Just Help Yourself, The Common Sense Way

What do Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and Colonel Sanders all have in common?

In his new book, Just Help Yourself, Tom Lucas, a celebrity sports psychologist and motivational speaker who has helped change the lives of many top sporting professionals and business leaders, highlights the fact that these world famous icons never gave up on achieving their dreams despite facing numerous set-backs and challenges.

"Albert Einstein", says Tom, "did not speak until the age of four, did not read until he was seven, and was described by one of his teachers as 'mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams'. Not only that, but he was expelled from one college and refused entry to another!"

"Thomas Edison made 10,000 attempts before successfully developing the electric light and when asked what is was like to fail so many times he replied, 'I did not fail, I simply discovered thousands of ways that wouldn't produce light'".

"Similarly, Colonel Sanders visited nearly 500 restaurants in an attempt to sell his Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe, and was aged 65 when he finally succeeded".

Tom is a firm believer that whatever talents, skills or interests a person has, they owe it to themselves to use them to the fullest, continually working on them to enable them to flourish.

Every day Tom encounters people who haven't managed to find a way to bring their fullest potential to the fore. Offering an alternative approach to dealing with life's stressful times, Tom uses a technique called Common Sense Psychology (CSP) which focuses on understanding that the real solutions to problems lie within us, not in external sources, and, with a little common sense, can be uncovered.

Using tips that Tom has finely tuned during his career working with top sporting professionals and business owners, Just Help Yourself is full of practical advice to help you take those initial steps to recognising that you, and only you, have the power to change the situation that you find yourself in.

With a foreword from the former England Captain Terry Butcher, Tom's book is packed full of common sense advice for building confidence, belief and self-esteem, eating nutritionally balanced foods, and the importance of taking time out.

Tom makes it crystal clear that it's not the destination, but the journey that is the key to success. Einstein, Edison and Colonel Sanders could have given up after each of their set backs but they carried on, confidently and with determined self-belief. What would our world today be like if they hadn't?

And their story could be your story; what would the world miss out on if you don't make the effort to achieve your fullest potential within your lifetime?

To discover Tom's common sense guide to dealing with life's ups and downs and achieving the life of your dreams, pick up a copy of Just Help Yourself from www.thehothive.com,

Amazon and all good bookstores. Published by the HotHive priced £8.99. Tom runs Head to Head Sports & Business Consultancy - www.headtohead.org.uk

Britons Take to Books on National Reading Group Day

Reading groups celebrate first annual event today, Saturday 25th June.

Avid readers around the country will be flocking to their local independent bookshops for discussion groups, author events and lunches, to celebrate National Reading Group Day, (NRGD), today, Saturday 25th June.

The day is part of Independent Booksellers Week (IBW) and demonstrates what the ‘indies’ do best - creating and supporting their local community. Reading groups have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, encouraged by local independent bookshops who host, and in many cases run, local reading groups. Many are well-established, while others are being launched on NRGD itself.

As well as author-led talks and discussion groups, activities include competitions and even a world record attempt.

A visit by Dawn French to a reading group is being offered as first prize in a major national competition, launched tomorrow, Saturday. The competition is open to all reading groups in the UK who are invited to enter by explaining, in 30 words or less, why Dawn should come to their reading group. The competition celebrates the paperback publication this month of Dawn’s No.1 bestseller, A Tiny Bit Marvellous. More information is available at www.readinggroups.org/dawnfrench.

More unusual initiatives include the launch of a world record attempt for the largest ever reading group. The attempt by The Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green, London, takes place on 30th July and will be made by joining people nationwide using social networking sites, a website forum, Skype and video links. An online discussion will take place from 4pm–8pm, with a central forum set up for people to share their views.

In addition, a new series of The TV Book Club Summer Read starts this weekend on More4, giving reading groups the opportunity to read along with the series. The programme is offering the chance for a reading group to watch filming on 19th July – more information is available at www.readinggroups.org/tvbookclub

FACTFILE:
• National Reading Group Day is part of Independent Booksellers Week, an annual celebration of the ‘the indies’ around the country, run by The Booksellers Association.

• The Booksellers Association is working in partnership with The Reading Agency’s Reading Groups for Everyone initiative, a central database and resource on reading groups.

