Posted by Elena del Valle on November 7, 2014
Building an Ageless Mind
Photo: Rowman & Littlefield
Just as mental stimulation is important in our youth our brain requires cognitive stimulation as we age. So says William J. Tippett, P.h.D., assistant professor, University of Northern British Columbia. He believes it is important to stimulate as much of the brain as possible to maintain that organ healthy as adults grow older. He proposes that adults nearing their aging years learn about their brain to develop a neuroprotective plan.
In Building an Ageless Mind: Preventing and Fighting Brain Aging and Disease (Rowman & Littlefield, $32.58) he addresses ways to strive for good cognitive ability as people and their brains age. The author believes achieving such brain health requires readers to be proactive and knowledgeable enough to recognize when abnormalities arise. In the book, he explores cognitive training, exercise and diet and their effect on the brain.
The 239-page hardcover book published in 2013 is divided into four main sections: Cognitive Stimulation, Aging and Disease, Healthy Living As We Age, and The Futuristic Brain. He addresses the importance of eating the right foods to nourish the brain. He points to, for example, the effects of vitamins A, C, D, and E as well as reveratrol. He also says physical activity can maintain and enhance brain function. Being an athlete is required, he says, just being physically active.
Tippett is the principal investigator, founder and director of the Brain Research Unit at the University of Northern British Columbia. He is also associate member of the Centre for Stroke Recovery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on October 24, 2014
The Wisdom of Menopause
For 25 years Christiane Northrup, M.D. was a practicing physician in obstetrics and gynecology, identifying issues and treatments for patients. Now she dedicates “the second half of my life to illuminating all that can go right.” Her efforts may be welcome by many among the 48 million women in the United States in midlife, undergoing perimenopause or menopause.
She believes menopause is “a mind/body revolution, which brings tremendous opportunity for happiness” instead of the often described problem phase of women’s aging packed with a collection of symptoms to be fixed. In 1994, she shared her views in Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, her first book which went on to become a New York Times Best Seller.
In Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom Creating Physical and Emotional Health During the Change (Bantam Books, $22), also a New York Times Best Seller with 1.25 million copies sold in 16 languages, she discuses her conviction that many physical ailments are born from lifestyle choices and emotional concerns. The 745-page book, most recently updated in 2012, is divided into 14 chapters in which she discusses topics such as the brain, breast health, hormones, pelvic health, food and supplements, healthy bones, sex and sleep, and heart health.
In the book, she indicates menopause leads to a new stage filled with changes, both physical and emotional. They are not, as thought in the past century, a sign of inevitable aging and decline. Instead, they lead to a woman’s transformation, and a time when she must examine her life closely and choose who she wishes to be all over again. She points to a 1998 Gallup survey at the North American Menopause Society in which more than half of respondents between 50 and 65 indicated they were living the happiest time in their lives.
She is convinced that as women go through their midlife adjustments they are drawn less to a traditional supportive family role and more to new adventures and pursuits outside of their home life. That is in contrast to men in the same age group, the author says, because they in turn seek fulfillment in relationships more than in their work, a reversal of their approach in previous years.
According to her website, Northrup has more than 4.4 million books in print, in 24 languages. Her book Mother-Daughter Wisdom was voted Amazon’s top book of the year in parenting and mind/body health.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on October 17, 2014
Rescue the Problem Project
Photos: Visibility Strategist
For years Todd C. Williams was the informal go to person when a problem project needed attention. He would discuss the project issues with the team in charge and pass his ideas back to the decision makers. They would in turn review them and eventually, if he succeeded in convincing them, approve them. In time, he fine tuned his process and went up the ranks. Now he is president and executive consultant at eCameron, Inc., a project rescue company based in the state of Washington.
In his book, Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure (AMACOM, $39.95), he explains how he and his team identify a problem project, and how they recover it before it fails or has to be canceled. He shares with readers his process for rescuing red projects that focuses on root cause correction and prevention. He points out that 65 percent of projects fail to meet their goals and 25 percent of projects require cancellation.
