Kindle Daily Post

The Trials of “Van-Dwelling”

Broke and desperate but determined, 26-year-old Ken Ilgunas decided to buy a cheap van and secretly live in it in a Duke University parking lot to afford grad school. Walden on Wheels, his self-deprecating travel memoir, is a frank, funny, and brutally honest portrait of life in a van.

Though living in a van on a college campus was, in many ways, as ordinary as living in a dorm (albeit a cheaper, tighter, and somewhat smellier dorm), there were instances when the peculiar hardships of “van-dwelling” made me question whether living cheap was worth it. It turned out to be totally worth it—I graduated debt-free—but for your entertainment, I present some of the stranger, unexpected, and more unpleasant aspects of two years in a home on wheels. 

A mouse lived in the van's ceiling for three days. During this period, I got little sleep as I obsessively watched the imprint of its tiny paw prints scurry across the upholstery.

Once a family had a picnic next to my van. For four hours! Living in there was a secret, so I couldn’t make a sound, let alone open the door. For those four hours, I remained fixed in the same sprawled position on my bed for fear it would squeak and I'd be discovered.

During my first rainstorm in the van, I discovered there was a leak in the roof. It dripped down onto the bed and left a pancake-size circle of wetness, making it look like I'd had a terrible accident.

I was so excited and nervous about going on a date with a girl (a rare occurrence, I assure you), I accidentally crashed the van into a concrete cylinder, leaving permanent scars that would ultimately make it unsellable.  

Ants, thousands of ants, invaded my storage container one fall afternoon and carried off my food.

Without the luxury of refrigeration, I scoffed at the supposed need to keep some food items “fresh,” not bothering to chill my month-old bottle of squirtable butter. This resulted in a nightlong food-poisoning extravaganza that culminated in my throat discharging the entirety of my stomach’s contents into my wastebasket in one impressive burst.

When my secret was finally discovered, a student in the adjacent apartment complex told campus administration that my van made her feel “uncomfortable.” I was given a new parking spot next to the campus police station—and a law was created that more or less bans students from living in their vehicles.

—Ken Ilgunas

Guest Blogger: Sarah Thebarge, author of "The Invisible Girls"

Twenty-seven-year-old Sarah Thebarge had it all - a loving boyfriend, an Ivy League degree, and a successful career - when her life was derailed by an unthinkable diagnosis: aggressive breast cancer. After surviving the grueling treatments - though just barely - Sarah moved to Portland, Oregon to start over. There, a chance encounter with an exhausted African mother and her daughters transformed her life again.

In 2010, I was riding public transportation in Portland, Oregon, during rush hour when an African woman and her two little girls got on the crowded train.  The woman and her older daughter found seats, but there was no open seat for the littlest girl, so she stood between her mom’s knees as we rode towards downtown.

A few minutes into the ride, I was watching the little girl try to sleep while standing up, thinking, Someone needs to hold that tired child, when she opened her sleepy eyes and looked at me.  I opened my arms to her, and she climbed into my lap and fell asleep. 

Her mom and I had a conversation on the train, and a few days later I ended up going to their house to check on the family.  They were living in the poorest conditions I’d ever seen --  they had no socks or blankets or furniture or toiletries or heat.  They had run out of food, and were eating moldy bread the mom had retrieved from a Dumpster behind a nearby grocery store.

I started going back a few times a week, showing them how to navigate life in America and get the resources they needed.  A few months into our friendship, they adopted me as an honorary family member and nicknamed me Sahara.  And I called them The Invisible Girls, because that first day on the train, no one seemed to see them but me.

The closer I got to these girls, the more I realized that in spite of our many differences, we had a lot in common.  Because after growing up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I knew what it was like to be a little girl in a fundamentalist culture. And after nearly dying of breast cancer in my 20’s and ending up in Portland with just a suitcase of clothes, I also knew what it was like to be a refugee of sorts.  So when I saw the girls on the train, they looked familiar to me -- because I’d been an Invisible Girl, too.

