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Finish strong

Finish strong

The words Finish Strong instantly and clearly communicate a performance goal perhaps better than any other two words in the English language. In this breathtaking gift book, you will share in the triumphs a variety of individuals who all shared a common value – the desire to overcome their obstacle and ultimately Finish Strong. In addition, Dan Green shares some innovative ways that he has incorporated the Finish Strong attitude into his personal and professional lives.

Finish Strong is a powerful platform for leading your team to success. Use the book to kick-off or close your next meeting, conference or event. Give the book to your customers and prospects as a way to reinforce your commitment to them. Anyone with goals or ambition should read this book.

Regardless of what came before or of what has yet to come, what matters most is how you choose to respond to the challenge in front of you. Will you lie down or will you fight? The choice is yours. Choose to Finish Strong!

"Dan Green has written one of the most inspirational books that we’ve ever published at Simple Truths. It is filled with amazing stories about people from all walks of life who in the face of adversity, against all odds…finished strong!"
Mac Anderson

 

Ways to Use: Give this book away at your next meeting or event. Perfect for Leadership development, Executive Retreats, Team Building, Management training

"Try before you buy" right here.. Flick through the pages of the book online

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Activities to go with fiction

 

Listen to Charlotte's Web.  Hear E.B. White read from his book, virtually visit his farm (in the “Down East” part of Maine) and watch a spider, like Charlotte, spin a web. Also learn how she catches (and eats) food, observe how she lays eggs and find out how her wingless babies (called spiderlings) can “fly” (or “balloon”) from the place where they were hatched.  http://www.awesomestories.com/site_map

/Movies/charlotte_web.htm

 

 

[More fiction activities]

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Is Your Genius at Work?:

Is your genius at work

4 Key Questions to Ask Before Your Next Career Move
by Dick Richards 

From the reviews

You have some special capacity to make a positive impact on the world in your own unique way. You may have an inkling of that. Or no clue at all.

No matter. Either way, this refreshingly different book from Dick Richards will help you put your finger on your special "energy" and help you direct it in meaningful ways.

Dick Richards (part shaman, part businessman) presents engaging ideas and well-defined processes for identifying your unique personal gift, which he calls your Genius. He also presents helpful ideas and processes for discovering your personal Purpose (your life's mission) so that you can point the energy of your Genius toward fulfilling your Purpose.

If you like, you read about the connections between many time-honored and far-flung spiritual and philosophical traditions underlying these ideas (across the globe and through millennia). Richards has woven a nice tapestry of these disparate threads.

 

Seriously, you can ignore all the stuff about spiritual and philosophic traditions, and just work your way through the practical processes. Either way, you're going to arrive at a deeper understanding of yourself and a clearer vision of your individual potential within the world.

The book pushes us to think outside the box when looking for our core genius.

 

 The content is fantastic. The writing style is approachable and includes stories I can relate to and that illustrate the points very well. The layout if the book is outstanding - there are helpful illustrations and plenty of room for notes - an important consideration for a book like this. Above these tangible dimensions, the feeling I get when reading is book is positive. The author cares about his readers and it shows in every part of this book.

Many personal development books contain miserably pointless exercises, but this book is the exception to the rule. Its exercises are intelligent, well-designed, and insightful. There are no pointless quizzes that force you to rate yourself on some arbitrary scale. I also liked that all the exercises are put into a separate section of the book, so first you can read through all the content, and then you can work through the exercises.

 

Also noteworthy, Richards generously includes resources to assist other coaches and consultants to teach his methods. And he provides help for groups of people who want to collectively support each other as they make their way thru this highly personal work.

This is a pleasant read with potentially profound implications for people who avail themselves of its wisdom. I am buying several copies for loved ones, clients, and friends.

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You’re Too Kind : A Brief History of Flattery

You're too kindby Richard Stengel

From the reviews

Stengel (a senior editor at Time magazine) ponders the meaning of flattery and illustrates that more than mere praise, flattery is praise with a motive, be it benign or grasping.

