The follow-up to his bestseller The War of Art, Turning Pro navigates the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice. "You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind."--Steven PressfieldTURNING PRO IS FREE, BUT IT'S NOT EASY.When we turn pro, we give up a life that we may have become extremely comfortable with. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own.TURNING PRO IS FREE, BUT IT DEMANDS SACRIFICE.The passage from amateur to professional is often achieved via an interior odyssey whose trials are survived only at great cost, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. We pass through a membrane when we turn pro. It's messy and it's scary. We tread in blood when we turn pro.WHAT WE GET WHEN WE TURN PRO.What we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out.

A psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues joins forces with a physician and bestselling author to tackle one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time -- peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation, which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour. But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for schoolyard bullying and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity, in tragedies such as in Littleton, Colorado; Tabor, Alberta and Victoria, B.C. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident -- as do the solutions. Hold On to Your Kids will restore parenting to its natural intuitive basis and the parent-child relationship to its rightful preeminence. The concepts, principles and practical advice contained in Hold On to Your Kids will empower parents to satisfy their children's inborn need to find direction by turning towards a source of authority, contact and warmth. "Something has changed. One can sense it, one can feel it, just not find the words for it. Children are not quite the same as we remember being. They seem less likely to take their cues from adults, less inclined to please those in charge, less afraid of getting into trouble. Parenting, too, seems to have changed. Our parents seemed more confident, more certain of themselves and had more impact on us, for better or for worse. For many, parenting does not feel natural. Adults through the ages have complained about children being less respectful of their elders and more difficult to manage than preceding generations, but could it be that this time it is for real?" -- from Hold On to Your Kids "From the Hardcover edition."

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world. "Deeply moving, frequently eloquent and extraordinarily incisive."-- The Washington Post Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy--who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view . . . unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn't my mountain after all. There's another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain. And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment. In The Second Mountain, David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose. In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it's also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme--and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks shows what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.

"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience--she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us--and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now--and an intellectual adventure story for our times"--

A classic fable about the search for identity, from Caldecott Honor winning picture book creator Leo Lionni. Pezzettino lives in a world in which everyone is big and does daring and wonderful things. But he is small, just a “little piece,” which is the meaning of pezzettino in Italian. “I must be a piece of somebody. I must belong to someone else,” he thinks. How Pezzettino learns that he belongs to no one but himself is the joyous and satisfying conclusion to this beautiful mosaic style picture book.

"Aviva Grossman [is] an ambitious congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss, who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married--and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the congressman doesn't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labeled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight on politics in general. How does one go on after this? In Aviva's case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine"--

Mating in Captivity examines the tension between emotional security, domestic life, and erotic desire in long-term relationships. Drawing on Esther Perel's clinical experience as a psychotherapist, the book explores why sexual desire may diminish even in loving relationships and discusses ways couples can maintain intimacy, passion, curiosity, and erotic connection. The twentieth-anniversary edition includes a new preface in which Perel reflects on the origins of the book and cultural changes since its original publication.

Presents an overview of human evolution and discusses human and animal intelligence, the mechanisms of the brain, memory, sleep, myths and legends about evolution, and the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

"A former star athlete turned deputy coroner is drawn into a brutal, complicated murder in this psychological thriller from a father-son writing team that delivers "brilliant, page-turning fiction" (Stephen King). Natural causes or foul play? That's the question Clay Edison must answer each time he examines a body. Figuring out motives and chasing down suspects aren't part of his beat--not until a seemingly open-and-shut case proves to be more than meets his highly trained eye. Eccentric, reclusive Walter Rennert lies cold at the bottom of his stairs. At first glance the scene looks straightforward: a once-respected psychology professor, done in by booze and a bad heart. But his daughter Tatiana insists that her father has been murdered, and she persuades Clay to take a closer look at the grim facts of Rennert's life. What emerges is a history of scandal and violence, and an experiment gone horribly wrong that ended in the brutal murder of a coed. Walter Rennert, it appears, was a broken man--and maybe a marked one. And when Clay learns that a colleague of Rennert's died in a nearly identical manner, he begins to question everything in the official record. All the while, his relationship with Tatiana is evolving into something forbidden. The closer they grow, the more determined he becomes to catch her father's killer--even if he has to overstep his bounds to do it. The twisting trail Clay follows will lead him into the darkest corners of the human soul. It's his job to listen to the tales the dead tell. But this time, he's part of a story that makes his blood run cold. Praise for Jonathan Kellerman "Jonathan Kellerman's psychology skills and dark imagination are a potent literary mix."--Los Angeles Times "Kellerman doesn't just write psychological thrillers--he owns the genre."--Detroit Free Press "A master of the psychological thriller."--People Praise for Jesse Kellerman "Gripping and compelling. but what truly separates Kellerman from the pack is his prose. Jesse Kellerman tightens the noose slowly, and we his readers can do nothing but turn the pages."--Harlan Coben, on The Genius "Kellerman has a gift for creating compelling characters as well as for crafting an ingenious plot that grabs the reader and refuses to let go."--Publishers Weekly (starred review), on The Genius"--

*A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick* An "ambitious work" ( Washington Post ) tracing the links between autism and ingenuity Is the ability to invent things unique to humans? In The Pattern Seekers , Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues that it is, and proposes that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy to one hundred thousand years, from the first complex tools like the bow and arrow and the first musical instrument to the digital revolution. He presents the science that the same genes that contribute to autism enable a special kind of pattern seeking that is essential to our species' inventiveness. However, these abilities come at a cost for autistic people, including social and neurological challenges. Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their talents. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human evolution, but a call to reconsider how society treats those who think differently.

