Self Expert Help

Do you dream of a sustainable and just world, but also desire more happiness, direction, balance, or fulfillment? Perhaps you work or volunteer in an idealist field and feel like an overwhelmed martyr, or perhaps you earn a decent paycheck but want a more meaningful career. Maybe you’re a current or aspiring progressive leader, a concerned citizen, or a student seeking more focus and impact. Maybe you long to bring forgotten ideals, dreams, or creative talents back into your work and play, or know someone who does. Naked Idealism will entertain and refresh you with an approach to authentic living that supports both personal fulfillment and a sustainable, just world. You will learn how to expose your authentic core, clarify what’s really important to you, integrate your personal and community-level visions, and relate to the world more genuinely and effectively. You will examine your intentions for doing good, perhaps even chuckling at yourself during some of the exercises. Wheitner shares valuable tools from positive psychology, career theory, persuasion, organizational dynamics, and more. Candidly addressing challenging and often avoided topics, Naked Idealism also reminds you not to take life too seriously. Wheitner weaves in humor from his own circuitous trek toward authenticity: a cross-country adventure, a peculiar rainwater irrigation system, vegetarianism and veganism, real-life lesbian grandmothers from Mars, and a backyard abandoned coal mine spice up the journey. You are encouraged to remain fully clothed, but open to the life and world you envision!

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Most software-development groups have embarrassing records: By some accounts, more than half of all software projects are significantly late and over budget, and nearly a quarter of them are cancelled without ever being completed. Although developers recognize that unrealistic schedules, inadequate resources, and unstable requirements are often to blame for such failures, few know how to solve these problems. Fortunately, the Personal Software Process (PSP) provides a clear and proven solution. Comprising precise methods developed over many years by Watts S. Humphrey and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), the PSP has successfully transformed work practices in a wide range of organizations and has already produced some striking results. This book describes the PSP and is the definitive guide and reference for its latest iteration. PSP training focuses on the skills required by individual software engineers to improve their personal performance. Once learned and effectively applied, PSP-trained engineers are qualified to participate on a team using the Team Software Process (TSP), the methods for which are described in the final chapter of the book.The goal for both PSP and TSP is to give developers exactly what they need to deliver quality products on predictable schedules. PSPSM: A Self-Improvement Process for Software Engineers presents a disciplined process for software engineers and anyone else involved in software development. This process includes defect management, comprehensive planning, and precise project tracking and reporting. The book first scales down industrial software practices to fit the needs of the module-sized program development, then walks readers through a progressive sequence of practices that provide a sound foundation for large-scale software development. By doing the exercises in the book, and using the PSP methods described here to plan, evaluate, manage, and control the quality of your own work, you will be well prepared to apply those methods on ever larger and more critical projects. Drawing on the author’s extensive experience helping organizations to achieve their development goals, and with the PSP benefits well illustrated, the book presents the process in carefully crafted steps. The first chapter describes overall principles and strategies.The next two explain how to follow a defined process, as well as how to gather and use the data required to manage a programming job. Several chapters then cover estimating and planning, followed by quality management and design. The last two chapters show how to put the PSP to work, and how to use it on a team project. A variety of support materials for the book, as described in the Preface, are available on the Web. If you or your organization are looking for a way to improve your project success rate, the PSP could well be your answer.

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A drug-free, holistic program for treating low libido in women
Recent revelations about hormone replacement therapy have many women looking for alternate solutions to low sexual desire. Reclaiming Your Sexual Self helps women regain that desire without drugs or long-term psychotherapy. It offers the validating view that women’s sexual feelings provide important information about the nature and quality of their lives and relationships. Instead of trying to override lack of interest in sex, women should listen to their bodies and their brains. The author shows that by understanding what inhibits and excites sexual passion, readers can take charge of their sexual health and well-being.

Kathryn Hall, PhD (Princeton, NJ), is a clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of experience in sex therapy and research. She runs a highly successful private practice, specializing in the treatment of sexual dysfunction.

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