A. Connecting

1. Connecting with Yourself

All Experts
Allexperts is the oldest and largest free Q&A service on the Internet. Volunteer to answer questions related to your collective expertise at this Web site (allexperts.com) or seek answers or partners on it and build your reputation and your business. See a similar service at the Ref Desk's "Ask the Expert" feature (refdesk.com/expert.html).

Audible
Audible.com is the biggest online provider of "spoken word audio," that is, books, lectures, and more (www.audible.com). The site includes a service for making audible content more accessible for special audiences, such as provided in partnership with Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (www.rfbd.org).

Biorhythms and Compatibility
Marriage counselors once told me that night people often marry morning people and then try to make peace with their different rhythms. "Biorhythms can influence your coordination, immunity to disease, strength, mental stability, moods, logic thinking and ability to learn," according to Jacyntha Crawley, author of The Biorhythm Kit. She has discovered that "there are four known biorhythm cycles: physical, emotional, intellectual and intuitional. Each cycle starts at the time of birth."

Once you've charted your biorhythms, you can choose prime times for important projects or conversations. Get free software to chart yours -- and your compatibility with someone else (arakni.com/biorhythm/biowin.html) -- and get a reading about your biorhythms (arakni.com/biorhythm) on this noncommercial site.

"Create Your Own Luck"
by Azriela Jaffe. This longtime newsletter has attracted an extremely loyal community of readers, including me. We share personal stories and support toward leading a spiritual life that brings greater blessings into one's life. Azriela also wrote a book with that title, offering nine lessons on that theme, and eleven other books including, Starting From No: 10 Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection and Succeed in Business; Honey, I Want to Start My Own Business; Permission to Prosper; and a series of Heart Warmers books of inspiring stories (azriela.com).

The Hoffman Institute
You Can Change Your Life is the name of a book by Tim Laurence, a Hoffman Institute graduate (hoffmaninstitute.co.uk) and the message I learned when I took their transformative eight-day program. You can have more genuine, meaningful, and enduring relationships with others as you gain a deeper understanding of your negative patterns and practice tools to keep them from holding you back. You can become more aware, caring, and resilient. Sounds unreal, yes? As a graduate of their program, I can say that it is the single most positive process I've experienced. This eight-day process is offered around the world and has been since the 1970s, so thousands of diverse people have graduated from it. Visit their Web site in the United States (hoffmaninstitute.org).

Joy of Work
This column appears in over 50 magazines and is written by Jody Urquhart, author of All Work & No Say and speaker to healthcare professionals. Her Web site has wonderful articles on the same themes (www.idoinspire.com).

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
by Martin Seligman. Great book for learning how to become more resilient and successful in work and in relationships. What makes some people more capable than others in maintaining close relationships and improving their performance? More than your IQ, hard work, or attractiveness, your level of optimism determines your success and happiness. That's what former American Psychology Association president Dr. Martin Seligman discovered.

To rebound from difficulties and capture more opportunities, learn from the most experienced researcher on the topic exactly how to be a clear-eyed optimist. After 15 years of studying helplessness and hopelessness, this pioneer in Positive Psychology turned his attention to studying optimism. Our physical and emotional health and capacity to maintain strong relationships and to get ahead in work are directly related to our level of optimism, Seligman found. He made another extraordinary discovery: you can actually learn to become more optimistic.
Unlike many shallow think-positive books, this one is backed by sound research. As opposed to those who advocate boosting self-esteem regardless of one's abilities, Seligman teaches people to be positively proactive in light of their actual situations.

Seligman found that depressives have pessimistic and destructive thought patterns. They focus on how things will get worse, believing that a bad situation is Permanent (will always be this bad), Pervasive (because this bad happened, I see the bad side of everything in my life), and Personal (most of all it happened worst to me). They often prove themselves right. If you want to step out of that downward spiral of destructive behavior, read and practice Seligman's methods. Take the questionnaire in his book to learn where you are on the pessimist-to-optimist scale. Read how your level of optimism is affecting your life. Then follow the suggested steps to lift your level of optimism and maintain it at that higher level.

