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A portrait of African-American activist Geoffrey Canada describes his radical approach to eliminating inner-city poverty, one that proposes to transform the lives of poor children by changing their schools, their families, and their neighborhoods at the same time.
I HAVE A BAD REPUTATION. Call me what you want: Bad Boy Next Door. Trouble. That Kid Who Can’t Do Anything Right. When Willow moves into my neighborhood, nothing should have happened. She’s geeky. Shy. A true wallflower. Willow is a good girl. Too good for me. And how the hell was I supposed to know that she’s related to Loren Hale--yeah, that douchebag celebrity that lives on my street. The same guy I've been pranking by spray painting vulgar words on his mailbox and worse. Much worse. Don't ask me why I do the things I do. Don't ask me why it had to be her. I'm cursed. Simple as that. But here's the thing about people who are cursed--they break everything they touch. And yet. . .I still want to touch her.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Blackstone chairman, CEO, and co-founder Stephen A. Schwarzman, a long-awaited book that uses impactful episodes from Schwarzman's life to show readers how to build, transform, and lead thriving organizations. Whether you are a student, entrepreneur, philanthropist, executive, or simply someone looking for ways to maximize your potential, the same lessons apply. People know who Stephen Schwarzman is—at least they think they do. He’s the man who took $400,000 and co-founded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion (as of January 2019). He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state. He’s the billionaire philanthropist who founded Schwarzman Scholars, this century’s version of the Rhodes Scholarship, in China. But behind these achievements is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact, and live a life of consequence. Folding handkerchiefs in his father’s linen shop, Schwarzman dreamed of a larger life, filled with purpose and adventure. His grades and athleticism got him into Yale. After starting his career in finance with a short stint at a financial firm called DLJ, Schwarzman began working at Lehman Brothers where he ascended to run the mergers and acquisitions practice. He eventually partnered with his mentor and friend Pete Peterson to found Blackstone, vowing to create a new and different kind of financial institution. Building Blackstone into the leading global financial institution it is today didn’t come easy. Schwarzman focused intensely on culture, hiring great talent, and establishing processes that allow the firm to systematically analyze and evaluate risk. Schwarzman’s simple mantra “don’t lose money” has helped Blackstone become a leading private equity and real estate investor, and manager of alternative assets for institutional investors globally. Both he and the firm are known for the rigor of their investment process, their innovative approach to deal making, the diversification of their business lines, and a conviction to be the best at everything they do. Schwarzman is also an active philanthropist, having given away more than a billion dollars. In philanthropy, as in business, he is drawn to situations where his capital and energy can be applied to drive transformative solutions and change paradigms, notably in education. He uses the skills learned over a lifetime in finance to design, establish, and support impactful and innovative organizations and initiatives. His gifts have ranged from creating a new College of Computing at MIT for the study of artificial intelligence, to establishing a first-of-its-kind student and performing arts center at Yale, to enabling the renovation of the iconic New York Public Library, to founding the Schwarzman Scholars fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing—the single largest philanthropic effort in China’s history from international donors. Schwarzman’s story is an empowering, entertaining, and informative guide for anyone striving for greater personal impact. From deal making to investing, leadership to entrepreneurship, philanthropy to diplomacy, Schwarzman has lessons for how to think about ambition and scale, risk and opportunities, and how to achieve success through the relentless pursuit of excellence. Schwarzman not only offers readers a thoughtful reflection on all his own experiences, but in doing so provides a practical blueprint for success.
Foreword by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson From a top mental conditioning coach—"the world’s best brain trainer” (Sports Illustrated)—who has transformed the lives and careers of elite athletes, business leaders, and military personnel, battle-tested strategies that will give you tools to manage and overcome negativity and achieve any goal. He knows how to win. More, he knows the many ways-subtle, brutal, often self-inflicted-we lose. As the most trusted mental coach in the world of sports, Trevor Moawad has worked with many of the most dominant athletes and the savviest coaches. From Nick Saban and Kirby Smart to Russell Wilson, they all look to Moawad for help finding or keeping or regaining their competitive edge. (As do countless business leaders and members of special forces.) Now, at last, Moawad shares his unique philosophy with the general public. He lays out lessons he's derived from his greatest career successes as well as personal setbacks, the game-changing wisdom he's earned as the go-to whisperer for elite performers on fields of play and among men and women headed to the battlefield. Moawad's motivational approach is elegant but refreshingly simple: He replaces hardwired negativity, the kind of defeatist mindset that's nearly everybody's default, with what he calls "neutral thinking." His own special innovation, it's a nonjudgmental, nonreactive way of coolly assessing problems and analyzing crises, a mode of attack that offers luminous clarity and supreme calm in the critical moments before taking decisive action. Not only can neutral thinking raise your performance level-it can transform your overall life. And it all starts, Moawad says, with letting go. Past failures, past losses-let them go. "The past isn't predictive. If you can absorb and embrace that belief, everything changes. You'll instantly feel more calm. And the athlete-or employee or parent or spouse-who's more calm is also more aware, and more times than not ... will win."
