eminence grise female lead novel Audiobooks

At age 50, Maria Leonard Olsen drank her way out of her 25-year marriage. She had, against advice, put all her eggs in the motherhood basket, willfully derailing her successful law career. As teenagers, her precious children did not need her in the hands-on way they previously had. Her husband and she had grown apart because, among other things, they failed to nurture that important relationship. She was depressed and stuck. When she turned 50, she had the distinct feeling that she was on the downward slope of her life. Actuarially speaking, she was. So when she turned 50, her gift to herself was to go on a crusade to make the most of whatever time she had left. She set out to do 50 new things that were significant, at least to her. The list spanned physical challenges, adventure travel, and lifestyle changes. Each taught her something about herself and about how she wanted to lead the next years of her life to come. This work follows the work she did to accomplish those 50 new things and shows readers how to make their own action lists - whether it be joining a knitting club or hiking the Himalayas, every item has significance for each individual and speaks to her needs and desires. The list is the match to spark the fire that will light the years after 50. Readers will hear about Maria's adventures and the rewards of each. Accomplishing new things, learning new skills, deepening personal and spiritual relationships, and seeking out challenges will add the spice to a life that may feel repetitive, insignificant, inauthentic, or just plain boring.

Breakthrough Innovation Tools for Successful Leadership Innovation needs innovation: Innovation is broken. Business leadership and management struggle to find ways to crack through their own corporate politics or bureaucratic silos, to move from defense to offense, to nurture real breakthrough, to drive visionary creativity in ways that add new value to everything they do. In Innovating Innovation , David Morey, one of America’s leading strategic consultants, will teach, coach, and guide you across eleven concrete and pragmatic steps that unlock and drive day-to-day innovation in your business and help you gain a long-term competitive advantage in your marketplace. Make change and innovation happen: Innovating Innovation synergizes what is best in classic innovation theories with an insurgent strategic model inspired by one of Morey’s first corporate clients, Apple founder Steve Jobs. It shows how to lead innovation that creates the products of visionary genius without the necessity for actual genius. It provides practical tools and guidance on building and leading the teams, working conditions, organizational structures, and cultures of market-made and market-making innovation. It illustrates a roadmap to the disruptive periphery, the organizational margins at which real innovation actually takes place. Innovation can be taught: Innovating Innovation is a framework to counter failure. It directs you, the reader, to the consumer, the very person who will actually tell you how to innovate the benefits to create a future you can own. This book invites you to “think different,” to become a change leader, to go the “wrong” way to get to the right places. And it shows you how to apply the pragmatic lessons of Agile software development to absolutely everything and to accelerate your leadership career and your company’s success by stepping up from mere evolution to punctuated equilibrium, evolution as breakthrough. Your business needs unique innovation: You and your business need innovation as never before and unlike anyone else’s. This is lesson number one. And in the space of eleven chapters, Innovating Innovation offers lesson number two: You don’t need to be a genius to deliver the performances, products, and services of innovation at genius levels in the most opportunity-rich and threat-intensive business environment in history. Your management and leadership skills will improve immensely, taking your business to a level of innovation success beyond what it has ever achieved before. Innovating Innovation is a step-by-step handbook for teaching, and at times even tricking, your organization, your culture, and your company into real-world change. After reading this new battlefield manual for innovation, you will: Learn the Disruptive Periphery Concept and how it can give you the tools to help your business Discover a practical marketing-centric focus applied to innovation Reap the benefits of lessons developed from thirty years of real-world global consulting and training experience

It’s Christmastime in Merritt, Alabama and magic is afoot!Professor Bebe Wellesley comes from a long line of psychics, but has inherited just enough of the family gifts to make her peculiar, rather than of very much use. The handsome bookseller who is so proficient at obtaining the obscure texts she needs to teach her college parapsychology classes caught her eye a while back, but why bother? She’s learned the hard way that men don’t like women with a supernatural bent—no matter how paltry their power.In an age when independent bookstores are nearing extinction, it takes all of Byron Masters’s time and energy to keep Creekview Books relevant and successful. He knows he must be crazy to finally pursue smart, pretty Bebe Wellesley at his busiest time of year, but he’s tired of flirting and watching her walk out the door.From their first date, Bebe can hardly believe her luck. She and Byron clicked with a harmony that she never dreamed possible. If only she can keep her “little something extra” a secret, she might be looking at happily ever after.Life seems perfect until Christmas decorations mysteriously begin to appear in Byron’s apartment. Convinced the culprit is a member of his staff, Byron begins to alienate them one by one with his accusations. Bebe knows different, but would he ever believe that the vintage Santa ornament he bought came with a benevolent spirit attached, who just wants to spread some holiday cheer?As Creekview’s once pleasant and thriving atmosphere disintegrates, dropping customers along the way, Bebe is unable to sit by and watch everything Byron has worked for unravel. She prepares to drop the bizarre bomb, bracing for the worst, but hoping for the best.Will Byron be the man who can accept her as she is?Or is it going to take some Christmas magic to save them all?

Traitor is the final, explosive adventure in the thrilling Kirk McGarvey series from New York Times bestselling author David Hagberg--perfect for fans of Jason Bourne! When McGarvey’s best friend, Otto, is charged with treason, Mac and his wife, Petey, set out on a desperate odyssey to clear Otto’s name. Crossing oceans and continents, their journey will take them from Japan to the US to Pakistan to Russia. Caught in a Kremlin crossfire between two warring intel agencies, Mac and Petey must fight for their lives every step of the way. And the stakes could not be higher.