The Somali girls’ joy and unconditional love brought me back to life.  I began asking not, “What do you get for the girl who has everything?” but “What do you get for the girls who have nothing?”  

I decided that instead of buying them things that would eventually fall apart or break, I would leverage the best resource I had -- my ability to write -- so I could try to earn them a college education.  Going to college had been crucial in my own journey of transforming from an invisible girl to a visible woman, and I wanted to give these girls the same opportunity.

I wrote our story into a book called The Invisible Girls, and the proceeds are going towards a college fund for the Somali girls. 

Because every girl deserves an education. 

Because every girl deserves a chance.

--Sarah Thebarge

Guest Blogger: Kim Wong Keltner on "Tiger Babies Strike Back"

An answer to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, author Kim Wong Keltner’s Tiger Babies Strike Back takes the control-freak beast by the tail with a humorous and honest look at the issues facing women today—Chinese-American and otherwise.

Hello! I’m Kim Wong Keltner and my book is titled, Tiger Babies Strike Back.

I am a Tiger Mom’s worst nightmare. I am the up-to-this-point obedient child who is currently so over being perfect and quiet. It has taken me forty-three years to realize that my mom doesn’t have absolute power over me. What a revelation! I have a mind and body of my own that can function as vehicles for my own aspirations, not just my parents’.  That might sound obvious to many, but in Chinese culture what you do and say reflects on so many people more than just you. You can shame your whole village by being caught in frilly pink underpants. And you certainly don’t go around airing your family’s dirty laundry. How dare a Chinese person admit that everything isn’t perfect? What kind of daughter would do that, anyway?

Um, hello! I take full responsibility for being That Girl. Since no one else was saying out loud what a load of hooey that Tiger Mom nonsense was, I am here to say the empress has no clothes. A Tiger Mom is just a bossy boots in smart separates. Forget being bullied at school. You can be bullied even in your own home, all day and all weekend. A parent has absolute power over the child. So if absolute power corrupts absolutely … Oh, hi Tiger Mom!

And now that I have a daughter of my own, I choose not to go there. Tiger Mom is last year’s model. Can’t we try something new? Let’s try hanging out and doing nothing together. It’s actually harder than you might think. “You do what I say,” sounds like a much more streamlined way of parenting than what goes on in the Wong-Keltner household, but that style to me just sounds downright fascistic. Is there seriously no room for democracy in the nuclear family? When the senior control freak in the house decrees to the young’uns, “”You will do what I say,” like it’s some Jedi mind trick gone awry, all I can say back is, “And I will hate your guts by the time I’m sixteen.”

Whoa, Nellie, them’s fightin’ words! Yeah, sorry. Harsh, I know. In reality I did not hate my mom at sixteen or even now at age forty-three. But by sixteen I definitely was no longer an obedient, sweet, young thing. By then I already had four years under my belt of hiding who I truly was, of living in my own secret inner world where I didn’t tell my parents any of my real hopes and dreams. When your parents are shoving their own dreams down your throat, where else is there to go but underground? I never showed my parents the real me because there was no room for it. A Tiger Mom can silence you without even touching you, like Darth Vader choking a minion from across the table using the power of the Dark Side of the Force.

And further, when you are not exceeding their impossible expectations, why do parents of any ethnicity say disparaging things like, “You’ll never amount to anything”? In putting us down, are they obliquely chastising themselves, or can they simply not face their worst fears so instead they put their great anxiety upon us to unburden themselves? They are hedging their bets. If we turn out terrific, then they get to take credit. And if we fail, they’ve put in the fix to be able to say, “I told you so.”

