and enhance the relationship
- Character strengths: why we need to define, find, and cultivate our individual potential and support our partner’s growth simultaneously
Happy Together is the first book to apply principles of positive psychology to create successful, satisfying bonds that last. It’s a roadmap for rewarding, long-lasting romance. Refreshingly upbeat, the Pawelskis encourage couples to focus on their strengths. In other words, rather than prescribe cures for failing relationships, they suggest exercises as simple as talking about each other’s strengths to build positive emotions. From there, couples can further leverage strengths by planning dates that bring out the best in both partners. Another healthy exercise to lengthen and strengthen sweet moments of emotional closeness is slowing down to share your love story—the highs and the lows. Recounting how you’ve both conquered challenges and relished the good times can greatly increase your enjoyment of those experiences.
Of course, falling in love and even being in love doesn’t mean you will magically have your dream relationship. Rather, relationships improve over time when partners practice key skills and cultivate loving habits. The Pawelskis encourage us to practice these skills in our own “relationship gym” because all relationships need work.
BUY Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski, MAPP and James O. Pawelski, Ph.D
RECOMMENDATIONS
Check out the Pawelskis’ website Build Happy Together, and spend 15 minutes with your loved one taking the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.
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We asked book lovers in the Bay Area to tell us about their favorite nonfiction. We found people selling, sharing, and reading books at Half Price Books, a brick-and-mortar Amazon Bookstore, a public library, Stanford Library, and even Costco. Listen to their recommendations for insightful, inspiring, and uplifting books. (See links below.) As we always say, at Nonfiction4Life we believe there's something for everyone.
Also, to celebrate Valentine's Day all month long, we plan to show our love of books. Follow us closely on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to get alerts and learn details about:
- Book Fairies - We’re at it again! Look for our hidden books throughout the month of February. You'll know you've spotted one when you see our Nonfiction4Life sticker covered with hearts and the words, “We share our love of great books.”
- Polls - Let us know who and what you love. Be ready to vote on authors, categories, and books that grab you most.
- Free book giveaway - We’ve had fantastic feedback about our podcast with Jess Shatkin, author of Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe. Check in often to find out when we'll be giving away a copy of his book.
Nonfiction books recommended in the podcast:
- BUY A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
- BUY Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by Jocko Willink
- BUY Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed by Leslie Maitland
- BUY Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul A. Offit
- BUY Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman
- BUY A Couple's Guide to Communication by John Gottman
- BUY Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
- BUY When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi and Abraham Verghese
- BUY Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue
- BUY Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
- BUY Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
- BUY The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization by Martin Puchner
- BUY From P.O.W. to C.E.O.: An After-War Memoir by Hester Velmans
- BUY The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
- BUY Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
- BUY The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
- BUY The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
- BUY Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks
- BUY Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
- BUY Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
- BUY Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly
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SHOW NOTES: Dr. Alan Briskin co-wrote The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly with Sheryl Erickson, John Ott, and Tom Callanan. Together, the authors seek to answer the key question, “How does magic happen in groups?” With the encouragement and support of The Fetzer Institute, they combine their own research, theory, and practice with that of hundreds of others, as noted in the Acknowledgments. In short, they teach how to maximize the best in us. “Collective wisdom,"" says Briskin, is about how we come to make sound judgments with others, touched by what is common and decent in all of us.”
But leveraging this wisdom, or finding a new joint perspective, requires deep connection with others and our surroundings. Briskin's multiple examples of both positive and negative group participation illustrate the urgent need for “large-scale change efforts in business, health care, education, mental health, criminal justice, conflict resolution, and global initiatives.”
To increase the likelihood of collective wisdom emerging, Briskin proposes six “stances” or attitudes. The first is “Deep Listening.” To illustrate, Briskin introduces us to Paula Underwood, a Turtle clan mother of the Iroquois nation. Taught by her father to listen to people’s hearts and to read between the lines, she learned both emotional and cognitive empathy. As a tribal leader, she uses these skills while anticipating life seven generations into the future. Such foresight or concern for the future, which Briskin calls “the DNA of wisdom,” can be adopted by any culture. In fact, today we see it often in environmental groups.
A similar stance is “Seeing whole systems/Seeking diverse perspectives.” This attitude is what we hope will frame robust political debates, which have long been part of our nation’s history. For example, in Benjamin Franklin’s final speech at the Constitutional Convention, he champions individuals who engage in vigorous discourse with the express purpose of moving group goals forward.
Humility is another key component to collective wisdom. Cesar Chavez, the leader of the United Farm Workers, openly admitted he did not have all the solutions to organize his little band of grape harvesters. And, by publicly confessing he lacked answers, the group helped him find a way to unite and galvanize others.
Without building deep relationships, we can fall into “the trap of collective folly,” Briskin warns. This folly may begin as mere separation and fragmentation. However, if we don't take precautions against polarizing, accusing, blaming, and talking past each other, then collective folly can lead to dysfunction and even evil. For example, the “not me” or “not us” attitude can devolve into “confirmation bias,” with members welcoming only data confirming what they already believe or know. Another form of collective folly is false agreement and the (outward) appearance of unity. To illustrate, Briskin shares the true story of the disastrous, deadly failure of the Challenger Space Shuttle mission. In the end, the book can help immunize us against such dangerous folly.
BUY The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly by Briskin (1-Oct-2009) Paperback
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SHOW NOTES: Located in the heart of downtown Oakland, California, Berrett-Koehler Publishing is fiercely true to its mission: “Connecting people and ideas to create a world that works for all.” Built on democracy, BK gives every employee—veteran or brand new-- an equal vote in decisions. And all staff members operate in open spaces, including Founder and President Steve Piersanti who has a cubicle like the rest.