Todd C. Williams, author, Rescue the Problem Project
The 277-page hardcover book published in 2011 is divided into twenty chapters and six main parts: Understanding the Process and Realizing a Problem Exists, Auditing the Project: Understanding the Issues, Analyzing the Data: Planning for Project Recovery, Negotiating a Solution: Proposing Workable Resolutions, Executing the New Plan: Implementing the Solutions, and Doing It Right the First Time: Avoiding Problems That Lead to Red Projects. He relies on case studies, mostly from manufacturing and information technology projects, to illustrate his steps and process. The end of each chapter includes a summary or Chapter Takeaway.
In the book, he identifies aspects he relies on in his problem solving: the team holds the answers, a strong team can solve most problems, remaining involved with the team is essential, and it is important to remain involved with the team in order to resolve the situation. He also describes his recovery process steps: realizing there’s a problem, figuring out what the problem is, identifying the causes for the problem and the possible solution, negotiating a solution everyone can agree on, and implementing the steps to solve the problem. He points out that it is essential for management to recognize that there is a problem before any of the other steps can be taken and the project rescued.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on October 9, 2014
Emote
Photos: Career Press
As manager of a team of engineers at Shell Oil Company Vikas Gopal Jhingran, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer and researcher with a Ph.D., had demonstrated his engineering competence frequently, he says; but when it came to client presentation he was out of his comfort zone. A combination of his introverted personality and his immigrant status made public speaking a challenge hard to overcome until he determined to apply himself to improve his verbal communication skills.
By 2007 he became Toastmasters International World Champion of Public Speaking, and the second person of Asian origin to achieve such a distinction. In Emote: Using Emotions to Make Your Message Memorable (Career Press, $15.99), a 223-page softcover book published this year, he shares the insights he gleaned from his personal journey with others, especially introverts and immigrants like himself.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, an Introduction and an Epilogue spread into three main sections: The Fundamentals, The Mechanics of Speaking, and Other Benefits of Good Communication Skills. The author shares, among other insights and ideas, his experience, emotion based approach and the speeches that led to his public speaking win in 2007.
Vikas Jhingran, author, Emote
One of the speeches was about his decision, while living in Texas, to have his mother in India arrange his marriage for him. The second speech was born of a feeling within him that he was not living life to the fullest and his desire to inspire the audience to live life for the moment. The idea behind the speeches was to make his point by moving the audience. Connecting at an emotional level with the audience, he believes, is the secret to his success.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on September 19, 2014
Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition
Photo: BenBella Books
T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. has spent a lifetime studying nutrition, and Howard Jacobson, Ph.D. is a health educator and ecological gardener. They believe a whole food plant based diet without added fat, salt, or refined carbohydrates (such as sugar and white flour) is the essential foundation for a healthy life. In Whole Rethinking the Science of Nutrition (BenBella Books, $16.95) they explore the evidence to support their conclusions, including their belief that people’s eating habits haven’t changed despite the availability of information about nutrition to support their arguments.
Whole follows on the heels of the publication of The China Study (see Health, nutrition experts examine comprehensive China nutrition study), a previous book authored by Campbell and his son, which addressed similar issues and conclusions about nutrition. The 328-page softcover book is divided into 19 chapters and four main parts: Enslaved by the System, Paradigm As Prison, Subtle Power and Its Wielders, and Final Thoughts.
The authors examine the concepts of whole versus reductionist biology, where whole biology views the body as more than the sum of its parts while reductionist biology focuses on the individual organs or aspects of the human anatomy. They are convinced reductionism is the primary view today and part of the reason society, medicine and social policy favor reductionist nutrition.
They propose that readers change the way they view nutrition, medicine and health, taking into account the complexity of the human body and expanding their views to encompass reductionist and wholist approaches. The reasons society clings to old reductionist approaches to eating, they say, relate to a long standing belief in the healthy nature of animal proteins, the common view that the body is made up of a set of diverse and separate parts, and a profit oriented reductionist system.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on August 29, 2014
David and Goliath
Photo: Hachette Book Group
Author photo: Brooke Williams
We are impressed by size and strength, assuming giants, people or companies, should win in an encounter, according to Malcom Gladwell, a journalist and author. He believes that “much of what is beautiful and important in our world comes from adversity and struggle.”
In David and Goliath Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (Little Brown and Company, $29) he discusses how while the giants might be winners most of the time, sometimes the underdog might overcome adversity to vanquish the superpower. The 305-page hardcover book published in 2013 is divided into three main parts and nine chapters in which he explores the general theme of underdogs overcoming the odds to excel.
