ILLUMINATION Book Chapters provides a place to whet your appetite for interesting books by insightful authors

If you haven’t heard of ILLUMINATION Book Chapters yet, it is a publication of book chapters and complete books serializations. Regardless of the type of books you like to read, you will find some interesting samples in this publication. Here are five authors’ works I am following.

Being a classic movie lover, I couldn’t help but browse Ulf Wolfs Garbo’s Face. What I found was an interesting story of a star’s decision to send her secret baby to India, where he is raised by…

Or any project for that matter. Why wait until the project is done to collect feedback? Once you understand agile project management, holding feedback until the project's completion seems absurd and a complete waste of resources.

Win the Day — Chapter 2

You can’t give what you don’t have

Mainstream media has created images of life that are difficult, if not impossible, for us to compete with: slim and muscular bodies, rich and carefree lifestyles, and ultra-compassionate characters who never get angry. This leaves most of us feeling inadequate. Adding to on those feelings of inadequacy are experiences like losing a job, ending a relationship, or struggling to gain a new talent. All these experiences can lead to feelings of disillusionment. To combat that negative self talk, you need to believe there is something special in you and about you. …

I don’t miss the way you wake me

with a song straight from your heart

The aroma from your kitchen

or your walls filled up with art

I don’t miss your jar of cookies

or a race around the house

Or the days spent at the theater

watching greatness from the house

I don’t miss those super dinners

offered up with pride and joy

and the walks around the block

or the tactics you employed

I don’t miss the games of Shanghai

winning ten cents every round

or the trips that we have taken

and the treasures that we found

…

The power of self-talk

My day sucked. The trains were late, and the 45 minutes I had planned to go over my presentation to the sales team had vanished into thin air. Poof! Needless to say, the pitch for a new service offering did not go as smoothly as planned. I felt like I was in a tailspin and needed someone or something to pull me out of it. Then I reached in my bag of tricks and pulled out a tool that saved the presentation. That tool was positive self-talk.

Magic Words

Your words have transformational powers. If you…

Yesterday, I was in my Japanese lesson being drilled on phrases like “I think the weather will be nice this weekend?” (週末は天気がいいと思いです) and “I might be late” (ちょと遅れるかもしれません). When suddenly my mind went blank. I could not remember the last Japanese expression I uttered or how to conjugate the verb. It was as if the language was passing me by, mocking me.

“Ha ha ha, you’ll never be able to speak Japanese.” was the thought running through my mind. I have lived in Japan for more than 20 years and the thought of only being able to communicate at a…

The power of DISC

Ever chosen a job you thought would be a good fit and later found that it wasn’t your cup of tea? Or maybe you are job hunting and looking for that position where you can continue to grow over the next 5–10 years. If you are looking for some insurance that you are applying for the right positions, you might want to use the DISC process to measure the opportunity and your fitness for that job?

What is DISC?

DISC is a natural work style preferences assessment that groups workers into four categories: D — I — S —…

Wow! Thank you for the kind compliment.