Before Game Change there was What It Takes, a ride along the 1988 campaign trail and “possibly the best [book] ever written about an American election” (NPR). Written by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times–bestselling author Richard Ben Cramer, What It Takes is “a perfect-pitch rendering of the emotions, the intensity, the anguish, and the emptiness of what may have been the last normal two-party campaign in American history” (Time). An up-close, in-depth look at six candidates—George H. W. “Poppy” Bush, Bob Dole, Joe Biden, Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, and Gary Hart—this account of the 1988 US presidential campaign explores a unique moment in history, with details on everything from Bush at the Astrodome to Hart’s Donna Rice scandal. Cramer also addresses the question we find ourselves pondering every four years: How do presumably ordinary people acquire that mixture of ambition, stamina, and pure shamelessness that allows them to throw their hat in the ring as a candidate for leadership of the free world? Exhaustively researched from thousands of hours of interviews, What It Takes creates powerful portraits of these Republican and Democratic contenders, and the consultants, donors, journalists, handlers, and hangers-on who surround them, as they meet, greet, and strategize their way through primary season chasing the nomination, resulting in “a hipped-up amalgam of Teddy White, Tom Wolfe, and Norman Mailer” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). With timeless insight that helps us understand the current state of the nation, this “ultimate insider’s book on presidential politics” explores what helps these people survive, what makes them prosper, what drives them, and ultimately, what drives our government—human beings, in all their flawed glory (San Francisco Chronicle).
"I'm both blessed and cursed to be a guitar player. I didn't choose it, it chose me. The challenge was to find a way to weave my convictions into my music in a meaningful way." - Tom Morello As the cofounder and guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and Prophets of Rage, and as a solo artist and collaborator with artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Wu-Tang Clan, few musicians have been as groundbreaking as Tom Morello. Now, for the first time, Morello's remarkable life as a guitarist, songwriter, singer, and political activist is captured in Whatever It Takes. Telling the story, from his first guitar to the present day, Morello's commentary is accompanied by a wealth of photographs, handwritten notes, and set lists, many of which are previously unpublished and come from the author's personal archives. Stunning images of Morello's heavily customized guitars complete this jam-packed photographic memoir, and the result, like his incendiary guitar playing, is fascinating, honest, and completely unique. Introduced by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, Jann Wenner, the cofounder of Rolling Stone, Morello's Prophets of Rage collaborator Chuck D, and Nora Guthrie, daughter of the legendary Woody Guthrie, Whatever It Takes is the defining document of one of the greatest rock guitar players of our times. "He's not only a brilliant musician, but he has a deep heart and a social conscience, just like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, or Jackson Browne. Tom is right up there with that gang. I think this excellent book helps prove why." - Jann Wenner "Tom Morello is a Visionary Activist, meaning what he sees in his mind goes full throttle into him making IT happen." - Chuck D "Fascists, white supremacists, centrists beware: Tom Morello is armed and dangerous, and his weapon is his music." - Michael Moore
This book will change the way you think about success. Producer of television’s iconic Degrassi franchise Stephen Stohn tells stories from behind the scenes and of making it in the music and television world in this star-studded, rock ’n’ roll trip through a Canadian show business explosion. Stohn, who has been at the heart of the entertainment industry for over forty years, shares a lifetime of experience and unique insights into how dreams are turned into reality. “Whatever It Takes” — both a mantra and Degrassi’s theme song — has been heard millions of times all over the world. It embodies a philosophy of struggle and self-belief leading to accomplishment, as well as the story of an exploring mind, an adventurous pursuit of experience, ringing failures, and the willingness to see things in a different way.
Daniel and Kris are as white bread as they come. Together since junior high, they have two kids, a house in the suburbs, and no excitements in their lives. Things change when Kris' little sister Jessi moves in. Jessi is everything Kris isn't, reckless, promiscuous, and mixed up with very bad people. As their two orbits intersect, Daniel and Kris get dragged into Jessi's world of drug dealers, strip clubs, and prostitution. Can they survive the dangers? And even if they do, will their marriage? Fueled by their love for each other, and drawing on a strength and resourcefulness they never realized they had, Daniel and Kris are desperate to recover their old lives. To do so, they will do whatever it takes!
Gavin Fitzgerald is the perfect husband. His wife, Emma, was always able to brag to her friends about how caring, loving, helpful, and successful he was. Having been married five years, they have just put the finishing touches on their dream home and are ready to start a family. Everything seems ideal until one day Gavin confesses to Emma that he was unfaithful, turning their entire relationship from perfect to a total disaster. Suddenly Emma's carefully controlled world is chaotic and her future uncertain as she struggles to determine if she is able to forgive Gavin or have the strength to move on.