Being a strict Tiger Parent is just one way of doing things. It’s brittle. It’s unbending. Something or someone is going to break eventually. I forgive my parents for wanting their version of success for me. We all want success to carry us like an elevator lifting steadily and smoothly to the top, a straight trajectory to Number One. But real life is more like the Wonkavator. It doesn’t just go up and down. It goes sideways and slantways, longways and backways, frontways and squareways. We have to push that one red button that no one has ever pushed before. That’s how we eventually smash through the glass ceiling! And who doesn’t want to win all the chocolate?

Move over, Tiger Mom. There’s enough chocolate for everyone.

--Kim Wong Keltner

 

 

 

Guest Blogger: Author Amber Dusick on Being a Mother

Amber Dusick is the author of Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures shares her commentary on being a mother. Amber's blog, also titled Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, receives over a million views a month from parents looking for a laugh.

 Being A Mother

You ever think about what it is like to be a mother? How would you describe it? 

I'll tell you how I'd describe it. And I'll even tell you the truth.

It is exhausting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepless nights. Early mornings. Bed intruders. 

Yawn. What was I talking about? Let me take a sip of my coffee.   

Oh yeah. Motherhood.  

Hold on, my toddler just asked me for a glass of water. 

Motherhood is frustrating. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids don't always make sense. And they tend to not make sense loudly.

There are lots of things that motherhood is. Rewarding. Fulfilling. Exciting. Crazy making. Laughter inducing. Grey hair producing.

But one thing is for sure.

No matter what you'd put on your list, there is one thing we can all agree on. 

Motherhood is definitely worth it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day!

See more books for mom, from from romance to literature & fiction and more.

Guest Bloggers Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkornon on "Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity"

In Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity,
Siegel and Etzkorn show us how having empathy, striving for clarity, and distilling your message can reduce the distance between company and customer, hospital and patient, government and citizen-and increase your bottom line.

Every day there is a headline about overwhelming complexity and resulting consumer confusion.  One day the thorn is a college financial aid letter—without a standard format, students and their parents can’t compare the full cost of different schools. The next day, a survey shows that 83% of Americans want laws and regulations simplified to be more understandable.  Even recreation and entertainment can be overwhelming with hundreds of thousands of apps for smartphones and hundreds of choices on a restaurant menu. And when we are at our most vulnerable, we confront tens of thousands of codes on hospital bills.

Confusion is a very uncomfortable state of mind; understanding on the other hand is appealing, inviting, confidence-building.  Simplicity increases understanding. Simplicity levels the playing field and shortens the distance between company and consumer, government and citizen, hospital and patient. Clear, timely communication through useful products and services, without hidden fees, traps and arcane provisions, is good for business and government. We believe in simplicity as a philosophy, a guiding principle and a way of life.

That’s why we wrote, Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity. Our society has reached a point where a decision must be made. We either relinquish the power to understand and control what affects us, or we fight for a better, simpler way to conduct our daily affairs. Our book explains the wide-ranging applications of simplicity, how it works and why it benefits us. But it also serves as a call to action: the spark for a movement to reduce societal, government and corporate complexity. When we give up the shackles of “learned helplessness,” we invigorate our economy and empower consumers.

Analyzing hundreds of interactions across a wide variety of industries and circumstances, we realized that only three actions are needed to achieve simplicity:  empathize, distill and clarify. Empathizing with the needs, concerns and capabilities of customers ensures that you fulfill a need, at a timely moment, through an appropriate channel and with relevant content. Distilling your message to its essence increases impact and memorability. Clarifying across all touch points ensures that your message is both consistent and understandable. Understanding engenders trust; trust increases customer loyalty. Simplicity creates a virtuous circle; complexity forms mazes.

We don’t view complexity as a necessary evil. We see it as a thief that must be apprehended. As for simplicity, we think of it as the essence of the golden rule. Everyone wants to understand what is being offered to or expected of them, and simplicity helps make that clear. It indicates that we’ve taken time to move the complexity of something out of the way so that the recipient of an object, deed, gesture or letter understands what we mean. So, be on the lookout for transactions that delight you with unexpected clarity, transparency and responsiveness.  Tweet about hassle-free refunds; letters that tell you how and when to reply; one-page contracts you can sign without a bevy of lawyers. The more simplicity is cherished, touted and praised, the faster we will break the curse of complexity.

