$261 in Resources for $83

Resources for Achievers

We're offering an unprecedented learning resources package.
Only $83 gets you $261 of our best resources:


$63 worth of Books
[ ] Getting New Clients (Wiley, hardcover, 268 pages, $37.95)
[ ] Breathing Space (BookSurge, 202 pages, $14.95)
[ ] The 60-Second Self-Starter (Adams Media, 142 pages, $9.95)


$198 worth of CDs and Audio Books
[ ] Getting Articles Published (PR Leads, 57 minutes) $19.95
[ ] Selling Your Book's 'Sub Rights' (PR Leads, 59 minutes) $19.95
[ ] Foreign Rights Sales (PR Leads, 60 minutes) $19.95
[ ] The 60-Second Procrastinator (Oasis Audio, 140 minutes) $19.95
[ ] Surviving Information Overload (NIBM, 72 minutes) $14.95
[ ] Relaxing at High Speed (ACHE, 32 minutes) $9.95
[ ] Blow Your Own Horn (Simon & Schuster, 60 minutes) $10.95
[ ] Time, Stress, Simplicity (Skillpath PersonalQuest, 300 minutes) $59.95
[ ] Creating a Brilliant Book Outline (BSI, 53 minutes, $15.95)
[ ] Giving Better Presentations (Dreamcoach, 55 minutes, $16.95)

Plus CD and Article Bonuses

To order: www.breathingspace.com/ccprocess
Description: resources
Amount: $83

Got Breathing Space?

When you don't have, or feel you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any chance of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light?

Brave New World is Here

"People never are alone now... We make them hate solitude, and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it." --Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1932

Managing Space

In his book Democracy in America, French observer Alexis de Tocqueville remarks:

"Everything about the Americans, from their social conditions to their laws, is extraordinary; but the most extraordinary thing of all is the land that supports them. When the Creator handed the earth over to men, it was young and inexhaustible, but they were weak and ignorant; and by the time that they had learned to take advantage of the treasures it contained, they had already covered its face, and soon they were having to fight for the right to an asylum where they could rest in freedom."

"It was then that North America was discovered, as if God had held it in reserve and it had only just arisen above the waters of the flood.”

Books Offering "Breathing Space"

My 53rd and 54th books are now available:

* The 60 Second Self-Starter (Adams Media, ($9.95), is an action guide to help career professionals become more accomplished and satisfied with work and life. Its earlier version, the "60 Second Procrastinator," has been published in Arabic, Chinese Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Turkish, and in English India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

* The 60 Second Organizer (Adams Media, 2nd edition, $9.95) is a fun book offering 60 solid techniques that help you to maintain organization at your desk, office, home, car, and elsewhere. It has been published in Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese, and in English for India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

During this month only, receive both books, autographed, for $16 total, shipping included. Order at www.breathingspace.com/content/view/752/192/
1) at "description" type in: 2 Book deal
2) at "amount" type in $16.00, and hit enter

THIS is a DEAL!

Roasting the Sacred Cows

In my books and keynote speeches, I describe six "sacred cows"of time management that need to be forsaken.

The six "sacred cows" briefly listed below represent conventional time management wisdom. In contrast to each bit of "wisdom" are Breathing Space Principles that serve as action guides.

1. Handling Paper -- Wisdom: "Handle Each Piece of Paper Once."
2. Reducing Clutter -- Wisdom: "When in Doubt, Throw it Out."
3. Being More Efficient -- Wisdom: Speed Reading, Listening, Learning.

4. Beating the Competition -- Wisdom: "Work Smarter, not Harder."
5. Managing Your Schedule -- Wisdom: Use Sophisticated Scheduling Tools.
6. Staying Informed -- Wisdom: Read Key Executive Publications.

While time management was a set of rules that worked well in a relatively finite setting, Breathing Space principles will prove to be far more effective for the ever changing multi-variable situations that executives and managers face today.

Creativity in Your Life

Notes from the wonderful book, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron:

* Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy, pure creative energy.
* There is an underlying, indwelling creative force infusing all of life--including ourselves.
* When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator's creativity within us and our lives.
* We are, ourselves, creation. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.
* Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

* The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
* When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.
* As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
* It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
* Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

The late Neil Postman was a man ahead of his time. Here is an excerpt from the foreword to his 1985 landmark book Amusing Ourselves to Death

"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares."

"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture."

"Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

"This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."

Advantages for Deviance?

Here are some notes I took from a book with an interesting perspective:

Deviance Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets
by Mathews, Wenty and Wacker (Crown Books)

* Over the past 3 decades deviance, not reasoning, began to drive the social and commercial agenda. The result? Things that we found pungent only yesterday we lionize today.

* Deviance migrates from the fringe to the social convention, rapidly creating markets, and changing the rules of the social and commercial game.

* The pace of change has picked up to the point where the functional distance between the fringe and social convention is all but disappeared.

* Markets form and dissolve in unanticipated places and in record rates. Yesterday's pariah is tomorrow's market darling, and what was once beyond the social pale is suddenly a hot commodity.

* The pace of deviant change is so intense and so relentless that we are beginning to witness compound deviance. The rules of the game keep changing before we have a chance to write them down.

Jeff comments: It all seems kind of sad, doesn't it? Deviance rules, whereas goodness, purity, and wholesomeness are on the fringe. Gosh, I hope society, and the popular media in particular, wakes up soon.

BookMooch is

Here’s a Breathing Space idea worth pursuing! BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books. “BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want. Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you've read a book, you can keep it forever or put it back into BookMooch for someone else, as you wish.”

Now you have no excuse to hang on to stacks and stacks of books you’ll never touch!

The Antithesis of Breathing Space

New in bookstores:

The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America
by Allan M. Brandt

“Nearly 60 years after a link between smoking and cancer was first established, more people worldwide smoke cigarettes than ever before. Though smoking in America has decreased in recent decades, says Harvard Medical School professor Alan Brandt, a century of cigarette sales had already exacted a terrible toll. In the late 1990s, more Americans died of tobacco-related illnesses than the combined total of those who died from alcohol, AIDS, road accidents, fire, murder, suicide, and illegal drugs. And the future looks bright only for tobacco sellers. The World Health Organization estimates that 10 times as many people will die from using tobacco products this century as died during the last.”

Books to Explore

Books to explore:

The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, by Robert Lang, Yale University Press, 2001

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, by Barry Schwartz, Ecco/Harper Collins, 2004

When Deviance is an Advantage

Here are some notes and observations I've made based on the book "Deviance Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets," by Mathews, Wenty, and Wacker (Crown Books, 2002)
* Over the past 3 decades deviance, not reasoning, began to drive the social and commercial agenda. The result? Things that we found putrid only yesterday we lionize today.
* Deviance migrates from the fringe to the social convention, rapidly creating markets, and changing the rules of the social and commercial game.
* The pace of change has picked up to the point where the functional distance between the fringe and social convention is all but disappeared.
* Markets form and dissolve in unanticipated places and in record rates. Yesterday's pariah is tomorrow's market darling, and what was once beyond the social pale is suddenly a hot commodity, ie. NY executives marketing gangsta rap and convicted criminals for huge profits
* The pace of deviant change is so intense and so relentless that we are beginning to witness compound deviance. The rules of the game keep changing before we have a chance to write them down.

Ask People for Favors

As a boy, Benjamin Franklin asked the governor of Pennsylvania for a
book. In his autobiography, Franklin cites that moment as the beginning of
his publishing career.
He also learned the importance of asking people for favors. People
will then ask you for a favor in return, and thus one forms a free exchange,
the foundation of all business: "one polite request at a time."