Profitable for over a decade, Berrett-Koehler has been publishing nonfiction books for more than 25 years. Through the years, selections have evolved into four categories: “Life,” “Currents,” “Business,” and, most recently, “Professional.”
Industry challenges, such as the market disruption of self-publishing and e-book proliferation, has demanded Berrett-Koehler continually adapt. So, led and inspired by Piersanti, BK employees work hard to stay relevant. Now, to keep the company afloat, they release every book in several formats while penetrating international markets, and they sponsor media events around big topics.
Part of the Berrett-Koehler “secret sauce” is “Author Day.” Several months before a book goes to market, BK invites each author to spend a full day on-site for meetings with several departments and a presentation luncheon with the entire staff. Most recently, Parker J. Palmer, author, activist, and speaker, visited to discuss plans for his upcoming book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, scheduled to be published in June 2018. (Although Palmer has published nine other books, this will be his first with BK.) Almost an octogenarian, he feels particularly qualified to write a book about aging. His audience? “Everyone,” he says, “since everyone is getting old.”
Although creating personal connections with authors limits Berrett-Koehler to about 40 publications a year, the relationships pay off. Their authors become “scouts,” referring writers likely to fit the BK business model. These recommendations help the company sort through 1000 book proposals every year. Then, once accepted by BK, every author (known or unknown) receives a $5,000 advance and coaching from Katie Sheehan, Senior Communications Manager.
Read Piersanti’s take on challenges the publishing industry is facing.
Find out more about Berrett-Koehler’s secrets for success.
Check out books published by Berrett-Koehler.
Learn about Parker J. Palmer, Founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal and world-renowned writer, speaker, and activist.
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Dr. Jess P. Shatkin, nationally acclaimed psychiatrist, unveils truths about adolescents in his latest book, Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe. Decoding the adolescent brain (ages 12-26), Shatkin walks us through science, stories, analogies, clinical anecdotes, and research-based observations. The bad news is teens are actually hard-wired to take risks; the good news is we can still raise safe, resilient kids.
Drawing on decades of medical and sociological research, Dr. Shatkin offers a surprising finding: teens know they are not invincible. In fact, they often overestimate their chances of being harmed while engaged in risky behavior. So, rather than telling them of what they already know (risky behavior is dangerous), we’re better off telling them “One time is all it takes.”
Drinking, driving, and drugs are just three of many dangers that panic parents of teens. To deal appropriately with risky behaviors, adults need to understand the adolescent brain, which is not fully developed until the mid-20s. The upside: during those formative years, teens are highly creative. The downside: adolescents are genetically engineered to prioritize emotions over logic. Consequently, they often make risky choices to be socially accepted or to avoid emotional pain. In such circumstances, peers can trump parents. In fact, if a peer is watching—even a peer they don’t know—adolescents are more likely to take risks.
So, what can parents do to help halt high-risk behaviors? Begin by improving their own parenting practices. Dr. Shatkin recommends using any version of Parent Management Training (PMT) to learn effective techniques. Giving tactful praise, for example, is far better than objecting to negative behavior. Another strategy is increasing parental monitoring by simply spending time with teens. Being together helps open communication and also lowers the chances of risky behavior. In addition, when parents create homes with low-level conflict, raise teenagers whose brains are driven by less demanding reward centers. In short, youth with warm and rewarding interpersonal relationships engage in fewer risk-taking behaviors.
Dr. Shatkin prevails upon teachers and schools to help, too. Promoting character education, having later start times for high schools, and providing healthy lunches are a few remedies with long-lasting positive effects. In the end, the best intervention is prevention.
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BUY Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe
Learn more about Dr. Shatkin
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Courtney Carver teaches us how to declutter as well as make space for joy. The book "Soulful Simplicity" is an extension of her minimalist blog, BeMoreWithLess.com, where she continues to chronicle her journey of living with less.
The book was born of Carver’s own painful wakeup call being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (M.S.). Forced to slow down, she began digging herself out of debt while also letting go of stuff. Now, years later, she recognizes decluttering was only the beginning of letting go.With every item she releases, she also lets go of guilt, frustration, and exhaustion.
Carver overhauled her closet and her shopping patterns with Project 333, her brainchild for paring down her wardrobe. Now, she invites others to join her in limiting apparel to 33 items for a 3-month period. Meanwhile, she cautions against substituting shopping for unmet emotional needs. Instead, she suggests we avoid over-purchasing by trading shopping habits for self-care practices. For example, getting massages or taking walks can satisfy our souls far more than making a trip to the mall.
Carver sets an example of how to stay in close contact with our authentic selves. She begins each day with a mindful morning routine of breathing slowly and holding her hands over her heart. Then, before connecting with technology, she commits to connecting with people she truly cares about.
To resist being swept up in the daily rat race, she proposes we adopt a “Busy Boycott.” For 21 days, we agree not to mention how busy we are, then we do less and say no. In the same vein, she encourages us to reclaim the lost art of “Lingering Longer.”
As Carver says, “We don’t remove clutter, reduce the stress, and boycott busyness to have a simple life. We do it have a life.”
BUY Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More
Go to Carver's blog
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Joël Glenn Brenner, the only journalist to gain full access to candymaker Mars, uncovers the story of chocolate rivals in The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey & Mars. The taleis not far off from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whichmirrors the epic rivalry between British candy companies Cadbury and Roundtree.
The extraordinary relationship between main characters Forrest Mars and Milton Hershey makes for a true story almost stranger than fiction. Polar opposites yet great foils, the two men vigorously pursued success for different reasons. While Mars sought to build empires, Hershey aimed to make the world a better place. The Mars family fiercely held sole ownership and Milton Hershey gave away all his wealth during his lifetime. Mars maniacally guarded company secrets, whereas Hershey opened doors to employ virtually every member his utopian community.