--Alan Siegel, Irene Etzkorn

"The Power of Why" by C. Richard Weylman

C. Richard Weylman is chairman of the Weylman Consulting Group and founder of the Weylman Center for Excellence in Practice Management, an online marketing support center and university. His new book, The Power of Why, came out this week.

The power dynamic in business has shifted. Why? Because what you say about your business is vastly different than what your customers say about your business.

The Power of Why shows readers how to learn and speak from the customer’s perspective to build a business of distinction. I wrote this book because of a fundamental change in 21st-century business: the shift in power from seller to customer. The messaging of today's business owners, sales, and marketing professionals too often focuses on their own perspective—who they are, what they do, and how they do it. But those questions won't provide an answer to the buyer’s fundamental questions: Why should I do business with this company? Will it help me accomplish what I want?

Customers want a business that believes so strongly in what it provides that it’s willing to make a clear, buyer-centric promise of outcome—up front, unconditional, and unqualified. Customers no longer respond to old-school unique selling propositions. Instead, they look for (and respond to) companies and individuals that position and promote their unique value promises. Why? Because customers know the difference between a promise and a proposition. And so do you.

Follow the rules of engagement in The Power of Why to discover the real reasons why people buy from you, and to learn their lexicon. You will be able to craft your unique value promise and speak directly to the emotional and functional reasons why target consumers want to buy.

Examples of promises that work:

• La-Z-Boy: “Live Life Comfortably”
• Old Dominion Freight: “Helping You Keep Your Promises”
• Target: “Expect More, Pay Less”
• FedEx: “When You Absolutely, Positively Need It There Overnight”

A business that is customer-centric and delivers on a real promise of outcome consistently establishes an emotional bond with its customers. In turn, those customers drive even more customers to businesses through positive word of mouth—think Disney, Whole Foods, Victoria’s Secret, T.J.Maxx, and Ross. Make your promise part of your business and your professional DNA, and you will start operating with clarity of purpose: a marked change of pace from the confusion and chaos caused by working under merchandising pressure to make the bottom line.

—C. Richard Weylman

Guest Blogger: Catherine Janelle Barbee

Heartbreaking, inspiring, and totally true—the short non-fiction story, Friend Request, sets the stage for best-selling author Patti Callahan Henry’s upcoming novel, And Then I Found You. Here, Henry's niece, Catherine Janelle Barbee, talks about being adopted.

Some people say they were adopted. Some people say they are adopted. Some say they are an adoptee. I’ve never felt a preference for one phrase over the other. It’s either/or to me. It’s just part of who I am: Catherine Janelle Barbee

I’ve always known I was adopted. And I’ve always known that I was loved. When I was little my mom bought me a kid’s book to help me understand what it meant to be adopted. I can’t remember the name of the book and I can’t remember much of the story (if it was a kid’s book it had to have a story, right?), but I think that it must have been very sweet. I also think it may not have been as straightforward as it should have been, because after my mom read me the book I want around asking all my friends if they had met their real parents. I thought everyone was adopted!

Growing up, I knew a few things about my birth mother, Barbi. I knew that she was a pastor's daughter and a gymnast, that she had blonde hair and was beautiful.  I knew nothing about my father, though. Actually, that’s not true. I knew that he was really young when I was born and that it was extremely tough for him to make the decision to place me for adoption. When I think of that now I believe that he must have been very brave to make what he believed was the best decision. I believe it was the best decision, too.

I’ve always wondered about my birth family—did I look like this woman, this beautiful gymnast with the blonde hair?— but I never thought I would want to find them because I was happy and had a family. A good family. I didn't start asking my mom until I was older. It was just curiosity on my part and I only wanted details for details sake, never ever to actually find them.  But things happen when you least expect it, right?