He explains at the beginning that facing overwhelming circumstances “produces greatness and beauty,” and that being disadvantaged in a lopsided conflict changes people, sometimes for the better. The lesson, he concludes, is that the powerful and strong are not always as we perceive them.
Malcolm Gladwell, author, David and Goliath
Throughout the book he uses examples to illustrate the points he wishes to make about how it is possible that a disadvantage such as dyslexia or loosing a parent at a young age may make people stronger than they might otherwise have been in the absence of the hardship. In other words, what doesn’t kill us might make us strong and able to beat a difficult situation to our favor.
Many American presidents and British prime ministers suffered the loss of a parent in their youth at a higher rate than the general population, he says. He points out that while such a loss is common among society’s losers it is also in evidence among its winners and wonders whether such a situation might become an advantage.
To research the chapter on the Troubles in Northern Ireland he spent a summer in Belfast. He was surprised to discover how small the areas in dispute, that had played a major role in British politics for three decades, were. Goliaths, he says, still win most of the time. The thing to remember is that they don’t win all of the time, and perhaps not nearly as often as we might expect them to.
Gladwell, a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1996, lives in New York. Prior to this book, he wrote What the Dog Saw, Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on August 22, 2014
The Web Startup Roadmap
Photos: JP Stonestreet
After selling two websites in 2008, JP Stonestreet wrote The Web Startup Roadmap: Navigate Your Way to a Successful Online Business (Ripen Publishing, $22.95) to share his ideas about building an online business from scratch, marketing, running and preparing it for possible sale.
“The biggest challenge was the actual writing of the book. It’s over 300 pages! I had no idea it would be that long when I started writing it. If I had it to do over again, I’d split it up into 3 different books that are much shorter. Readers like smaller books better, too. Especially when the content is challenging,” Stonestreet said by email in response to a question about the challenge of writing the book.
An understanding of a small target audience is necessary at the beginning, he says in the book. Once your idea proves successful you can expand your audience. He lists several examples of companies that started targeting a niche audience and grew their audience over time.
When asked who his book audience is he said, “I wrote this book for non-technical people who want to start an online business or expand their current online presence but aren’t sure what to do or even where to start. The web is accessible to everyone, but understood by very few in comparison. My goal was to lift the veil and help more business owners understand how they can use it to build and grow their businesses.”
A good idea that is well developed is also necessary, as is offering something that sets you apart from competitors, he says, describing traits successful start-ups share.
In the book, he discusses business models he believes work online. The 300-page softcover book, published in 2012, is divided into five sections: Planning for Success, Starting Your Startup, Building Your Website, Marketing Your Website, and Running Your Business. In the third one he outlines his ideas about web business essentials.
JP Stonestreet, author, The Web Startup Roadmap
For him, “The biggest takeaway from publishing the book was to start promoting it before you even start writing it. After I sold my company, I wanted to document all the lessons I learned so I’d remember them. After writing pages and pages of notes, I decided to put them in a book, which led to The Web Startup Roadmap. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to promote it until it was written and published so I missed out on a lot of opportunities to raise awareness and attract press coverage. The lesson I share with everyone is to start promoting your book on social media and to your following as soon as you get the idea and the title.”
In the final two sections, he discusses marketing strategies such as affiliate marketing, advertising, social media, emails and search engine optimization; and the aspects of growing the business beyond the initial stages toward an eventual sale.
The biggest takeaway for readers? “The first section of the book discusses my long list of failures and the lessons I learned from them. If readers only take one lesson from the book, it should be the value of perseverance. Failure is inevitable if you’re a risk taker, but success is inevitable if you don’t let failure stop you from trying,” the author said.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on August 8, 2014
The China Study
Photos: BenBella Books, Inc.
A good diet is one of the most important ways to achieve and maintain optimum health, say T. Colin Campbel, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell II, M.D. In The China Study Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health (BenBella Books, $16.95), published in 2006, and the Spanish language edition El Estudio de China Efectos Asombrosos de la Dieta, la Pérdid ade Peso y la Salud a Largo Plazo (BenBella Books, $17.95), published in 2012, the father discusses his reasoning and the data he relied on to reach his conclusions. He points out that despite spending more per person on health care than any other country the United States is struggling with the health of its citizenry.