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Self-Published “Business Cook Book” to be Stocked at Waterstones

Self-published book ‘Business Cookery: Tried and tested recipes for business success’ is to be stocked at Waterstones.

Hot on the heels of best-selling Kindle authors John Locke, Louise Voss and Mark Edwards two UK authors are using their business experience to self-publish and promote their own paperback and e-book.

The quirky novel/business book hybrid is selling well on Amazon (both in paperback and on Kindle) and now Waterstones have agreed to stock the title in their high street stores. It’s also available online from Blackwells, WHSmith and Foyles.

Entrepreneurs Hannah McNamara and Patrick White decided to go down the route of self-publishing, even though McNamara had worked with a publisher on her first book, ‘Niche Marketing for Coaches’.

McNamara says, “Many authors don’t realise the amount of marketing publishers expect you to do for your own book. They assume that their job is just to write a good book and the publishers will take care of making it sell.

“My experience first time around taught me that there were so many aspects of publishing a book we could easily handle ourselves and be in complete control of. Most self-published authors focus on e-books but it was important for us to be published in print as well and be stocked in book stores. As business people we’re always focused on the profit margin, so doing it ourselves means that we could make publishing a book very profitable. It’s also been a lot of fun!”

This emphasis on making a profit is very apt given the topic of their book. Business Cookery uses cookery analogies to teach business principles and it’s already receiving acclaim from entrepreneurs and foodies alike.

‘Secret Millionaire’ property investor Caroline Marsh says, “I heartily endorse Business Cookery, Clear, easy-to-read. I like the stories that guide you through the fundamentals on how to start, run and manage a successful business. Follow the recipe and make a great pie!”

Sejal Sukhadwala of LoveFood.com describes the book as “a modern classic, this unique tome gives business and personal development advice via cookery-themed storytelling, recipes and food analogies.”

For a limited time, the authors are making the first 2 chapters available free from www.businesscookerybook.com.

Represent yourself in court . New books tells you how

The cuts in legal aid announced by the Government in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will force more and more people to represent themselves, often reluctantly, in complex, serious and potentially life-changing court proceedings, says the author of new book on the subject. Those now falling outside the legal aid scheme could include someone accused of domestic violence in the midst of a family dispute, perhaps over contact with children, claims Lucy Reed.

Lucy Reed, a practising family law barrister and author of a recently published book aimed at helping litigants in person in family proceedings, claims: “The exclusion of many family cases from the scope of legal aid will force more people to have to represent themselves in court. This will include people trying to respond to serious allegations of physical violence or sexual abuse against a former partner or child, and where the decisions being taken could have a lifelong impact on their relationship with their children.”

Even more worryingly, Lucy adds that “A parent making an allegation of abuse will be able to obtain legal aid, but the parent on the receiving end will not, even though the allegations may not be true.

“This could lead to “inequality of arms” where one party is forced to fall back on doing it themselves while the other side in the dispute has access to the knowledge, resources and experience of a qualified legal representative.

The changes were announced in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill published yesterday.

Lucy Reed has written a book called: Family Courts without a Lawyer: A Handbook for Litigants in Person which is published by Bath Publishing. An associated website,  www.nofamilylawyer.co.uk is now on line. The site contains working documents and resources referred to in the book

FACTFILE:

- A litigant in person is the term used for those representing their case in court without the assistance of a qualified legal representative.

- The author, Lucy Reed, is a barrister at St John's Chambers in Bristol. She is also the author of the well known family law blog, www.pinktape.co.uk.

- Bath Publishing are legal publishers, in print and online, who have been providing information to family lawyers and others working in family justice since 2005. They founded, developed, managed and subsequently sold (in 2010) a leading online resource for the industry, www.familylawweek.co.uk

Details about the book:
Family Courts without a Lawyer: A Handbook for Litigants in Person
Price: £29.00
336 pages
Website: Readers also have access to updates, useful documents and other resources on the accompanying website, www.nofamilylawyer.co.uk

A long and healthy life? A new book might challenge what you know

We have been told that the key to longevity involves obsessing over what we eat, how much we stress, and how fast we run. Based on the most extensive study of longevity ever conducted, The Longevity Project exposes what really impacts our lifespan - including friends, family, personality and work.

