Showing results by narrator "walter Dixon" in All Categories

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country.

We've all found ourselves checking email at the dinner table, holding our breath while waiting for Outlook to load, or sitting hunched in front of a screen for an hour longer than we intended. Mobile devices and the web have invaded our lives, and this is a big idea book that addresses one of the biggest questions of our age: Can we stay connected without diminishing our intelligence, attention spans, and ability to really live? Can we have it all?

Goals will help you learn how to keep your "eye on the prize". Author, Gary Ryan Blair is considered one of the nation’s experts on the topic of goals. He teaches that your life will not go according to plan if you don’t have a plan! His 10 rules for setting goals are loaded with nuggets of wisdom and "a-ha" moments that will bring the power of your goals into focus. The 10 Rules of Goal Setting is the combination that opens the lock of success. Each rule is one piece of the combination; each seamlessly integrates with the other nine; each one counts.

In 2023, the Supreme Court made one of its most devastating rulings in environmental history. By narrowing the legal definition of "waters of the United States" (WOTUS), the court opened the floodgates to unregulated pollution. But while tremendously consequential, the decision was also simply the latest in a long series of battles over WOTUS, and which rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands, and perhaps even farm fields were to be protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. Waters of the United States is an unprecedented exploration of this history.

Drawing upon his own experience and interviews with more than 99 companies, author Robert Sher runs through seven “silent growth killers” that plague midsized companies which, if not addressed, eventually cripple growth. Mighty Midsized Companies offers clear, tangible, actionable advice about dealing with these killers and growing despite them.

Since founding Orange County Choppers in Upstate New York in 1999, Teutul has grown the business from a hobby into a 70-person-plus operation that produces and sells 150 custom bikes a year at retail prices starting at $30,000 and quickly escalating to six figures. Teutul and his team not only sell their choppers from their world headquarters in Newburgh, New York, but throughout a multicountry dealership network in the US and abroad.

Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has inspired many. Today's generation will be newly inspired by Covey's An Effective Life, a new approach to practicing the motivating principles taught by one of the greatest teachers of all time. An Effective Life shares original new perspectives on life and self-evaluation, striking infographics, and inspirational quotes in a fresh new package designed for the generation early in their careers and for those long-time Covey admirers who seek to improve their work and personal lives based on principles.

Anyone suffering under the crushing weight of debt knows how impossible it can seem to find a way out. It's overwhelming - and the more complicated the proposed solution, the harder it is to stick with it. That's why The Debt-Free Spending Plan is simple. It doesn't require sifting through chapters of high-minded financial advice or digging up your past spending history. It assumes you need help right now, and gives it to you.

In February 1943, a group of journalists - including a young wire service correspondent named Walter Cronkite and cub reporter Andy Rooney - clamored to fly along on a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. Seven of the 64 bombers that attacked a U-boat base that day never made it back to England. A fellow survivor, Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, asked Cronkite if he’d thought through a lede. "I think I’m going to say," mused Cronkite, “that I’ve just returned from an assignment to hell."

How much time have you spent reflecting on the fact that revenues are generated by actual customers—the people who pull out their wallets and pay for your products and services? In The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity, experts Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross start you on the path toward really getting to understand your customers' buying behavior as well as the health of your overall customer base.

In The New Nature of Business: The Path to Prosperity and Sustainability, businessman Andre Hoffmann and journalist Peter Vanham describe how companies should change their ways to have continued success, and why the current modus operandi is not working. They present a template for creating "sustainable prosperity", and case-studies of companies that survived and thrived by opting for change. In doing so, they provide a way out of long-standing dilemmas, such as how to balance business needs with impact on nature, shareholders with stakeholders, and short-term vs. long-term profits.

Loyal customers are the beating heart of every great business. So why do so many companies act like adrenaline junkies, chasing after new customers at the expense of creating deeper, more profitable relationships with the ones they already have? Evergreen exposes the mad pursuit for what it is: a brief spike in metrics and an ongoing revenue drain as one-time customers fail to return. A better solution is to shift resources from attracting new customers to engaging the base.

Decades of research demonstrate how important the relationships with peers and professors are for students academically, personally, and professionally. Yet many students lack the strategies to develop educationally purposeful relationships in college. Connections Are Everything shows students the simple steps they can take to make their own college experience meaningful and transformational.

In 1982, a 20-something named Michael Ross left home to backpack across Europe. Little did he know that his vacation would set in motion a chain of events that would hurl him into a career where the bosses are seasoned spies, and the work is tracking the world’s most dangerous terrorists. The Volunteer is a fast-paced memoir that provides insight into our world, both pre- and post-9/11, told by a man on the front lines in the war against terror.

Today’s board rooms, think tanks, and staff lounges are more diverse than ever before. These cultural differences can either lead to gridlock among stubborn, single-minded thinkers or they can catalyze innovation and growth among an expansive team of creative, distinctive individuals. Diverse teams are far more creative than homogenous teams—but only when they are managed effectively. Driven by Difference identifies the management practices necessary to minimize conflict while maximizing the informational diversity found in varied values and experiences.

In Agreeing to Disagree, Nathan S. Chapman and Michael W. McConnell detail the theological, political, and philosophical underpinnings of the Establishment Clause, state disestablishment, and the disestablishment norms applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. In one of the most thorough accounts of the Establishment Clause, Chapman and McConnell argue that the clause is best understood as a constitutional commitment for Americans to agree to disagree about matters of faith.

What if those we lead found great purpose in what they do and worked at their jobs with all their heart? Ultimately, don't we hope to foster intrinsic motivation so that the individuals we lead become better employees, better students, or better athletes? Recent discoveries of brain science and the wisdom of top CEOs that Dr. Tim Irwin interviewed for this audiobook give us the answers we've long sought. Science in recent years discovered that affirmation sets in motion huge positive changes in the brain. It releases neurochemicals associated with well-being and higher performance.

By explaining how the human brain works and outing its most irrational processes, this book provides the thinking tools that will help you make better decisions, ask the right questions (at the right time), know what to look for when evaluating information, and understand how your own brain subconsciously clouds your judgment. Think you're too smart to be easily misled? Harrison summarizes scientific research showing how easily even intelligent and well-educated people can be fooled.

Are you winning the battle but losing the war? Every leader has to deliver the goods - make budget, meet deadlines, and deftly manage people - to provide the inspirational fuel that keeps their business running day-in and day-out. But therein lies the danger of winning today's battle and losing the war - that is the long game of creating sustainable value in a volatile, uncertain world that is becoming ever-more complex and ambiguous.

So how do you build a company that matters? Companies and people that matter have successfully become the obvious choices in the hearts and minds of their customers, their employees, and their communities. They elevate themselves by consistently finding ways to solve the most pressing needs their markets face. The result? They create more value year after year and build sustainable, differentiated organizations.