Tuesday, November 21, 2017

We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut—the decision we made because it “felt right;” the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling when we’re stressed out. While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Aryuvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut and more recently, the microbiome—the microorganisms that live inside us—communicate with one another. In the Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.
The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:
• Heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet
• Balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting and cutting out sugar and processed foods
• Promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating a healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption
• Boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
• Generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety and depression

Monday, November 20, 2017

For all that’s been written about the Four over the last two decades, no one has captured their power and staggering success as insightfully as Scott Galloway.

Instead of buying the myths these compa­nies broadcast, Galloway asks fundamental questions. How did the Four infiltrate our lives so completely that they’re almost impossible to avoid (or boycott)? Why does the stock market forgive them for sins that would destroy other firms? And as they race to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company, can anyone chal­lenge them?

In the same irreverent style that has made him one of the world’s most celebrated business professors, Galloway deconstructs the strategies of the Four that lurk beneath their shiny veneers. He shows how they manipulate the fundamental emotional needs that have driven us since our ancestors lived in caves, at a speed and scope others can’t match. And he reveals how you can apply the lessons of their ascent to your own business or career.

Whether you want to compete with them, do business with them, or simply live in the world they dominate, you need to understand the Four.


Sunday, March 19, 2017

From Apple to Tata Tea, many leading brands have their roots in curiosity. The desire to know more often leads to new ideas and new perspectives; for a marketer, curiosity shapes the way one looks at products and their branding in innovative ways. In his new book, Harish Bhat brings his expertise on branding, communication and consumer insights to bear on a rapidly developing consumer-facing arena, exploring more than fifty products, places, people, books and publicity campaigns that excite him as a marketer.
From brand marketing using aliens and flying saucers to going big with a delicious local product (banana chips or coconut water), from the interesting concept behind multicoloured socks to the metamorphosis of the Diwali shopper, Bhat touches on fascinating areas that marketers are targeting today.Immensely topical, this is a pleasurable read that will be of great interest to general readers, as well as students and professionals who work in the exciting area of marketing.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Why do naturally talented people frequently fail to reach their potential while other far less gifted individuals go on to achieve amazing things? The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a passionate persistence. In other words, grit.

MacArthur Genius Award-winning psychologist Angela Duckworth shares fascinating new revelations about who succeeds in life and why. Based on her cutting-edge research, Duckworth shows how many people achieve remarkable things not just by relying on innate natural talent, but by practising what she calls grit. She then offers a Grit Formula to help anyone to become more gritty, focusing on six key factors: hope, effort, precision, passion, ritual and prioritisation. She reveals:

- Why people who test high for talent often fail to achieve their potential, and why people who do not test high for talent often "overachieve" what others expect them to do
- How grit can be learned, whatever your IQ or circumstances
- Why stubbornness is a key characteristic of gritty people
- When to be stubborn and when giving up is the grittiest thing you can do
- How gritty people found their passion, and you can find yours
- How gritty experts practise, and how you can do the same in your own life
- What the people who care about you can do to boost your grit when you need it most
- How grit is cultivated in the highest-performing sports teams, companies and schools

Leaping past clichés such as 'success is all about hard work', Grit offers a fresh and motivating way to climb to heights far beyond what natural talent would predict.
For women, a glass ceiling at work is not the only barrier to success - it's also the increasingly heavy obligations at home that weigh them down. Women have become accustomed to delegating, advocating and negotiating for themselves at the office, but when it comes to managing households, they still bear the brunt on their own shoulders. A simple solution is staring them in the face: negotiate with the men in their personallives.

