Books with category Inspirational
Displaying 21 books

Explosive Growth: A Few Things I Learned While Growing To 100 Million Users - And Losing $78 Million

2017

by Cliff Lerner

Explosive Growth offers a compelling and inspiring narrative that provides entrepreneurs with a rare behind-the-scenes look into the creation of the first online dating app that grew to 100 million users. The book combines lively and often hilarious storytelling with genius growth tactics, numerous case studies, and a step-by-step playbook to help your startup grow massively.

Due to its raw storytelling style, practical lessons, compelling content, and fast-paced read, Explosive Growth transcends the narrow entrepreneurial audience to appeal to readers and business students eager to learn about startup life and entrepreneurship. It reveals the highest highs and lowest lows of running a startup.

Cliff Lerner's online dating startup, Snap Interactive, was at the brink of running out of money when he bet the company's fortunes on a then-unknown platform called Facebook. The app began to acquire 100,000 new users daily for free, and soon after, the stock price skyrocketed 2,000 percent, setting off a chain of extraordinary events filled with sudden success and painful lessons.

You will learn how to:

  • IGNITE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH by creating a remarkable product
  • Identify the ONLY 3 METRICS THAT MATTER
  • Explore valuable VIRAL GROWTH strategies to grow rapidly
  • Execute the GENIUS MEDIA HACKS that helped us acquire 100 million users
  • Create a thriving culture of PASSIONATE EMPLOYEES and CONSTANT INNOVATION

Christy

The train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions.

But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her — and her one-room school — as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and her heart is torn between two strong men with conflicting views about how to care for the families of the Cove.

Yearning to make a difference, will Christy’s determination and devotion be enough?

The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen's Escape from War to Freedom

"The Girl from Aleppo: Nujeen's Escape from War to Freedom" is an inspiring true story penned by the prize-winning journalist and co-author of the New York Times bestseller I Am Malala, Christina Lamb. This memoir brings to light the remarkable journey of Nujeen Mustafa, a teenager born with cerebral palsy.

Despite being confined to a wheelchair and denied formal schooling in Syria, Nujeen taught herself English by watching American soap operas. Her tale is a breathtaking account of fortitude, grit, and hope, as she embarked on a harrowing journey from war-ravaged Syria to Germany. Her story lends a face to one of the greatest humanitarian issues of our time - the Syrian refugee crisis.

In 2014, when her hometown became the epicenter of a brutal conflict, Nujeen and her family were forced to flee. Her journey to safety was a grueling sixteen-month odyssey that took her across Turkey, the Mediterranean, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, and finally to Germany. Despite the physical hardships, Nujeen's extraordinary optimism never wavered.

In this unforgettable memoir, Nujeen's positivity and resolve shine through as she remains determined to make a better life for herself. Her story is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit, offering an inspiration to change the world.

All of the Rogers

2017

by Erin Lockwood

How can you love someone so much, and need space from them at the same time?

My alarm goes off at four am. It takes an hour to get to the studio, and then my ballet training begins. I go to school for a few hours, and then it’s back to the studio for more training. Go to bed. Repeat the whole process the next day. I hate it.

My time at school is a blur, except for biology. I don’t rush through that class, because I get to see Roger Byrnes. He probably doesn’t even know I exist, but my heart beats a little faster when I see him walk through the classroom door with his messy hair and carefree attitude. He has so much energy. But then he stares off into the distance, and I wonder what he’s thinking. It’s the highlight of my day.

I wish I could quit ballet so I could be a normal teenager. Someone who Roger would want to be with. I could use some excitement in my life…I bet Roger could give that to me.

Freak the Mighty

Two boys – a slow learner stuck in the body of a teenage giant and a tiny Einstein in leg braces – forge a unique friendship when they pair up to create one formidable human force. A wonderful story of triumph over imperfection, shame, and loss.

Across the Ocean

A young cage fighter is diagnosed with a strange genetic disorder that requires a bone marrow transplant. It happened so quickly that the matter is now one of life and death; he has twenty-four weeks to live. Martin needs a relative for a donor, but his parents died in a car crash and he has no siblings or other close relatives. A mixed-raced man he casually met at Nandos, who later became a friend, volunteers to go for the test and is found to be a match.

Though it is possible that someone from the general public can be a match, Leroy feels there is more to his relationship with Martin than just friendship. He begins his journey to unveil the power of DNA testing in light of today's medical science, tracing back to two hundred years ago and the slave trade. The result is shocking the whole world, showing that the stranger who crosses your path can possibly be related to you!

This story is based on partly true events.

Under The Rug: The Unforgettable Forgotten

Under The Rug is a memoir chronicling the unforgettable childhood & adolescence of L. Marie Williams. She illustrates her unconventional upbringing in this heart-rendering story of neglect, abuse, and loss.

