Distinguished poet Donald Hall reflects on the meaning ofwork, solitude, and love “The best new book I have read this year, of extraordinarynobility and wisdom. It will remain with me always.” —Louis Begley,The New York Times “A sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness.. . . Life Work reads most of all like a first-person psychologicalnovel with a poet named Donald Hall as its protagonist. . . .Hall’s particular talents ultimately [are] for the memoir, a genrein which he has few living equals. In his hands the memoir is onlypartially an autobiographical genre. He pours both his fullcritical intelligence and poetic sensibility into the form.” —DanaGioia, Los Angeles Times “Hall . . . here offers a meditative look at his life as a writerin a spare and beautifully crafted memoir. Devoted to his art, Hallcan barely wait for the sun to rise each morning so that he canbegin the task of shaping words.” —Publishers Weekly (starredreview) “I [am

If starting a company is difficult, leading a company once thebusiness has caught fire is infinitely more so. Thousands ofstartups each year approach the dangerous transition that DougTatum calls No Man’s Land—when they are too big too be consideredsmall but still too small to be considered big. Tatum offers the navigational rules these companies need, andvaluable case studies of emerging growth businesses that succeededor failed during No Man’s Land.

This is a book for people like us, and we all know who weare. We make our own hours, keep our own profits, chart our own way.We have things like gigs, contracts, clients, andassignments. All of us are working toward our dreams: doingour own work, on our own time, on our own terms. We have no realboss, no corporate nameplate, no cubicle of our very own.Unfortunately, we also have no 401(k)s and no one matching them, nobenefits package, and no one collecting our taxes until April15th. It’s time to take stock of where you are and where you want tobe. Ask yourself: Who is planning for your retirement? Who coversyour expenses when clients flake out and checks are late? Who issetting money aside for your taxes? Who is responsible for yourhealth insurance? Take a good look in the mirror: You are. The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and theSelf-Employed describes a completely new, comprehensive system forearning, spending, saving, and surviving as an independent worker.From

Every day on the job, you face common challenges. And you needimmediate solutions to those challenges. The Pocket Mentor Seriescan help. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools,self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify yourstrengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you'reat your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable, conciseguides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work withspeed, savvy, and effectiveness. The latest volume in the series: Setting Goals Setting goals is a key part of any manager's job. Through goalsetting, you define business outcomes that you and your team willaccomplish collectively and individually. Managed effectively, thegoal-setting process creates a long-term vision that motivates youand your employees to reach even the most challengingobjectives. Use this book to start setting goals more skillfully in yourgroup. You?ll find a wealth of suggestions to help you: -Define unit and individual go

Grade 5–8—What if just outside of Earth's known atmosphere there sat another layer that was actually a different dimension? Such is the premise for this novel. For as long as she can remember, orphan Hayley has lived sequestered away with her strict grandmother and mysteriously busy grandfather. A chance meeting on an outing lands her in big trouble and she finds herself shipped off to stay with relatives in the country. Here Hayley meets dozens of cousins who invite her to play a strange game. Its object is to go to different places in the mythosphere and retrieve various items while dodging mythological creatures. The plot thickens when she meets her father and learns that he and her mother are both trapped in the mythosphere as punishment for their illicit marriage. Hayley frees them and discovers that she, like all of the other characters in the story, is really a mythological figure who can live in either realm. Meanwhile, the frightening family patriarch, Uncle Jolyon, finds out about the game and c

Closing individual sales, in most businesses, is not enoughfor success. Success depends on developing profitable lifetimerelationships with customers. But gaining customer loyalty requireshard work, care, and attentiveness. In this book, you'll learn toassess the lifetime value of a customer, and why it makes sense tobuild loyalty among your target customers. You'll also learnto: - Understand the service-profit chain - Leverage the interrelationships among customer satisfaction,customer loyalty, employee capability, and companyprofitability - Build and refine a process for delivering extraordinaryvalue to your customers

