Serial entrepreneur and journalist Shane Snow delves into the reasons why some people and some organizations are able to achieve incredible things in implausibly short time frames, showing how each of us can use these "smartcuts" to rethink convention and accelerate success.Why do some companies attract millions of customers in mere months while others flopHow did Alexander the Great, YouTube phenom Michelle Phan, and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon dash to the top in less time than it takes most of us to get a midlevel promotionHow do high-growth businesses, world-class heart surgeons, and underdog marketers beat the norm?Like computer hackers, a handful of innovators in every era use lateral thinking to find better routes to stunning accomplishments. Throughout history, the world's biggest successes have been achieved by those who refuse to follow the expected course and buck the norm.Smartcuts is about bucking the norm. In it, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn multiplication tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.Smartcuts tells the stories of innovators who dared to work differently and lays out practical takeaways for the rest of us. It's about applying entrepreneurial and technological concepts to success, and how, by emulation, we too can leapfrog competitors, grow businesses, and fix society's problems faster than we think.

Kim Kardashian is a phenomenon.Despite her privileged upbringing in Beverly Hills, ten years ago Kim was just a modest stylist to stars like Paris Hilton and Brandy, making extra money selling her clothes on eBay. But a combination of hard work, an astute business brain, a hit TV series and a body to die for turned her life around.In this revealing unauthorized biography of Kim, bestselling author Sean Smith discovers a sweet, kind, and smart young woman whose life story reads like an X-rated version of Dynasty . . . an infamous murder case, elopement, a notorious sex tape, a seventy-two-day marriage, gender transition and impossibly glamorous designer dresses.Finding love with one of the biggest stars on the planet, Kanye West, she has begun her own dynasty with her daughter, North, and the approaching birth of her son. Now, as Kim Kardashian West, she is the most photographed and talked-about celebrity of the past decade. Her following on Instagram alone exceeds 42 million, over 4 million more than the population of her home state of California.Kim Kardashian follows her extraordinary journey from her childhood and amazing family to her turbulent love life and multi-million-dollar lifestyle. It is the ultimate insight into an icon of our times.

Haven't women gotten everything they wantEconomic powerSocial influenceBusiness cloutYes, but it turns out that these fantastic gains have come at a heavy price, as consumer goods experts Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre discovered in an unprecedented study of 12,000 women in forty countries.That relentless upward climb has left women feeling stressed out, time starved, and overburdened. As a result, they look to products and services that will help them claw back time, juggle multiple roles, and capture a few moments of enjoyment.Women want more much more, in every category of goods and services. And no matter what their age or economic situation or where they live in the world, women will spend trillions of dollars over the next decade on the brands that truly deliver: Home-cleaning products that enable women to do in an hour what used to take a day Financial-services products that recognize that women control half the United States' wealth Food products that help keep the whole family happy and healthy Health care services designed for working-women's hectic schedules In the coming years, women's influence will be so enormous that it will not only help bring us out of the economic downturn but also create one of the most dramatic market opportunities of our lifetime bigger than the rise of China and India; more sustainable than any bailout package.Through quantitative data, profiles of individual women, and stories of winning companies, Women Want More provides business leaders with the understanding and practices they need to capture their share of the rising "female economy."