Organizations as diverse as a major insurance company and the UC-Berkeley swim team have used Seligman's methods to dramatically improve morale and performance. I have read this book four times and given away over 50 copies.
(Buy this book).

Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Decisions
by John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa. This is the best book I've found on how to make better decisions with fewer mistakes, less worry, and fewer regrets. Avoid snap decisions or getting stuck while your options dwindle. Get this universally helpful method for making smarter decisions with less stress and regret from three seasoned experts on the topic.

Most of us have problems making decisions because we've never learned how. Many decisions involve difficult trade-offs, often leaving us frozen into inaction or worrying long after we did act. Discover some of the most common decision-making traps to avoid. See the eight parts needed to make the right decision. Recognize how to take action before a problem appears or grows.

Learn from the best. John S. Hammond is an internationally known decision-making consultant specializing in negotiation and corporate strategy and a former professor at Harvard Business School. Ralph L. Keeney is a professor in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Howard Raiffa, a pioneer in developing decision and negotiating analysis, is professor emeritus at Harvard Business School and author of The Art and Science of Negotiation.

Filled with everyday work and personal situational examples, this book offers the best roadmap for making big and little decisions. To help your team, department, board, family, or other group become more productive and comfortable with their decisions, share this book with them. It is so clearly written, it will appeal to them all.
(Buy this book).

Thinking on Your Feet: How to Communicate Under Pressure
by Marian K. Woodall. This is the best single book for learning to maintain composure when responding to a hot situation or volatile person.

Are you easily thwarted, daunted, or frozen in tight situations? Most of us are sometimes. Don't be caught off-guard again. For the next time you must speak up "right now" in a hostile, high-stakes, or emergency situation, read this book. And there will be a next time.

Do not let others determine your behavior by reacting to their actions. Woodall provides solid techniques for organizing thoughts, gaining clarification, buying needed time, and more.

If you are shy, low-key, working or living around an often overpowering person, the newest hire, or an outsider, you will find confidence and power-building techniques in this book.
(Buy this book).

Work Yourself Happy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Joy in Your Life and Work
by Terri Levine. She is generously offering this e-book, which normally sells for $14.99 in the soft-cover version, as a no-strings-attached gift through Azriel Winnett's Hodu.com site. It "provides you with practical tools for learning how to have a job you enjoy" (hodu.com/wyh-ebook.shtml).

2. Connecting with Others

Blogger
See if someone is blogging (writing online) on a topic that interests you or is "moblogging," that is, connecting camera phones to online diaries, allowing not only for more visuals to be added to blogs but also for real-time, on-the-go postings of experiences and events (blogger.com).

Constructive Parenting
by parenting specialist Dr. Sally Goldberg, who turns theory and research into practical information for every parent. Her other books are Baby and Toddler Learning Fun and Make Your Own Pre-School Games. Read her article on "The Soft Touch of the Grandparents." In light of her summary of research that "live speech an infant hears daily is the most important predictor of later achievement, grandparents -- real or adopted -- have a critical role to play in any child's development" (drsallyparenting.com).

The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate
by Harriet Learner. Great book, especially for women, for strengthening your most cherished relationships. Although we share many of our most joyful moments with our family members and dearest friends, our deepest struggles often arise out of those same relationships. When women feel a conflicting tug of emotions in attempting to share concerns, seek support, or stand up for oneself, psychologist Lerner suggests responses to demonstrate one's authentic self.

How can you care for yourself and be caring with others? Learner's thoughtful advice has helped me with such questions for 20 years. Her approaches to our most common dilemmas show how we can be vulnerable with those we love without becoming a doormat or a nag. From the enormously popular author of The Dance of Intimacy, The Dance of Deception, and The Mother Dance comes her most widely useful book yet -- one of my two favorites along with The Dance of Anger -- in an illuminating series.

This book is a thoughtful gift for a family member's or friend's birthday, wedding, approaching empty nest, or other significant situation (Buy this book).

Digital Family Album
Janine Warner has two blockbuster books due out in 2005 that may spur you to take up a new hobby with your family, circle of friends, special interest group... I could go on. They are The Digital Family Album and Family Web Sites for Dummies (JCWarner.com). Ask my dear friend Janine to put you on her Preview list. It's worth a visit to her gorgeous site, which she designed herself.

