It was an inconceivable deception: over $65 billion stolen in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Including new and revealing interviews with those who worked closest to himand his family, Betrayal is an in-depth, penetrating look at the man who perpetrated history's most notorious financial crime. To the people who knew him, Bernie Madoff was a kind and honorable person; a loving father and husband; generous to his employees and charitable even to strangers. On Wall Street, he was known as a wise elder statesman, wildly successful in his investments but never too risky with people's money. He was so revered and trusted that thousands placed their life savings with him, and he in turn provided them with early retirements and affluent lifestyles.But on December 11, 2008, Madoff confessed that he'd lied to them all. The monthly financial statements he'd sent customers for decades were all works of fiction. Their money was gone.Despite the crush of media attention on Madoff's scam, little is known about Madoff himself. What could lead a seemingly good man to ruin the lives of everyone who ever cared about himWhat caused Bernie Madoff to commit an unspeakable act of betrayal, bankrupting his family, his friends, his mentors, and thousands of investors who depended upon him for their livelihoodsBetrayal: The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff is about the man who realized that he could have everything he wanted if he simply lied to the people who trusted him the most. Author Andrew Kirtzman tracked down more than a hundred people from Madoff's past, from the first girl he ever kissed to family members who played in his house as children; from his secretaries to his drivers; from traders at his company to his inner circle of friends. He pored through thousands of pages of court records; private e-mails; phone-conversation tran*s; and census, military, and immigration records. The result is a fascinating story about the rise of a deeply immoral man.Kirtzman describes Madoff's feelings of inferiority and humiliation as a child, and his obsession with making money to prove himself worthy as he grew older. He reveals Madoff's construction of a criminal enterprise at a young age, long before he's ever claimed it began. He paints a picture of a loving yet strange family that ran a multibillion-dollar corporation like a small family restaurant. He offers an inside look at life within the company and the characters who worked on the infamous seventeenth floor. He reveals the details of an underground flow of cash that no one has known about until now. And he chronicles the desperate moments leading up to Madoff's fall, from the perspective of the people who spent the last hours with him before his house of cards collapsed.

Technology is not the answer. It is also not the problem. What matters insteadAwareness, Engagement, and Wisdom.Wisdom 2.0 addresses the challenge of our age:to not only live connected to one another through technology,but to do so in ways that are beneficial, effective, and useful.

A completely updated and revised edition of a bestselling book that has helped tens of thousands of people learn how to network effectively, Success Runs in Our Race is more important than ever in this fluctuating economy. With scores of anecdotes taken from interviews with successful African Americans -- from Keith Clinkscales, founder and former CEO of Vanguarde Media, to Oprah Winfrey -- Fraser shows how to network for information, for influence, and for resources. Readers will learn, among other things, how to cultivate valuable listening skills, which conferences blacks are most likely to attend when looking to build their business network, and how to effectively circulate a rsume.More than a guide for personal achievement, this is an information-packed bible of networking that also seeks to inspire a social movement and a rebirth of the "Underground Railroad," in which successful African Americans share the lessons of self-determination and empowerment with those still struggling to scale the ladder of success.

The co-author of the monumental bestseller Reengineering the Corporation continues the reengineering revolution with another national bestseller that has already sold more than 165,000 copies in hardcoverReengineering Management is a brilliant, practical and much needed book on the most powerful management idea of the decade. Reengineering changing the traditional and outdated organization, processes and culture of a company is corporate America's greatest challenge today.In Reengineering Management, Champy examines the far-reaching changes managers must make for themselves and their companies to succeed in an era of unprecedented competition. Through his extensive consulting and research work, he shows how reengineering succeeds only when managers reinvent their own jobs and managerial styles. Otherwise, the ultra-efficient and effective reengineered processes for acquiring and serving customers, filling orders, bringing new concepts to market and other key business activities eventually fall apart.Champy illustrates this new management agenda through first-hand experiences of managers of reengineered operations at Federal Express, Wisconsin Electric, CIGNA Health Care, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T Universal Card Services and other companies. Champy shows how they are mastering the managerial challenges of reengineering, and as a result are making their organizations exciting and competitive. As more and more organizations reengineer, the experiences of these managers will become an insiders' guide to managerial life in the company of the future.Reengineering Management picks up where Reengineering the Corporation left off by exploring the managerial implications of the reengineered workplace. As reengineering becomes critical to all organizations, Reengineering Management will be the road map for managerial success in the future. It is, indeed, the manifesto for the next managerial revolution.

