After accomplishing her own successful weight loss journey, financial planner Shannon McLay realized that while there are a number of resources available to people who want to become physically fit, there are far fewer for those looking to become financially fit. Many personal finance books tend to put the cart before the horse when it comes to financial planning, prompting McLay to ask, “How can you discuss retirement or investment options, when you don’t have any money to begin with?" Most people don’t even know what financial fitness looks like, let alone how to achieve it. We can measure and weigh ourselves to quantify physical health, but how do we evaluate our financial health? McLay, an advisor who works with individuals everyday on their financial health, has created an innovative quiz to help you learn whether you’re “financially skinny,” financially fat,” or “financially fit.” From there, she provides exercises and advice to help you achieve, or sustain, a financially fit lifestyle. As with physical health and fitness, financial fitness is a goal that anyone can achieve. The journey is very similar: you need a plan and the right tools to accomplish your goals. This book will give you the resources you need along your journey to financial fitness, all you have to do is follow it just like any other training.

Over 60 billion online messages are sent on digital platforms every day, and only a select few succeed in the mad scramble for customer attention. This means that the question for anyone who wants to gain mass exposure for their transformative content, business, or brand or connect with audiences around the globe is no longer if they should use social media but how to best take advantage of the numerous different platforms. How can you make a significant impact in the digital world and stand out among all the noise? Digital strategist and "growth hacker" Brendan Kane has the answer and will show you how—in 30 days or less. A wizard of the social media sphere, Kane has built online platforms for A-listers including Taylor Swift and Rihanna. He's advised brands such as MTV, Skechers, Vice and IKEA on how to establish and grow their digital audience and engagement. Kane has spent his career discovering the best tools to turn any no-name into a top influencer simply by speaking into a camera or publishing a popular blog—and now he'll share his secrets with you. In One Million Followers, Kane will teach you how to gain an authentic, dedicated, and diverse online following from scratch; create personal, unique, and valuable content that will engage your core audience; and build a multi-media brand through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. Featuring in-depth interviews with celebrities, influencers, and marketing experts, including: • Chris Barton, cofounder and board director of Shazam and former head of Android business development for Google • Ray Chan, CEO and cofounder of 9GAG • Julius Dein, internet personality and magician with nearly 16 million Facebook followers • Mike Jurkovac, Emmy Award–winner and creative director of will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas • Phil Ranta, former COO of Studio71 and VP of network at Fullscreen • Eamonn Carey, managing director at Techstars London • Jonathan Skogmo, founder and CEO of Jukin Media, Inc. • Jon Jashni, founder of Raintree Ventures and former president and chief creative officer of Legendary Entertainment One Million Followers is the ultimate guide to building your worldwide brand and unlocking all the benefits social media has to offer. It's time to stop being a follower and start being a leader.

The books that we choose to keep -- let alone read -- can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In My Ideal Bookshelf, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. Contributors include Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Keller, Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Maira Kalman, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Miranda July, Alex Ross, Nancy Pearl, David Chang, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Dave Eggers, among many others. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first-person commentary from all the contributors, this is a perfect gift for avid readers, writers, and all who have known the influence of a great book.

“The discourse of our common life inclines towards despair. In my field of journalism, where we presume to write the first draft of history, we summon our deepest critical capacities for investigating what is inadequate, corrupt, catastrophic, and failing. The ‘news’ is defined as the extraordinary events of the day, but it is most often translated as the extraordinarily terrible events of the day. And in an immersive 24/7 news cycle, we internalize the deluge of bad news as the norm—the real truth of who we are and what we’re up against as a species. But my work has shown me that spiritual geniuses of the everyday are everywhere. They are in the margins and do not have publicists. They are below the radar, which is broken.” Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says – definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century – of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

Jane is a young New York woman who can never seem to find the right man-perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, however, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined. Is this total immersion in a fake Austenland enough to make Jane kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?In this addictive, charming and compassionate story, Shannon Hale brings out the Jane Austen obsessive in all of us.

After Laura Everett's car died on the highway one rainy night, she made the utterly practical decision to start riding her bicycle to work through the streets of Boston. Seven years later, she's never looked back. Holy Spokes tells the story of Everett's unlikely conversion to urban cycling. As she pedaled her way into a new way of life, Everett discovered that her year-round bicycle commuting wasn't just benefiting her body, her wallet, and her environment. It was enriching her soul. Ride along with Everett through Holy Spokes as she explores the history of cycling, makes friends with a diverse and joyful community of fellow cyclists, gets up close and personal with the city she loves--and begins to develop a deep, robust, and distinctly urban spirituality.

This title provides a group portrait of some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan.

When Jules and Gypsy find themselves at a crossroad in their respective lives, synchronicity begins to develop. An old premonition and a gypsy reading draws Jules into a relationship she could never have imagined, while Gypsy uses the opportunity to take on a dream she had not thought possible - to leave her life behind even at a tremendous risk to her life. Both had a lot to lose, but as it turns out, much more to gain. Although they hail from two very different backgrounds, both economically and socially, there is a tie that binds them together; womanhood and all it entails. While on a quest and while travelling to distant lands, they discover a friendship neither fathomed. An alliance forms, despite the odds. Their commonalities surface above all else as they bond, laugh, cry and discover the answers to questions they had not thought of asking. From the east coast of the USA, to Iraq, Turkey, England and Jordan, the whirlwind of adventure, fun and heartbreak never stop.

WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER • The Soulful Art of Persuasion is a revolutionary guide to becoming a master influencer in an age of distrust through the cultivation of character-building habits that are essential to both personal growth and sustained business success. This isn’t a book full of tips and life-hacks. Instead, The Soulful Art of Persuasion will develop the habits that others want to be influenced by. This book is based on a radical idea: Persuasion isn’t about facts and argument. It’s all about personal character. Jason Harris, CEO of the powerhouse creative agency Mekanism, argues that genuine persuasion in the twenty-first century is about developing character rather than relying on the easy tactics of flattery, manipulation, and short-term gains. It is about engaging rather than insisting; it is about developing empathy and communicating your values. Based on his experience in and out of the boardroom, and drawing on the latest in-depth research on trust, influence, and habit formation, Harris shows that being persuasive in a culture plagued by deception means rejecting the ethos of the quick and embracing the commitment of putting your truest self forward and playing the long game.

A story of childhood dreams and adventures, and of the parental love that in seeing you, nourishes you to become yourself.