Relationship Problems

Welcome to Honey Creek, Illinois, where life was as sweet as the town's name suggested. That was until Mr. Fine Dining himself, Alex Ramírez, rolled into town with a permanent scowl. Even worse, he decided to park his snooty five-star restaurant across from my cozy dog daycare. He was tall, dark, and about as warm as a frozen entrée. After one too many unpleasant interactions, I was determined to stay out of his way and to keep him out of mine. But fate had a quirky sense of humor.

Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential.

In Whale Done!, Ken Blanchard shows how positive reinforcement and redirection can help increase productivity. These techniques are remarkably easy to master and can be applied equally well at home, allowing listeners to become better parents and more committed spouses and have happier personal lives.

Whether it's a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change.

Raising an Entrepreneur presents 76 stories from the mothers of some of the most successful entrepreneurs today. Entrepreneurs are the new rock stars - they're the ones who turn their passions into ingenious projects, because they're willing to risk failure to make their dreams come true.

In their weekly radio show and in their popular workshops, Gary and Joy Lundberg have already helped thousands of people and their families to communicate more effectively. Now, the Lundbergs address an all too common dilemma that arises when others expect you to solve their problems for them, telling listeners how they can shed the no-win role of "fixer" and empower people to solve their own problems through validation - a simple yet profound communication tool that is essential to any healthy relationship.

With 70 percent of our time spent at work, difficulties on the job can impact every facet of our lives. Contained in this book is not only technology to bring stability to the workplace, but the groundbreaking processes to return joy itself to all of life. Here is a book that does what you don't expect a book to do. It tells you how. It tells you the basis of things, and the most basic of things is life itself. This, then, is a book about life.

For 25 years, Positive Discipline has been the gold standard reference for grown-ups working with children. Now Jane Nelsen, distinguished psychologist, educator, and mother of seven, has written a revised and expanded edition. The key to positive discipline is not punishment, she tells us, but mutual respect. Nelsen coaches parents and teachers to be both firm and kind, so that any child - from a three-year-old toddler to a rebellious teenager - can learn creative cooperation and self-discipline with no loss of dignity.

Performing Under Pressure tackles the greatest obstacle to personal success, whether in a sales presentation, at home, on the golf course, interviewing for a job, or performing onstage at Carnegie Hall. Despite sports mythology, no one rises to the occasion under pressure and does better than they do in practice. The reality is pressure makes us do worse and sometimes leads us to fail utterly. But there are things we can do to diminish its effects on our performance.

The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems is an in-depth look at the most challenging issues faced by parents of babies and young children today. The book goes beyond the basics introduced in her first two books, becoming a compendium of specific and targeted parenting strategies. Each chapter tackles a different topic, from teaching babies to sleep, feeding techniques, potty training, and much more.

So often, books about learning to be more persuasive assume that everyone wants to dominate and control their worlds. They assume, so much of the time, that people are cynical, cruel, and just looking for power so that they can start stepping on people. That is not the case with this audiobook! Quite the contrary, this book will give you a road map to ensure that you are not only capable of defending yourself against bullies, con men, and cruelty but that you are capable of making other people's lives better, too.

Ideas are everywhere, but those with the greatest problem-solving, business-transforming, and life-changing potential are often hard to identify. Even when we recognize good ideas, applying them to everyday obstacles - whether in the workplace, our homes, or our civic institutions - can seem insurmountable. According to Matthew Syed, it doesn't have to be this way. In Rebel Ideas, Syed argues that our brainpower as individuals isn't enough. To tackle problems from climate change to economic decline, we'll need to employ the power of "cognitive diversity".

A leading economist charts the indirect road to happiness and wealth. Using dozens of practical examples from the worlds of business, politics, science, sports, literature, even parenting, esteemed economist John Kay proves a notion that feels at once paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: The best way to achieve any complex or broadly defined goal-from happiness to wealth to profit to preventing forest fires-is the indirect way.

Written by a foremost Christian men's leader, this powerful audiobook invites men to take a probing look at their identities, relationships, finances, time, temperament, and most important, the means to bring about lasting change. If life's demands are constantly pressuring you to run faster and jump higher, this book is for you.

This innovative, heartfelt debut novel tells the story of a girl who's literally allergic to the outside world. When a new family moves in next door, she begins a complicated romance that challenges everything she's ever known.

> Left Brain, Right Stuff takes up where other books about decision making leave off. For many routine choices, from shopping to investing, we can make good decisions simply by avoiding common errors, such as searching only for confirming information or avoiding the hindsight bias. But as Phil Rosenzweig shows, for many of the most important, more complex situations we face — in business, sports, politics, and more — a different way of thinking is required.

In an era of ambiguous, messy problems - as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change - it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. Creative Acts for Curious People is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence.

Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them.

Too often, the sales process is all about fear. Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. No one is happy. Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a better way. Salespeople, they argue, do best when they focus 100 percent on helping clients succeed. When customers are successful, both buyer and seller win. When they aren't, both lose.

Should I change careers? Is it time to end my relationship? Can I move halfway across the world? We have to make choices everyday, big and small, but it's the life-changing ones that often cause us to freeze or react too quickly, without thinking. What can we do differently? Laurence Alison and Neil Shortland have spent more than 20 years helping soldiers, police officers, doctors and other professionals in high-stakes environments make tough decisions when lives are on the line. In Decision Time, they show us how those same decision-making techniques apply to everyday life.