Disasters happen every day. Are your investments preparedThe investor who knows how to anticipate historically significant or earth-shattering events who is prepared to act when others are frozen with fear will always have a substantial advantage. By closely analyzing potential global threats and the opportunities they present, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse offers investors the key to finding a silver lining in almost any cataclysm. Even if the catastrophic does not occur, the strategies here can pay huge dividends even under more mundane circumstances.The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse provides readers with valuable information for investment success: the ability to see opportunity where others see peril. Whether a global disaster is natural or man-made, environmental or financial, every fearsome scenario contains the seeds of profit for the investor who stays calm and thinks rather than panics and runs.

Aiming high is essential to success. But by following through and completing what you've set out to do, you can truly outperform your competitors. Achieving Goals, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how.Learn to: Set smart and challenging goals for yourself and your employees Create a goal-focused environment Help employees meet their objectives Anticipate and overcome obstacles Measure progress and stay on track to achieve success The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

Picking up where Liar’s Poker left off (literally, in the bond dealer’s desks of Salomon Brothers) the story of Long-Term Capital Management is of a group of elite investors who believed they could beat the market and, like alchemists, create limitless wealth for themselves and their partners. Founded by John Meriweather, a notoriously confident bond dealer, along with two Nobel prize winners and a floor of Wall Street’s brightest and best, Long-Term Captial Management was from the beginning hailed as a new gold standard in investing. It was to be the hedge fund to end all other hedge funds: a discreet private investment club limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. It became the banks’ own favourite fund and from its inception achieved a run of dizzyingly spectacular returns. New investors barged each other aside to get their investment money into LTCM’s hands. But as competitors began to mimic Meriweather’s fund, he altered strategy to maintain the fund’s performance, leveraging capital with credit on a scale not fully understood and never seen before. When the markets in Indonesia, South America and Russia crashed in 1998 LCTM’s investments crashed with them and mountainous debts accumulated. The fund was in melt-down, and threatening to bring down into its trillion-dollar black hole a host of financial instiutions from New York to Switzerland. It’s a tale of vivid characters, overwheening ambition, and perilous drama told, in Roger Lowenstein’s hands, with brilliant style and panache.

Every year, about 25,000 new products are introduced in the United States. Most of these products fail-at considerable expense to the companies that produce them. Such failures are typically thought to result from consumers' resistance to innovation, but marketers have tended to focus instead on consumers who show little resistance, despite these "e;early adopters"e; comprising only 20 percent of the consumer population.Shaul Oreg and Jacob Goldenberg bring the insights of marketing and organizational behavior to bear on the attitudes and behaviors of the remaining 80 percent who resist innovation. The authors identify two competing definitions of resistance: In marketing, resistance denotes a reluctance to adopt a worthy new product, or one that offers a clear benefit and carries little or no risk. In the field of organizational behavior, employees are defined as resistant if they are unwilling to implement changes regardless of the reasons behind their reluctance. Seeking to clarify the act of rejecting a new product from the reasons-rational or not-consumers may have for doing so, Oreg and Goldenberg propose a more coherent definition of resistance less encumbered by subjective, context-specific factors and personality traits. The application of this tighter definition makes it possible to disentangle resistance from its sources and ultimately offers a richer understanding of consumers' underlying motivations. This important research is made clear through the use of many real-life examples.

This expert, one-of-a-kind handbook shows you how to ensure that your inheritance instructions will be carried out the way you want them to be; protect your children's inheritance from creditors, ex-spouses, addictions, tax troubles, mismanagement, squandering, and other risks of loss; prevent family conflict that can arise when parents die and children divide the family money leave more money to your children and grandchildren, and less to the IRS; avoid creating inheritance problems in your family with cautionary tales of inheritance planning gone bad; understand why you still have to deal with estate tax issues even if your net worth falls below the new death-tax-exemption.

