Everyday Survival Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

The author of the bestselling "Deep Survival" once again turns to the cutting edge of science to illustrate how people can best use the lessons of evolutionary history to overcomes the hazards of everyday life.

“Well-written and fascinating . . . this is the kind of book you want everyone to read.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer “Curiosity, awareness, attention,” Laurence Gonzales writes. “Those are the tools of our everyday survival. . . . We all must be scientists at heart or be victims of forces that we don’t understand.” In this fascinating account, Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the blessings of evolution to overcome the hazards of everyday life. Everyday Survival will teach you to make the right choices for our complex, dangerous, and quickly changing world—whether you are climbing a mountain or the corporate ladder.

"Unique among survival books... stunning... enthralling. Deep Survival makes compelling, and chilling, reading."—Penelope Purdy, Denver Post In ?Deep Survival?, Laurence Gonzalez combines hard science and powerful storytelling to illustrate the mysteries of survival, whether in the wilderness or in meeting any of life's great challenges. This gripping narrative, the first book to describe the art and science of survival, will change the way you see the world. Everyone has a mountain to climb. Everyone has a wilderness inside.

You have survived the crisis—trauma, disease, accident, or war—now how do you get your life back? The shark attacked while she was snorkeling, tearing through Micki Glenn’s breast and shredding her right arm. Her husband, a surgeon, saved her life on the spot, but when she was safely home she couldn’t just go on with her life. She had entered an even more profound survival journey: the aftermath. The survival experience changes everything because it invalidates all your previous adaptations, and the old rules don’t apply. In some cases survivors suffer more in the aftermath than they did during the actual crisis. In all cases, they have to work hard to reinvent themselves. Drawing on gripping cases across a wide range of life-threatening experiences, Laurence Gonzales fashions a compelling argument about fear, courage, and the adaptability of the human spirit. Micki Glenn was later moved to say: “I don’t regret that this happened to me. [It] has been . . . probably the single most positive experience I’ve ever had.”

Real risk management is predicated on the eventuality of human erraticism and therefore necessitates the design of resilient systems, such as control measures, policies, procedures, processes, rules, checklists, and protocols, to protect organizations against unpredictability. However, these systems aren’t enough to prevent tragedies, they must be paired with an organizational culture that drives employee understanding, adherence, questioning, and enforcement of these systems. Success is conditioned on this interdependent relationship, meaning employees do the right thing, the right way every time, as they unequivocally support the underlying rationale of their organizational systems, mission, and purpose. This dynamic, inculcated way of thinking is intrinsic to high-reliability organizations and should be the aspiration of all executives, managers, and supervisors. Authors Gordon Graham and Paul Fuller impart a wide range of practical information on resilient systems- as these thoughtfully designed protocols, kept up-to-date and properly implemented, serve to minimize organizational risk in the water and wastewater industry. Features: Offers guidance for organizations to maximize service, enhance safety, and minimize liability. Presents fundamental background on risk, systems, risk management, as well as factors leading to industrial tragedies and how to avoid or mitigate them. Includes practical examples to demonstrate the necessary steps to transform a water facility into a highly reliable and safe organization. Centering on organizational risk management, Practitioner’s Handbook of Risk Management for Water & Wastewater Systems provides the investigative tools for risk assessments and risk/frequency matrixes to effectively recognize and prioritize the thousands of risks facing professionals working in the water and wastewater industry today.

"A richly detailed story that is equal parts heartbreaking, inspiring…and full of fascinating science…masterful." —San Francisco Chronicle As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived. No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, crew, and airport and rescue personnel, Laurence Gonzales, a commercial pilot himself, captures, minute by minute, the harrowing journey of pilots flying a plane with no controls and flight attendants keeping their calm in the face of certain death. He plumbs the hearts and minds of passengers as they pray, bargain with God, plot their strategies for survival, and sacrifice themselves to save others. Ultimately he takes us, step by step, through the gripping scientific detective work in super-secret labs to dive into the heart of a flaw smaller than a grain of rice that shows what brought the aircraft down. An unforgettable drama of the triumph of heroism over tragedy and human ingenuity over technological breakdown, Flight 232 is a masterpiece in the tradition of the greatest aviation stories ever told.

Over 100,000 Copies Sold Worldwide! 14th Annual Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year Explorers Lewis and Clark had to adapt. While they had prepared to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean, instead they found themselves in the Rocky Mountains. You too may feel that you are leading in a cultural context you were not expecting. You may even feel that your training holds you back more often than it carries you along. Drawing from his extensive experience as a pastor and consultant, Tod Bolsinger brings decades of expertise in guiding churches and organizations through uncharted territory. He offers a combination of illuminating insights and practical tools to help you reimagine what effective leadership looks like in our rapidly changing world. If you're going to scale the mountains of ministry, you need to leave behind canoes and find new navigational tools. Now expanded with a study guide, this book will set you on the right course to lead with confidence and courage.

Just days after publishing his first book on the theory of foolishness, Stephen Greenspan learned that he had been hoodwinked by Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, or more accurately the Madoff “feeder” fund he invested in. Greenspan published a featured essay on the topic in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks later, and that essay was widely cited and attracted great interest for Greenspan’s ideas about gullibility and in the United States and many other countries. Greenspan’s new book, The Anatomy of Foolishness, explains why and how individuals (of all ages and levels of intelligence) and organizations act in ways that undermine their interests and even their continued existence. He examines three types of foolishness, using vivid examples to illustrate each, including the many foolish actions of US President Donald Trump. Greenspan presents a multidimensional theory of foolishness that contributes to the literature on human competence, and this book is likely to attract broad interest in the fields of psychology, sociology, economics, political science, and psychiatry as well as among those members of the general public (basically everyone) who have acted foolishly or know someone who has acted in a way that went against their own interests.