In Drop The Ball, Tiffany Dufu explains how women can create all-in domestic partnerships that protect them against professional burn-out.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Steven A. Cohen is a Wall Street legend. Born into a middle class family in an affluent Long Island town, he longed from an early age to be a star on Wall Street. He went to Wharton and in 1992 launched the hedge fund SAC Capital, which he built into a $15 billion empire, almost entirely on the basis of his wizard-like stock trading. He cultivated an air of mystery, reclusiveness and extreme excess, building a 35,000 square foot house in Greenwich, flying to work by helicopter and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. On Wall Street, he was revered as a genius: one of the greatest traders who ever lived. That public image was shattered when SAC Capital became the target of a sprawling, seven-year criminal and SEC investigation, the largest in history, led by an under-recognized but determined group of FBI agents, prosecutors and SEC investigators. Labeled by prosecutors as a "magnet for market cheaters" whose culture encouraged relentless pursuit of an information "edge"--and even "black edge" (inside information)--SAC Capital was ultimately indicted and pled guilty to charges of securities and wire fraud in connection with a large-scale insider trading scheme. Cohen's company paid record criminal and civil fines of nearly $2 billion and Cohen was forced to stop managing other people's money. But as Kolhatkar shows, even as the company bearing his initials plead guilty, Cohen was never actually put out of business. He was allowed to keep trading his own $10 billion fortune (in 2014, he made over $2 billion in profit) and can start a new hedge fund in only a few years. Though his company and several of his employees were convicted or plead guilty to insider trading, Cohen himself walked away a free man. This is a riveting, true-life thriller that raises an urgent and troubling question: Are Wall Street titans like Cohen above the law?

AgeProof: Living Longer Without Running Out of Money or Breaking a Hip

All the money in the world doesn't mean a thing if we can't get out of bed. And the healthiest body in the world won't stay that way if we're frazzled about five figures worth of debt. TODAY Show financial expert Jean Chatzky and the Cleveland Clinic's chief wellness officer Dr. Michael Roizen explain the vital connection between health and wealth - giving readers all the tactics, strategies, and know-how to live longer, healthier, more lucrative lives.

The same principles that allow us to achieve a better body will allow us to do the same for our investment portfolio. For instance, physical and financial stability comes down to the same equation: Inflow versus outflow. Do we burn more calories than we ingest? Likewise, are we making more money than we spend? The authors detail scientific ways to improve our behavior so that the answers tilt in the readers' favor. They also offer ways to beat the system by automating how we do things and limiting our decisions in the face of too much food or too much debt.

Chatzky and Roizen provide a plan for both financial independence and biological strength with action steps to get you there.

The Startup Way: Making Entrepreneurship a Fundamental Discipline of Every Enterprise Hardcover – Import, 17 Oct 2017

In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, entrepreneur in residence at Harvard, serial entrepreneur and founder of the lean startup meetups, showed how ideas from the startup world such as constant iteration, minimal viable products (or MVPS), and constantly testing business hypotheses with customers to determine when to perservere, and when to pivot, now turns his attention to established, mature companies and organizations. For the past four years, Ries has been working closely with companies like GE and Toyota and Pitney Bowes to help them become more nimble, and more open to change and innovation, in order to spur growth and produce products and services that customers want. In The Startup Way, Ries shares his insights, lessons, stories, challenges and best practices from his intense collaborations with some of the world's most innovative and successful companies, as they attempt to change their culture and processes to be faster and smarter at what they do. At GE, Ries's ideas are codified under the name FastWorks; each company adapts his basic framework and ideas in their own way, to fit their particular organization and industry, as Ries discusses in the book.
For every company that recognizes it needs to embrace agility, change and do so quickly if it is to survive and thrive, The Startup Way is an absolutely critical guide and toolkit.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

In 2008, two broke art school graduates and their coder-whiz friend set up a platform that – in less than a decade – became the largest provider of accommodations in the world. Now valued at $30 billion, Airbnb is in the very top tier of Silicon Valley’s ‘unicorn’ startups.
Yet the company has not been without controversy – disrupting a $500 billion hotel industry makes you a few enemies. This is also a story of regulators who want to shut it down, hotel industry leaders who want it to disappear and neighbourhoods that struggle with private homes open for public rental. But beyond the headlines and the horror stories, Airbnb has changed the terms of travel for a whole generation – where a sense of belonging has built trust between hosts and guests seeking a more original travel experience that hotels have struggled to replicate.
This is the first, definitive book to tell the remarkable story behind Airbnb in all its forms – cultural zeitgeist, hotel disruptor, enemy to regulators – and the first in-depth character study of its leader Brian Chesky, the company’s curious co-founder and CEO. It reveals what got Airbnb where it is today, why they are nothing like Uber, and where they are going next.

Monday, February 13, 2017

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.

But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.

Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.
In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.
But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.
Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today.
But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business—a business that would be dynamic, different.
Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream—along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.

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