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life
by Paul Ekman. "What is he really feeling?" you ponder as you search his face. If you knew, you might get along better. For recognizing true emotions -- yours and others' -- read this book. From the preeminent expert on reading faces and on deception comes his most complete book yet. I have a friend who looks judgmental when he's in contemplation and a client who appears angry when she's tired. With this book you can become more adept at reading others' emotional signals. Also learn to alter your own feelings through recognizing them sooner. The book includes photos and exercises, such as how to recognize a genuine smile. Ekman's clients range from the FBI to Pixar Animation Studios.

"There hasn't been a book on this subject of such range and insight since Darwin's famous Expression of the Emotions" is how Oliver Sacks describes this book that culls from 40 years of research. Everyone from lawyers to teachers and salesfolks can use Ekman's insights to better understand human behavior (Buy this book).

Global Leadership: The Next Generation
by Marshall Goldsmith, consummate executive coach, Fast Company columnist, and coauthor of 18 other books, teaches leaders to become great coaches, a profound legacy to choose, and he does it with the support of Smart Partners (SmartPartnering e-book), as you'll see on his Web site (marshallgoldsmith.com).

The Grove
When you want a group of people (strangers, adversaries, or people in between) to brainstorm or work productively toward a goal, bring in a seasoned facilitator who can literally illustrate the meeting on a wall as it unfolds. I met the founder, David Sibbet, when he directed training for The Coro Foundation's San Francisco office (coro.org) when I was a Fellow there. David has spent the past 25 years honing a method, tools to facilitate group collaboration, and a network of trained facilitators (grove.com).

Hodu
This Web site is appropriately dubbed "your communications portal" by its founder, writer, and editor, Azriel Winnett, who does an excellent job of selecting high-quality articles. Sign up for his e-zine to know when new articles are posted and read his e-book, How to Build Relationships That Stick -- a philosophy he exemplifies (hodu.com).

Hosting Web Communities
by Cliff Figallo. This is the only comprehensive manual currently available for conceiving, defining, designing, and managing virtual community environments and populations in a fast-changing technical world. Figallo has been director of one of the first citizen-based Internet communities called The WELL (well.com), Director of Communities at Salon.com, and co-founder of SociAlchemy. He customizes community-enabling technologies and training to the unique needs of organizations and groups (socialchemy.com/hostbook.htm).

How to Make Meetings Work: The New Interaction Method
by Michael Doyle and David Strauss. This is the single best book for learning to lead or participate in productive, enjoyable meetings. Do you have a complainer, dictator, or over-explainer who makes your meetings drag or get sidetracked? Next time, be prepared. Surprise them with an approach in which everyone is heard, yet decisions are made -- in ways that motivate people to keep the commitments they made in the meeting. Try the contagiously popular "Interaction Method." It's been refined through over 25 years of use by more than 10,000 meeting leaders. After using it myself for over 20 years, it remains my favorite for meetings.
Poorly run meetings waste time and dampen spirits, yet we weren't taught this skill in school. People at all levels and in all kinds of organizations, from corporations to clubs, commissions, and charities, use this book's approach to make better group decisions faster. Learn how to prepare for large and small, formal and semi-spontaneous meetings among like-minded people and those with differing interests. See the various roles people can take on to keep people involved, attentive to each other, and solution-oriented. Rewards? You get more done in less time, so people might even enjoy themselves. Inherent in this approach are getting people to agree on the meeting's main purpose, agenda, and time and having one person act as a facilitator to keep people on topic. A facilitator does not voice opinions but ensures that others can be heard, so people may trade roles during the course of one meeting.

The authors of this book first practiced this approach on those of us in a fellowship program years ago called Coro Foundation (coro.org). We shared offices in a hip San Francisco renovated warehouse. I've found that this approach to running meetings makes even contentious, self-important, or extremely diverse participants feel more comfortable and act more productively. Every manager, board member, or team leader can use this book to lead more efficient, enjoyable meetings (Buy this book).