Mars has been notoriously tight-lipped about its efficiency of operations, putting Hershey to shame. But it was Nestle then Hershey that cracked the code for blending milk and cocoa butter. This jockeying for the top between the two behemoth chocolate makers has continued for more than a century.
Although candy ingredients are limited, occasionally new candies result from fortunate accidents. Such is the story behind Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
During wartime, candy manufacturers are often given special license to make even more products to include in soldiers' rations. This creates an opportunity to do big business worldwide.
Nutrition researcher Michael Levine says, “Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.” American and European chocolate differ in the process and taste. Yet, people the world over continue to consume tons of chocolate. Americans love M&Ms, the all-time best-selling candy.
When Mars declined the offer to showcase M&Ms in Steven Spielberg's E.T., Hershey stepped in with Reese's Pieces. This debut of "product placement" jettisoned Hershey to the top spot once again. Both companies continue to gobble up little candy companies and fight for rack space. Globally, Mars dominates the marketplace, but in America, the two firms manage to remain neck and neck.
BUY The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
For the Nonfiction4Life Editor’s Picks debut, we used your recommendations to share just three books in the Home & Family category. While none is a new release, they all fit nicely in this category, especially during this time of year.
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo (recommended by KaRynn). In her New York Times bestseller, Kondo puts magic in decluttering. For instance, she teaches us to fold every clothing item into a perfect rectangle. Then, when stacking them on their side (instead of on top of each other), we can look in our drawers and see everything at once. Kondo also takes a unique approach to helping clients get rid of things. She begins by greeting the house. That is, she literally kneels, bows, and formally introduces herself. After this ritual, she continues to show respect for the people, things, and the house itself by dressing professionally. So, while she declutters, she wears either a dress or slacks and a blazer.
- My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging by Rachel Naomi Remen (recommended by Carolee). The author, a cancer physician entrenched in the art of healing, hearkens back to times with her grandfather. An orthodox rabbi and friend to all, he taught Remen that “blessing one another is what heals the isolation and loneliness in us all.” Blessings can be small acts of service for even the strangers along our way, and through such service, we connect ourselves to the human race. Creating these connections and belonging to each other is most important in families. Remen recounts a story of listening to a well-known rabbi speak of forgiveness. At the beginning of his sermon, to illustrate how forgiving God is, he took his own infant daughter from his wife’s arms. Naturally, the child began to grab her father’s nose and glasses, as babies do, but nothing the child could do would be unforgiveable—ever. For the first time, Remen saw forgiveness not only as the work of God but also an essential element to strong family relationships.
- The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking (recommended by Alexis Tanner). Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute (a Copenhagen think tank), is turning hygge (pronounced “HOO-guh”) into a household word. Defined as a Danish quality of “coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being,” hygge is not just a thing. Hygge is also something we can do. In fact, the true expression of hygge is joining with loved ones in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere. It’s is about slowing down with those you love the most and to appreciate the simple pleasures of life. Joined now by several other hygge books, this one recommends families embrace hygge…together.
BUY The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo (2014-10-14)
BUY My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging by Rachel Naomi Remen (2001-04-01)
BUY The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living
SHOW NOTES: Introducing “Editor’s Picks" at Nonfiction4Life! We're giving you a chance to tell us your best ideas for great nonfiction.
Host Janet Perry's book group of 30 years has a long-held tradition following their formal book discussion. When dessert is served, every member has a chance to talk about other books. That way, everyone can pick up ideas for future reading. The book group has done for Janet what Nonfiction4Life is doing for you, our listeners. Just as it says on the website, the mission of Nonfiction4Life is to "curate books for readers who love true stories and great ideas but who have little time to hunt them down." And, from the beginning, Nonfiction4Life has been doing just that. We've been publishing blog posts and podcasts.
Now, we have a new plan to help you add to your want-to-read nonfiction book lists. First, we’ll put out a request for you to recommend a book in one of our many categories. You can submit your ideas as an individual or as a group. We especially encourage book groups to have fun choosing books together.
From your recommendations, we’ll select just three books to feature in a mini-podcast called “Editor’s Picks.” If your book is chosen for the podcast, we’ll be sure to give you (or your book group) credit.
We hope you’ll follow our lead at Nonfiction4Life and make your choices from long-standing classics or sleepers that are hidden gems. And, of course, we’re always anxious to hear about hot-off-the-press new releases. Just be sure that the books you recommend are insightful, inspiring, and uplifting.
As we're approaching the holidays, this time we’re looking for nonfiction books about Home & Family. So, we invite you to get started and post your ideas in the “Comments” section of the podcast at nonfiction4life.com. We're anxious to hear from you.
Share recommendations for “Home & Family” books here.
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Scott Parazynski, author of the memoir The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space, and Speed, is the only human to travel in space and reach the summit of Mount Everest. With five Space Shuttle Missions, seven spacewalks (EVAs), and numerous publications and awards to his name, he rightfully earned his place in the US Astronaut Hall of Fame at Kennedy Space Center.
He grew up all over the world, making him a “third culture kid,” which opened his eyes to the power of people and made him a fan of multidisciplinary teams. To become both a physician and an astronaut, Parazynski applied lessons learned from becoming an Eagle Scout. Just as he earned merit badges one at a time, he likewise pursued his goals by organizing them into manageable parts. Now retired from his 17-year career as an astronaut, he refers to himself as “former astronaut” since he’s no longer allowed to speak officially for NASA.
When his son Luke was born with underdeveloped lungs, Parazynski felt terrified and helpless. To have no control over the situation was a defining moment. Yet later, mortality caught up with him, too. He suffered an altitude-induced stroke and ruptured disc in his lower back. Still, he returned to space for several expeditions and to Mount Everest for a second (successful) attempt to reach the summit. Although characterized by putting himself in risky situations, he calls himself a “risk manager” rather than a “risk taker.” Like other climbers and astronauts, he always has a Plan B and Plan C.
