Self-Development Audiobooks

Become a Writing Hero A creative writing mentor in inspirational book form. Imagine having your own personal mentor―someone encouraging yet honest, supportive yet empowering, who could help you set and achieve your goals, turn your moments of doubt and fear into sources of strength, and discover what you’re truly capable of when you’re at your best. Kendra Levin is that mentor. And with The Hero is You , she’s here to help you do the best writing of your life―and live your best life while doing it. A motivational self-care book for writing aficionados. Using a fresh new approach to Joseph Campbell’s archetypal Hero’s Journey, Levin reveals how to be a hero in the narrative of your own process. She weaves together wisdom drawn from her years as a life coach for writers and an editor at the world’s biggest publishing house with behind-the-scenes stories from a panoply of best-selling authors and career entertainers. With over thirty exercises designed to help you reinvent your creative process from the inside out, this book will show you how to: Identify your biggest challenges and render them powerless Start a project that you love―and stick with it Design a structure for writing regularly Great motivational book for anyone dealing with writer's block or other writing obstacles. Whether you’re a first-time writer with a brand-new project or a seasoned pro, you’ll reach the end of this book feeling fulfilled, inspired, and ready to mentor the next writer on their creative journey. Readers of self-help books and personal development books for writers and creatives like The Artist's Way , Bird by Bird , The Artist's Way Workbook , and Big Magic will be inspired and encouraged by The Hero is You .

A clear and utterly practical ninety-day program for discovering a new direction for your life—now completely revised and updated by the author! In Now What? pioneering life coach Laura Berman Fortgang shares the process that she has used to help hundreds of clients make major changes in their lives. Whether it’s moving on from a dead-end job, discovering an entirely new creative outlet, or answering the age-old question “What am I meant to do with my life?” this book provides a clear and practical ninety-day program that can help you make major changes in your life. This revised edition valuable insights into how to stoke change, including: Ten years of additional client experience; Reports from 500 coaches worldwide who have trained to use this material with clients; New stories and modern-day dilemmas addressed; QR codes and additional interactive materials. For anyone who feels drawn toward a life-changing move but is not sure exactly what to do or how to move forward, Now What? presents a concrete process for finding and pursuing a new path in life.

“It’s like the meanest, wildest monkey running around my head, constantly looking for ways to bite me.” That was how Kirsten Pagacz described her OCD to her therapist on their first session when she was well into her 30s she’d been following orders from this mean taskmaster for 20 years, without understanding why. Initially the tapping and counting and cleaning and ordering brought her comfort and structure, two things lacking in her family life. But it never lasted; the loathsome self-talk only intensified, and the rituals she had to perform got more bizarre. By high school she was anorexic and a substance abuser, common "shadow syndromes" of OCD. By adulthood, she could barely hide her problems and held on to jobs and friends through sheer grit. Help finally came in the form of a miraculously well-timed public service announcement on NPR about OCD -- at last her illness had an identity. Leaving the OCD Circus reveals the story of Pagacz’s traumatic childhood and the escalation of her disorder demonstrating how OCD works to misshape a life from a very young age and explains the various tools she used for healing including meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, exposure therapy, and medication.

Neuroscientists estimate that over 90 percent of our operating systems—beliefs, behaviors, patterns—are unconscious. Since the surface story determines less than 10 percent of our decisions, how can we illuminate the shadow story responsible for over 90 percent of what we do each day? Once we systematically understand our relationship with money, can we overcome the mind and brain’s resistance to change? Especially when so many of the current popular strategies for change are contrary to the way the mind and brain work? Each money story line contains unspoken assumptions, emotional agendas, and unconscious meanings. Money becomes a portal to the immaterial and the intangible, a Rorschach onto which we project our needs and hopes. Your New Money Story: The Beliefs, Behaviors, and Brain Science to Rewire for Wealth combines twenty-five years of psychiatric and psychoanalytic practice and over a dozen years of professional and executive mentor coaching with groundbreaking research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to show readers how to recognize money behaviors ghostwritten by hidden assumptions, overcome the brain’s patterned responses that lead to bad decisions, harness the power of regulating states of mind, develop the art and neuroscience of money strategies, and identify and remedy emotionally based money mistakes and financial fallacies. The ROADMAP System deconstructs the process of understanding a money story to systematically construct a new one to write new mind software and rewire the brain for wealth. YOUR NEW MONEY STORY The Beliefs, Behaviors, and Brain Science to Rewire for Wealth David Krueger, Read by Edward Bauer • Unabridged • AUGUST 2019 Vibrance Press • Digital Download Narrator Edward Bauer sounds like a friendly college instructor who wants to spare you the anguish you've had trying to get your financial life in order. He has a wonderful phrasing palette, smooth and natural sounding, and what stands out is how he finesses the author's desire to help: He's assertive enough with the direct advice and many lists offered by the psychiatrist/business-coach, but he keeps enough distance from his listeners to convey respect for their autonomy. They can take this advice or leave it. This vocal attitude is important with a lesson like this, which is psychologically invasive with its pointed assumption that all financial mismanagement begins with limiting psychological beliefs. This is effective audio advice on how to overcome those beliefs with brighter expectations, concrete strategies, and discipline. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