Mega-bestselling author Ken Blanchard and celebrated businessleaders Don Hutson and Ethan Willis present an inspiring story thatreveals the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur. In THE ONE MINUTE ENTREPRENEUR, Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the #1bestselling business classic The One Minute Manager), Don Hutson,CEO of U.S. Learning, and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning,tell the inspiring story of one man’s challenges in creating hisown business. Through a powerful and engaging narrative, weconfront many of the typical problems all entrepreneurs face instarting up their business, from finding new sources of revenue tosecuring the commitment of their people and the loyalty of theircustomers. More important, we learn the secrets to becoming asuccessful entrepreneur, including how to build a firm foundation,how to ensure a steady cash flow, and how to create legendaryservice. In addition, the book offers invaluable advice, deliveredthrough One Minute Insights, from such entrepreneurs and t

Whether you want to win that new account or inspire yourfamily and friends, bestselling author and acclaimed speaker MarkSanborn shows us how to make every performance count. Every day, we are called to perform— at work, at home, in ourcommunities. But is it possible to make every performanceoutstanding, the kind that leaves people applauding for anencore? Mark Sanborn, leadership expert and bestselling author of TheFred Factor, says that anyone can achieve remarkable performancetime after time—no matter what their personality, strengths, orweaknesses. In The Encore Effect Sanborn demonstrates, through hisown experiences as well as those of the people he’s worked with inhis career, how you can cultivate the traits shared by remarkableperformers and achieve extraordinary results in all aspects of yourlife. The secrets lie in five steps: Passion: The fuel for remarkable performance Prepare: How remarkable performance begins Practice: It won’t make you perfect, but it

Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman started themultimillion-dollar franchise College Hunks Hauling Junk when theywere just twenty two, and they’ve been having the time of theirlives ever since. What’s their secret? That's just it--there isn't one. There's no fancy software orcomplicated business schemes. No outside investors or quirky marketniche. They just followed 10 common-sense commandments to buildinga straightforward, fun, and successful business that does a simplejob well. Anyone can understand it, and anyone can doit.

Now in paperback: The New York Times bestselling author andstar of A E’s reality series Big Spender, Larry Winget, cleansup America’s personal finance crisis More than 40 percent of families today are feeling financialpressure: spending more than they earn, and worrying about retiringand being dependent on the government, family, or charity. LarryWinget knows. He grew up poor, then made and lost a fortune when abusiness in which he’d invested went bankrupt. But he worked hisway back from rock bottom to become a multimillionaire. In You’re Broke Because You Want to Be, Winget expands on theideas that have made his popular television show Big Spender a hitand offers straightforward talk about coming to grips with yourfinances, such as: ? Feel bad. Have remorse. You need to feel deep emotion to takeaction. So start crying and take responsibility. ? Figure out who you owe and how much you owe. It’ll be a scarynumber to face, but you need to know where you are and what youh

Get Rich, Don't Bitch Today, more than ever before, wealth is something every woman hasthe power to create. Yet Jean Chatzky constantly hears all theexcuses why women can’t and don’t master their money. Now, shereveals the secrets and the strategies she created to take controlof her own money–strategies through which she gained her “moneyconfidence.” It’s time for you to find yours! In Make Money, Not Excuses Jean shares these valuablelessons: ? Where to start ? How to get over your “I’m not smart enough to deal with money”feelings ? Why being a “good-enough investor” will make more money for youin the long-term (while trying to be a “great investor” will driveyou crazy) ? How (and where) to save your money ? Why women make better investors––and higher returns––thanmen ? How to track where you’re overspending ? How to pay off your debt Jean is unsurpassed in her ability to explain money and investingin

If you're dissatisfied in your current position, fantasizeabout doing something else with your life, or have justunceremoniously been given a pink slip, take heart. It's never toolate to start fresh and forge ahead on a fulfilling new careerpath. Alexandra Levit, career columnist for The Wall StreetJournal, has interviewed dozens of individuals who havesuccessfully switched careers—many of them more than once—andprovides practical, empowering, and action-oriented steps forfiguring out your next move with clarity and confidence. Organizedby the seven major motivations that lead people to seek careerchanges—family, independence, learning, money, passion, setback,and talent—New Job, New You shows you how to ? research careers that best reflect your new direction ? stand out in this competitive job market ? market yourself to a particular (most ideal) position ? create a financial plan to maintain income during yourtransition ? use the power of networking to put you ex

