Stories
Stories
Edited by Margie Kelley

The Happiness Handbook
By Landon Carter (MBA 1967)
Marshall and McClintic Publishing
Have you ever wished you had the instruction manual for being a happy human on planet Earth? This book will answer some of life’s fundamental questions: Who am I really? How do I clear up my dysfunctional patterns from the past? How can I live more fully in the present? How do I create my desired future? Author Landon Carter shares his experience of what works in his more than 50 years of being on the path, and what has worked for many of the 70,000 people he has trained and coached over that time.

Art as an Asset in the 21st Century
By David Kusin (MBA 1979)
Independently Published
In this book, author David Kusin describes the bedrock institutions within the global art sector, including suppositions and biases that lack modern evidence and empirical support, but remain central to the underlying belief structure. Kusin uses a broad range of analytic tools enhanced and supplemented by 20 years of data collection, polling, and anecdotes from the highest level of access to deconstruct what actually exists.

The Compound Code: An Expert Guide to Trading Stocks and Options
By Scott Kyle (MBA 1993) and Patrick Fischer
LIV MAS Press
The Compound Code reveals insider secrets, effective tools, and strategies you need to manage your investments in good times and bad. In this straightforward and accessible guide, authors Scott Kyle and Patrick Fischer examine the art and science of smart investing, showing you how to profit from the power of compounding using stocks, dividends, and options in your investment portfolio. The Compound Code is a must-read for any investor seeking to avoid mistakes and implement systems on the road to superior investment returns.

Just Don’t Lose the Marbles! Better Aging Through Neuroscience
By James Lyon (MBA 1975)
Independently Published
According to the World Health Organization, the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years old will almost double from approximately 12 to 22 percent between 2015 and 2050, with the absolute numbers increasing from 605 million to two billion. This book is dedicated to the proposition that a basic understanding of what happens when the brain ages can improve quality of life for individuals as well as benefit society as a whole.

The Spiritual Art of Business: Connecting the Daily with the Divine
By Barry Rowan (MBA 1983)
IVP
We want the thousands of hours we will work over our lifetime to matter. But how do we know they’re really significant? How do we go from being defined by what we do to having our work become an expression of who we are? There is not a quick fix but a progressive solution. It begins with surrendering our whole lives and then every moment of our lives to God. In The Spiritual Art of Business, Rowan invites us to be transformed by God that he might transform the world through us as we begin to see our work as an extension of our faith. He says, “We don’t derive meaning from our work; we bring meaning to our work.” Relating his extensive past in high-ranking executive roles, Rowan offers the reader the opportunity to ponder new perspectives and see business as a chance to serve God by contributing to a better society.

Know What Matters: Lessons From a Lifetime of Transformations
By Ron Shaich (MBA 1978)
Harvard Business Review Press
Ron Shaich is a business visionary who has been part of building three iconic restaurant brands: Au Bon Pain, Panera Bread, and now Cava. Along the way, he developed “fast casual,” a $100 billion–plus segment of the industry. In Know What Matters, Shaich reveals what he learned about entrepreneurship, running large enterprises, business transformation, and life itself. He illustrates these lessons with his experiences turning a 400-square-foot cookie store into 2,400 restaurants with $5 billion in revenue, delivering annual investor returns of 25 percent over two decades, and outperforming both Starbucks and Chipotle. How did Shaich succeed repeatedly in such a notoriously tough industry? By discovering today what will matter tomorrow and never hesitating to undertake sweeping transformations in order to get the job done. Shaich offers clear-headed lessons for the entire life cycle of an enterprise, from bootstrapping a startup to going public to managing large companies to selling a business. And the relevance of his message doesn’t end in the boardroom. He challenges readers to grapple with how the business impacts life, sharing his own struggles and setbacks with as much candor as he describes his successes. Telling yourself the truth, knowing what really matters, and getting it done is the path to creating and sustaining a meaningful life, a market-leading business, and even a healthier society.

Quantum Untangling
By Simon Sherwood (MBA 1986)
Wiley
Quantum Untangling introduces readers to the fascinating and strange realm of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. It is written in an accessible manner while not shying away from using mathematics where necessary. The book conveys basic and more intricate concepts such as wave-particle duality, wave functions, the superposition principle, quantum tunneling, the quantum harmonic oscillator, the Dirac equation, and Feynman diagrams. It also covers the physics of the Higgs boson and provides a glimpse into string theory and loop quantum gravity. Overall, the author introduces complex concepts of quantum mechanics in an accessible and fun-to-read style while laying the groundwork for mastering an advanced level of treatment in standard quantum mechanics textbooks and university courses. With Quantum Untangling, any reader with a good grasp of and an above-average interest in mathematics at advanced high-school level can follow the presentation and acquaint themselves with the fundamental and advanced topics of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, making it a helpful resource for many students.

MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your “Enough”
By Manisha Thakor (MBA 1997)
Harper Business
No matter your age, income, or profession, it’s all too easy to fall prey to the false belief that the amount of money you earn, or accomplishments you achieve, or praise you receive is just never enough. In MoneyZen, financial industry veteran Manisha Thakor candidly shares how she overcame toxic behaviors around work, money, and prestige that had threatened her relationships, her health, and her career. She then shares the inspiring stories of individuals from all walks of life who reveal their own struggles with “never enough.” Through Thakor’s interviews with a wide range of interdisciplinary experts, you’ll learn how personal traumas, cultural influences, societal pressures, and even our own biology have conspired to make us believe that “more” is the answer to all our problems. And you’ll discover a unique way to reclaim your life using a formula that’s ultimately rooted in less: Financial Health + Emotional Wealth = MoneyZen. The result is a powerful, research-based framework for getting off the hamster wheel of 24/7 striving so you can start to live a life fueled by authentic joy, connection, and meaning.

Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier
By Arthur C. Brooks, Professor of Business Practice at Harvard Business School, and Oprah Winfrey
Portfolio Books
In Build the Life You Want, Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey invite you to begin a journey toward greater happiness no matter how challenging your circumstances. Drawing on cutting-edge science and their years of helping people translate ideas into action, they show you how to improve your life right now instead of waiting for the outside world to change. With insight, compassion, and hope, Brooks and Winfrey reveal how the tools of emotional self-management can change your life―immediately. They recommend practical, research-based practices to build the four pillars of happiness: family, friendship, work, and faith. And along the way, they share hard-earned wisdom from their own lives and careers as well as the witness of regular people whose lives are joyful despite setbacks and hardship. Equipped with the tools of emotional self-management and ready to build your four pillars, you can take control of your present and future rather than hoping and waiting for your circumstances to improve.

Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
By Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School
Atria Books
We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. After decades of award-winning research, Amy Edmondson upends our understanding of failure and makes it work for us. In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson provides the framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely. Outlining the three archetypes of failure—basic, complex, and intelligent—she showcases how to minimize unproductive failure while maximizing what we gain from flubs of all stripes. She illustrates how we and our organizations can embrace our human fallibility, learn exactly when failure is our friend, and prevent most of it when it is not. This is the key to pursuing smart risks and preventing avoidable harm. With vivid, real-life stories from business, pop culture, history, and more, Edmondson gives us specifically tailored practices, skills, and mindsets to help us replace shame and blame with curiosity, vulnerability, and personal growth. You’ll never look at failure the same way again.

Suharto’s Cold War: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the World
By Mattias Fibiger, Assistant Professor of Business, Government and International Economy at Harvard Business School
Oxford University Press
After the murder of senior generals in the Indonesian army by elements of the country’s communist party in 1965, General Suharto orchestrated the mass killing of some half a million leftists and fellow travelers. But his ambitions spanned far beyond perpetrating a politicide. Seeking to ensure that communism could never again take root in the archipelago, he constructed a New Order to reverse Indonesia’s descent into political instability and economic crisis. Based on unprecedented access to Indonesian archives and a wealth of international sources, Suharto’s Cold War narrates the first decades of the Suharto regime at the national, regional, and global levels. Suharto mobilized international aid and investment to build his counterrevolutionary dictatorship and ignite processes of economic development. He then aimed to project authoritarianism elsewhere in Southeast Asia by assisting right-wing dictators across the region. International capital made available through the global Cold War enabled Suharto to achieve the dictatorial and developmental ambitions that lay at the heart of his domestic and regional Cold Wars. Paying close attention to the interrelationship between the domestic and the international, the political and the economic, Suharto’s Cold War makes a pathbreaking contribution to understanding Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the world.

Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems
By Frances Frei, Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School and Anne Morriss (MBA 2004)
Harvard Business Review Press
Speed has gotten a bad name in business, much of it deserved. When Facebook made “Move fast and break things” an informal company motto, it fueled a widely held belief that we can either make progress or take care of people—one or the other. That a certain amount of wreckage is the price we have to pay for inventing the future. Leadership experts Frances Frei and Anne Morriss argue that this belief is deeply flawed and that it keeps you from building a great company. Helping executives and entrepreneurs solve their toughest problems over the past decade, Frei and Morriss learned that the trade-off between speed and excellence is false. The best leaders solve hard problems with fierce urgency while making their organizations even stronger. They move fast and fix things. Based on their work with fast-moving companies such as Uber, Riot Games, and WeWork, Frei and Morriss reveal the five essential steps to moving fast and fixing things. You’ll learn to: Identify the real problem holding you back; build and rebuild trust in your company; create a culture where everyone can thrive; communicate powerfully as a leader; and go fast by empowering your team. With a one-week plan to fix your problems on a fast cycle time of one step per day, this book is your guide to maximizing impact and reinventing your approach to change. By the end of the week, you won’t just have a road map for solving your company’s toughest problems—you’ll already be well on your way, improving your company at exhilarating speed.
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