True Professional

Generoso Pope, Sr., an Italian immigrant, arrived in New York in 1906 with only pennies in his pocket. He got a job shoveling sand, but through his intelligence, he worked his way up to become the biggest provider of cement, just as it was becoming the key material for building. Gene Pope, Jr., was his father’s choice to inherit and run the business, but Gene’s mother and two brothers forced him out, and he found himself penniless and on his own. With a loan from his godfather, mobster Frank Costello, Gene bought the New York Enquirer. He renamed it the National Enquirer.

In his award-winning debut essay collection, What Cannot Be Undone, Walter M. Robinson shares surprising stories of illness and medicine that do not sacrifice hard truth for easy dramatics. These true stories are filled with details of difficult days and nights in the world of high-tech medical care, and they show the ongoing struggle in making critical decisions with no good answer. This collection presents the raw moments where his expertise in medical ethics and pediatrics are put to the test.

An outsider within her Jersey Shore family, Chef Rossi finds a home for her punk sensibilities inside the kitchen. When their high-school-age, punk, runaway daughter is found hosting a Jersey Shore hotel party, Rossi's parents feel they have no other choice: They ship her off to live with a Hasidic rabbi in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Within the confines of this restrictive culture, Rossi's big-city dreams take root.

When 16-year-old Jessica Wragg applied for a job at her local farm shop in Derbyshire, England, she never expected to land a position behind the butchery counter. Wragg was younger than many of her colleagues by decades, and she was one of the few women on staff, struggling to earn her keep among colleagues who were reluctant to share the tricks of their trade with a novice. Breaking down carcasses by day, and studying animal anatomy by night, Wragg was soon hooked and determined to establish herself in an industry that is steeped in tradition, and often resistant to change.

In a single moment in time, Garret Frey was transformed from an active and energetic four-year-old to a quadriplegic, ventilator-dependent boy who struggled to make sense of a world in disarray. For seven years, Garret worked with Clinical Psychologist Dr. Karen Pirnot as Garret learned that his mental powers could help compensate for the loss of body function. As I Am details the struggles of Garret's mother to advocate for a "normal" childhood education for her son.

Will you live your life for all the right reasons? Is your life built on a solid foundation? Do you know your core values, and do you have the courage to live by them? Kevin Guest couldn't have foreseen where his childhood dream of being a rock star would take him. From Kalispell to Holland, Nashville to China, Kevin has been around the world and back again collecting experiences and learning valuable lessons of strength and character that have served him for a lifetime.

These are true stories of winners and losers in the quest for superior service. Who wins? Who loses? It's up to you! Benchmark the best service innovations (Chapter 5: Generating New Ideas). Discover how to keep your customers happy, loyal, and buying more (Chapter 10: Building Up Your Business). Find out who makes the biggest mistakes in service and what you must avoid (Chapter 13: The Infinite Absurdity Awards).

This beautifully written biography charts the life of Dr. Cynthia J. MacKay, a wife, a mother, a surgeon, and a lifelong activist campaigning against the cruel, painful, damaging invasive corrective eye surgery LASIK. It is written with modesty. It is engaging, witty, and sometimes painful to listen to as it describes the discrimination, smear campaigns, and brutal conduct of her peers and others who have tried to ruin her in their own act of self-preservation. Cynthia battles through it all, with dignity, determination, and an abundance of wit, humor and humility.

This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller but the words of attorney Sharon Muse. They came after she survived an attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the hands of Hank Morrison, a former client. On April 7, 2006, Muse miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morrison, only to find that the threat to her life was just beginning. Ineptitude in the justice system threatened to release Morrison and allow him the opportunity to finish the job, which he adamantly pledged to do. Muse would have to fight at every step to ensure her safety.

Tiny Dancer is the amazing true story of Zubaida Hasan, a nine-year-old girl from the remote deserts of Afghanistan who, in the summer of 2001, accidentally fell into a kerosene fire while heating water for a bath. Though she was horribly mutilated, her father refused to give up and exhaustively sought help to save his child.

On a sunny spring day, in an ordinary kitchen, Rosemary answers an unexpected phone call. A car has hit her husband, Hugh. Rosemary arrives at the hospital just in time to see him before he's rushed into surgery. Thinking of their twin daughters, Rosemary pleads with her unconscious husband as he lies on a gurney. "Don't you leave me Hugh Rawlins. Anna and Mary need you. I love you." Overwhelmed, but determined to bring Hugh back home, Rosemary leans on family and friends as Hugh endures two emergency brain surgeries, a coma, and a confused awakening.

Craig Thayer’s destiny was mapped before he was even born. Saved is the story of a man who learned to see the sum of his parts and follow them like stepping stones throughout a miraculous life. Being put up for adoption at birth and finding his family at nine months was just the start of his unorthodox journey.

In 1996, an unprecedented decade-long courtroom battle was waged in Florida to help bring justice and hope to the family of a young boy born with no eyes after his mother was doused outside of a local u-pick farm by a chemical fungicide believed to have caused his birth defect and the birth defects of many other children. It was a battle that nearly everyone but attorney Jim Ferraro deemed unwinnable. After all, it involved one of the world's most powerful industrial giants.

Against All Odds is a deeply moving account about one boy who had all the odds stacked against him, but through grit, hard work and determination, defied the statistics to become a success. Each chapter includes valuable life lessons and will inspire listeners from every walk of life to look beyond their circumstances, take responsibility for their choices, and move into the life they’ve always wanted.

After escaping war-torn France, where 18 members of her family were murdered in the Holocaust, Gisèle Huff arrived in the US with her mother. It was 1947, and they had $400 to their name. Gisèle quickly found her footing in America, eventually earning a PhD at Columbia University, running for Congress, and launching a spectacular career in K–12 education.

La inolvidable historia real de cómo un simple empleado de limpieza que trabajaba duro para llevar comida a su casa, inventó Flamin’ Hot Cheetos haciendo pruebas de sabor en secreto, rompiendo barreras y convirtiéndose en el primer ejecutivo latino de la compañía Frito-Lay.

You're a Christian woman, and you want to succeed in your professional life. But you're not sure how to do that without compromising your faith. It can feel like there's a lot of pressure to choose between success and faith.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

Underneath the dirty lights of the wrestling ring, lies a world far from the glitz and glamour seen by the audience. It's a world of scraped elbows from bloody canvas's long drives in beaten-up cars, and paychecks that barely cover gas money. A world where "enhancement talents" exist-not to win but also not to lose, but to be spectacular at the cost of their own bodies.

Vincent Torres was never meant to be part of the elite. A former U.S. Marine turned Beverly Hills bodyguard, he spent his days protecting the rich and powerful—until a single moment changed everything. When a smug billionaire laughed in his face, telling him he’d never qualify for an exclusive metal credit card, Vincent didn’t just take it as an insult. He took it as a challenge.