L. Marie Williams captures the essence of a lost childhood in this recount of her youth. Physically and sexually abused at a young age, she was passed through her family and the foster care system, neglected and lost.

She met Tony, and despite their age difference, he showed her an unconditional love and loyalty that she had never experienced before. When he ended up in prison, Marie found herself homeless and a victim of the Juvenile Justice System.

This is a story of the trials she experienced, her journey of survival, and the lasting effects it has had on her life.

Paralysis: Beating the Odds

After a life-altering medical fiasco, Addison spends the next few years fighting to get her old life back and beat the original diagnosis of left-side hemiplegia. Through this journey, she discovers the most significant hindrances as well as the most helpful tips and tricks along the way.

In this book, you will find out what she did to recover from her stroke at age sixteen when she was told she would never walk on her own again.

Like the Flowing River

2017

by Paulo Coelho

Like the Flowing River is a breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best-loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Coelho offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling, and the nature of good and evil.

An old woman explains to her grandson how a mere pencil can show him the path to happiness. Instructions on how to climb a mountain reveal the secret to making your dreams a reality. The story of Ghengis Khan and the Falcon teaches about the folly of anger and the art of friendship. A pianist performs as an example of fulfilling your destiny. The author learns three important lessons when he goes to the rescue of a man in the street. Paulo shows us how life has lessons for us in the greatest, smallest, and most unusual of experiences.

Like the Flowing River includes jewel-like fables, packed with meaning and retold in Coelho's inimitable style. Sharing his thoughts on spirituality, life, and ethics, Paulo touches you with his philosophy and invites you to go on an exciting journey of your own.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

Landfill Dogs book

Landfill Dogs, as featured on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (2013) and CNN (2015), shines a light on some of the most overlooked dogs from a county shelter in Raleigh, NC. Through this touching photography project, more than 160 dogs have found homes or been sent to rescue.

This book tells the story of who the Landfill Dogs are, featuring a compilation of their portraits at Landfill Park and individual adoption stories. It's a must-have for any animal advocate!

Note: All proceeds go directly toward helping shelter animals.

Hallelujah Anyway

2017

by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott explores the concept of mercy in her enthralling and heartening book, Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy. She delves into the idea that mercy is radical kindness. It's the permission you give others—and yourself—to forgive a debt, to absolve the unabsolvable, to let go of the judgment and pain that make life so difficult.

In this profound and caring book, Lamott ventures to explore where to find meaning in life. She suggests we begin by facing a great big mess, especially the great big mess of ourselves. It's up to each of us to recognize the presence and importance of mercy everywhere—within us and outside us, all around us—and to use it to forge a deeper understanding of ourselves and more honest connections with each other.

While that can be difficult to do, Lamott argues that it's crucial, as kindness towards others, beginning with myself, buys us a shot at a warm and generous heart, the greatest prize of all. Full of Lamott’s trademark honesty, humor, and forthrightness, Hallelujah Anyway is a hopeful book of hands-on spirituality.

How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life

2017

by Lilly Singh

From actress, comedian, and YouTube sensation Lilly Singh (aka Superwoman) comes the definitive guide to being a bawse—a person who exudes confidence, reaches goals, gets hurt efficiently, and smiles genuinely because they’ve fought through it all and made it out the other side.

Told in her hilarious, bold voice that’s inspired over nine million fans, and using stories from her own life to illustrate her message, Lilly proves that there are no shortcuts to success. In Lilly’s world, there are no escalators, only stairs. Get ready to climb.

Make no mistake, success, happiness, and everything else you want in life needs to be fought for—not wished for. This book does not include hopeful thoughts, lucky charms, and cute quotes.

Just consider Lilly a personal trainer for your life—with fifty rules to get you in the game, including:

  • Let Go of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): Temptation will try to steer you away from your goals. FOMO is just a test of your priorities, a test that a bawse is ready to pass.
  • Be Nice to People: Treat niceness like an item on your daily to-do list. People will go out of their way to help and support you because you make them feel good.
  • Schedule Inspiration: Lack of motivation isn’t permanent or a sign of weakness. Expect it and proactively schedule time to be creative.
  • Be the Dumbest: Challenge yourself by surrounding yourself with people who know more than you do. It’s a vital way to learn and improve.

The Power of Different

2017

by Gail Saltz

A powerful and inspiring examination of the connection between the potential for great talent and conditions commonly thought to be “disabilities,” revealing how the source of our struggles can be the origin of our greatest strengths.

In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and bestselling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries, profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain “problems”—including learning disabilities, ADD, anxiety, Depression, Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and Autism—and tells the stories of lay individuals to demonstrate how specific deficits in certain areas of the brain are directly associated with the potential for great talent.

Saltz shows how the very conditions that cause people to experience difficulty at school, in social situations, at home, or at work, are inextricably bound to creative, disciplinary, artistic, empathetic, and cognitive abilities.

