The You Factor

Have you ever felt trapped in your life, at home or at work? You're stuck. You're probably complaining, blaming the world around you. Chances are you were saying the same things five years ago. If you don't change, you'll be saying the same thing five years from now. In her new book, Leslie Strong offers this blunt advice: It's not about them; it's about you. You have to take 100% responsibility for your life and how you react to what happens around you. When you do, you'll gain the power to create a life that will make you happier, more successful, and more fulfilled.Her book does for self-empowerment and motivation what You: An Owner's Manual did for our understanding of the physical body, The YOU Factor marries the tenets of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project with the practical business advice of Steven Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Not since What Color Is Your Parachute has a book offered such a wealth of good, practical advice for a workforce in transition. The YOU Factor breaks down the victim mentality and gives readers some much-needed handholding on the path to personal fulfillment. It appeals to a wide audience: For anyone who is stuck, dealing with a job loss, transition, or a personal or career crisis, Leslie Strong's Power Tools are as relevant for stay-at-home moms as they are for CEOs.

The harder the work, the greater the reward. . . .Right?As men, the lack of self-care and the societal pressures to perform to the point of burnout affect us across the board, and these issues are slowly, quietly killing us.

There are hundreds of exhibits in the investment "factor zoo." Which ones are actually worth your time, and your money? Andrew L. Berkin and Larry E. Swedroe, co-authors of The Incredible Shrinking Alpha, bring you a thorough yet still jargon-free and accessible guide to applying one of today's most valuable quantitative, evidence-based approaches to outperforming the market: factor investing. Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors alike, Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing: The Way Smart Money Invests Today takes you on a journey through the land of academic research and an extensive review of its 50-year quest to uncover the secret of successful investing. Along the way, Berkin and Swedroe cite and distill more than 100 academic papers on finance and introduce five unique criteria that a factor (at its most basic, a characteristic or set of characteristics common among a broad set of securities) must meet to be considered worthy of your investment. In addition to providing explanatory power to portfolio returns and delivering a premium, Swedroe and Berkin argue a factor should be persistent, pervasive, robust, investable and intuitive. By the end, you'll have learned that, within the entire "factor zoo," only certain exhibits are worth visiting and only a handful of factors are required to invest in the same manner that made Warren Buffett a legend. Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing: The Way Smart Money Invests Today offers an in-depth look at the evidence practitioners use to build portfolios and how you as an investor can benefit from that knowledge, rendering it an essential resource for making the informed and prudent investment decisions necessary to help secure your financial future.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true story of a seemingly ordinary mail carrier whose approach to work and life has the power to transform the everyday into the extraordinary “This beloved business classic has inspired millions of people over the years, and today Mark Sanborn’s transformative insights are more timely and necessary than ever.”—Jon Gordon, author of The Energy Bus and co-author of The Coffee Bean Meet Fred. In this small yet powerful book, Mark Sanborn, member of the Speaker Hall of Fame, recounts the story of a USPS carrier who introduced himself one day shortly after Sanborn had moved to a new home in Denver. Fred, however, was no average mailman. As Sanborn came to discover, Fred was the kind of worker who exemplifies everything “right” with customer service. Did people want packages left on the porch or prefer a notice to pick them up at the post office? Fred made sure he knew the answer. When another delivery service left a package at the wrong house, Fred shepherded it safely to the intended recipient. Others might have seen delivering mail as less-than-glamorous work, but Fred seized the chance to find meaning in the mundane, competing with himself every day to find opportunities to make his customers smile. We’ve all encountered people like Fred. In this deeply inspiring book, Sanborn illuminates the four basic principles anyone can use to bring fresh energy and creativity to our work and life: how to make a tangible difference every day, build stronger relationships, create real value for others without spending a penny, and constantly reinvent yourself.

