Showing results by narrator "Erik Synnestvedt" in All Categories

While some semblance of stability has returned to the financial markets, the economies on which these markets must ultimately depend remain structurally weak, and the path toward sustained growth will be difficult. In order to set the economy on a sounder path, we need to understand the sources of instability that caused the failure of the financial system, rethink established ideas, and challenge the intellectual and moral authority of the institutions that control the world's capital.

Believe it or not, your retirement plan is probably costing you too much. And unless you're willing to take action now, you'll ultimately have less money in retirement or be forced to work years longer to accumulate the funds you'll need.

Why do so many deals that look good on paper end up in tatters? Deal makers often treat the handshake or signed contract - getting to "yes" - as the final destination in their bargaining journey rather than the start of a cooperative venture. Even worse, most companies reward negotiators on the basis of the number and size of the deals they're signing, giving them no incentive to negotiate deals that actually work.

Summer, 1966: For 13-year-old Gus LeGarde, summertime always means Loon Harbor, his grandparents' idyllic fishing resort on Great Pond. The season is a grand tradition of swimming, boating, and new adventures with his best friends, twins Siegfried and Elsbeth. But this summer, everything changes when a new lodge down the shore threatens the resort - and triggers a chain of events that will transform Gus and his friends forever.

Front-line employees who deal directly with customers are the face of any organization. Not only do they have the most impact on how a brand is perceived, but they are also the most valuable source of insight into what customers want and how to give it to them. Unfortunately, as management experts Chris DeRose and Noel M. Tichy explain, most organizations don't know how to evaluate the risk of giving employees more autonomy. Tichy and DeRose offer powerful examples of front-line leadership.

Today when the competition, technology, and the economy are evolving faster than ever before, organizations and the people like us who work in them need a proven approach to help us adapt - and succeed. The key, according to Paul B. Brown, is to think like an entrepreneur, no matter what your position or industry. What works for the most successful entrepreneurs will work for us, Brown argues, whether we want to stay employed working for someone else or are thinking of going off on our own.

Critically acclaimed author Clyde Prestowitz reveals the shocking extent of the deterioration of American economic strength that has put the United States on the brink of irreversibly losing our supremacy on the world stage and our prosperity at home. While the financial crisis has been a devastating blow, he shows that the wreckage of our economic might started much earlier.

Jack London was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and other books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing. Here are four of his best stories: "The Whale Tooth", "To Build a Fire", "The House of Pride", and "The House of Mapuhi".

We've all been there, sitting uncomfortably in a paper gown as a doctor impassively describes our prognosis. Sometimes it's simple and treatable. Other times we get news we can't fathom and then are faced with decisions that are literally life and death. In this revolutionary book, physician, behavioral scientist, and bioethicist Peter Ubel, M.D., reveals how hidden dynamics in the doctor/patient relationship keep us and our loved ones from making the best medical choices.

In his tales of the South Seas, Jack London often employs dark humor and grim irony in order to illuminate the clash of cultures. In "The Whale Tooth", a white man becomes the victim of his own impulse to proselytize the benighted "heathens" on Melanesia.

Based on author David Loeper's nearly 25 years of experience with this industry's inner workings, Stop the Investing Rip-off reveals the real costs of the investments we make, details the false and misleading information sold to us, and discusses the devastating effects they can have on personal wealth.

In seven simple, yet vital steps Dan Solin, New York Times best-selling author of The Smartest Investment Book You'll Every Read, takes the mystery out of successful investing and shows everyone, no matter what their income or expertise in money matters, how to take control of their financial lives, ignore the "experts", and grow a nest egg. Solin's approach mirrors that of the most successful investors in the world.

The world isn’t coming to an end, contrary to what you may have heard. But the media’s near-exclusive focus on conflict and disaster means that the progress and everyday acts of brilliance taking place across the globe go unnoticed. Jurriaan Kamp shows that optimism - intelligent optimism, not a rose-colored-glasses brand of wishful thinking - is good for not only your mind but your body too. He details a whole host of health problems that can actually be linked to pessimism.

Business leaders are in charge. They are in charge of people, of budgets, of production lines. Most leaders also believe that they are in charge of their greatest resource - their own brain. But how true is that? The more we understand about how the brain works, the clearer it becomes that our brain often kicks in before we do.

Harvey Mackay has written five New York Times best sellers, including one of the most popular business books of all time: Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Now he returns with the ultimate audio book on how to get, and keep, a job you truly love whether you’re 21, 51, or 71.

Are leaders born, or made? And what's the single most important quality a real leader should possess? Philosophers and management theorists have endlessly debated-and just as endlessly written about-these subjects for centuries. Finally, here's a book that cuts to the chase. In 68 of the most succinct, no-punches-pulled pages you'll ever read, acclaimed author-speaker-coach John Baldoni maintains that "leadership presence" is a form of communication that can be learned, and then provides the hows and the whys of learning it.

Today, business moves at the speed of thought. The web enables a perpetual cycle of interaction and feedback, and every status update or tweet that mentions your company or brand either helps or hurts you reputation in real-time. Customers expect a level of attentiveness and responsiveness that most companies can’t live up to. Can you?

What is it that separates the doers, leaders, and success stories among us from the dreamers, also-rans, and wannabes? To best-selling author James P. Owen, it's all about having The Try - the quality of giving 110 percent to the task or challenge at hand. In The Try - a dozen true stories of ordinary people who've done extraordinary things across varied fields of endeavor—Owen reveals The Try as a character trait that can be forged in several ways.

Most of us graduate high school with a basic understanding of history, math, science, and literature, but when it comes to personal finance - arguably the topic that we use most in our daily lives - we feel lost or overwhelmed. No longer! Cast aside your fear of FICO scores and your confusion about credit cards, because Scott Gamm, founder of HelpSaveMyDollars.com and student at NYU Stern School of Business is here to help.

When young Gus LeGarde befriends a cranky old hermit in the woods who speaks to an Oneida Indian spirit named Penaki, he wonders if the man is nuts. But when Penni rattles tin cups, draws on dusty mirrors, and flips book pages, pestering them to find evidence to avenge her past and free her from earthly bondage, things change.