Evidently, Parazynski’s back problems were a result of his body expanding in space and contracting upon returning to Earth. Over time, repeating this pattern inflicted trauma on his body. Parazynski’s friend/colleague Scott Kelly speaks of experiencing similar physical changes from his prolonged space travel.
Parazynski had the distinguished opportunity to be selected as a fellow crewmember and in-flight physician to John Glenn who returned to space at age 77. Of all Glenn’s qualities, his humility impressed Parazynski the most. Their space experiments included findings that continue to inform the field of gerontology.
According to Parazynski, companies such as Virgin Galactic and Space X will make space travel possible for the layman sooner rather than later. His own finest moment in space came when repairing a solar panel on the International Space Station. The ISS, a symbol of political alliances, is tangible evidence space can be an incredible catalyst for peace.
Parazynski believes continuing to fund the space program is a smart investment in “tomorrow.” By allocating $18 billion (less than half a cent of taxpayer dollars) to aerospace and aviation, we can continue to bridge nations and inspire young people. His own “greater purpose” is “to try to pay forward to the fullest extent possible.” As CEO of his own robotics startup, he’s working on technologies he hopes will help millions if not billions of people for good.
BUY The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space, and Speed
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Dr. Kevin Leman first published The Birth Order Book in 1985. Today, more than three decades and two reprintings later, the book still holds relevance.
Evidently, we never fully outgrow our birth order. (Just think about those family gatherings when your older sister is still telling you how to make gravy.) Naturally, every birth order position has its strengths and weaknesses. Learning to leverage the good in each is the key to building happy relationships.
Leman explains common traits of the four birth order positions: firstborn (perfectionistic, dependable, sensitive to criticism), middleborn (secretive, mentally tough, independent), lastborn (uncomplicated, vivacious, manipulative), and only born (self-motivated, fearful, cautious). Contrary to popular opinion, parents need to learn to parent each child differently.
Of course, all families don’t fit neatly into a box of two parents and three children, so it’s important to account for variables such as gender and years apart in age. For example, a second-born girl following an older brother will have many traits of a firstborn, as might a middle-born child with four years in between him and the next oldest sibling. Other disrupters in birth order include death, divorce, adoption, and step-families. (Note: Dr. Leman claims there’s no such thing as a “blended” family. He says these families don’t blend; they collide. And their foundation is “cemented with a mortar of…anger.”)
Sensitivity to birth order traits can also help employers pick the right person for a job. In fact, with some small talk and a little observation, bosses can learn to distinguish among firstborns, who get the job done; middleborns, who make great managers; and lastborns who can “sell dead rats for a living.”
Knowing birth order can also be insightful when choosing a mate. Dr. Leman says the strongest marriages are between any two people not of the same birth order. On the other hand, a marriage between two firstborns can be volatile unless they learn to divide responsibilities. However, the good news is, with a little help from The Birth Order Book, all marital combinations can work.
In the end, “The smart person figures out how to navigate all birth orders.”
BUY The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are
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Photo Credit: Tom Spitz Photography, Tucson, AZ
Life Is So Good is the unlikely memoir of a slave’s grandson who finally learned to read at age 98. Given the chance to get a formal education, George Dawson took to school the way he did every other experience—with humility and gratitude.
Co-author Richard Glaubman originally intended to give voice to a man relegated to a life of discrimination and prejudice. Instead, he found a man filled with gratitude and a sunny disposition. Even with a front-row seat to the cruelty and severe poverty of Blacks in the Deep South, Dawson remained untainted by bitterness.
Eventually, Dawson and Glaubman published the story bearing the title, Life Is So Good. These four words became Dawson’s lifelong mantra when his father spoke them soon after the two of them witnessed a lynching. Having seen a century’s worth of life’s ups and downs, Dawson reminds us, “People forget that a picture ain’t made from just one color. Life ain’t all good or all bad. It’s full of everything.”
Soon after the book was released, Dawson passed away at age 103. Yet his pearls of wisdom are timeless. Here are just three:
- “Some people are growing children [like farmers grow hogs], not raising children.”
- “[Don’t] worry so much” and “Be happy for what you have.”
- “The world only changes one person at a time."
BUY Life Is So Good
Also by Richard Glaubman:
More Than a Book a Story of Friendship
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Erica Komisar champions the role of mothers in Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. As a licensed clinical social worker, psychoanalyst, and parent guidance expert, Komisar sees a strong correlation between absent mothers and children diagnosed with mental disorders such as ADHD, aggression, autism, anxiety, and depression.
Her words are a clarion call to society, which has come to devalue mothers and overvalue success, money, achievement, and status. The message is not a political message but rather a human message: mothers are not a luxury to children; they are a necessity. Women are biologically designed to take care of their babies, especially during the first three years. Although this concept is instinctive to many women, Komisar now supports it with research.
In addition to citing numerous studies, Komisar includes experiential evidence and sage advice. She aims to teach all mothers how to be more physically and emotionally present for their children while finding ways to feel more joy and peace in their maternal role. Consider just three important takeaways:
- Mothers act as a baby’s central nervous system for the first nine months. During this time, babies are unable to regulate emotions and stress on their own. The good news is mothers are uniquely equipped to comfort constantly, from moment to moment, all day long. As Komisar says, "The capacity to develop in a healthy manner, to regulate stress, to balance emotions, and to feel for another human being begins with mothers." In other words, when present, a mother can neutralize emotions and buffer stress. These moms can expect their children to grow up to be resilient adults.