One night when I was at college I had actually flushed my blackberry storm in the toilet. (Don’t ask.) Well, I drove home to see if I could find an old phone, and then I thought I’d check out my family’s Verizon documents to see if there was insurance, or maybe a loophole or an upgrade or something that I could use. That's when I noticed the adoption folder. Well, I looked through the file—I told my mom; she was fine with it—and well, I could actually make out my birth mother's name on the paperwork: Barbara Callahan. Barbi.

So I did what anyone would do. I Googled her. One thing lead to another and, well, I reached out to my aunt, the writer Patti Callahan Henry, because she was the easiest to find. It just all opened up from there.

One thing I made sure to do through all of this was to reassure my parents that they are my mom and dad. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing. I have my family, I don't need a new one. It was and is just wonderful knowing that there was this other family out there who thought about me and who loved me so much that they put me first. They gave me the gift of a better life with two parents and a family of my own.

Oh—and as to that question of whether or not I look like Barbi? You bet I do. And  that’s a gift all its own.

--Catherine Janelle Barbee

Bob Knight and "The Power of Negative Thinking"

In The Power of Negative Thinking, legendary coach Bob Knight explains why his unconventional approach will produce more positive results in sports and daily life. Drawing on a long and dynamic career as one of the winningest basketball coaches of all time, Coach Knight challenges conventional theory by offering an antidote to thoughtless optimism and wishful thinking. Here are 10 essential insights from the coach's new guide to getting results.

1. Look at this restaurant! No cars! Easy parking, and we’ll get served right away!
Ever notice how often restaurants with bad food do have lots of room to park?

2. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Translation: Make those free throws, dammit.

3. One more beer can’t hurt.
Unless you’re driving.

4. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
Or victories before they’re won.

5. Good things come to he who waits.
If he works like hell while waiting.

6. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Tell me that’s not perfect negative thinking.

7. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
When you have one, it’s time to substitute.

8. Hindsight is 20/20.
And foresight is even better.

9. It’s always darkest before the dawn.
I thought that once or twice...and then woke up.

10. Everything’s coming up roses.
Nice—unless you planted grapes.

Full Speed Ahead: "Digital Disruption" Is Heading Straight for You

Guest blogger James McQuivey is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. In his new book, Digital Disruption, McQuivey teaches you how to innovate for your business and become a digital disruptor.

You know the word digital. You also know the word disruption. These two forces have already changed the world many times over. So you probably think you can anticipate what happens when the two words collide, forming digital disruption.

You can’t. Digital disruption is a bigger deal than you think—it’s a bigger deal than anyone thinks, even those of us who study it for a living. It will affect every business, digital or not. It will change every process inside every company. It will reconfigure our lives at home and at work. When the digital dust settles, we will have more of everything we want: better products at lower prices delivered in more convenient ways, offering more engaging digital experiences.

Digital disruption has not merely left the station, it is already a runaway train, and it’s headed straight for you. Rather than shout to you to jump out of the way, I’m going to encourage you to jump on and go for the ride of your personal and professional life. In my new book, Digital Disruption, I will hand you a ticket for the digital disruption train, along with tips on how to make the most of your journey.

Because you don’t have time to dawdle, I’ve cut the jargon down to as few pages as possible and packed every chapter with new models and methods you haven’t seen before. This material will help you understand what digital disruption really is; teach you how to adopt the disruptor’s mindset; show you how to embrace digitally disruptive behaviors; and equip you to take this powerful, alarming, empowering message back to your organization so you can choose to be the disruptor rather than the disrupted.

Everything I’ve written in this book comes from the real experiences of disruptors who have laid down the tracks for the train we’ll ride. And everything has been tested by some of the largest companies in the world, all of which are now moving down the tracks faster, with more confidence.