"When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me . . . [my mother] sent me back out and demanded that I bloody their nose so I could walk down the street the next day." Joe Biden In this, the first definitive biography of Vice President Joe Biden, renowned journalist Jules Witcover examines the fascinating life of a man who, with his tenacity, outspokenness, and charming smile, has shaped Washington politics for the past forty years and who now serves as the forty-seventh vice president of the United States.Raised in the working-class towns of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, and with lackluster grades in school and no particular goals other than to play sports or, fleetingly, to become a priest, Biden shocked the nation in 1972 when he became one of the youngest elected senators in U.S. history. From that point forward, he carved a legacy for himself as one of the most respected legislators in the country. Biden's record in Congress was impressive. He chaired three Senate committees, confronted Slobodan Miloevic head-on as a war criminal, and conducted the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court justices. After voting for the 2002 Senate resolution to use force in Iraq, he later called for its repeal and became an outspoken critic of the conduct of the war.Yet for all of Biden's achievements in the Senate, his life has been filled with tragedy and countless challenges. Within two months of being elected in 1972, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and his young daughter in a tragic accident a loss that brought him to the nadir of despair and shook his resolve to stay in politics. And even after Biden vowed to continue his career, his tenure was marked by two brain aneurysms and career-threatening verbal gaffes. Then, after being considered among the front-runners in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries, Biden was accused of plagiarism for a speech he made at the Iowa State Fair. He dropped out of the race to the sounds of Washington pundits chattering that the presidency would never be his. Through it all, Biden survived and ran and eventually dropped out again in the 2008 primaries. But even with this defeat, Barack Obama recognized Biden's vast experience in domestic and foreign affairs, and selected him to be his running mate.Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption is based on exhaustive research by one of Washington's most prolific journalists. In drawing on numerous exclusive interviews with Biden's confidants and family members, as well as President Obama and Vice President Biden, Witcover has gone beyond conventional biography to track the forces that have shaped a man who, with his plainspoken style and inspiring life story, has resonated with millions of Americans and whose work is now influencing the Obama-Biden administration and shaping America.

End Pain.Foster Personal and Professional Growth.Live Better. While endings are a natural part of business and life, we often experience them with a sense of hesitation, sadness, resignation, or regret. But consultant, psychologist, and bestselling author Dr. Henry Cloud sees endings differently. He argues that our personal and professional lives can only improve to the degree that we can see endings as a necessary and strategic step to something better. If we cannot see endings in a positive light and execute them well, he asserts, the "better" will never come either in business growth or our personal lives.In this insightful and deeply empathetic book, Dr. Cloud demonstrates that, when executed well, "necessary endings" allow us to proactively correct the bad and the broken in our lives in order to make room for the professional and personal growth we seek. However, when endings are avoided or handled poorly as is too often the case good opportunities may be lost, and misery repeated. Drawing on years of experience as an executive coach and a psychologist, Dr. Cloud offers a mixture of advice and case studies to help readers know when to have realistic hope and when to execute a necessary ending in a business, or with an individual; identify which employees, projects, activities, and relationships are worth nurturing and which are not; overcome people's resistance to change and create change that works; create urgency and an action plan for what's important; stop wasting resources needed for the things that really matter. Knowing when and how to let go when something, or someone, isn't working a personal relationship, a job, or a business venture is essential for happiness and success. Necessary Endings gives readers the tools they need to say good-bye and move on.

What can chess masters teach us about how humans become expertsWhy can't race car drivers explain decisions they've made behind the wheel?What does predicting the winner of a soccer match say about our ability to make the right choiceWhen we talk about experts, we typically have bought into the idea that they have all the answers. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Gordon Rugg exposes the surprising ways in which all people tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, regardless of what field they are in, how smart they are, or even their level of expertise. Focusing on why and how we make decisions, Rugg offers insight into what motivates us, how we fail to find the answers we are looking for, how we can learn to ask the essential questions, and more. Rugg has devoted his life to learning how experts solve problems. He gained international attention after arguing persuasively that the famous Voynich Manu* is a hoax. Now, he demonstrates his techniques in the Verifier Method, which can be applied to any seemingly unsolvable problem.Drawing on his personal odyssey in the field of human expertise, Rugg makes astute and entertaining conclusions about how and why we inevitably fail, and explains how to make better mistakes, work backward, and reengineer the ways we pursue success.

A comprehensive look at 300 of the most financially and/or critically successful motion pictures of all time many made despite seemingly insurmountable economic, cultural, and political challenges set against the prevailing production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, and technology trends of each decade in movie business history.