- Every absence from a baby needs repairing. Komisar tells us,"The most painful times for young children are the comings and goings of their mothers." When a mother leaves for even a very short time, her baby feels distressed. Knowing this, mothers can choose to be there during times of transition. Her presence is especially important when babies go to sleep and wake up. To avoid too many separations, mothers can choose to keep very young babies physically close. Her touch, eye contact, and voice are all very reassuring, increasing a baby’s emotional security.
- Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable. Although both mothers and fathers produce oxytocin (the love hormone), this chemical produces different responses in males and females. A mother is “bathed” in oxytocin when she delivers a baby and breastfeeds. This causes her to become a more sensitive and empathic nurturer. A father who spends time with his baby also produces increased oxytocin. But the hormone causes him to become more playfully stimulating. He also produces vasopressin. This helps him protect his young, regulate their aggression, and help them separate healthily from their mothers at the right time.
BUY Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters
More about "Being There"
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Adrian Gostick, co-author of What Motivates Me: Put Your Passions to Work, has collected data from more than 850K people to find out what makes them happy at work. It turns out the key to workplace happiness is not doing something you're good at. And it's not working for a thriving company, either. Gostick's research shows that the most energized employees find work that motivates them personally.
Just three takeaways:
- Happiness at work for U.S. employees is at "an all-time low." A whopping 87 percent of the world's workers are either not full engaged or plain disengaged.
- Each person has his/her unique combination of 23 different workplace motivators. Knowing these can give us language to sculpt our current job into one we love.
- The strongest teams include workers from all five "Identities." Read about these in the "Identity Reference Guide": Achievers, Builders, Caregivers, Reward-Driven, Thinkers.
BUY What Motivates Me: Put Your Passions to Work
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More books by Adrian Gostick:
All In: How the Best Managers Create a Culture of Belief and Drive Big Results
The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance [Updated & Revised]
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Beth Brust, the mother of an Asperger's child, coauthored Quirky, Yes—Hopeless, No: Practical Tips to Help Your Child with Asperger's Syndrome Be More Socially Accepted. While Brust offers a parent's perspective, Dr. Cynthia La Brie Norall provides an expert's point of view. Together, they synthesize years of training Asperger's kids at their after-school "Friends Club." Fashioned after Dr. Spock's guidebook for parents, the book serves as a sort of bible for parents and educators dealing with children on the autism spectrum.
Just three takeaways:
- "Aspies" can, in fact, learn people skills and become more socially aware. But this growth requires practice. Breaking down skills into small steps sets them up for success.
- Looking people in the eye can be very distracting and stressful for Asperger's kids, causing others to misinterpret their behavior as rude or disinterested.
- Bullying is prevalent among children with Asperger's, so learning strategies for stopping it is essential. (Note: Norall and Brust felt this topic was so important that, in addition to a short chapter about bullying, they provide additional information in the Resources section.)
BUY Quirky, Yes---Hopeless, No: Practical Tips to Help Your Child with Asperger's Syndrome Be More Socially Accepted
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Steve Young, one of the greatest football players of all time, holds distinctions as a two-time NFL MVP and a Super Bowl MVP as well as a Football Hall of Famer. His book, QB: The Man Behind the Spiral, he originally intended to share only with his children. It gives us an inside look into Young’s football career as well as his lifelong struggle with anxiety. With editing help from his wife Barb, the narrative is a very honest, authentic account of his story. In the podcast, he reveals more details about his life.
Just three takeaways:
- Even the most severe cases of anxiety can go undiagnosed and untreated.
- God puts people in our path when we most need them.
- Having a personal “North Star” can give us purpose, direction, and comfort.
For extended Show Notes with stop times, go to https://www.nonfiction4life.com/qb-the-man-behind-the-spiral-by-steve-young-with-jeff-benedict/.
BUY QB: My Life Behind the Spiral
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Dr. Brad Agle, Professor of Ethics & Leadership, helped compile "The Business Ethics Field Guide." Agle and his colleagues Aaron Miller and Bill O'Rourke fill the book with 13 common ethical dilemmas providing real-life, instructive scenarios. They also warn individuals and corporations of pitfalls. Readers can plan ahead for possible situations when they'll need sharp ethical skills at-the-ready.
Just three takeaways:
- Build social capital early and always. Trusted friends are invaluable when navigating ethical situations, but those relationships must be created before you need them.
- Allow yourself a little extra time to consider all sides of ethical dilemmas before acting. Avoid making knee-jerk decisions that can hurt you and others around you. Instead, take time to talk to others with a different perspective or with more authority.
- Consider "conflicts of interest" a sign of being a normal human. Everyone has conflicts of interest, although many are unaware of them. The smaller the community, the more likely you'll have this dilemma. Problems usually occur when we fail to manage those conflicts of interest well.
Ethics is a fundamentally about "getting your heart right," or caring about other people. The Business Ethics Field Guide takes ethics to the next level, helping readers learn how to do the right thing at the right time. Its subtitle, "The Essential Companion to Leading Your Career and Your Organization to Greatness," suggests that a serious study of the field guide will help not only employees but also leaders and businesses improve. But becoming great takes practice, and being ethical is a never-ending challenge.
Many aspects of the book are decidedly inconclusive, but this is intentional. Readers who study the book will learn how to rely on their honed skills and be able to draw their own conclusions. In the end, the authors prefer operating under "Virtue Ethics." This construct boils down to asking yourself one question: "What kind of person do I want to be?"
Note: Don't miss the stories Bill O'Rourke contributes to the book, giving it color and dimension.
