Beating The Odds

Beating the Odds is the improbable, inspiring autobiography of financial guru Eddie C. Brown, one of the nation's top stock pickers and money managers. It details how Brown skillfully kept Brown Capital Management afloat through the dot-com bust, 9/11 and the Great Recession. Born to a 13-year-old unwed mother in the rural South, this African-American investment whiz created a Baltimore-based financial firm that amassed more than $6 Billion under management. Brown delves into the profound heartbreak and disorientation upon the death of his beloved grandmother – who was his surrogate mother -- and recounts how Brown's moonshine-running Uncle Jake subsequently became the dominant adult figure in Brown's life. His unflinchingly honest, easy-to-read memoir details how intellectual curiosity, abiding self-belief, hard work and divine providence helped Brown earn an electrical engineering degree, become an Army officer, and later a civilian IBM engineer. Readers will learn of the strife that ensued when Brown quit IBM to earn an MBA, leading to investment jobs that prepared him to start his own money management company in 1983.

The football star made famous in the hit film (and book) The Blind Side reflects on how far he has come from the circumstances of his youth. Michael Oher shares his personal account of his story, in this inspirational New York Times bestseller. Looking back on how he went from being a homeless child in Memphis to playing in the NFL, Michael talks about the goals he had to break out of the cycle of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness that trapped his family. Eventually he grasped onto football as his ticket out and worked hard to make his dream into a reality. With his adoptive family, the Touhys, and other influential people in mind, he describes the absolute necessity of seeking out positive role models and good friends who share the same values to achieve one's dreams. Sharing untold stories of heartache, determination, courage, and love, I Beat the Odds is an incredibly rousing tale of one young man's quest to achieve the American dream.

This powerful book shows how poor countries can ignite growth without waitingfor global action or the creation of ideal local conditions.

Brad Carter is down on his luck. He loses his job, catches his woman in bed with another man, and he’s days away from being booted out of his home. Wanting to get away from his problems, Brad and his boys go to a nightclub, where they meet a wealthy stranger who offers them each $50,000 to go to Rio de Janeiro and traffic cocaine back to the U.S. They jump at the opportunity and have the time of their lives in Rio, but when it’s time to return to the U.S. with the drugs, all hell breaks loose. Brad and his friends are caught, and being in jail is not anything they could have imagined. With the help of a fellow prisoner with powerful connections, they plan an escape. Brad is determined to find his way back to the U.S., but not without Diamond, the beautiful woman he met before things went awry in Rio. Can he rescue her from the clutches of Armand, the sick crime boss who’s been holding her captive for years? He soon discovers that the web of criminal connections between Armand, his wife, and his associates are deep and dangerous. With the obstacles he faces, Brad’s journey to freedom may be impossible.

The high-stakes story of Australia's largest private bookmaker Alan tripp, a man some call a genius and others call a criminal, became the world's most successful private bookmaker. He was Australia's most convicted SP bookmaker and was the prime target of gaming and vice squads around the country in the 1980s. Yet he would eventually sell his businesses for hundreds of millions of dollars. this is his story. Starting-price bookies, although illegal, were long a feature of Australian life, giving punters the opportunity to have a bet away from the track. But with the rise of the tAB, police were ordered to stamp out all other off-course bookmaking in order to protect the state governments' monopoly. Alan tripp, the biggest SP bookie in Australia, was their number-one target. His punting clientele ranged from the high society of Sydney to the underbelly of Melbourne, and included Prime Minister Bob Hawke, media baron Kerry Packer, gangsters Lewis Moran and Alphonse Gangitano, and underworld figure Mick Gatto - as well as many leading trainers and jockeys of the day. tripp's life quickly became a rollercoaster of high-stakes gambling, with the dual threats of bankruptcy and prison never far behind. In a fearless and thrilling narrative, Nichola Garvey recounts the drama and intrigue of the life of Alan tripp, the billion-dollar bookie who beat the odds.

Aiming to inspire and empower, Beating the Odds highlights real-life success stories of technical women who made it. This book explores critical turning points that make or break careers and provides tools for putting insight into action — both for women and organizations supporting them.

Based on the author's 30 years of experience, this humorous book outlines the serious challenges facing women in in Australian universities. The book is a call to arms to women to take matters into their own hands. The first chapter, The Odds are Against You, paints a depressing picture. The numerical odds of women making it to the professoriate, university executive and board positions are outlined. Spoiler alert: they're not good and aren't improving. When almost one-third of Australian vice-chancellors left their posts in 2020, men mostly replaced men.Chapter Two, You're Expected to Be a Good Girl, outlines the gendered expectations, implicit assumptions, unconscious biases and sexism that university women face. Anecdotes of female professors being asked about cakes, carpets, curtains and colours help the reader confront shocking facts about their likely trajectory. The matters of invisibility; man-terruptions; bro-propriation; having the 'wrong' style; and being successful and liked at the same time are explored.In Chapter Three, Get An Attitude, the practical advice begins. The power of working within gendered expectations and avoiding 'unladylike' attitudes is examined. Examples of being a bad girl abound, including when it comes to so-called women's work. This chapter asks readers to start thinking about saying no and being bad at housework - at home and work. Emphasising the need to keep your ambition quiet if you are female, the fourth chapter, Prepare a Secret Strategy, focuses on defining success on your own terms, setting priorities and goals, and taking action. It ups the ante on saying no more often and being very bad at housework and sets some challenges for people-pleasing women.The title of Chapter Five, Do More of What Counts and Less of What Doesn't, gives away its focus. The summary is: do more self-promotion and less housework, but there's a bit of nuance for academic women seeking promotion.The advice to Form a Support Squad in Chapter Six draws on women's talents in building relationships and suggests an unusual approach to this endeavour. Chapter Seven, Beating the Odds, brings it all home with some humour and a shampoo ad.

Renowned educator Arthur Levine and coauthor Jana Nidiffer explore how some people overcome the most desperate circumstances to achieve the seemingly unreachable goal of a college degree. Drawing on their own study of 24 students, the authors detail the factors--relationships, resources, and activities-- that made a difference and allowed these students to go as far as they did.