This is the first time the general public has shown the findings of this incredible, decade-spanning study that began in the early 1920s

THE LONGEVITY PROJECT
Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight Decade Study

By Howard S. Friedman, PhD and Leslie R. Martin, PhD

Published by Hay House, 4th July 2011, £10.99 pb

Gathering new information and using modern statistics to study participants across eight decades, Dr Howard Friedman and Dr Leslie Martin bust myths about achieving health and long life. For example:
- People do not die from working long hours at a challenging job – many who worked the hardest lived the longest
- Getting and staying married is not the magic ticket to long life, especially if you're a woman
- It's not the happy-go-lucky ones who thrive – it's the prudent and persistent who flourish through the years.

With questionnaires that help you determine where you are heading on the longevity spectrum and advice about how to stay healthy, this book changes the conversation about living a long, healthy life.

Howard S. Friedman is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California in Riverside, California. For three decades, Professor Friedman has studied personality predictors of longevity, developing a scientific understanding of the 'disease-prone personality' and the 'self-healing personality.' Leslie R. Martin is Professor of Psychology at La Sierra University in California.

LONGEVITY MYTHS:

The Longevity Project proves that most of the truisms about health and longevity are inaccurate; and even when they are true, it’s not for the reasons we expect!

Here are just a few of the longevity myths busted in this book:

• ‘You’ll worry yourself sick’: In reality worriers live longer; a healthy dose of concern about the future makes people more likely to be diligent about their health, which translates into years.

• ‘Look on the bright side’ It turns out that overly-optimistic people tend to put themselves in harm’s way—they just don’t see risks as clearly as people who are prone to caution/pessimism.

• Do you resolve every year to exercise more? Vigorous exercise can be detrimental to longevity. If you’re not a gym bunny, don’t sweat it—partaking in physical activities that you enjoy like gardening or walking actually are more beneficial to your health than high-impact exercise.

• ‘You’ll work yourself to death’: Hard workers actually live longer, even those with stressful jobs; being engaged and motivated keeps you alive.

• Married people live longer: Those in happy marriages do often live longer, but those whose marriages end in divorce actually have shorter life spans.

• Early education ensures higher level of achievement: Many children who are pushed into schooling before they’re prepared actually do not excel academically. In fact, drop-out levels are often higher in children who are put into school too early.

What do the experts say about this book?

‘The Longevity Project uses one of the most famous studies in psychology to answer the question of who lives longest - and why. The answers will surprise you. This is an important and deeply fascinating book.’
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point

‘The content of this book will prove fascinating, not only to social, behavioral, and clinical scientists and practitioners and their students, but to the general reading public as well. The writing is crystal clear as it compels us to go on reading because we know that there will be an illuminating vignette as an example, or another fascinating finding, just around the corner, on the next page.’
Robert Rosenthal, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside and Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Harvard University

‘Incredibly, no one until now has chronicled and interpreted the findings from the monumental almost century-long longevity project for the general public. Is living a long life associated with being married, daily jogs, having a pet, or faith in God? At last, with lucid prose and rigorous yet crystal clear analysis, Professor Friedman and Professor Martin have succeeded beautifully.’
Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph. D., professor of psychology at the University of California/Riverside, and author of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

‘Want to live longer? You’ve probably heard the common advice (don’t work so hard, think positive thoughts, eat your broccoli, etc.) As the fascinating analysis in The Longevity Project shows, much of this advice is wrong. Based on one of the longest-running longitudinal studies ever conducted, The Longevity Project describes, in its lively and accessible pages, the personality traits most common to those who lived long lives – and how to shape them in yourself. It’s a great read for anyone interested in the burgeoning research on psychology and health.’
Jean M. Twenge, author of Generation Me

‘A compelling and objective assessment of character traits associated with longevity. Only a handful of studies in this field last long enough to give meaningful results, and even fewer remain significant after their primary investigators have passed away. Friedman and Martin have resurrected a remarkable achievement with surprising conclusions. I learned a lot from this book.’
Andrew Weil, M.D.

(EDITOR: So a lot of what we think we know might not be wrong, but actually be detrimental to our well-being? This is fascinating stuff.)

To find out more about this book visit 

http://www.hayhouse.co.uk/books/1848504314/the-longevity-project