Improv Approach to Brainstorming
Creative Advantage's founder, Alain Rostain, uses improvisational theater techniques he has adapted from Bay Area Theatersports (improv.org) to help groups think and work creatively. He has also created a card deck with instructions for running your own brainstorming sessions, using his methods, and he is beginning to adapt improv games for online collaboration (creativeadvantage.com).

Also consider bringing Pacific Playback artistic director Nan Crawford to lead your group through dynamic experiential training to cultivate group creativity, confidence, and clarity (www.nancrawford.com).

Influence: The Science and Practice
by Robert Cialdini. The classic book on how to influence others' behavior and avoid being manipulated. More than any other book on influence, this one offers practical insights you can use every day. Watching the group behavior of turkeys, salespeople, and others, Cialdini offers a fascinating -- sometimes surprising -- set of "yes" triggers that show us how others shape our perceptions and actions. See how these triggers motivate others to buy your ideas or products or otherwise comply with your wishes. Conversely, see how your perceptions and emotions can be colored by others' words and actions.

Cialdini is perhaps the most widely quoted expert on influence. To act wisely as a consumer, parent, manager, or group participant of any kind, read this book. Use it to recognize how to spur sales, make better personal and work decisions, withstand peer pressure, and avoid alienating others. This is Cialdini's latest and best book. (Buy this book).

International Association for Public Participation
Members assist organizations in attracting and facilitating public participation. The association also provides training, conferences, and a bookstore that offers one of the best books on facilitation, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change, by Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom (iap2.org).

International Coach Federation
Members of the ICF are personal and business coaches. The Federation offers training and accreditation (coachfederation.org).

International Listening Association
The ILA promotes the study, development, and teaching of listening. Their site includes a large collection of quotes about listening (listen.org).

Interpersonal Communication
Provides semi-academic "units" of information about how to converse and connect with others (abacon.com/commstudies/interpersonal/interpersonal.html).

Keirsey Temperament and Character Tests
Free and for-fee tests regarding the four temperaments and how to use them to gain self-knowledge and skill in relating to others (keirsey.com).

Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal
by Rachel Naomi Remen. Great book for finding the meaning and contentment in your life, especially through times of illness or heartache. Rather than discussing the last movie or TV show you saw, why not share the meaningful incidents of your life? In so doing, you may find the courage, camaraderie, and gratitude to live each day more fully. Remen demonstrates this possibility better than any other author I've encountered.

What are the meaningful threads of your life story? Which roles do you most cherish, resist playing, or repeat? If you or someone you know is experiencing a debilitating illness or simply seeking life-affirming stories, this book will pull you in. Rather than moralizing, Remen shares the vignettes she's heard from terminally ill and other patients. Each gently written story affirms our interconnectedness and capacity to be decent. Consider it a worthy companion to Tuesdays with Morey. Remen, a physician who has lived most of her life with the chronic pain of Crohn's disease, was featured in Bill Moyer's PBS series "Healing and the Mind." After reading this book, you may join Daniel Goleman, Bernie Siegel, Larry Dossey, and others in praising these reminders of the power of faith and love.

Because this title sounded so boring, I did not open the book until six months after it was given to me. With nothing else to read, I brought it on a cross-country flight and became so enraptured with the book that my seatmate finally asked me about it. The airline steward and another passenger heard me read one passage out loud. By the time we were flying over the Rockies, six passengers had read parts of the book and joined our conversation. Along with this book, consider reading The Healing Power of Humor by Allen Klein (www.allenklein.com) and When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (www.shambhala.com/pc).

For friendship, comfort, or to say a special "thank you," this book is a favorite present that I've given to at least ten friends
(Buy this book).

LinkedIn
"Find the people you need through the people you trust" is the convincing motto for this online service that serves as a catalyst for forging business relationships, as SmartPartners advocate (SmartPartnering e-book). Founded by Silicon Valley wunderkind Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn enables professionals to make deals, find jobs, and manage their careers online. It allows people to connect on a case-by-case basis within their networks. People can recommend their connections to other people as they see fit and provide an online means for doing what people have historically done offline. When one person approaches another for a job or deal, a trusted intermediary recommends them. Unlike Friendster (friendster.com) and other networking services, this one is strictly for finding business partners (linkedin.com).