BUY The Business Ethics Field Guide: The Essential Companion to Leading Your Career and Your Company to Greatness
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Liz Wiseman, internationally recognized business thought leader, released the Revised and Updated edition of "Multipliers" in 2017. The book was born from a simple observation percolating in Wiseman for years: “There is more intelligence inside our organizations than we are using.” Figuring out why became her passion. Her research findings unlocked the secrets to what she came to call “Multipliers.”
To explain the difference between Multipliers and Diminishers (their opposite), Wiseman quotes Bono, who said, “It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person I the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person in the world.” Diminishers might be geniuses, but Multipliers are genius makers.
Wiseman’s research team used an applied definition of intelligence: the ability to reason, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, learn from experience, and adapt to make smart decisions.
Multipliers trust people are smart and will figure it out. With that assumption, they manage to double the brain power of their workers. In short, they use human intellect and talent while noticeably helping people grow. As a result, when working for a Multiplier, people say they “get smarter.”
Wiseman distills the role of Multiplier to distinct disciplines, each set in opposition to a Diminisher role. For example:
- The Talent Magnet (e.g., Mitt Romney) vs. The Empire Builder
- The Liberator (Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit) vs. The Tyrant
- The Challenger (Irene Fisher of University of Utah Bennion Center) vs. The Know-it-all
Bill Campbell says, to be a Multiplier, “You have to be smart enough to learn.”
“Accidental Diminishers” are well-intentioned leaders who, unwittingly, reduce abilities often by following popular management principles. For example, creative leaders might try to spark ideas in others; energetic, charismatic leaders can “kill” people with all their energy. Rescuers might step in too early to prevent mistakes from happening, but they can stunt growth in the process. Even too much optimism can do more damage than good.
Multipliers are not “cupcake-and-kisses” leaders. In fact, they're often hard-edged, driven people. But they create a growth cycle of “safety and stretch.” While holding people accountable, they deeply use their people while helping them grow.
BUY Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
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Fred E. Woods researched the story of leprosy in Hawaii, where the Board of Health exiled people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) to Kalaupapa, an isolated spot on the island of Molokai. Neither fatal nor highly infectious, leprosy became treatable in the 1940s when Dr. Hansen discovered an antibiotic cure for the pathogen. Though not contagious, it still managed to rip apart families, sometimes indefinitely.
Fortunately, more than 400 “kokua” (help) came to the rescue as volunteers. Many stayed in Kalaupapa and made their life among the sick. Two of the most famous kokua included Jonathan Hawaii Napela and Father Damien. Both bore ecclesiastical duties. The former refused to be separated from his sick wife, and the other came to fulfill his priestly duty. Both contracted leprosy and died in the colony.
After collecting 58 first-person accounts, Dr. Woods says he found a "story of community—community unlike anywhere else in the world—not a space divided by borders and barriers or fences and enclosures, but a place which beckons every race and religion, every color and creed...The cost was suffering—suffering together.”
Today, all but 10 residents of the community have passed away. But for decades the people of Kalaupapa worshiped, worked, and recreated side by side.
Woods says, "Kalaupapa is relevant in any age and serves as a reminder of the importance of erecting bridges instead of barriers, finding common ground instead of a battleground, and in valuing one another regardless of ethnicity and religiosity. It provides a vivid illustration of the need for all people to not only join hands, but to look outside the circle of their faith’s community to embrace the universal message to love one another, regardless of our differences.”
He continues, “Such an ecumenical philosophy of inclusiveness seems to be desperately needed in a world that suffers from societal diseases such as selfishness, pride, bigotry, and prejudice. It is hoped that the message of the Kalaupapa community will serve as a reminder of the acute need for each of us to generate light instead of heat...."
In 2008, Hawaiian officials issued a formal apology to the people of Kalaupapa. In the same spirit, a long-time resident Auntie Catherine says in her interview, “Let it go. Forget about it. Turn a new leaf. Start all over. That’s what God wants us to do. Don’t hold grudges.”
BUY Reflections of Kalaupapa
BUY Kalaupapa: The Mormon Experience in an Exiled Community
WATCH: Documentary: "The Soul Kalaupapa: Voices in Exile"
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Annette Bay Pimentel, author and researcher, came across a 1915 photograph of several men wearing suits and sitting on logs that surround a table set with white linen and china. Behind them stands a Chinese man wearing an apron. The cook is Tie Sing, the main character in her book Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service.
Evidently, millionaire and Sierra-Club member Stephen Mather hired Tie Sing, "the best trail cook in California," to feed his special guests on a camping trip. Against the odds, he managed to keep the men fed with “gourmet meals as fine as any you’d find in a San Francisco restaurant.” Pimentel includes authentic, mouth-watering menus. After trekking through the pristine California wilderness, these thought leaders became advocates for creating a National Park Service.
Pimentel's book provides a springboard for discussing politics with children. She manages to gently broach the still-prickly topics of citizenship, discrimination, and immigration at a level children can understand.
Illustrator Rich Lo ignites every page with brilliantly colored pencil drawings and watercolor washes. His own family story of parents immigrating from Hong Kong to the United States mirrors the story of Tie Sing. Lo has illustrated just one other children’s nonfiction book, Father’s Chinese Opera, which is based on his personal history.
Pimentel hopes Tie Sing will be a model to kids when they face setbacks. She also hopes they will come to appreciate the many people of large and small importance who've helped build our country.
According to Pimentel, this is a “golden age for kids’ nonfiction.” As proof, she cites the newly established the Sibert Informational Book Medal for nonfiction picture books and a middle-grade or young-adult book. The Newberry Medal and the Caldecott Medal in the last 15-20 years have been awarded to an increasing number of nonfiction books. We're also seeing more back matter, bibliographies, and source quotations in books. Since Common Core was adopted, school teachers are using much more nonfiction.