A business without a dream is like a life without a purpose. Michael Gerber Dream Vision Purpose MissionThese words have been defining the life of Michael Gerber, bestselling author and international small business guru. He created E-Myth Worldwide in 1977 to transform the way that small business owners grow their companies. Now he's created In The Dreaming Room as a place where entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs come to discover how to make their dreams a reality.Michael's Dream: to inspire people to dream by awakening the entrepreneur within them. Michael's Vision: to be the authority for helping dreamers everywhere create the small businesses they once could only imagine.Michael's Purpose: to transform the lives of ordinary people by providing them with the thrill of creation while creating the means to generate their own and others' economic freedom.Michael's Mission: to create a turnkey system for awakening the entrepreneur within every person who wishes to go into business for themselves, while providing them with the support for doing it.And he has done it. In Awakening the Entrepreneur Within you are invited into the Dreaming Room, where your own entrepreneurial dreams will come alive and become reality. Michael will help you shape your dream into a viable, economically successful company! As he writes: It is time to dream. It is time to care about something bigger than you. It is time to imagine something sorely needed in the world the world you live in that somebody would pay to have. It is time to look around you and ask yourself, 'What's missing in this pictureIf you see something missing in your world, it's time to start dreaming. Let Michael Gerber welcome you to the Dreaming Room.

The classic bestseller on socializing now fully updated for social interactions in a digital ageHow to Work a Room is the classic bestselling book on improving communication and socializing skills, and using them to create and leverage connections. This Silver Anniversary Edition is fully revised and updated to include the role of technology and social media in networking, as well as Susan RoAne's proven tips for using digital strategies to your advantage plus practical hints for starting conversations and strengthening rapport with strangers. How to Work a Room: The 25th Anniversary Edition is a vital tool for business professionals, job seekers and career changers of all ages.

A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the videogame industry in development as a feature film from Sony PicturesIn 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the videogame industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat, and bold ideas of his renegade employees, completely transformed Sega and led to a ruthless, David-and-Goliath showdown with Nintendo. Little did he realize that Sega's success would create many new enemies and, most important, make Nintendo stronger than ever.The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and school yards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the United States against Japan.Based on more than two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the tale of how Tom Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punch line into a market leader. Blake J. Harris brings into focus the warriors, the strategies, and the battles and explores how they transformed popular culture forever. Ultimately, Console Wars is the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, give birth to a sixty-billion-dollar industry.

From America's most trusted financial advisor comes a comprehensive guide to a new and utterly sane financial choice. In Die Broke, you'll learn that life is a game where the loser gives his money to Uncle Sam at the end. There are four steps to the process: Quit Today No, don't tell your boss to shove it...at least not out loud. But in your head accept that from this day on you're a free agent whose number one workplace priority is your personal bottom line.Pay Cash You should be as conscious of spending as you are of saving. Credit should be a rarely used tool for those few times (buying homes and cars) when paying cash is impossible.Don't Retire Your work life should be a journey up and down hills, rather than a climb up a sheer cliff that ends with a jump into the abyss.Die Broke It sounds terrifying, the one intolerable outcome to your financial life. And yet, in truth, dying broke might be your best option for a life without fear: fear of failure and privation now, fear of impoverishment in the long run.

Quit worrying about debt. . . .Forget penny-pinching. . . . Stop sacrificing. . . . Forget saving money. You don't get wealthy by putting your money away in a bank account, nor do you become poor just because you bought yourself an extra latte. You get rich by making money . . . and America's leading money-making expert Loral Langemeier can show you how.A timely book with a counterintuitive message, Put More Cash in Your Pocket helps you create your own "lemonade stand" by getting paid for the things you already do. By following Loral's simple and straightforward approach, you'll put more cash as much as $1,000 a month in your pocket in no time.