Meetup.com
Provides a free online matchmaking service for people to meet around a shared interest, such as a cause or hobby. Meetup.com arranges gatherings for like-minded people to meet in person. Like tracking book sales on Amazon.com, members can track the number of people (each identified by screen names) joining an interest group or signing up to attend an event. This service provides a fascinating way to track trends, interests, and public support in real time (meetup.com).

National American Society of Training & Development
This is the main organization for trainers and directors of training (astd.org).

National Communication Association
Members are researchers, educators, students, and practitioners with academic interests in human communication (natcom.org).

Nonverbal Communication Links
Includes over 130 links to nonverbal researchers' homepages, about 60 links to publishers' sites where nonverbal behavior books are announced, and about 190 links to online articles dealing with nonverbal behavior (www3.usal.es/~nonverbal/introduction.htm).

Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs & Body Language Cues
Despite its distracting Web site design, this dictionary does offer good articles that "have been researched by anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, linguists, psychiatrists, psychologists, semioticians, and others who have studied human communication from a scientific point of view" (www.members.aol.com/nonverbal2/diction1.htm).

The Peer Resources Network
Peer Resources, a Canadian nonprofit organization, operates this membership-based site to support the development of peer, coach, and mentor programs (peer.ca/mentor.html). Also see the UK-based Coaching and Mentoring Network (coachingnetwork.org).

People Click
This easy-to-use site is billed as "the World's First Online Entrepreneur Matchmaker." It matches entrepreneurs with potential project partners who complement their skills. One of the unique things about this site is the free e-profile, designed by a Ph.D., that tells you what type of entrepreneur you are. It shows you a lot about yourself and your business type! Barbara Brabec (BarbaraBrabec.com) told me about this site, writing, "After taking the test, it showed I was a 'Professional Proprietor,' which is an entrepreneur that fits the 'mom and pop shop' type of mold." Find helpful tools for entrepreneurs (peoplethatclick.com).

The Platinum Rule: Discover the Four Basic Business Personalities--and How They Can Lead You to Success
by Anthony Alessandra and Michael J. O'Connor. Many times we inadvertently offend others who don't "act right" -- like us. This is a great book for learning to work well with people of differing temperaments or background.

You can gain a deeper understanding of your personality type, recognize others' styles, and then behave in ways that demonstrate respect and inspire trust. As an improvement on the Golden Rule, the authors suggest the Platinum Rule: "Do unto others as they'd like done unto them." Find out what makes people tick and serve them their way.

This is a comprehensive guide for all parts of life, with the main focus on how to be more successful in the workplace, especially in sales or management. The authors' approach appeals to women and men. They have applied these principles to running their businesses and training others for 20 years. This is the most practical book I've found on understanding personality types to establish a sales or other work relationship.

Give this to coworkers, family members, teammates, and friends to spark a helpful conversation on how to get along even better
(Buy this book).

PlaySolving
Adrienne Gans, Ph.D., leads an experiential process to help individuals or groups clarify goals, bring products to market faster, or overcome barriers. Through PlaySolving, people are working in real time, modeling scenarios of real-world applications with objects and props to design their "solution blueprints" for action (gansworks.com/playsolve.htm).

The Rise of the Creative Class: and How it's Transforming Work, Leisure Community and Everyday Life
by Dr. Richard Florida. Are you one of the so-called Creatives, the nearly 38 million Americans in diverse fields who create for a living -- and are causing a shift in how we "think about why we live as we do today -- and where we might be headed," according to Florida in a book that is now in its tenth printing?

This part of the overview certainly resonated with me, as it may with you: "Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have -- with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing (creativeclass.org)." Florida, a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution and Heinz Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon, has stimulated international discussion about how, as he writes, "the choices these people make already had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither."