BUY Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service (Carter G Woodson Award Book (Awards))
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Kristen Ulmer spent 15 years as a professional extreme skier, holding the title as the world’s best female extreme skier for 12 of those years. Little did she know at the time she was “locking Fear in the basement.”
Now, as the only known fear specialist in the world, Ulmer helps us learn how to “stop being afraid of being afraid.” To do that, she’s launched a whole movement around how to have an honest relationship with Fear. Using “Shift” (her Art of Fear method), she personifies Fear, teaching us how to face and embrace this universal emotion. With a healthy dose of curiosity and some learned skills, we can access Fear and all our emotions without pushing them away.
According to Ulmer, we tend to blame our problems on anger, stress, depression, and anxiety. Yet, from her experience both as an athlete and as a fear expert, she’s come to see all these emotions rooted in Fear. Rather than repressing Fear, we should treat it as we would a child, giving it proper care and attention. Otherwise, we are almost sure to have physical breakdowns and emotional traumas. Left undealt with, Fear can rob all of us--even the best of athletes--of good health, excitement, energy, and an overall sense of joy. So, the answer lies in learning to meet Fear on neutral ground, not assigning it good or bad labels. Then, rather than exhausting ourselves trying to control the emotion, we must channel our efforts toward controlling our responses to Fear.
In practical terms, Ulmer tells us Fear is a state of discomfort in our bodies. So, as we practice doing simple body scans, we’ll learn where Fear tends to reside in our bodies. Then, when we find it, Ulmer tells us to turn towards Fear, giving it our full attention. In other words, we must give ourselves permission to feel Fear.
In our society, rather than using Fear for fight or flight, we’ve learned to fight or flee the Fear itself. In a bold claim, Ulmer says treating symptoms such as PTSD, looping anxieties, insomnia, and depression only exacerbates the problems. Instead, she proposes using the following three-pronged approach:
- Get to know your patterns around Fear. Look for what Fear motivates you to do. Rather than resist it, learn to merge with your Fear.
- Recognize Fear is completely natural. “The more you allow Fear to speak, the less it will have to say, the less of a hold it will have on you. It’s that simple.”
- Learn how to feel Fear. Deal with emotions emotionally. Ulmer proposes we “have a love affair with Fear.” Like falling in love, this highly emotional experience begins with showing commitment. This process will bring Fear into sharp focus, allowing it to heighten our awareness.
Ulmer assures us, “The best way to feel alive is to go out and do something that scares you. What will follow is pleasure from learning and growing.”
BUY The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won't Work and What to Do Instead
Work with Kristen
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Laura Stack, nicknamed "The Productivity Pro," is an award-winning speaker and best-selling author of seven books. A sought-after business consultant, her latest book, Doing the Right Things Right, shows us how to focus on the important things while saving time.
For 25 years, she has coached executives and motivated professionals to increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Some of her clients working include Starbucks, IBM, Microsoft, Nestle, Wells Fargo, VISA, and the Denver Broncos.
As an MBA student, Stack felt inspired by Peter H. Drucker's classic book, The Effective Executive. However, noticeably absent in the classic business book are examples of women executives and tips for taming technology. So, to complement Drucker's time-tested truths, Stack offers updated recommendations for the 21st century.
Her best ideas come from the place where effectiveness (doing the right things) intersects with efficiency (right). Specifically, to help identify areas needing attention, Stack front-loads her book with the "3T Leadership Assessment." Using this tool periodically can give executives a glimpse into how successfully they're leading their organizations.
Organized into three parts, Stack's book covers Strategic Thinking, Teamwork, and Tactics for executives. Tips include knowing when to make decisions by consensus or alone as well as delegating down as much as possible. In order to build strong and loyal teams, employers should always make training a high priority.
Time management seems to lie at the heart of many leaders' challenges. Stack insists on using email filters and similar tools to rein in technology.
BUY Doing the Right Things Right: How the Effective Executive Spends Time
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In November 2013, award-winning author and blogger Seth Adam Smith unwittingly catapulted his writing career. He wrote a blog post entitled, "Marriage Isn't for You." Then he got over 24 million hits and, in just three days! Obviously, his message hit a nerve with people the world over. News organizations picked up his message, turning Smith into something of a reluctant young rock star.
Although these days he tries to maintain his privacy, his post led to publishing the book, "Your Life Isn't for You: A Selfish Person's Guide to Being Selfless." With brutal honesty, he shares his journey of fighting depression and escaping his own attempted suicide.
Smith structures his book around the children's story from the Book of Virtues called "The Selfish Giant," which his father read to him as a young boy. Like the giant, Smith built up his own walls, breeding selfishness. Fortunately, he eventually learned how to tear down those barriers, allowing people back into his life. And when the walls came down, he opened himself up to beautiful relationships and emotional connections. Although he admits selfishness often emerges as a self-preserving tool, Smith believes it's also the biggest stumbling block to healthy relationships.
Sadly, people suffering from depression often rebuff helpful gestures from loving friends and family. Yet, Smith assures us, consistent efforts are, in the end, very helpful. These kindnesses can come be "soft" gestures or harsh truths. In either case, well-intentioned helpers will only find peace by controlling their own actions, not by waiting to have people with depression receive their kindnesses.
Smith now works with the Anazasi Foundation. There, and through his writing, he channels his experience to help others fight depression and prevent suicide. His book includes several of his antidotes for depression. Here are just three:
- Learn to love the people you serve. Depression often requires medication and professional counseling, but reaching out to others can also be an effective tool for recovery.
- Seek out support groups and professional help. Joining a strong community can be a lifeline of strength and trust. Similarly, Smith strongly encourages going to counseling to get invaluable advice from trained experts.
- Look for your own "Northern Lights." Spiritual sources of light and strength are all around us. In one form, they're connections to others. Another form is service. Smith is particularly fond of the light he finds in excellent literature, uplifting and inspiring the soul.