"You want-you need-Alexandra Levit as your guide." -Daniel H.Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive There's been a major paradigm shift in business practices and theworkplace. Alexandra Levit tells readers what no longer holds truefor getting ahead today, and debunks business myths that are moredangerous and less viable than ever-given the current climate ofethical scrutiny and intense competition-including it's best toclimb the ladder as fast as possible, and that employers want youto be yourself. Levit offers something better in place of these myths: practicaladvice on what it really takes to succeed in this new values-drivenenvironment.

In this masterpiece of narrative history, acclaimed authorHoward Blum evokes the original "crime of the century" and anaftermath even more dramatic than the crime itself–a seminalepisode in America’s history that would spark national debate anddraw into its orbit master sleuth William J. Burns, crusadinglawyer Clarence Darrow, and industry-shaping filmmaker D. W.Griffith. "Hugely engaging . . . has tremendous verve . . . AmericanLightning throws valuable new light on an episode that seems, forus today, particularly pertinent. Terrorism happened here." –LosAngeles Times "A fast-moving, skillfully constructed account . . . Blum’s styleis cinematic." –Chicago Sun-Times "Compelling . . . a tense detective story." –Seattle Times "A thumping-good drumroll of narrative history . . . thecross-country manhunt reads like a great mystery novel . . . Blumblows the dust off a page of America’s own incendiary past andbrings it to pulsating life." –Dallas Morning News

Book De*ion In this parable for a modern age, motivational speaker Sanbornrecounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionatelyloves his work and who genuinely cares about the people he serves.Sanborn illuminates the simple steps each person can to transformtheir lives from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

You can go after the job you want...and get it! You can take the job you have...and improve it! You can take any situation you're in...and make it work for you! For over 50 years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. Now this phenomenal book has been revised and updated to help readers achieve their maximum potential in the complex and competitive 90s! Learn: The six ways to make people like you The twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking The nine ways to change people without arousing resentment and much, much

What do Martha Stewart, genetically cloned sheep and the scandalous Piss Christ artist Andres Serrano have in common? They're all manifestations of "high tech/high touch," an unwieldy concept pulled from Naisbitt's bestselling 1982 Megatrends and here dusted off as a cautionary paradigm for the technologically addled 1990s. Written collaboratively with Naisbitt's daughter, Nana, with additional help from artist Douglas Philips, the book draws on Naisbitt's indefatigable research techniques to spot trends in newspapers, television shows, magazines and the Internet. Naisbitt is concerned with the conundrums that technology has presented to American culture. Children soak up violence from video games like Redneck Rampage, while the specter of eugenics looms over the burgeoning biotech industry. A final section lightens the cautionary tone of much of this book, delivering an eloquent survey of artists who are probing the ethical questions raised by evolving medical practices. Naisbitt sees Americans trapped in wh

You've just been promoted to a managerial position for thefirst time - congratulations! But beware: the managerial rolediffers markedly from the individual contributor role. Go into thejob with mistaken assumptions about what to expect, and you justmay be blindsided by surprising realities. This book helps you laythe foundation for succeeding in your new role, explaining howto:

For all of the millions of Americans who are out of work, soonto be out of work, or wishing to be freed from unrewardingwork—here is the must-have book that will show you how you can makea living by working when, where, and how you want. Newly revised and updated, Barbara J. Winter’s guide tosuccessful self-employment is now more relevant than ever before.Drawing on the techniques and ideas of her popular seminars as wellas her own thirty years of business expertise and that of othersuccessful entrepreneurs, Winter offers the practical, proven wayto launch your own profitable venture. Her indispensable adviceranges from why creativity is more important than capital to how toavoid the most common pitfalls of self-employment and how todevelop multiple profit centers. And for this new edition, she has added timely advice on topicsincluding: ?how to find opportunity in a chaotic economy ?why smart, small and spunky is the 21st Century businessmodel ?using the Internet to o