Tag Archive for: books – attitude

Essential reading for anyone whose life had hit a road block

Fat, Forty, and Fired: One Man's Frank, Funny, and Inspiring Account of Losing His Job and Finding His Life

 
by Nigel Marsh
 

"Homer Simpson meets Anthony Robbins. Marsh's honesty and humanity make Fat, Forty, and Fired essential reading for anyone whose life has ever hit a roadblock. Hilarious and inspiring." --Bob Rosner, best-selling author and internationally syndicated Working Wounded columnist

"An extremely funny and touching account of how someone can use humor and optimism to put adversity into perspective. Marsh's warm and distinctive view of life lights up every page and makes this a thoroughly enjoyable read." --Paul Wilson, author of The Little Book of Calm

"I can pinpoint the precise moment when I realized my transformation from 'executive dad' to 'guy who doesn't work' was complete." --Nigel Marsh

Take Dave Barry, Jack Welch, Homer Simpson, and Ray Romano, mix in a family, a little weight gain, failure, introspection, and redemption, and you have Nigel Marsh's international best-selling autobiography.

As a stressed husband and father of four small children under the age of eight, Nigel Marsh was enslaved to his mortgage, recuperating from an embarrassing surgery, and suddenly fired from his corporate career. Deciding to venture "off the treadmill" in search of a more meaningful and balanced existence, Marsh tackled the art of hands-on parenting while simultaneously training for an ocean swimming race and coming to terms with his alcoholism. Touching on topics ranging from marital sex (or lack thereof), dieting, and parenthood to work, love, football, religion, self-help books, and sharks, Marsh makes his U.S. debut after enjoying best-seller status in Australia and the U.K. with this provocative and funny book.

 
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The Believe Book

 

 
The start to a better world, a better job, a better relationship, or a better future is our belief that it is possible. The quotations in the Believe gift book are inspiring and affirming—and truly timely today. This book reminds us that the future really does belong to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Give the Believe book with confidence—because any time is a good time to remind your loved ones to believe in their dreams...to believe that the best is yet to be...to believe that there’s light at the end of the tunnel...to believe that they might be that light for someone else.

 

  • Hardcover with dust jacket 
  • 6.25” H x 9.25” W 
  • 64 pages           

The Denny Flanagan Story

As flight cancellations and delays wreak havoc on weary travelers, and planes are fuller than ever, the Wall Street Journal has managed to find a bright spot - United Airlines Captain Denny Flanagan.

On a flight headed your way, there is a pilot who is literally a gift from the heavens.

For 21 years now, Flanagan, a former navy pilot, has put the friendly in friendly skies.

With his sense of humor and personal touch, he individually welcomes aboard every passenger on his United Airlines plane

A father of five, Flanagan has also been known to buy food for planeloads of passengers on delayed flights.

He snaps photos of dogs in the cargo hold to show owners their pets are safe and calls the parents of children traveling alone.

"I want to treat them like I treat my family and it works. It's like hospitality. You stand at the door and you greet people when they come in and you say goodbye on the porch and wave to them," said Flanagan, who is 56 and lives in Ohio.

His unique brand of hospitality includes sending handwritten notes to frequent flyers and raffling off bottles of wine. "How 'bout that? A bottle of chilled chardonnay from a pilot," said a delighted Paul Schroeder, a lucky United passenger.

He has developed quite a following in the air and online.

One of the many posts on FlyerTalk.com about Flanagan read: "His effort rubbed off on the crew too, they were great."

Attitudes are truly contagious, and Captain Flanagan's is certainly worth catching! Denny Flanagan is a wonderful example of customer love.

In the book, you can read his, and 24 other great customer service stories. Its goal is to have you read them, have your team read them, and talk about them together.

In fact, you may be inspired to write your own customer love stories while making your service culture all it can be.

For more information or to look inside the book, just click here.

The How of Happiness

You can change your personal capacity for happiness. Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept of the 40% solution shows you how

Sonja Lyubomirsky has earned her credentials as a leading expert on happiness-increasing strategies and she generously shares with her readers the secrets she has learned from rigorously conducted scientific studies. Drawing on her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and women, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long term.

The How of Happiness is a different kind of happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision for ourselves.

Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness offers a new and potentially life- changing way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives. These include exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future, instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers find the right fit between the goals they set and the activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them.

Always emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control, Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific research. From expressing gratitude to taking care of one's body, she pours out the evidence for twelve happiness-enhancing strategies, offering persuasive rationales and practical suggestions for their implementation. The final chapter deals with the reality of depression, a topic often ignored in Pollyannish popular accounts of the happy life.

You may want to start the activities before you finish reading the book, but do both and those all around you will be grateful that you did.

Beginning with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first quantify and then to understand what she describes as their "happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere 10 percent can be attributed to differences in life circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for happiness within our power to change.

Her tone is deliciously real and edgy, her presentation delightful and well-thought out, and her suggestions concrete, specific, realistic and engaging.  There is something for everyone in this book.

The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to all those who have questioned their own well- being and sought to take their happiness into their own hands.

This book can be ordered though Amazon

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How to reinforce a positive attitude

After a speech one day, Zig Ziglar was approached by someone in the audience who said:
"Zig, it was a great speech, but...motivation doesn't last."

Zig said, "Bathing doesn't either. That's why I recommend it daily!"

Like me, Zig loves quotes and believes that the right quote can provide "a-ha" moments and can help to reinforce a positive attitude. Here's what he said:

"Reading has been my fuel for motivation. If the "a-ha" I get when I'm reading is not already reduced into one or two sentences, I'll take the essence of what I've read and chunk it into easily remembered bites of information. That information is what becomes "quotable." You would not sit still for me to read every book I've ever read to you. But if you're the least bit like me, you'll jump at the chance to bypass all the churning and scoop the cream right off the top - that is what quotes are...the cream of our learning."

Sixty Minutes said, "He's a legend in the industry. He's the Bill Gates, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison of enthusiasm." What we love about Zig, however, is his heart. His ability to help people realize their potential is unsurpassed and his belief that, "You can have everything you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want," has been the foundation of all he's accomplished.

Inspiration 365, is a beautiful, 160 page, coffee table book that will be a perpetual source of inspiration for years to come. It's a collection of 365 quotes (each day of the year) from Zig himself, and many others that have motivated him over the years.

To read 20 of Zig's favorite quotes, and to watch his beautiful 3 minute inspirational movie, just click here.