El Estudio de China
Obesity, diabetes, cardiac disease, high cholesterol, and cancer are among the best known signs of trouble. They and other illnesses lead half of Americans to take prescription medications every week, Colin Campbell explains in the Introduction. The 419-page softcover book, (481 pages in the Spanish edition) is divided into four main sections: The China Study, Diseases of Affluence, The Good Nutrition Guide, and Why Haven’t You Heard This Before?
As director of a comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease Colin Campbell learned that the people who got the most chronic diseases were the ones who ate the most animal products. He went on to discover that the effects of such diseases could be reversed with a healthy diet. He was surprised to discover the level of confusion that exists due to misinformation.
Based on his many decades of diet and health research he has become convinced that heart disease can be prevented and even reversed without surgery or drugs. Eating the right foods is the secret, he believes.
In Appendix C, he discusses the role of vitamin D in health, pointing out that people living in places with low sunshine are more prone to certain diseases such as type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and breast, colon and prostate cancer. One quarter of the amount of sunshine needed to produce a slight redness to your skin, two to three times a week, will produce and store the necessary amount of vitamin D, according to the author. An excess of animal protein which create an acidic blood environment can affect the vitamin D process in the body, he points out.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on August 1, 2014
Target Opportunity Selling
Photo: McGraw-Hill
In Target Opportunity Selling: Top Sales Performers Reveal What Really Works (McGraw-Hill, $28), Nicholas A.C. Read, author of Selling to the C-Suite, outlines the strategies he believes are successful for top corporate sellers. Read begins by introducing a model, The Sales Expansion Loop, which he says assigns Marketing, Sales, Management, and Service roles for targeting sales opportunities throughout the stages of a long-lead sale.
He based the Sales Expansion Loop on first hand interviews with hundreds of sales professionals around the world. His recommendations are based on 20,000 hours with business to business sellers in companies of various sizes and diverse locations, according to the book.
The 316-page hardcover, book published this year, is divided into 15 chapters: Beyond the Sales Funnel, Research, Contact, Precision Questions, Qualify Their Interest, Qualify Your Seat at the Table, Qualify Your Ability to Win, Social Capital, Find the Influencers, Align To Key Stakeholders, Sell Your Solution, Form A Competitive Strategy, Establish Your Proof, Compete on Value, and Closing and Opening.
In the final chapter, the author recommends that sellers get together with their customers to create a report of sorts in which they address after the sale issues, measurement and results. He also mentions that sellers request testimonials from happy customers, take their pictures and display them. He says “Top sellers collect case studies and reference stories like trophies…”
Read, former executive director at Ernst & Young, is the founder and managing partner of the SalesLabs. He is a speaker, consultant, and columnist.
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Posted by Elena del Valle on July 25, 2014
Mind Over Medicine
Photo: LissaRankin.com
Lissa Rankin, MD, a physician and New York Times bestselling author, is convinced that the lessons she learned over years of medical school and clinical practice are not all set in stone. In her 2013 book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself (Hay House, $24.95), she shares the process that led her to discover what she believes is a better way to health, and what it might mean to patients.
Your mental attitude, the author says, is the most important factor in your health even ahead of sleep, nutrition, weight, exercise and lifestyle. According to her website, she is “on a grass roots mission to heal health care by repairing the doctor-patient relationship, while empowering both patients and health care providers to marry the best of Western medicine with mind-body approaches scientifically proven to activate the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms.”
In the 259-page hardcover book she says that for more than 50 years the medical establishment has been proving the mind can heal the body. In a candid easy to read style she shares her personal growth path and conclusions.
She wraps up the book with six steps she believes may optimize a body’s natural self-repair mechanisms. She proposes that it is essential to believe you can heal yourself with the support of others. Listening to your body’s signals or what she calls the Inner Pilot Lights is key, she says. If after seeking medical advice you don’t have a diagnosis identify what the source of your problem might be and figure out a way to address it, remembering to be your own healthcare advocate, the author suggests. Realize that the results you obtain may not be those you sough initially, she says.
Rankin is founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute training program for physicians and other health care providers. When not spreading her message, she likes to hike, paint, and practice yoga.
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