Choosing Light: When an Earthquake Buried Me and My Family for 5 Days, I Learned to Fully Live

2017

by Viral Dalal

Trapped, his family missing – how can ancient wisdom tell him how to survive? This powerful, true-life drama shows us how to triumph over every darkness.

Home in India on holiday, Viral Dalal is vacationing with his family when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake—one of the most ferocious in history—collapses the high-rise building where, just the night before, he had celebrated being together with his family. Now, buried under tons of rubble, in total darkness, without food, water, light, or the ability to even move—and with the ceiling hanging precariously just inches above his head—all Viral wants is to find his family. The cement box he is trapped in, however, will not yield – and hours crawl by. Then a full day, and another, and another…

Is anyone even looking for him? Or is he buried alive? Forgotten? What would you do, trapped in such a predicament? What is going to help him now?

This bold, challenging, breathtaking tale of courage reveals the source of willpower that drove a man who would not give up. What he learned, we can all learn - about ourselves, and about life. In every life, there is a source of strength. Do you know yours? What Viral learned by going to his sources of inner strength can change your perspective on living. It can empower you to face anything… once you, too, know how to choose light.

A shining, inspirational story you will not be able to put down… or ever forget.

Finding the Rainbow

2017

by Rachel McGrath

Finding the Rainbow is a fascinating and honest insight into a world that most would find difficult to understand, and many would be quietly thankful not to need to. Rachel McGrath tells the story of her battle to conceive and carry a baby, with unrestricted honesty, leaving the reader in no doubt as to her thoughts and feelings, and the courageousness with which she deals with a very difficult period in her and her husband's lives.

This emotive account draws attention to some of the otherwise unknown aspects of infertility and miscarriage, whilst still leaving room for humour, happiness and philosophy. The first book for Rachel McGrath, she writes about her battle with her body, her mind and the health service, whilst showing an incredible amount of inner strength, elegance and poise.

Tears We Cannot Stop

Short, emotional, literary, powerfulTears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.


As the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man's voice soars above the rest with conviction and compassion. In his 2016 New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop—a provocative and deeply personal call for change.


Dyson argues that if we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.


The time is at hand for reckoning with the past, recognizing the truth of the present, and moving together to redeem the nation for our future. If we don't act now, if you don't address race immediately, there very well may be no future.

Run Baby Run

Run Baby Run is the thrilling story of Nicky Cruz's desperate battle against drugs, alcoholism, and a violent environment, as he searched for a better way of life on the streets of New York City.

Experience the raw and gripping journey of a young man who was an experienced thief, mugger, and hardened street criminal—all before he reached 18. This dramatic testimony reveals his struggles and triumphs over the chaos that surrounded him.

Witness the transformation of a savage street fighter into a beacon of hope, driven by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nicky Cruz's story is not just a tale of violence and tragedy, but one of redemption and the unyielding strength of the human spirit.

Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table

2017

by Stephen Westaby

An incredible memoir from one of the world’s most eminent heart surgeons, Professor Stephen Westaby, detailing some of the most remarkable and poignant cases he has worked on. Grim Reaper sits on the heart surgeon's shoulder. A slip of the hand and life ebbs away. The balance between life and death is so delicate, and the heart surgeon walks that rope between the two. In the operating room, there is no time for doubt. It is flesh, blood, rib-retractors, and pumping the vital organ with your bare hand to squeeze the life back into it. An off-day can have dire consequences – this job has a steep learning curve, and the cost is measured in human life. Cardiac surgery is not for the faint of heart.

Professor Westaby took chances and pushed the boundaries of heart surgery. He saved hundreds of lives over the course of a thirty-five-year career. Now, in his astounding memoir, Westaby details some of his most remarkable and poignant cases – such as the baby who had suffered multiple heart attacks by six months old, a woman who lived the nightmare of locked-in syndrome, and a man whose life was powered by a battery for eight years.

A powerful, important, and incredibly moving book, Fragile Lives offers an exceptional insight into the exhilarating and sometimes tragic world of heart surgery, and how it feels to hold someone's life in your hands.

HUMANITY Understanding Reality and Inquiring Good

You belong to humanity, and you are nothing without humanity. If you don’t know humanity, then you know nothing about yourself and the society around you. Knowing nothing about yourself and your society leaves you questioning your purpose in life.

Discover yourself and society by reading “Humanity”. This book is crafted after delving into ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy to find answers about humans and what’s beneficial for humans in ideologies, politics, rules, laws, and resources.

By reading “Humanity”, you can understand yourself and human society, as this book is full of wisdom. It offers insights into the reality of human society and guides you in inquiring about what is good in human society.

If you care about yourself and the society around you, and wish to discover what is beneficial for you and for society, then this book could be your guide. It’s about the “Humanity” in us.

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