Showing results by narrator "R. Smith" in All Categories

Do you wish you could lead a mindful life where you're completely present for yourself, completely aware of what you're doing and not reactive to the noise and distractions of your surroundings? No matter where you lie on the spectrum of life, mindfulness is always the end goal - and it should be. The good news is that you can be mindful regardless of how busy your schedule is: all you need is a few minutes to find quietude and joy in your frantic life.

Meghan, my little love. She is my son’s young girlfriend and my ex-best friend’s daughter. She came to my home with Ethan for a visit. Nineteen, untouched, angelic, and wanting. The moment I saw her, I wanted her. I needed to make a thrusting appearance deep inside her untouched walls.

Entrepreneurs must learn to be the masters of their tools and practices, instead of religious followers of them. They need to learn how to build, explore, and preserve empathic connections to the people they intend to serve with their solutions. The Lean Startup brings up interesting perspectives to optimize the development process. Those productivity-driven assets will be incredibly helpful, as long as entrepreneurs are building something relevant to the people they are aiming to serve. Service design, with its human-centrism, opens crucial empathetic windows.

Barely a year before, Le Fontainebleau opened to little fanfare in downtown Columbus. A lifetime passion project of an immigrant from the French countryside, it was meant to fill a glaring hole in the local dining scene. Simple peasant dishes offered in a modest setting. Clean cooking that soon developed an avid following, helping to elevate it to one of the must-eat locations in the city. And the site where, at just after noon on a dreary spring Wednesday, a hooded gunman entered, raised the automatic weapon hidden under his jacket, and opened fire.

When he graduates with his law degree, handsome and charismatic Langston Hudson is ready to hit the ground running as a lawyer with his family's firm, but a routine traffic stop during a night out with his friends quickly derails his plans and turns his world upside down. Langston and his friends are arrested after officers find half a million dollars' worth of drugs in his car. When Jacqueline Hudson learns of her son's arrest, she immediately begins to build her case. She is one of the top lawyers in the country, with a reputation for being a shark in the courtrooms.

Do you feel lonely even when you are with people? When we are alone and isolated, many of us think we will feel better once we surround ourselves with friends, family, or a romantic partner. We are constantly looking for someone else to complete us, accompany us, and give us love and attention. But instead of feeling less lonely, we often end up feeling empty and disappointed.

Contemporary views of business ethics often show businessmen and women in a bad light. Egoism, profits, and competition are branded as immoral, while social consciousness is praised. Atlas Society Senior Scholar Stephen Hicks, PhD, disagrees with this point of view. Most contemporary business ethics does business a disservice. Worse than that, its proposed cures are plagued with unintended consequences that are often much worse than the problems it is attempting to solve. Hicks defends the egoism that drives successful business people and the morality of free-market capitalism.

In Ayn Rand and Altruism, George H. Smith calls attention to benevolence in Rand’s thinking. Indeed, Smith defends Rand’s rejection of altruism by contrasting it to benevolence. In this series of essays, originally published on Libertarianism.org and republished by The Atlas Society with permission of the author, Smith begins by establishing that Rand’s definition of altruism - “the placing of others above self, of their interests above one’s own” - is identical to the definition of altruism originated by Auguste Comte.

This Christian healing audiobook delves into the negative and downright devastating events that occur in our lives that break our faithful hearts and trample our spirits, but it won’t be man-made wisdom pellets being handed out here. This is a Christian journey to find God in the midst of our sorrow.

Can’t stop your critical thoughts? With mindfulness, you have critical thoughts… without the suffering. From an early age, many of us have this critical voice in our head that we call the inner critic. We have tried many different exercises and techniques to get rid of it, but nothing works. These intrusive thoughts keep popping up whenever they want. And they make us feel frustrated! Instead of overcoming our self-criticism, we end up making the inner critic our enemy and blame ourselves for having such self-loathing thoughts.

A lady farmer and a disgraced detective - will what starts as an arrangement turn into something more? Leigh Hawthorne, a widow and local farmer in Tucker Springs, Massachusetts, answers an unusual letter from a man out west, who wants to marry a woman with ranching expertise. Hoping to find a better life, Leigh embarks on a journey to Chance City, Oklahoma. Join the Chance City adventure as its citizens battle opposing forces and mayhem in their searches for love and a brighter future.

Evelyn Winters enjoyed spending the summers at her grandmother's cabin. There was always something interesting to do, whether tending the garden or exploring the surrounding swampy forest of the Smoky Mountains. She never cared to learn the witching ways of her grandmother - until the devil showed up. When Eldon Jenkins is found dead, torn limb from limb by a wild beast, and the devil comes creeping around the cabin, grandma keeps it at bay. But when grandma goes missing, Evelyn must rely on her wits, training, and dormant abilities.

What is the nature of benevolence toward other people? How does it differ from altruism? Is it a major or minor virtue? How does it relate to the benevolent sense of life? David Kelley answers these questions in a groundbreaking work. Unrugged Individualism is the first philosophical analysis of benevolence from the Objectivist point of view, a major addition to the Objectivist ethics, and a convincing demonstration of the fertility of the system of ideas originated by Ayn Rand.

When Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner, Billie, received a direct summons to the personal residence of Governor Thomas Cowan, he assumed it was another escalation over the particulars of their new position as liaisons between the Columbus Police Department and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

There is simply no value put on words. Words, however, are the reason that one person lives a life of abundance while another person lives a life of lack. In this book, I want to share with you the correct way to harness the power of your words, so instead of holding you back, they propel you towards the life that you desire - the life that you were destined to live.

For paramedic Adam Carson, his world is lights and sirens and saving lives. Pressures at work keep him firmly in the closet, and life is too busy to contend with the complications that come with dating and relationships. When a familiar face from his past turns up where he least expects it, Adam starts to question whether or not there is room in his life for those complications. The last person forensic pathologist Sam McKenna expects to see at pub night is Adam, the guy who made his life hell in high school.

Family is more than blood; it’s where you find your safe harbors.

It started as a quiet night, a much needed reprieve for the overworked team of Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner, Billie. With just a single phone call from dispatch, both are plunged into a nightmare they could have never imagined. Somewhere in the greater Columbus area, a young 20-something is sealed away inside a coffin. With no recollection of how she got there or who might have put her there, she is desperate.

For much of the last year, the liaison position thrust on Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie, forcing them to split time between the Columbus Police Department and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, saw them doing an increasing amount of work for the latter. Cases handpicked by the governor with the hope of currying goodwill on his own behalf, sending them to nearly every corner of the state.

Eighteen months ago, Detective Reed Mattox didn’t just lose his partner, the woman he met on his first day at the police academy and worked with for the entirety of his career thereafter. He lost his confidante. His sounding board. His support system. His best friend. Victim to a senseless shooting during a routine traffic stop, the details of that night are still as elusive to Reed as they were more than a year before.