Florida has forged several partnerships (SmartPartnering e-book), to generate high-quality research on his topic, engage ever-larger constituencies, and generate the thoughtful conversations that keep people involved. Here are some examples of partnership that you might adapt to engage others in your work. In alliance with the magazine Fast Company, Florida is able to research and report on best and worst cities for Creatives (creativeclass.org/rankings.shtml). With adept organizational allies, he generates more solutions and involves more people (creativeclass.org/allies.shtm). With a complementary coauthor, Irene Tinalgi, he finishes a companion book (Europe in the Creative Age) sooner and launches videocasts for this new market, Europe.

Perhaps you'd like to partner with his like-minded colleagues to act as a catalyst and make your local area a more creative place to work and live (catalytix.biz). Sign up for the e-zine by sending your request to info@creativeclass.org or take a quiz such as "Are you a Creative?" (creativeclass.org/creativity.shtml).

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
by Howard Rheingold, offers fascinating coverage of the changing ways people choose to meet, protest, play, and more via the use of smart text-messaging and other mobile, in-the-moment technology. Rheingold's firm provides guidance in "creating and maintaining successful, sustainable social networks, teamwork spaces, and virtual conventions." Also see his blog and articles (rheingold.com).

Social Anxiety
This Web site features the book Beyond Shyness and offers free self-assessment tools for those with social phobia, shyness, public speaking anxiety, performance anxiety, selective mutism, panic attacks, school phobia, and learning disabilities (social-anxiety.com). Also see Shake Your Shyness (shakeyourshyness.com).

StoryNet
Two associations that joined forces to produce the National Storytelling Festival also share this site. They are the National Storytelling Network (NSN) and the International Storytelling Center (www.storynet.org/NSN).

Story-Telling.com
The Web site lists storytelling organizations that have an online presence. (story-telling.com/References/StorytellingOrganizations.htm).

Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage
by Paul Ekman. From the preeminent researcher on facial emotions and lying, learn how successful liars -- from thieves to public figures -- avoid detection, even from professional lie detectors such as intelligence and police officers.

As a parent, recruiter, manager, or friend, you are sometimes caught in situations where you aren't sure if someone is telling the truth. Polygraph tests are not reliable, but you can improve your detection skills with this book. Director of the Human Interaction Center at the University of California, Ekman has trained people as diverse as judges and Secret Service and drug enforcement agents.

Surprisingly, even many in law enforcement overestimate their ability to tell if someone is lying. The book covers deceitful behaviors of Hitler, Nixon, and other public figures as well as scam artists and everyday people caught in very human situations. We all lie sometimes, even if it's just a white lie. What are the signs? Nothing works all the time in detecting lying, but this is the best single book for research-based insights about what lying sounds and looks like.

Learn some of the most common body, voice, facial, and situational cues that can keep you from being duped. Rather than adopting a wary view of people, use this book to become more adept at reading others better so you can take positive action earlier
(Buy this book).

That's Not What I Meant: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships
by Deborah Tannen. This is a great book for learning how to be understood, help others feel heard, and stay connected in conversation. Want to sidestep the most common verbal traps where miscommunication leads to relationship breakdowns? Whether you're responding to a salesclerk, supervisor, or spouse, you want to build, not burn bridges. How? I've found Tannen to be helpful because I identify with many of the mistakes she describes and have had success with the alternative dialog she suggests.

Tannen provides real-life scenarios and alternative approaches for avoiding a war of words. Discover the sand traps of male-female conversational differences and learn how to make the other person feel better, not worse, when around you. Like her previous best-selling book, You Just Don't Understand, this one covers situations you're likely to encounter again and again. From interruptions to labeling, see the behaviors that cause someone to prickle, retaliate, and never fully trust the other person again. For business or personal interactions, use this book to find the words that enable others to hear you and feel understood
(Buy this book).

Tongue Fu!: How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict
by Sam Horn. Learn graceful, proven, verbal self-defense maneuvers for handling difficult people or situations.

Increase your chances of staying positive in the face of argumentative or otherwise negative behavior. If you have complainers, bullies, or manipulators in your life, read this book for insights into how to turn the situation around or graciously step out of it. Men and women of all personality styles have found relief in Horn's practical advice because she shows how to stand up for yourself without making the other person wrong and retaliatory. The entire book is based on specific situations, accompanied by easy-to-remember steps for responding from a position of comfort and strength.