“When you FIND and LIVE your purpose, you discover the essence of your existence and why you are here. This will transform your life forever.”—Karen Hoyos PURPOSE: The Ultimate Quest , is designed to uncover the answers to life’s most important questions: Who am I, and why am I here? Once you know who you really are, and what your purpose is, you can travel beyond the labels in your mind and surrender to fulfill your destiny. PURPOSE features stories of Karen Hoyos’ personal challenges and victories, as well as those of her coaching clients and seminar participants. It also includes “ do now ” exercises that will transform your life immediately. Be ready to delve into your essence as you laugh, cry, become inspired, and have fun with Karen’s refreshing wit and profound wisdom. Above all, this is a book of transformation. Within these pages, you will uncover access to a new life of happiness, health, and abundance. “Karen Hoyos is a true example of success: From coming to the US with nothing, to building a multimillion dollar company, all through helping people to fulfill their purpose! The best part is that this book will show you HOW!” — Bill Walsh, America’s Business Expert “Karen’s transformational book will empower you to live your legacy and make powerful contributions to the world!” — Liz Stern, Legacy Expert, Globetrotter of 95 Countries “PURPOSE will elevate your consciousness and transform your personal and financial life forever.” — Rocio and Alfonso Martinez, Real Estate Investors

Change The World By Changing Yourself Find answers: Today, it’s easy to get outraged by world events, frustrated by our own personal battles, and disenfranchised from government and leadership. Born of moral indignation, informed by decades of study, and seasoned by a life of devoted self-cultivation, Monk Yun Rou’s Mad Monk Manifesto has the answers we’re looking for, organically cohering personal prescriptions and calls to social and political action in one powerful document. Discover venerated wisdom: Based on ancient Chinese wisdom such as Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching , Mad Monk Manifesto is part tour guide to consciousness, part recipe for personal development, part prescription for environmental salvation, and part handbook for social change. In approximately 70,000 words, the book’s six chapters (framed by an introduction and afterward) follow the traditional Taoist prescription for changing the larger world by changing ourselves first. Improve yourself―and the world: In the same way ripples move away from a stone dropped into a pond, Mad Monk Manifesto begins with our personal lives, discussing topics such as diet, exercise, meditation, and mind/body practice, and spreads to our public environment, describing ideas such as what we can do to improve the community, the government, and the world. Full of everything from advice for a healthy, conscious lifestyle to suggested actions we can take to enhance the lives of friends, family, coworkers, and community members, Mad Monk Manifesto highlights spirituality and service, the goals of an awakened life. Learn something new: Each chapter of Mad Monk Manifesto is creative and fresh, offering proactive solutions in single-paragraph exhortations and prescriptions against a backdrop of lessons from Chinese history, the wisdom of ancient sages like Lao Tzu, and stories born of author Monk Yun Rou's journey from privileged Manhattanite to practicing Taoist monk. Inspirational and informative, exhortative and prescriptive, this modern Alan Watts creates a complete and immersive experience for everyone who picks up his Mad Monk Manifesto ―a portrayal of everything from the mundane to the sublime through the lens of the philosophy best known from George Lucas’ Star Wars saga, the Green Movement, and surf and hippie cultures. Emerge with a new way of seeing life, a series of concrete steps to take for personal transformation, and an action plan for working in the community to provoke change. Mad Monk Manifesto is precisely what the world needs at a time of unprecedented environmental disasters, international instability, and divisive and unreliable leadership. After reading this book, you will learn: How to relax, rectify, and rebalance life How to bolster the community and deepen culture How to effect positive change in commerce, government, power, and the environment For readers of Alan Watts, Ursula Le Guin, and Change Your Thoughts―Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Blending Families responds to the need for a book that explores step-parenting by starting with the marriage as the central relationship in a new blended family unit. Just as you are better able to help your child in an airplane emergency if you put your oxygen mask on first, you are better able to blend two families if you take care of the marriage first. Starting with a discussion of attachment styles, the authors explore how those styles translate into the new family unit when trying to forge a new marriage while parenting tween and teen children in a family unit that is new to them as well. They provide parenting guidance premised on the fact that parenting occurs within a context, and in this case, a context that is unfamiliar territory for everyone involved. Using true stories throughout, they explore the variety of challenges that may arise, such as sibling rivalry, puberty, dating, emotional and intellectual differences, and preferential treatment, and offer suggestions for overcoming obstacles to fully blending. By focusing the light on the marriage as the most important source of stability, the authors encourage readers to develop a style of parenting that works for everyone and brings a sense of unity and strength to the household.

A clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral medicine presents a dozen practical approaches to transforming loss, pain, and suffering into positive growth and hope. Just as some flowers only bloom in the dark, so too, some people only grow by experiencing tough times. Each chapter explains an empirically based principle for handling adversity, followed by writing prompts designed to help readers experience the axiom personally. Tools such as self-reflection, meaning-making, narrative creation, benefit-finding, and inspired value-based action help readers move through their trauma toward a new exuberance for life.

Have you ever spent 10 minutes looking for your reading glasses, and they were on the top of your head? Or, have you walked into a room and forgotten why you went there? Where are your car keys? What’s normal aging? When should you be concerned? Is there anything you can do to maintain your brain health as you age? This book provides useful, achievable actions you can take, accurate information about identifying problems, and real solutions. Our team offers anecdotes and scientifically validated information -- important tools in separating myth from reality. Our book is different from others on the market because our information and recommendations are based on scientifically validated, peer-reviewed studies published in reputable journals by world-renowned researchers in the neuroscience field, including our authors. We separate fact from fiction to ensure that our recommendations are practical, useful, achievable, and measurable. Our authors are recognized experts in the field of aging, cognition, and brain health. Most of the competition is not. Written by a world-renowned cognitive specialist, an extraordinary housecall physician, and an award-winning author on eldercare issues – all of whom specialize in caring for those with cognitive impairment -- this book is based on our expertise, practical experience, and peer-reviewed research. In addition to providing scientifically validated information and practical advice, our book separates myth from reality. Brain health, cognitive impairment, and mood disorders are serious issues. With the Baby Boomer market growing older and growing concerned about their and their parents’ brain health, the marketplace has attracted frauds, charlatans, and some well-meaning but poorly informed people who offer unproven and often dangerous products. Our authors are recognized experts, our practical experience is solid, and our science is peer-reviewed and validated.

Prior to 1990, fewer than five percent of domestic infant adoptions were open. In 2012, ninety percent or more of adoption agencies are recommending open adoption. Yet these agencies do not often or adequately prepare either adopting parents or birth parents for the road ahead of them! The adult parties in open adoptions are left floundering. There are many resources on why to do open adoption, but what about how? Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers readers the tools and the insight to do just that. It covers common open-adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully. Like all useful parenting books, it provides parents with the tools to come to answers on their own, and answers questions that might not yet have come up. Through their own stories and those of other families of open adoption, Lori and Crystal review the secrets to success, the pitfalls and challenges, the joys and triumphs. By putting the adopted child at the center, families can come to enjoy the benefits of open adoption and mitigate the challenges that may arise. More than a how-to, this book shares a mindset, a heartset, that can be learned and internalized, so parents can choose to act out of love and honesty throughout their child’s growing up years, helping that child to grow up whole.