The indie world is producing extraordinary toy characters but little is known about the designers creating them or the processes used to make them. We Are Indie Toys! profiles the most interesting toymakers and reveals how they turn their unique ideas into one-of-a-kind collectibles.

The in-flight explosion of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, was one of the deadliest disasters in American history, spurring the most expensive airline investigation ever undertaken by the U.S. government. To this day the crash remains clouded in doubt and shadowed by suspicion of a government conspiracy.If there was any conspiracy to hide the truth about what really happened to Flight 800, it began long before the crash. Past crashes tell the story: What happened on Flight 800 has happened before and will again, unless drastic changes are made. Now veteran journalist Christine Negroni reveals what the commercial aviation industry has known for more than thirty-five years that during flight confined vapors in the fuel tanks can create a bomb like environment. It takes only a small energy source to ignite it.TWA Flight 800 was the fourteenth fuel tank explosion on a commercial airliner in thirty-five years. Yet each and every time, the airline industry persuaded regulators to deal with the symptoms of the problem and ignore the cause. When investigators could not immediately determine what happened, they were finally forced to look at the bigger picture. And, for the first time, this book exposes the hubris of aircraft manufacturers who knew all along, but dismissed as acceptable, the risk of fuel tank explosions.Deadly Departure shines a spotlight on the chaos behind the most massive crash investigation ever conducted, how the White House had to intervene between feuding investigators, and the surprising stories behind the missile theory conspiracies. It also tells the stories of the passengers and their families, the people of TWA and Boeing, the rescue and crisis workers, and the investigators and scientists involved illustrating the devastating effects on human lives. An impeccably researched, eye-opening examination of one of the great disasters of our time, Deadly Departure is a stunning exposé of how industry pressure continues to undermine regulatory policy, placing air travelers' lives at risk.

Dorothy and Otis Shepard are the groundbreaking heroes of North American visual culture. They were the first American graphic designers to work in multiple mediums and scales, but despite the brilliance of their work, their names are little known today. With 330 stunning, colorful images, Dorothy and Otis chronicles their story for the first time. It explores the Shepards' penchant for abstraction and modernism, and shows how the advent of billboard advertising inspired their creativity their large campaigns matched the grandeur of their lifestyle. Throughout, this book demonstrates how their work influenced all aspects of consumer culture, from the styling of Wrigley's Gum and the Chicago Cubs to the design of Catalina Island, which Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, and other celebrities frequented.As Dorothy and Otis brings these artists to life, it elevates them to their rightful place in popular culture and makes clear how their work shaped the American dream.With more than 330 full-color photographs throughout

The dancing girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond Market in the shadow of a great mosque. The twenty-first century goes on outside the walls of this ancient quarter but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: Beloved by emperors and nawabs, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern-day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are gandi, "unclean," and Maha's daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of a Lahori dancing girl. With beautiful understatement, she turns a novelist's eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to a powerful Arab sheikh at the age of twelve; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the sheikh come calling once more.

It's not a question. It is a philosophy to live by. It's Donny Deutsch's motto. And it is the secret possessed by every person with the right stuff the one-in-a-hundred who gets to the top of their team, their company, their business, their industry.If there is an assignment or a promotion up for grabs, a client or account looking for new answers, do you know how to go for itDonny Deutsch built a billion-dollar media business asking himself the basic question, "Why Not Me?" Once the reader asks and answers that question, a world of opportunity opens up. It is a tool to motivate people, build a business, and create a business culture.Often Wrong, Never in Doubt is an inspirational book from one of America's most colorful and exciting entrepreneurs. It's Donny's story. In a fun conversation with the reader, Donny lays out the core principles that propelled him to create tremendous wealth, build a huge and influential business, and become a national personality. Using inside stories of the media, the advertising industry, and a youth spent growing up on the streets of New York, Donny gives the commonsense bottom line that he has learned along the way, broken down into real, relevant, and inspiring lessons that will be useful to everyone from the front-line salesperson to the middle manager to the successful corporate executive. (It's also a useful guide for dating.)

