Without Excuse

This is an account of the author's work with addicted clients and their codependent families in recovery from addiction, as well as an exploration of the excessive shame, guilt, fault, blame, and excuses that go along with it. What worked for them can surely apply to us all, even if our stories might not be quite as extreme. ?Tell me a story? is not just for children to say. Read these stories for yourself, and appreciate the wisdom and guidance that can come from practical application of truth that fits everyone's story. ?In the beginning was the Word, ? was said by the Apostle John, as the opening statement in his record of the Christ. ?In the beginning was the Story? would not be a bad translation either.

This book is about mastering Excuses. Excuses are weapons of defeat in life. This book is about responsibility and the mission. It is about identity and destiny. Part of the power of taking responsibility for your actions is that you silence the negative, unhelpful voice in your head. When you spend your thinking time on success and goal accomplishment, instead of on making excuses, you free up the emotional space formerly inhabited by negativity.

Almost everyone is guilty of playing the blame game. It’s satisfying and easy to do. If we despise our work, we can blame our manager or even our short-sighted organization for its inability to recognize our genius. If our personal lives are a disaster, we can blame our spouses, partners, the economy, or even our ancestors. We all know on some level that we are pointing our fingers in the wrong direction, but we just can’t seem to help ourselves. The No Excuse Guide to Success shows you how to abandon this unworkable routine and stop the destructive pattern of making excuses and blaming others—to stop whining and start winning. The No Excuse Guide to Success gives you the tools and techniques you need to: Make life-altering changes in how you approach your career and your life Stop blaming others and start believing in yourself Own your choices and break down self-created barriers to success Embrace uncertainty and stop being afraid to win

Every organization needs good leadership in order to win against the competition. Through his own personal story and those of nine other Rangers, Barber illuminates fundamental lessons about what it really takes to win. These first-person accounts of trial and triumph highlight the importance and the inherent truth of the Army’s most fundamental leadership principles: seeking and taking responsibility for your actions, and knowing yourself and seeking self-improvement. Adhering to those principles—and putting them at the core of your organization—will push you and your company to do more and do it better.

Black and Hispanic students are not learning enough in our public schools, and their typically poor performance is the most important source of ongoing racial inequality in America today—thus, say Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, the racial gap in school achievement is the nation's most critical civil rights issue and an educational crisis; it's no wonder that "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, made closing the racial gap in education its central goal. An employer hiring the typical Black high school graduate or the college that admits the average Black student is choosing a youngster who has only an eighth-grade education. In most subjects, the majority of twelfth-grade Black students do not have even a "partial mastery" of the skills and knowledge that the authoritative National Assessment of Educational Progress calls "fundamental for proficient work" at their grade. No Excuses marshals facts to examine the depth of the problem, the inadequacy of conventional explanations, and the limited impact of Title I, Head Start, and other familiar reforms. Its message, however, is one of hope: Scattered across the country are excellent schools getting terrific results with high-needs kids. These rare schools share a distinctive vision of what great schooling looks like and are free of many of the constraints that compromise education in traditional public schools. In a society that espouses equal opportunity we still have a racially identifiable group of educational have-nots—young African Americans and Latinos whose opportunities in life will almost inevitably be limited by their inadequate education. When students leave high school without high school skills, their futures—and that of the nation—are in jeopardy. With successful schools already showing the way, no decent society can continue to turn a blind eye to such racial and ethnic inequality.