BUY Your Life Isn't for You: A Selfish Person's Guide to Being Selfless
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During months of solitude trekking the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the Sacred Valley in Peru, Dr. John Izzo crystallized ideas for his book, The Five Thieves of Happiness.
His central premise is that our natural human state is one of happiness. So, instead of following the predictable path lined with books about the science of happiness, Izzo identifies not what we need to do to become happy but what we must do to stay happy.
Yet, constantly lurking at our door threatening to rob us of our happiness are five "thieves." These include control, conceit, coveting, consumption, and comfort.
- Control: “Two of the most obvious things we try to control are the past and the future. Of course, we cannot control that which has already happened, and we cannot control that which has not yet occurred. The twins of regret and worry (first cousins of control) take away moment-to-moment contentment.” The opposite of control is surrender, so happiness comes when we learn to accept outcomes beyond our control.
- Conceit (AKA ego) is conquered by service. Just as Christ taught centuries ago, we find ourselves by losing ourselves. And the quickest way to experiencing that kind of happiness is to think of others and serve them.
- Coveting disguises itself, making us ask how we compare to others. “It takes away our capacity to be grateful…It infects our personal happiness, but it also undermines our relationships with others. Instead of celebrating and sharing the happiness of others we resent their happiness and good fortune.” To unmask the thief of coveting, show gratitude and a genuine pleasure for others' successes. These two practices are especially effective when avoiding the trap of coveting on social media.
- Consumption, a plague of our prosperous period in history, is easy to identify. We know this thief is near when our thoughts gravitate toward, “I will be happy if...” or “I will be happy when....” To be happy, focus on the moment, not wishing for anything other than our present reality.
- Comfort is “the subtlest of all thieves.” At face value, comfort does not seem like a threat to our happiness. But we if we become too comfortable with old patterns, we can miss out on the thrill of learning new experiences and skills.
To help “kick the thieves out of the house,” Izzo's proposes three solutions to use over a 30-day period: repeat written mantras day and night, keep a gratitude journal, and consciously note at the end of each day if the thieves showed up. The most effective solution to combatting the five thieves of happiness is the one that works best for you.
BUY The Five Thieves of Happiness
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Pitching coach Rick Peterson knows how to help when the heat is on. His first trick is learning to "reframe." This means simply “finding different ways of interpreting a less-than-ideal situation.” In other words, every tough situation can be seen as an opportunity for making something great happen. For example, when a pitcher walks a batter, then next batter can represent an opportunity to make two outs with one pitch.
His next tip is to overprepare. Practice, practice, practice! Prepare for every situation possible, including practicing amidst chaos. Practice until you’ve mastered your skill. Peterson talks about Michael Phelps’s coach who used to hide or break Michael’s goggles just before races so Michael had to learn to swim his best even in less-than-ideal circumstances.
One of his best secrets for diffusing stress is to "try easy." When it’s “crunch time,” don’t try harder. Try easy! When you’re under pressure, don’t try to be better than you actually are; just perform the best you did when you were practicing.
It also helps to keep the laughter coming. Store at least a couple of funny stories in your memory bank. Then, when you’re under stress, recall these stories. You’ll find yourself laughing rather than choking under pressure.
Finally, try time traveling. Focus on the outcome rather than on the process. In other words, “Just hit the glove.” Settle your mind down by taking your thoughts back to a time when you performed at your best. Relive your best performances. For example, Peterson coached Barry Zito to go back in his mind to a time during spring training when he gave up only one hit in six innings.
BUY Crunch Time: How to Be Your Best When It Matters Most
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While a grad student at Yale, Charles Vogl organized a dinner series. Using principles distilled from 3,000 years of spiritual traditions, he created a community connecting himself and others.
(Some of the) Seven Principles of Belonging: To craft our communities, Vogl proposes we welcome new members through some type of initiation. He also tells us how to implement rituals (formal and informal) and create "temples" or sacred spaces for community gatherings and ceremonies.
Borrowing a term from C.S. Lewis, he speaks of "Inner Rings," the most complex concept in his book. Inner rings can be the mark of a mature community. They are made up of experienced, wise people who teach and mentor newer members.
No Magic Formula: We should not feel overwhelmed trying to apply all seven principles of belonging. Instead, by using even one or two principles of belonging, we can strengthen a community. According to Vogl, the key to success (and a nice place to begin) is making sure the important people in our life know we care about them.
BUY The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging
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In 2012, Alissa Parker lived happily with her husband and three girls in Newtown, Connecticut. She discusses what it was like to suddenly lose her oldest daughter Emilie on December 14 of that year in the Sandy Hook School shooting, the second deadliest in American history.
Tools for Healing: To help to make sense of the tragedy, Alissa began to blog. Having lost her father unexpectedly just months before Emilie's death, she tells how the former experience prepared her for the latter.
Alissa sought support in counseling. She found strength by talking to others experiencing similar pain. Eventually, she let go of her anger towards the killer, Adam Lanza. In the end, she deliberately chose to eschew evil and embrace the notion that good triumphs.
Life Without Emilie: A series of many little miracles let Alissa know Emilie became an angel in heaven assigned to help others on earth. With that reassurance, Alissa is better able to move forward with her life. Now, she purposely tries to slow down in order to appreciate present-tense moments. With no timeline for grief, she remains patient with herself in the grieving process. Meanwhile, she and her family live in the American
Meanwhile, Alissa and her family live in the American Northwest where she practices photography. The region's typical overcast weather makes the colors in her world brighter. This has become a metaphor for the way her personal tragedy has helped intensify the beauty of the good things in life.
BUY An Unseen Angel: A Mother's Story of Faith, Hope, and Healing After Sandy Hook
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