If women ruled the world, politics would be more collegial, businesses would be more productive, and communities would be healthier. More women should lead not because they are the same as men, but precisely because they are different. Reflecting on her own tenure as White House press secretary and her work as a political analyst, media commentator, and former consultant to NBC's The West Wing, Dee Dee Myers blends memoir and social history with a call to action, as she assesses the crucial but long-ignored strengths that female leaders bring to the table. With intelligence, courage, candor, and wit, she looks at the obstacles women must overcome and the traps they must avoid on the path to success, and she challenges us to imagine a not-too-distant future with more women standing tall in the top ranks of politics, business, science, and academia.

In The Chasm Companion, The Chasm Group's Paul Wiefels presents readers with a new analysis of the ideas introduced in bestselling author Geoffrey Moore's classic books, Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, and focuses on how to translate these ideas into actionable strategy and implementation programs. This step-by-step fieldbook is organized around three major concepts: how high-tech markets develop, creating market development strategy, and executing go-to-market programs based on the strategy.

In October 2002, Susan Polk, a housewife and mother of three, was arrested for the murder of her husband, Felix. The arrest in her sleepy northern California town kicked off what would become one of the most captivating murder trials in recent memory, as police, local attorneys, and the national media sought to unravel the complex web of events that sent this seemingly devoted housewife over the edge.Now, with the exclusive access and in-depth reporting that made A Deadly Game a number one New York Times bestseller, Catherine Crier turns an analytical eye to the story of Susan Polk, delving into her past and examining how over twenty years of marriage culminated in murder. Tracing the family's history, Crier skillfully maneuvers the murky waters of the Polk's marriage, looking at the real story behind Susan, Felix, and their unorthodox courtship. When Susan was in high school, Felix, who was more than twenty years her senior, had been her psychologist, and it was during their sessions that the romantic entanglement began. From these troubling origins grew a difficult marriage, one which produced three healthy boys but also led to disturbing accusations of abuse from both spouses.With extraordinary detail, Crier dissects this dangerous relationship between husband and wife, exposing their psychological motivations and the painful impact that these motivations had on their sons, Adam, Eli, and Gabriel. Drawing on sources from all sides of the case, Crier masterfully reconstructs the tumultuous chronology of the Polk family, telling the story of how Susan and Felix struggled to control their rambunctious sons and their disintegrating marriage in the years and months leading up to Felix's death.But the history of the Polk family is only half the story. Here Crier also elucidates the methodical police work of the murder investigation, revealing never-before-seen photos and writings from the case file. In addition, she carefully scrutinizes the many twists and turns of the remarkable trial, exploring Susan's struggles with her defense attorneys and her shocking decision to represent herself.Dark, psychological, and terrifying, Final Analysis is a harrowing look at the recesses of the human mind and the trauma that reveals them.

Born in the mountains above Venice in the late fifteenth century, Tiziano Vecellio or Titian was the greatest painter of the Venetian High Renaissance. A poetic visionary and a technical master of oils, he painted everything, from frescoes and grand altarpieces to mythological stories and portraits works described by his contemporaries as "mirrors of nature."Sheila Hale's rich biography is the first since 1877 to examine all contemporary accounts of Titian's life and work as well as recent art historical scholarship, some of it previously unpublished. Her book charts the extraordinary transformation of Titian's style: from the radiant, minutely realized masterpieces of his youth, to the more freely painted work of his middle years, to the dark, tragic, sometimes terrifying visions of his old age. Drawing on the latest scientific examinations of his paintings, Hale seeks to explain the evolution of his methods and his art. In doing so, she also gives many different voices from Titian's lifetime to today free reign to explore, praise, and sometimes doubt his genius.When Titian died in 1576, in his late eighties, he had spent the whole of his working life in Venice the most celebrated city in Europe traveling as little as possible despite the clamor for his presence at the great courts of the continent. He had witnessed wars, Ottoman invasions, and the rising Protestant threat to the Catholic Church. He had become the favored painter of both Charles V the most powerful man in the world and his son, Philip II of Spain, who became Titian's most important patron.Sheila Hale's masterly biography presents Titian through the lens of the turbulent times in which he lived and explores how this innovative sixteenth-century master conveyed in his paintings a kind of truth that few other artists have been able to communicate, which has fascinated Titian's admirers and followers ever since.