With economic uncertainty reaching unprecedented levels, Aaron W. Smith's accessible nine-step plan to take control of your financial future will resonate whether you're just starting out or finding yourself midlife with concerns about your retirement. In The Black will transform your retirement plans, regardless of income, by offering concrete advice on what opportunities are available and using real-life examples to illustrate how anyone can achieve their financial dreams be they middle- aged and facing debt or actively saving since their early twenties. In clear, easy-to-follow steps, readers will learn how to: Overcome historical resistance to investing Save for retirement while keeping kinship ties intact Use faith as a motivator for saving and strengthening financial discipline Break through denial about changes in Social Security and pension plans. . . and much more.

The definitive guide for Main Street readers who want to make sense of what's happening on Wall Street and better understand how we got here and what we need to know to in days to come. Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas this official Wall Street Journal guide will be filled with practical information revealing what the crisis means for reader's financial lives and what steps they should be taking now to inform and protect themselves.

In Remember Me, Time writer Lisa Takeuchi Cullen has created a humorous and poignant chronicle of her travels around the country to discover how Americans are reinventing the rites of dying. What she learned is that people no longer want to take death lying down; instead, they're taking their demise into their own hands and planning the afterparty. Cullen hears stories of modern-day funerals: lobster-shaped caskets and other unconventional containers for corpses; cremated remains turned into diamonds; and even mishaps like dove releases gone horribly wrong. Eye-opening, funny, and unforgettable, Remember Me gives an account of the ways in which Americans are designing new occasions to mark death by celebrating life.

Michael E. Gerber, bestselling author of The E-Myth Revisited shares his powerful insights to lead independent physicians to successful practices and enriched lives.Michael Gerber has dedicated much of his professional life to the study of entrepreneurship and business dynamics. His E-Myth Academy is renown in the entrepreneurial world for its business insight and guidance as well as its inspirational advice.In the E-Myth Physician, bestselling author Gerber returns to his roots in order to provide indispensable advice to doctors who own and run their own practices. Gerber provides excellent business insights into topics such as streamlining systems, effective small-business management practices, healthy patient relations and managing cash flow, all with the goal of freeing physicians from the daily grind of running a business and leading them to a happier and more productive life while doing the job they love - practising medicine.

As clear, concise, and concrete as its subject, Patrick Riley's The One Page Proposal promises to be the definitive business guide to getting your best ideas fully understood in the least amount of time.Today more than ever, business decisions are made on the fly first impressions can make all the difference. Now, in the first book of its kind, successful entrepreneur Patrick Riley shows you how to boil all the elements of your business proposal into one persuasive page magnify your business potential in the process.

It's a challenging time to be young and new in the workplace. Your parents can't help the rules have all changed. In Welcome to the Real World, career expert and entrepreneur Lauren Berger arms you with the tools you need to succeed. She's been in your shoes just a few years ago she was you. This handbook tells you everything you need to know to make the most of your first on-the-job experience, including how to think about the big picture deal with rejection effectively manage your time navigate sticky situations in the office and communicate with different personality types embrace entrepreneurship regardless of position, rank, or title organize your financial situation and personal life get promoted and (one day) take your boss's job! In a world defined by uncertainty, Lauren shows you how to be bold, take risks, and understand your value.

Are You Playing By the New Rules?Forget what you know about personal finance. The old rules no longer apply. Ric Edelman's 88 strategies, tailor-made for today's economy, will show you how to achieve financial success. Ric is famous for making personal finance fun, and you'll discover how easy it is to put his advice into action!Is it smart to buy company stock with your 402 (k) planDiscover the right way to handle your company retirement plan. See Rule #85 Learn why you must carry a big, long mortgage -- and never pay it off! See Rule #21Learn why not to invest in the new Roth IRA-and discover the most powerful anti-tax investment available today. See Rules #69 and #76Planning to retireLearn why you won't -- and what you must do instead. See Rule #88Find out why those who invest in S&P 500 Index Funds will wish they hadn't. See Rule #36Learn why that higher - paying job could actually cost you money. See Rule #32