Creative Development

There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team, the linchpins. These people invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

If you’re having trouble solving a problem or reaching a dream, the problem isn’t you. It’s that you haven’t yet installed the one belief that changes everything. Marie’s mom once told her, “Nothing in life is that complicated. You can do whatever you set your mind to if you roll up your sleeves. Everything is figureoutable.” Whether you want to leave a dead end job, break an addiction, learn to dance, heal a relationship, or grow a business, Everything is Figureoutable will show you how.

Playing music should be as simple and natural as drawing a breath, yet most musicians are hindered by self-consciousness, apprehension, self-doubt, and stress. Before we can truly express our inner self, we must first learn to be at peace and overcome the distractions that can make performance difficult. Kenny's remarkable work deals directly with these hindrances, and presents ways to let our natural creative powers flow freely with minimal stress and effort.

This extraordinary work presents a series of simple, powerful tools that anyone can use to find a short, effortless route to success and fulfillment. You will discover tried-and-true techniques that deliver quick results. In fact, these shortcuts to success are so simple, accessible, and effective that you will quickly call them magical.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, published in 34 languages and one of the most far-reaching artist-psychoanalyists of our time, teaches that in archetypal imagination, "Mother Night is the quintessential medial woman, the woman who can walk in two worlds... 'the one who knows' and who can reveal solid ways of living and unleashing creative life in both worlds."

Recognizing the power of the new and trying to understand and promote the conditions that make it possible, the Greeks were the first to write about innovation and even the first to record a word for forging something new. In short, the Greeks "invented" innovation itself - and they still have a great deal to teach us about it. How to Innovate is an engaging introduction to key ideas about - and examples of - innovation and creative thinking from ancient Greece. Armand D'Angour provides lively new translations of selections from Aristotle, Diodorus, and Athenaeus.

Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world’s talent hotbeds - from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York - Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything.

With roughly 95,000 blogs launched worldwide every 24 hours, making a fledgling site stand out isn't easy. This authoritative audiobook gives creative hopefuls a leg up. Joy Cho, of the award-winning Oh Joy!, offers expert advice on starting and growing a blog, from design and finance to overcoming blogger's block, attracting readers, and more. With a foreword from Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge plus expert interviews, this book will fine-tune what the next generation of bloggers shares with the world.

Bob Proctor studied the mind, paradigms, and the universal laws of money for over sixty years. There is no one better than Bob to teach you the secret behind the Wallace Wattles book, The Science of Getting Rich. He has reduced the most complicated concepts from that classic into its simplest form. The Secret of the Science of Getting Rich will give you many practical ways to apply the concepts to your life—starting today. But first, you must believe that you can attract anything you want in life.

Thought Access is your entry to more. This access will grant you thought forms that assist you on your Earth adventure and guide you to experience all that you are, have been, and will be. This book is a direct link to the most powerful thoughts in the mental world, where all change begins. Thought Access connects you to the highest version of yourself, which already exists within your own mind and gives you the energy to bring that state to life in the physical world.

It's true that life holds many challenges, but oftentimes the biggest obstacle to our own success and happiness comes from within. In fact, we are experts at self-sabotage. If we could just get out of our own way, imagine what we could accomplish! That's exactly what bestselling author John Mason is going to help you do in this book. Honing in on areas of life where you might be standing in your own way, Mason will help you conquer negative self-talk, fear, lack of focus, regret, indecision, trust issues, distraction, perfectionism, anxiety, overwhelm, and so much more.

For creators, getting that promotion to management is exciting but can also be scary. The skills that made them so successful may not translate to the skill required to be a great manager, and this gets even more complicated when managing other creatives who often don’t thrive under traditional management procedures. Creative Directions is a management masterclass in which you attend lectures and seminars as you learn from some of the best in the business.

"In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost." When you find yourself suddenly without bearings, as Dante Alighieri voiced so well centuries ago, where will you look for guidance? Throughout the ages, teaches David Whyte, the language of poetry has held a special power to hazard ourselves boldly at the "fierce edges" of our lives. On Midlife and the Great Unknown, you will engage with poetic imagination as it was meant to be experienced.

Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance.

Drawing on the experience and insights of CEOs across several industries, as well as lessons from neuroscience, computer science, psychology, and philosophy, BCG's Martin Reeves and Jack Fuller provide a fascinating look into the mechanics of imagination and lay out a six-step process for creating ideas and bringing them to life. The Imagination Machine is the guide you need to demystify and operationalize this powerful human capacity, to inject new life into your company, and to head into unknown territory with the right tools by your side.

You know who your competitors are. You keep tabs on them regularly, and can list them calmly, along with their strengths and weaknesses. But your enemies are a whole other matter. They’re the haters and the doubters who said you’d never make it, the ones who stomped on your dreams. When you think about your enemies, you get emotional. You feel like you won’t let anything—or anyone—stop you.

A groundbreaking book about personal growth that presents a uniquely effective set of five tools that bring about dynamic change. The Tools offers a solution to the biggest complaint patients have about therapy: the interminable wait for change to begin. The traditional therapeutic model sets its sights on the past, but Phil Stutz and Barry Michels employ an arsenal of techniques - "the tools" - that allow patients to use their problems as levers that access the power of the unconscious and propel them into action.

Could you be getting in your way of producing great work? Have you started a project but never finished? Would you like to do work that matters, but don't know where to start?The answer is Do the Work, a manifesto by best-selling author Steven Pressfield, that will show you that it’s not about better ideas, it’s about actually doing the work. Do the Work is a weapon against Resistance - a tool that will help you take action and successfully ship projects out the door.

There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal wasn't so mysterious and was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That's something that anyone will be inspired to do after listening to Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song. Why one song? The idea of becoming a capital-S songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit.

There's a mantra real writers know but wannabe writers don’t. And the secret phrase is this: "Nobody wants to read your shit." Recognizing this painful truth is the first step in the writer's transformation from amateur to professional.