Read this book to learn how you can remain true to your values without becoming a target for others. Horn's examples and quotes from popular culture and personal experience as a mother and coach make this book come alive. In person, Horn is a shining example of the kindness reflected in her wise advice (Buy this book).

Web Thinking: Connecting, Not Competing, for Success
by Linda Seger. Life can feel inhumane, false, negative, and discouraging when we see our work and relationships in a hierarchical or linear way, according to Seger. Linear thinking is literally unnatural. "There are few straight lines in Nature," she writes. "Trees bend, rivers meander, even light curves when affected by gravity." Our relationships should do the same. They should encircle and entwine. "The hierarchy is usually the least effective way to resolve any problem in the long-term, whether an individual, psychological, social, or spiritual problem."

If you are feeling restless or stuck about your work or life, use this affirming and practical book to plan the web of activities and relationships that will enable you to grow and use your best talents -- with the people you most like and admire. (Buy this book).

3. Cause Connection

ApproTEC
Already in 2004, ApproTEC has enabled more than 4,000 people to lift themselves out of poverty without handouts. More than 35,000 poor families in East Africa have used ApproTEC technologies to start profitable businesses that are generating over $37 million per year in new profits and wages and enabling the families to feed and educate their children and escape their poverty.

Here's one snapshot of their approach. ApproTEC secured funding from USAID to promote their micro-irrigation pumps in Mali -- a very poor country in West Africa. Their Smart Partner (SmartPartnering e-book) SC Johnson is supporting ApproTEC to market the pumps to pyrethrum farmers in rural Kenya. SC Johnson is the world's largest user of pyrethrum, a natural eco-friendly pesticide grown by 200,000 very poor farmers in Kenya. By using the pumps, the farmers will be able to dramatically increase their yields and their incomes. Newest board member Jeffrey Brewer (founder of CitySearch.com and GoTo.com) is helping take the ApproTEC "business" model to scale (approtec.org).

Cause Marketing Forum
This nonprofit gives annual "halo" awards to the best business/nonprofit programs and hosts a wealth of meetings, seminars, and articles on how nonprofits and business can work better together. Get their e-zine, "Cause Marketing Today." I praised their leadership in my book SmartPartnering (SmartPartnering e-book). Here's their web site (www.causemarketingforum.com).

Community Wealth Ventures
This consulting firm helps nonprofit organizations become more self-sustaining by generating revenue through business ventures and Smart Partnerships (SmartPartnering e-book) with companies and helps companies improve their bottom line through the design and implementation of community investment strategies (communitywealth.org).

Cone
Started over twenty years ago by cause-marketing trailblazer Carol Cone, this firm is an innovator in cause branding and marketing. It has crafted Smart Partnering (SmartPartnering e-book) campaigns for nonprofits and for firms such as PNC, Rockport, Salomon, 3M, and Bausch & Lomb (www.coneinc.com).

Educate Girls Globally
Did you know that girls represent 2/3 of the 130 million school-age children who are denied education; a mother with a primary education is 5 times (500%) more likely to send her child to school than a mother with no education; and, in much of Asia and Africa, one-half to two-thirds of adult women are illiterate and fewer than half the girls finish primary school? If you want to catalyst to promote girls' primary education in developing countries, support EGG. If you want to spread peace, start here (www.educategirls.org).

Principled Profits
This grassroots campaign and book by Shel Horowitz engages people in pledging to take action that encourages companies to operate in an ethical manner (www.principleprofits.com).

The Skoll Foundation
Started by former e-bay investor Jeffrey Skoll, the foundation funds social entrepreneurs who have methods for making systemic social change, hosts a World Forum, gives awards, and maintains Social Edge, an "online community for the social sector where you'll find social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, nonprofit professionals, and activists" (www.skollfoundation.org).

Social Enterprise Alliance
This membership organization mobilizes communities of nonprofit organizations and funders to establish new income streams to increase their capacity to serve. It publishes The Enterprising VOICE, a bi-weekly bulletin that covers "the people, products, news and trends from the field" (se-alliance.org).