You're Too Kind is a witty, colorful, fast-paced trip through history.  It's meticulously researched and comprehensive. Stengel charts a droll and whimsical history, starting with the Egyptians ("Laugh after he laughs, and it will be very pleasing to his heart," recommends Vizier Ptahhotep), and concluding with handy hints on how to flatter without getting caught: "Never be candid when a person asks you to be candid." In between, he asks questions such as "What is circumcision, really, but a kind of divinely enforced flattery?" in an irreverent discourse around the covenant with the Israelites, and looks at everyone from troubadours to Dale Carnegie, Puritans to Hollywood D-girls.

It does bounce around, from the fascinating history of flattery to great tips about flattery to research concerning flattery.

Beware: After reading this book, you may look at the subject of strategic praise in a whole new light, and it may not be a flattering one, either. Enjoyable and informative.

 

Rose Tremain wins Orange Prize

  • The British novelist, Rose Tremain, has won the prestigious Orange Prize for women's fiction for her book, The Road Home, which tells the timely tale of an eastern European immigrant.

Tremain, described by the judges as "always the bridesmaid, never the bride", was presented with the £30,000 ($61,000) prize at the award ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London last night.

She was seen as a shoo-in for the literary prize and betting agencies even stopped taking money on her as favourite.

Apparently, this is only the second time a favourite has won the prize.   more ...

Teaching someone to handle a Book

In cultures that have had little or no exposure to books, handling a book properly is a skill that must be learned.

Read on ...

Book Review – A World Too Near

A World too nearBook Two of The Entire and The Rose

by Kay Kenyon

This is the second book in a series that features a brilliant SF setting that rivals Larry Niven's Ringworld and Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series for sheer invention, adventure, complexity, and a sense of wonder.

The storyline involves the Quinn family--it is Titus Quinn who breaches the divide between our universe and the Entire. It's Titus who must go back to try to save his wife and battle his daughter, who found her way to the Entire in book one. In addition to the evolving family dynamic, there are wars going on between rival factions of alien species. Not to mention a continuing exploration of the strangeness that is the Entire.

Here's a short excerpt:

Above the fortress the sky dimmed to lavender, a time that passed for night in this world. Here every creature knew by their internal clock what time of night or day it was, all but Johanna Quinn, a woman of Earth. Between this universe and the next only a thin wall intervened, a permanent storm that forbade contact between Earth and the Entire. Or so most believed.

Johanna hurried down deserted corridors following the heavy drumbeat of the engine just ahead, a bass thrumming that pounded in her ears and the hollow of her chest. Coming to a divide in the hall she took the left branch, remembering her partial and wholly inadequate map. This hall too was deserted, and she rushed on. She prayed not to be discovered, although she had her alibi, thin as it might be.

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Word Origins … and How We Know Them

Word origins: Etymology for Everyone

by Anatoly Liberman

From the Reviews

 "Word Origins is chock full of intriguing, accessible insights into how our language has evolved, mutated and otherwise morphed over thousands of years."--Pulse

"The erudite and winsome Liberman explains his work as an etymologist, which includes historical cases to crack and tall tales to debunk."--Chicago Tribune

"While Anatoly Liberman's study of the English language covers such interesting topics as sound-imitative words, compounds, coinages, and borrowings, it does so in a way that actually manages to be dense and scholarly and tongue-in-cheek and amusing, all at the same time."--Library Media Connection

"Those seriously interested in the origins of our language, who actively want to find out more about the way etymologists work, and who along the way don't mind taking in some sobering guidance on the pitfalls of ferreting out word histories."--World Wide Words

"As a sideline to his long ongoing work on a new etymological dictionary of English, Liberman enlightens general readers...about the challenges faced by etymologists in tracing word origins and evolved meanins. His explanations cover philosophical musings, historical debates in the field, and words imitating sounds."--Reference and Research Book News

