Taming Toxic People

"I didn't know how to deal with the poisonous and toxic people in my life or why they behaved the way they did, so I went looking for an answer. This book is what I found." Bestselling author David Gillespie turns his attention to a phenomenon that damages businesses, seeds mental disease and discomfort and can bring civilisations to the brink of implosion - the psychopath. Psychopaths are often thought of as killers and criminals, but actually five to ten per cent of people are probably psychopathic without ever indulging in a single criminal act. These everyday psychopaths may be charming in the early stages of relationships or employment but, Gillespie argues, their presence in your life is at best disruptive, and at worst highly dangerous: they will leave you feeling cheated and humiliated, dominating and manipulating you to the point where you question your sanity. Worse, he cautions, at a societal level their tendency to gravitate towards positions of power can be disastrous. Taming Toxic People is a practical guide to restraining that difficult person in your life, be it your boss, your spouse or a parent. But it is also a serious and meticulously researched warning: if we value a free and well-functioning society, we need to rebuild the sense of community that has historically kept the everyday psychopath in check, and we must understand and act to manage the psychopathic behaviour in our midst.

Bestselling author David Gillespie turns his attention to a phenomenon that damages businesses, seeds mental disease and discomfort and can bring civilisations to the brink of implosion - the psychopath. Psychopaths are often thought of as killers and rapists, but actually 5 to 10 per cent of people are probably psychopathic without being criminals. Emerging science suggests psychopaths don't have empathy: they don't respond to normal human situations in a normal human way. Although charming in the early stages of a relationship or employment, they will leave you feeling cheated and humiliated, will dominate and manipulate you, denying reality to the point where you question your sanity. Psychopaths derive power from creating chaos that renders the rest of us immobile with confusion and resentment. The everyday psychopath is at best disruptive, and at worst highly dangerous to your day-to-day life. At a societal level, their presence in powerful positions can be disastrous. Psychopaths have always been around, Gillespie argues, but were traditionally constrained by social disapproval. But as community-building institutions dissolve, so does our ability to use social tools to constrain the psychopaths among us. Taming Toxic People is a practical guide to restraining the difficult person in your life, be it your boss, your spouse or a parent. It is also a serious and meticulously researched warning if we value a free and well-functioning society: if we don't understand and act to manage psychopathic behaviour, Trump is only the beginning.

Psychopaths are often thought of as killers and rapists, but up to 10 per cent of people are probably psychopathic without being criminals. Science suggests psychopaths don't have empathy. Although charming in the early stages of a relationship or employment, they will leave you feeling cheated and humiliated, will dominate and manipulate you, denying reality to the point where you question your sanity. Psychopaths derive power from creating chaos that renders the rest of us immobile with confusion and resentment. The everyday psychopath is at best disruptive, and at worst highly dangerous to your day-to-day life. At a societal level, their presence in powerful positions can be disastrous. Psychopaths have always been around, Gillespie argues, but were traditionally constrained by social disapproval. But as community-building institutions dissolve, so does our ability to use social tools to constrain the psychopaths among us. Taming Toxic People is a practical guide to restraining the difficult person in your life, be it your boss, your spouse or a parent.

With their labile and rapidly developing brains, adolescents are particularly susceptible to addiction, and addiction leads to anxiety and depression. What few parents will know is that what we think of as the most typical addictions and problematic teen behaviours - smoking, drinking, drug taking, sex leading to teenage pregnancy - are on the decline. The bad news is that a whole raft of addictions has taken their place. Whereas once the dopamine-hungry brain of a teenager got its fix from smoking a joint or sculling a Bundy and coke, it is now turning to electronic devices for the pleasure jolt that typically comes from online playing games and engaging with social media. What is doubly troubling is that, unlike drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, electronic devices are not illicit. Quite the contrary. They are liberally distributed by schools and parents, with few restrictions placed on their use. And, to add fuel to the fire, emerging research shows that if addictive pathways are activated during the teen years, they are there for life, and that what starts as a screen addiction can lead to major substance abuse later in life.

Cure your sweet tooth with The Sweet Poison Quit Plan _________ Sugar is addictive and bad for us. We eat 2 pounds of added sugar a week - to counter-balance this keep the weight off you need to run 4.5 miles a day. When David Gillespie cut sugar from his diet he lost 6 stone - and it kept it off. His secret was discovering that we're not designed to consume sugar and that unless we cut it out, any exercising or dieting we do is, ultimately, doomed to failure. His approach is plain and simple: eat what you like, when you like, but don't eat sugar. The Sweet Poison Quit Plan teaches you: · How food manufacturers feed our addiction by adding sugar to non-sweet products · How to remove sugar from your diet and eliminate its lifestyle habits · How to interpret confusing labelling as you shop sugar-free · How to make delicious sugar-free treats, from ice cream to brownies Showing why we're addicted to sugar and packed with clear, easy-to-follow advice on how to break that addiction, David Gillespie's The Sweet Poison Quit Plan is the most straightforward and sustainable guide to losing weight and improving well-being you're ever likely to read. Start now!

Anxiety, depression and addiction are the scourge of modern-day living. How are they linked? How do we beat them? According to bestselling author and researcher David Gillespie, we are more addicted than ever before, which is playing havoc with our dopamine levels. This is fuelling epidemic-like levels of depression, anxiety and stress. Gillespie reveals a large and robust body of research that shows how addictive activities, such as screen use, sugar consumption, drinking, gambling, shopping and smoking, spike our dopamine levels. This, in turn, affects our brain's ability to regulate our mood. The good news is that we can break the cycle to make things better. There are myriad root causes of mental illness, many of which are beyond our control; David argues that it makes sense to tackle the thing that is within our control - our see-sawing dopamine levels. Packed with cutting-edge research and practical advice, David's latest book arms us with the tools we need to break our addictions, conquer uncertainty and reset our brains.

The bestselling author of Sweet Poison shows us how to get the better of an education system that is costing a fortune in fees, yet failing to deliver. David Gillespie has six kids. When it came time to select high schools, he thought it worth doing some investigation to assess the level of advantage his kids would enjoy if he spent the required $1.3 million to send them all to private schools. Shockingly, the answer was: none whatsoever. Intrigued, David continued his research, only to discover he was wrong on most counts - as are most parents - when it comes to working out what factors deliver a great education. He discovered that class size doesn't matter, your kids aren't any better off in co-ed than single-sex schools (and vice versa), composite classes are fine, fancy buildings are a waste of money, the old-tie network won't cut it in the new industries and NAPLAN is misread by everyone so is largely meaningless as a measure of quality. Taking on an ingrained and historical system of vested interests - the unions, the government, our own sense of worth, privilege and entitlement - this book is controversial and absolutely necessary. It is well researched, authoritative and accessible. It is a must-read for parents, as well as teachers and policy-makers.

Encore! Encore! Mega bestselling author Louise Rennison returns with the third book in the (Mis)Adventures of Tallulah Casey series. Tallulah, the budding star PW describes as "an effervescent protagonist who will keep fans laughing until the very end," is back for even more snogging and shenanigans! Tallulah Casey is back for another term at her performing arts school Dother Hall. And this time she's finally ready to show the world she's a true star of the stage! And out of the spotlight, Tallulah's life is filled with just as much drama. Last term she had an accidental snog-session with Cain Hinchcliff and she's been trying to keep it a secret ever since. But as she begins to think that maybe Cain isn't such a bad bloke after all, she can't stop herself from wondering about unavailable Charlie and dreamy Alex. Who exactly would make the perfect leading man?