All aboard! It’s time to ride along with—and help create—the digitally disrupted future. 

—James McQuivey

Guest Blogger: Carl Honoré, author of "The Slow Fix"

After studying history and Italian at Edinburgh University, Carl Honoré worked with street children in Brazil. This later inspired him to take up journalism and since 1991 he has written from all over Europe and South America, spending three years in Buenos Aires along the way. He is the author of In Praise of Slowness and The Slow Fix. 

How are your New Year’s resolutions coming along?

Still hitting the gym every day? Eating more healthily? Putting your finances in order?

Thought so.

Most of us struggle to last a week on a new regime before sliding back into bad old habits. We lack the willpower to make deep and lasting changes in our lives. What we really want when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve is a quick fix.

Shortcut solutions to life’s problems are not new. Two thousand years ago, Plutarch denounced the army of quacks peddling miracle cures to the citizens of Ancient Rome.

But in today’s on-demand, just-add-water culture, the quick fix has become our default setting in every walk of life. And that is taking a toll.

Why? Because quick fixes seldom deliver on their seductive promise of maximum return for minimum effort. Whether it’s mending a failing company, tackling poverty, treating an illness, or rebuilding a broken relationship, the hardest problems are too complex for band-aid cures. Newsflash: there is no such thing as “One Tip to a Flat Stomach.”

The good news is there is now an alternative to the quick fix. It’s called, not surprisingly, the Slow Fix.

You may have heard of the Slow Movement, which challenges the canard that faster is always better. You don’t have to ditch your career, toss the iPhone, or join a commune to take part. Living “Slow” just means doing everything at the right speed—quickly, slowly, or at whatever pace delivers the best results.

In other words, fast fixes are sometimes just what the doctor ordered. For certain problems, you have to channel MacGyver, reach for the duct tape, and cobble together whatever solution works right now. Think patching up a wounded soldier on the battlefield or saving someone from choking on a morsel of food by administering the Heimlich manoeuvre.

But when faced with more complex problems, the best policy is usually to apply a Slow Fix.

That means taking the time to: admit and learn from mistakes; work out the root causes of the problem; sweat the small stuff; think long and connect the dots to build holistic solutions; seek ideas from everywhere; work with others and share the credit; build up expertise while remaining skeptical of experts; think alone and together; tap emotions; enlist an inspiring leader; consult and even recruit those closest to the problem; turn the search for a fix into a game; have fun, follow hunches, adapt, use trial and error, and embrace uncertainty.

All of this takes time, and in our impatient world that can seem like an indulgence or a luxury. But the Slow Fix is neither. It’s actually a smart and essential investment in the future. Put in the time, effort, and resources to start tackling a problem thoroughly today, and reap the benefits tomorrow.

Around the world, you see more and more examples of the Slow Fix in action: Couples rebooting damaged relationships. Families ending feuds. Children resolving playground conflicts. People finding lasting ways to lose weight and boost their health. By applying a Slow Fix, I am finally conquering a back problem that has bothered me for more than twenty years.

Slow Fixes are also making inroads on problems that go way beyond the personal sphere: Reformers rescuing a failing school in Los Angeles. Norway and Singapore slashing recidivism rates among criminals. Spain transforming its organ transplant system into the envy of the world. A project lifting children out of poverty in New York. Costa Rican coffee farmers freeing themselves from the vagaries of the international commodity market. Formula One engineers fine-tuning the fastest cars on the planet. Doctors making fewer mistakes. Companies boosting sales and productivity. Designers building better stuff. Scientists making surprising breakthroughs. Developing nations rolling back tropical diseases.

Everywhere you look, from the personal to the collective, the problems we face are more complex and more pressing than ever before. Quick fixes are not the answer.

The time has come to resist the siren call of half-baked solutions and short-term palliatives and start fixing things properly.

The time has come to learn the art of the Slow Fix.

--Carl Honoré