An entertaining and insightful pageturner about modern marriage and a tight-knit group of friends navigating their 30s and beyond. It's tradition that on everyone's birthday, the three couples gather to celebrate. They've toasted each other's big life milestones, and been there for each other through loss and disappointment, too. Nathan is the first to turn 40, and when the cake arrives, he makes a shocking announcement. The birthday ritual, and the group of friends, will never be the same again. Confessions follow, and secrets get revealed. One couple's crumbling marriage forces the other two couples to reexamine their own marriages, and the fault lines that lurk beneath. Will their bonds be strong enough to survive issues like infidelity, infertility, and waning passion, plus a series of crises that push each relationship to the brink? The answers may prove surprising. A year after Nathan's big declaration, as the group gathers for the year's final birthday celebration, every person and every relationship will be fundamentally changed. Perfect for fans of Emma Straub, J. Courtney Sullivan, and Rebecca Serle, Reservations for Six is a deeply satisfying novel full of wisdom, humor, and heart. It shines a spotlight on the phase of marriage when the fabric has started to fray, and deftly observes how couples cope, grow, and eventually thrive-together or apart.

Do Not Read As A Stand Alone. The guys of major rock band Thick as Thieves come together in this novella, to say goodbye to a beloved friend. Noah will reach an all time high of anguish, sorrow and pain and none of the group, even Carrie, know if he will survive. Saying goodbye may prove too much for Noah, but with TAT at his side he might pull through. This is and Adult Contemporary Romance and not intended for readers under 18. Strong language, sexual content and, well, Noah Beckett so it's reader beware.

There's more to meditation than just rhythmically chanting "Om" in a seated position - inner calm can be achieved through the simplest of actions, such as mindfully drinking a cup of tea. This guide shows you how to harness the power of meditation in your daily life with a variety of meditation techniques that you can learn and carry out in just a few minutes. From breathing exercises that can help you quickly calm down in a stressful situation to mantras that can help you state your intentions for the day, every page offers powerful techniques, showing you effective ways to boost your mood, manage worries, and get a good night's sleep. Featuring more than 50 easy-to-follow guided meditations, Meditation Made Easy helps lead you toward peace, tranquility, and a more relaxed life.

If you want your company to thrive, you need to break one of the oldest unwritten rules of leadership. Leaders in nearly every industry have learned to keep a professional “distance” between themselves and the people who report to them—to avoid getting too close or too personal. This unwritten rule of leadership is pervasive and quietly destructive, and, little by little, keeping ourselves at arm’s length destroys trust, collaboration, and the very fabric of organizations. When Tom Gartland became president of Avis Budget Group, North America, he wanted the corporate culture to become more "open and connected"—so he started with himself. His message was "business is personal—very personal." As he grew closer and connected more with those he was leading, he became a more effective leader, and those around him were inspired to create unprecedented results. Tom found that when we truly open up and care about the people we work with, we can transform organizations into sanctuaries where people feel a deep connection to one another, a profound sense of being part of an important mission, and extraordinary engagement in their work. The result? Employees who feel valued generate exceptional profits. After applying this business philosophy at Avis, not only did Tom see an increase in employee morale, he also saw a significant increase in the company's bottom line. In Lead with Heart , Tom provides an unconventional approach to business leadership, including advice and strategies on how to open yourself up as a leader, recognize potential in your employees, and increase employees' trust in you and the company. Lead with Heart is the revolutionary leadership book that will help managers and employees at all levels grow their businesses by connecting, honestly and meaningfully, with the people they lead.

The first novel from award-winning author Gianfranco Calligarich to be published in English, Last Summer in the City is a witty and despairing classic of Italian literature. Biting, tragic, and endlessly quotable, this translated edition features an introductory appreciation from longtime fan New York Times bestselling author André Aciman. In a city smothering under the summer sun and an overdose of la dolce vita, Leo Gazarra spends his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between run-down hotels and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends, without whom he would probably starve. At thirty, he’s still drifting: between jobs that mean nothing to him, between human relationships both ephemeral and frayed. Everyone he knows wants to graduate, get married, get rich―but not him. He has no ambitions whatsoever. Rather than toil and spin, isn’t it better to submit to the alienation of the Eternal City, Rome, sometimes a cruel and indifferent mistress, sometimes sweet and sublime? There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to leave her. First discovered by Natalia Ginzburg, Last Summer in the City is a forgotten classic of Italian literature, a great novel of a stature similar to that of The Great Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye. Gianfranco Calligarich’s enduring masterpiece has drawn comparisons to such writers as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Jonathan Franzen and is here made available in English for the first time.

The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt is a historical thriller from award-winning political journalist and Washington insider Burt Solomon, featuring Teddy Roosevelt's near death...accident or assassination attempt? Theodore Roosevelt had been president for less than a year when on a tour in New England his horse-drawn carriage was broadsided by an electric trolley. TR was thrown clear but his Secret Service bodyguard was killed instantly. The trolley’s motorman pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the matter was quietly put to rest. But was it an accident or an assassination attempt…and would there be another “accident” soon? The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt casts this event in a darker light. John Hay, the Secretary of State, finds himself in pursuit of a would-be assassin, investigating the motives of TR’s many enemies, including political rivals and the industrial trusts. He crosses paths with luminaries of the day, such as best-pal Henry Adams, Emma Goldman, J.P. Morgan, Mark Hanna, and (as an investigatory sidekick) the infamous Nellie Bly, who will help Hay protect the man who wants to transform a nation.