"It may sound simple, but etymology -- the study of word origins -- is in fact murky and tedious, if unfailingly fascinating. Liberman's book is an examination of the process of determining how a word originated, and it shows how complex his craft can be."--Chicago Tribune

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"Millions of people want to know the origin of the words they use. Word columns in daily newspapers and numerous books attempt to satisfy their curiosity. Word histories are usually digested like pills: the user is interested in getting well, not in the chemistry of the prescribed medication.
Those who send letters to the Editor also want a straight answer without bothering about how "editors" come by their knowledge. Therefore, they fail to realize that etymologies are seldom definitive and that the science of etymology is intensely interesting. Perhaps if someone explained to them that, compared to the drama of words, Hamlet is a light farce, they might develop a more informed attitude toward philological research and become students of historical linguistics rather than gullible consumers of journalists' pap."--Anatoly Liberman

Word Origins is the only guide to the science and process of etymology for the layperson. This funny, charming, and conversational book not only tells the known origins of hundreds of words, but also shows how their origins were determined. Liberman, an internationally acclaimed etymologist, takes the reader by the hand and explains the many ways that English words can be made, and the many ways in which etymologists try to unearth the origins of words.

Part history, part how-to, and completely entertaining, Word Origins invites readers behind the scenes to watch an etymologist at work.

Lost “Love” rediscovered L’Engle novel arrives

Madeleine L’Engle, who passed away last September, a few months shy of her 89th birthday, published more than 60 books for adults and children, including numerous volumes of memoirs and spiritual writings. However, this spring there will be a new addition to her body of work: Farrar, Straus and Giroux is issuing L’Engle’s previously unpublished young adult novel, The Joys of Love.Originally written in 1942 as a short story entitled "Summer at the Sea" and rewritten as a novel in 1950, The Joys of Love is an old-fashioned coming-of-age/love story. It features an orphaned Smith College graduate, Elizabeth Jerrold, besotted with the theater, who lands an apprenticeship at a summer theater and falls in love with an arrogant young director. L’Engle was always forthcoming about how heavily her fiction drew on her own life, but this early work is perhaps the most directly autobiographical, according to Léna Roy, L’Engle’s granddaughter, who contributed a personal introduction to the book."Elizabeth was as close to an autobiographical portrait as you could get," Roy writes in her introduction. "Madeleine had spent two summers doing theatre in Nantucket and the setting for The Joys of Love is also at the ocean. Elizabeth, like Madeleine, went to Smith College and is impossibly well-read. Madeleine’s own father died when she was a teenager, and she describes Elizabeth repressing her grief, just as she had done."  

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In The SpotLight, Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing

Author:  Janet E. Esposito

From the Reviews:

Why is she so effective? First, she's been there. You can totally relate to her as she describes her experiences. Second, Janet resolved to overcome her problem and tried many different approaches to do so. Her book focuses on the most effective methods that attack the problem from several directions. It is practical and helpful, with shortcuts to use, and modeling yourself on people who have overcome a similar problem not only makes the process faster, but also gives the comfort of knowing that you're not alone-- “If you suffer from performance anxiety, do yourself a big favor and read this book.”

 

In The SpotLight: Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking and Performing is a perfect book for those who are afraid of speaking or performing in front of others. This book provides many different methods and strategies to help you get beyond stage fright and learn to speak or perform with ease and confidence. This book will also help anyone who is self-conscious and uncomfortable in any social situation. You will discover how to:
* Dramatically decrease your feelings of fear, discomfort, and loss of control associated with speaking or performing in front of others
* Minimize your uncomfortable physical symptoms associated with fear
* Significantly reduce the dread of anticipating a speaking or performing event
* Eliminate your need to avoid situations of speaking or performing because of fear
* Create a relaxed and confident state of mind and body in preparing to speak or perform
* Break through your fear and create an inner peace around speaking and performing that you never imagined possible!