The New One Minute Manager offers a way for you to succeed sooner with less stress in changing times both at work and at home.Based on the original book The One Minute Manager that helped millions of people around the world in organizations large and small, this new version of the classic story deals with a new world.The book will help you find meaning in your work and inspire you to discover new ways to help your organization adapt and prosper.The New One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Re-Directs, the new third secret.The story is based on studies in the behavioral sciences and medicine that support why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people. And by the book's end, you will know how to apply what you discover to your own situation and enjoy the benefits.

The history of the Irish in baseball is much richer than anyone realizes. From early discrimination to later domination, from Mike Kelly, a society star in the 1880s, to the managerial fame of Connie Mack (né McGillicuddy), early Irish players and managers helped shape the game of baseball in every way. From the first curveball to the first players' unions, Irishmen took America's national pastime and made it their own, turning it into the glorious game we know today, as more recent players have kept alive the Irish tradition of setting records. A wild, fun, fact-filled celebration of the Irish in baseball, The Emerald Diamond intersperses interviews with current players with tales of such players as Dan Brouthers, who at 6'2" and well over 200 pounds, was the game's home-run king until Babe Ruth came along; and includes lively anecdotes about such colorfully nicknamed ballplayers as Tony "the Count" Mullane, Mike "King" Kelly, James "Pud" Galvin, Hugh "One-Arm" Daily, Frank "Silk" O'Loughlin, and "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity. Just a few of the great Irish athletes featured as well are Mickey Cochrane (for whom Mickey Mantle was named); Charles Comiskey; Ed Walsh, the last pitcher to win 40 games in a single season; and Ed Delahanty, whose prodigious life and mysterious death continue to be a source of intrigue. With decade-by-decade profiles of exciting Irish figures on the field and off, The Emerald Diamond also offers important discussion on cultural and political themes relevant to their times.

It is an era that redefined history. As the 1790s began, a fragile America teetered on the brink of oblivion, Russia towered as a vast imperial power, and France plunged into revolution. But in contrast to the way conventional histories tell it, none of these remarkable events occurred in isolation.Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian Jay Winik masterfully illuminates how their fates combined in one extraordinary moment to change the course of civilization. A sweeping, magisterial drama featuring the richest cast of characters ever to walk upon the world stage, including Washington, Jefferson, Louis XVI, Robespierre, and Catherine the Great, The Great Upheaval is a gripping, epic portrait of this tumultuous decade that will forever transform the way we see America's beginnings and our world

In this engrossing work of history, Lee Kennett brilliantly brings General Sherman's 1864 invasion of Georgia to life by capturing the ground-level experiences of the soldiers and civilians who witnesses the bloody campaign. From the skirmish at Buzzard Roost Gap all the way to Savannah ten months later, Kennet follows the notorious, complex Sherman, who attacked the devastated the heart of the Confederacy's arsenal. Marching Through Georgia describes, in gripping detail, the event that marked the end of the Old South.

Duty First is a penetrating account of a year inside one of America's premier schools for leadership -- the United States Military Academy -- as it celebrates the bicentennial of its founding. Ed Ruggero, a former West Point cadet and professor, takes an incisive look at how this elite school builds the "leaders of character" who will command the nation's military.Writing with deep insight and superb narrative skill, Ruggero follows the cadet's tumultuous lives: the initial grueling training; the strict student hierarchy and intense classroom work; and the interaction between the lowly first-year plebes and the upper-class cadets who train them. Duty First also shows the role played by the majors, captains, and sergeants, who oversee everything that happens at this unique institution.