Social Development

George S. K. Rider's The Rogue's Road to Retirement takes a unique approach to growing old don't do it! After retiring, Rider embarks on a bumpy journey to find himself and a new lease on life. For the first time, he gets in touch with his creative side an unusual direction indeed, since he spent 70 years of his life as a college athlete turned Navy officer turned Wall Street trader and weekend jock.

In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could?

I wrote this book because I believe everyone deserves a place to belong, and I didn't want poor social skills to hold anyone back from friendship and community - even if they struggle with social skills. I believe that you, too can live a life full to the brim with friendship, connection, and love. I hope that after listening to Improve Your Social Skills, you'll believe it too.

Integrating hundreds of studies with her own research and work in the Fortune 500 world, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich shatters conventional assumptions about what it takes to truly know ourselves - like why introspection isn't a bullet train to insight, how experience is the enemy of self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves. At a time when self-awareness matters more than ever, Insight is the essential playbook for surviving and thriving in an unaware world.

Many of us often feel challenged by the question of what gives our lives true meaning. What are we searching for? How do we know we are on the right path? In Playing Dead, Robert Sheehan shares intimate reflections on his own search for purpose, looking back at this journey so far and sharing the lessons he has learnt along the way. Meditation is at the heart of Robert's route to awakening and here he reveals how we can welcome practice into our daily lives to nurture a quiet mind and content heart.

Improv(e) Your Conversations teaches the ingenious rules of improv comedy that allow performers to turn boring prompts into memorable interactions worthy of standing ovations. This means there are real frameworks and templates to escape interview mode small talk – and start connecting and building rapport from the moment you say “Hello”. This book goes through over 15 of the most helpful and insightful improv comedy techniques with countless real-life examples to make you a great talker.

Introducing "Loving an Avoidant Partner," a groundbreaking guide that takes you deep into the enigmatic maze of an avoidant person's inner world like never before. Armed with remarkable insights, you'll decode the guarded secrets and fears of your elusive partner, shattering the barriers that have kept you apart.

Women who opt not to be mothers are frequently warned that they will regret their decision later in life, yet we rarely talk about the possibility that the opposite might also be true - that women who have children might regret it. Drawing on years of research interviewing women from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, sociologist Orna Donath treats regret as a feminist issue: as regret marks the road not taken, we need to consider whether alternative paths for women currently are blocked off.

Do you HATE public speaking? Are you TERRIFIED to stand in front of people? When you think of speaking, do you get nervous, anxious, even sweaty? You don’t have to be afraid any longer. It can seem like everyone is a gifted speak when you watch TED talks or compare yourself to skilled co-workers giving presentations. Don't get caught up in comparison. Instead, take action to improve YOUR ability and to overcome your fear. If you struggle when you speak, then you are not alone. Public speaking is the number one fear in America.

After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're "winning" at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied.

With this program, you'll have the tools, the techniques, and, just as importantly, the unflinching confidence to influence your readers and listeners decisively - both at work and at home.

Most women are very surprised when a man becomes distant, when he's afraid to commit, or, worse, when he just stops calling and runs away. It’s time to use the secrets of the male mind, and learn about men and what scares them away.

New York Times best-selling author Dan Heath examines how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from his innovative behavior research, as well as hundreds of new interviews with unconventional problem solvers. Most of us spend our days handling a deluge of pressing issues. We’re so accustomed to managing emergencies as they strike that we often don’t stop to think about how we could prevent crises before they happen. Why stop at treating the symptoms when you could develop a cure?

Less a how-to manual than a tribute to an impossible and impossibly rewarding profession, It Won't Be Easy captures the experience of teaching in all its messy glory. Though directed at prospective and newer teachers, It Won't Be Easy is mercifully short on jargon and long on practical wisdom, accessible to anyone - teacher, student, parent, pundit - who is interested in a behind-the-curtain look at teaching and willing to understand that, while there are no simple answers, there is power in learning to ask the right questions.

Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives? In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers.

Whether you are a new player or a seasoned veteran, Secrets to Winning at Office Politics can help you increase your personal power without compromising your integrity or taking advantage of others. This smart, practical guide shows you how to stop wasting energy on things you can't change and start taking steps to get what you want.

In her new book, Cathy Glass, the number one best-selling author of Damaged, tells the story of the Alice, a young and vulnerable girl who is desperate to return home to her mother. Alice, aged four, is snatched by her mother the day she is due to arrive at Cathy's house. Drug-dependent and mentally ill, but desperate to keep hold of her daughter, Alice's mother snatches her from her parents' house and disappears.

Whether they conducted their research in life or in the lab, experts Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffrey Miller have spent the last 20-plus years learning what women really want from their men, why they want it, and how men can deliver those qualities.

Are you burnt out from taking on more than you can handle or accepting less than you deserve? Tired of giving in instead of sticking up for yourself? Sick of saying yes all the time? You're gonna love F*CK NO! No is an acceptable answer, and it's time to start using it. Whether you're a People-Pleaser, Overachiever, Pushover, or have serious FOMO, bestselling "anti-guru" Sarah Knight helps you say what you really mean without being really mean—or burning out for fear of missing out.

Many years of working with the dying showed the authors that certain lessons come up over and over again. Some of these lessons are enormously difficult to master but even the attempts to understand them can be deeply rewarding. Here, in 14 accessible chapters, from the "Lesson of Love" to the "Lesson of Happiness", the authors reveal the truth about our fears, our hopes, our relationships, and above all, about the grandness of who we really are.