The “H” in the H factor stands for “Honesty-Humility,” one of the six basic dimensions of the human personality. People who have high levels of H are sincere and modest; people who have low levels are deceitful and pretentious. It isn’t intuitively obvious that traits of honesty and humility go hand in hand, and until very recently the H factor hadn’t been recognized as a basic dimension of personality. But scientific evidence shows that traits of honesty and humility form a unified group of personality traits, separate from those of the other five groups identified several decades ago. This book, written by the discoverers of the H factor, explores the scientific findings that show the importance of this personality dimension in various aspects of people’s lives: their approaches to money, power, and sex; their inclination to commit crimes or obey the law; their attitudes about society, politics, and religion; and their choice of friends and spouse. Finally, the book provides ways of identifying people who are low in the H factor, as well as advice on how to raise one’s own level of H.

“An excellent idea for a book. . . . Next time I spend more than $40 on an article of clothing, I’ll run it by Linett first.” —The New York Times Book Review In a culture where trends are born and die every minute, maintaining style and effortlessness at every age requires that little extra something—the cool factor. Being “cool” isn’t about chasing trends or defying age but about following a few key guidelines. Yes, the cool factor is a skill that can be learned! In this photo-packed guide, Andrea Linett, a famed personal stylist and founding creative director of Lucky magazine, offers easy-to-implement, actionable tips that will change the way women dress. The tips are modeled by real-life style icons like Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and Christene Barberich, founder of Refinery29, as Andrea highlights the ingenious ways in which they skillfully pile on layers, or dress up denim for work or a party. The book is organized into chapters that include wardrobe classics, denim, leather, suits, dressing up, and accessories, and features style hacks that turn an outfit into a masterpiece (choosing shoes that instantly slim you, combining tough and feminine pieces, and accessorizing a day-to-night look). Packed with useful lists and examples, this guide is the would-be stylish woman’s best friend.

Learn how to get everything you want with this motivational book from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Anything is possible...if you dare to ask! Personal happiness. Creative fulfillment. Professional success. Freedom from fear—and a new promise of joy that's yours for the asking. We have the ability at our fingertips to achieve these things. It's the Aladdin Factor: the magical wellspring of confidence, desire—and the willingness to ask—that allows us to make wishes come true. Now bestselling motivational authors Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen introduce us to the Aladdin Factor—and help us put it into effect in our own lives. The Aladdin Factor helps us by pinpointing the major stumbling blocks to asking—and teaching simple techniques to overcome them. With inspirational stories about people who have succeeded by asking for what they want, this book shows us how to turn our lives around—no matter what kind of obstacles we face. And with this knowledge, we can reap the riches of a truly well-lived life—a treasure that comes not from an enchanted lamp, but from the heart.

Since the industrial revolution, progress has meant an increase in labour productivity. Factor Four describes a new form of progress, resource productivity, a form which meets the overriding imperative for the future (sustainability). It shows how at least four times as much wealth can be extracted from the resources we use. As the authors put it, the book is about doing more with less, but this is not the same as doing less, doing worse or doing without. In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, which sent shock waves around the world by arguing that we were rapidly running out of essential resources. This Report to the Club of Rome offers a solution. It lies in using resources more efficiently, in ways which can already be achieved, not at a cost, but at a profit. The book contains a wealth of examples of revolutionizing productivity, in the use of energy; from hypercars to low-energy beef; materials, from sub-surface drip irrigation to electronic books, transport, video conferencing to CyberTran, and demonstrating how much more could be generated from much less today. It explains how markets can be organized and taxes re-based to eliminate perverse incentives and reward efficiency, so wealth can grow while consumption does not. The benefits are enormous: profits will increase, pollution and waste will decrease and the quality of life will improve. Moreover, the benefits will be shared: progress will no longer depend on making ever fewer people more productive. Instead, more people and fewer resources can be employed. While for many developing countries the efficiency revolution may offer the only realistic chance of prosperity within a reasonable time span. The practical promise held out in this book is huge, but the authors show how it is up to each of us, as well as to businesses and governments, to make it happen.