Common Ground: Exclusive Edition

Our modern diet, high in low-quality carbohydrates, is damaging our bodies - producing a constant overload of sugar in our bloodstream that clogs up our arteries and piles hidden fat into our internal organs. The result has been a doubling in the number of type 2 diabetics,as well as a surge in those with a potentially hazardous condition - prediabetes. It is now known that even moderately elevated blood sugar levels can trigger heart disease, stroke, dementia, and cancer.

While building the Virgin Group over 40 years, Richard Branson has never shied away from seemingly outlandish challenges that others (including his own colleagues on several occasions) considered sheer lunacy. He has taken on giants like British Airways and won, and monsters like Coca-Cola and lost. Now Branson gives an inside look at his strikingly different swashbuckling style of leadership.

Canadians are becoming increasingly skeptical about their chameleon prime minister. When he entered politics, Justin Trudeau came across as a person with no fixed principles. Now, he presents himself as a conviction politician. What motivated his metamorphosis - belief or opportunism? From one of Canada's most popular and connected political journalists, an unblinkered warts-and-all look at Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government's record in power. A must-listen as we head into the 2019 federal election. 

In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation's number-one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs. Instead we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor - the tastes we crave - and the underlying nutrition.

In his audiobook, A Higher Loyalty, former FBI director James Comey shares his never-before-told experiences from some of the highest stakes situations of his career in the past two decades of American government, exploring what good, ethical leadership looks like and how it drives sound decisions. His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of powe, and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.

We now live in a learning economy, says Brad Staats, and while learning has always been important, the returns on lifetime learning are greater than ever. Our primary focus must be on our ability to learn. We must strive to develop new skills to create more value - or be left behind. In Never Stop Learning, Staats outlines the framework that will help you become more effective as a lifelong learner.

400 Things Cops Know shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat - a profession that can range from rewarding to bizarre to terrifying, all within the course of an eight-hour shift. Written by veteran police sergeant Adam Plantinga, 400 Things Cops Know brings the listener into life the way cops experience it - a life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph, and plenty of grindingly hard routine work.

Brain imaging research demonstrates that memory loss actually starts in the brain decades before you have any symptoms. Learn the actions you can take to help not just prevent memory loss later in life...but to begin restoring the memory you may have already lost. Expert physician Dr. Amen reveals how a multipronged strategy - including dietary changes, physical and mental exercises, and spiritual practices - can improve your brain health, enhance your memory, and reduce the likelihood that you'll develop Alzheimer's and other memory loss-related conditions.

In October 2017, Jagmeet Singh was elected as the first visible minority to lead a major federal political party in Canada. The historic milestone was celebrated across the nation. About a month earlier, in the lead-up to his election, Jagmeet held community meet and greets across Canada. At one such event, a disruptive heckler in the crowd hurled accusations at him. Jagmeet responded by calmly calling for all Canadians to act with “love and courage” in the face of hate. That response immediately went viral.

Changing Body Composition Through Diet and Exercise presents the latest scientific research about changing your body composition, along with diet and exercise recommendations in incremental steps that men and women of all ages and fitness levels can follow. Led by Professor Michael Ormsbee, Assistant Professor and Interim Director of the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine, you will gain access to cutting-edge research that demonstrates what does - and doesn’t - work.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is celebrated as one of the greatest orators in US history, an ambassador for nonviolence who became the most recognizable leader of the civil rights movement. But after more than 40 years, few people appreciate how truly radical he was. The Radical King includes 23 selections, curated and introduced by Dr. Cornel West, including essays and speeches that were never recorded for posterity - a revelation for King's legacy.

Don't let problem people get to you! Whether it’s a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change.

In the first biography of the Tragically Hip, Michael Barclay talks to dozens of the band’s peers and friends about not just the Hip’s music, but about the opening bands, the American albatross, the band’s role in Canadian culture, and Gord Downie’s role in reconciliation with Indigenous people. When Downie announced he had terminal cancer and decided to take the Hip on the road one more time, the tour became another Terry Fox moment; this time, Canadians got to witness an embattled hero reach the finish line. 

We live in a competition loving culture. We love the performance, the big win, the ticking seconds of the clock as the game comes down to the wire. We watch games and cheer, sometimes to the point of obsession, but if we really wanted to see greatness - wanted to cheer for it, see it happen, understand what made it happen - we’d spend our time watching, obsessing on, and maybe even cheering the practices instead.

At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.