When Rosalind Wiseman first published "Queen Bees & Wannabes," she fundamentally changed the way adults look at girls friendships and conflicts from how they choose their best friends, how they express their anger, their boundaries with boys, and their relationships with parents. Wiseman showed how girls of every background are profoundly influenced by their interactions with one another. Now, Wiseman has revised and updated her groundbreaking book for a new generation of girls and explores: How girls experiences before adolescence impact their teen years, future relationships, and overall success The different roles girls play in and outside of cliques as Queen Bees, Targets, and Bystanders, and how this defines how they and others are treated Girls power plays from fake apologies to fights over IM and text messages Where boys fit into the equation of girl conflicts and how you can help your daughter better hold her own with the opposite sex Checking your baggage recognizing how your experiences impact the way you parent, and how to be sanely involved in your daughter s difficult, yet common social conflicts Packed with insights about technology s impact on Girl World and enlivened with the experiences of girls, boys, and parents, the book that inspired the hit movie "Mean Girls "offers concrete strategies to help you empower your daughter to be socially competent and treat herself with dignity."

Not just a book that talks about self-improvement but one that gives you an actual step-by-step action program for setting and achieving goals. Have you ever been depressed? Have you ever felt unloved, frightened, alone? All of us have suffered such feelings at times. But we all have the power to change our lives by changing our attitudes. The techniques for self-discovery and self-affirmation that you find in these pages will help you every day of your life. You will discover how to free yourself from the great cripplers; guilt, remorse, resentment. You will learn how to be tranquil in these anxious times. You will learn how to set goals for yourself and accomplish them. You will find your best qualities and use your talents to become a winner. This timeless classic reprint addition to the Dr. Maxwell Maltz Library shows you how to put your best self forward.

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” -- so opens John Berger’s revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

"How Doctors Think is a window into the mind of the physician and an insightful examination of the all-important relationship between doctors and their patients. In this myth-shattering work, Jerome Groopman explores the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He pinpints why doctors succeed and why they err. Most important, Groopman shows when and how doctors can - with our help - avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health." --

When Betty Friedan produced The Feminine Mystique in 1963, she could not have realized how the discovery and debate of her contemporaries' general malaise would shake up society. Victims of a false belief system, these women were following strict social convention by loyally conforming to the pretty image of the magazines, and found themselves forced to seek meaning in their lives only through a family and a home. Friedan's controversial book about these women - and every woman - would ultimately set Second Wave feminism in motion and begin the battle for equality. This groundbreaking and life-changing work remains just as powerful, important and true as it was forty-five years ago, and is essential reading both as a historical document and as a study of women living in a man's world.

This bestselling, classic work offers a definitive presentation of the theory and practice of cognitive therapy for depression. Aaron T. Beck and his associates set forth their seminal argument that depression arises from a "cognitive triad" of errors and from the ideosyncratic way that one infers, recollects, and generalizes. From the initial interview to termination, many helpful case examples demonstrate how cognitive-behavioral interventions can loosen the grip of "depressogenic" thoughts and assumptions. Guidance is provided for working with individuals and groups to address the full range of problems that patients face, including suicidal ideation and possible relapse.

In 2015, Sheryl Sandberg's husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly at the age of forty-eight. Sandberg and her two young children were devastated, and she was certain that their lives would never have real joy or meaning again. Just weeks later, Sandberg was talking with a friend about the first father-child activity without a father. They came up with a plan for someone to fill in. But I want Dave, she cried. Her friend put his arm around her and said, Option A is not available. So let's just kick the shit out of Option B. Everyone experiences some form of Option B. We all deal with loss: jobs lost, loves lost, lives lost. The question is not whether these things will happen but how we face them when they do. Thoughtful, honest, revealing and warm, Option B weaves Sandberg's experiences coping with adversity with new findings from Adam Grant and other social scientists. The book features stories of people who recovered from personal and professional hardship, including illness, injury, divorce, job loss, sexual assault and imprisonment. These people did more than recover-many of them became stronger. Option B offers compelling insights for dealing with hardships in our own lives and helping others in crisis. It turns out that post-traumatic growth is common-even after the most devastating experiences many people don't just bounce back but actually bounce forward. And pre-traumatic growth is also possible: people can build resilience even if they have not experienced tragedy. Sandberg and Grant explore how we can raise strong children, create resilient communities and workplaces, and find meaning, love and joy in our lives.