Showing results by narrator "Matthew Spaur" in All Categories

While writers, designers, editors, and other creative professionals spend years learning and refining creative craft skills, those skills do nothing to prepare us for the human, organizational, and operational challenges that come with promotions to leadership. And as your responsibility grows, it’s those organizational and leadership skills that will hold you and your team back.

In "Budget Billionaire," Jeff Coker masterfully dismantles the myth that true luxury and fulfillment are reserved for the ultra-wealthy. With wisdom and warmth, Coker guides listeners through a transformative journey, proving that the essence of a rich life lies in contentment, mindfulness, and the joy found in everyday experiences. This insightful book unfolds across 30 chapters, each a beacon guiding you towards living a life of unparalleled richness without the need for a billionaire's bank account.

This book is my attempt to capture some of the most memorable, real-life leadership stories that I've heard, learned from others, read about, or personally experienced and benefited from in my own growth as a man, a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and a leader. My intention is to use these stories as a tool for others looking to manage and lead others. Ever since I was a kid, I've used analogies, stories, and anecdotes as a way to help me get my messages across in a more fun and succinct manner

This book goes beyond just explaining the basics; it introduces key stock market concepts such as shares, dividends, and market trends in a way that captures the imagination of young listeners. The engaging narrative brings to life the characters and situations that make understanding the stock market an enjoyable and interactive experience. This gift is perfect for any child ages 8-12 who has expressed an interest in learning the basics of the stock market and investing.

In a coming-of-age story reminiscent of The Outsiders, 13-year-old Reason Nelson attends a party that is busted by the local police. As he flees, he collides with a detective and a drug dealer. He snatches up what he believes to be his leather jacket and crawls into a doghouse. In the pocket of this coat, Reason discovers a key that opens a safe-deposit box containing evidence that will solve the murder of a young female informant. Reason finds himself running from both the drug dealer who murdered her and the detective trying to solve her murder.

The Cost is a story of a cost engineering consultant named Doug Benson who does his best to help companies understand and improve cost. When Doug arrives at Electronica, the company is on a verge of bankruptcy and hardly even knows why. He must use all his cost engineering knowledge and leadership skills amidst some considerable corporate drama all the while fighting his own personal demons in order to give Electronica a chance. 

Alexander Shalom Joseph’s American Wasteland is a collection of stories about the contemporary day-to-day in America. It is said in the Talmud that one job of certain Jews is to justify the existence of humanity to God; in this collection, Joseph attempts to do just this with his stories, which speak to the everyday mundane and the vast richness in both meaning and meaninglessness that abound all around us. These stories, vivid in detail, portray a stagnant land full of longing and millions of lost people trying to make sense of a world which can seem both crushing and light.

Wynne is intrigued but nervous about her new friend’s paranoid claims that he has ESP and a monomaniacal researcher has been pursuing him for decades. But after a brutal attempted kidnapping, she realizes that Lord’s life is as bizarre and more dangerous than she had ever imagined. The couple flee Portland, Oregon, and travel across the country in an effort to get Lord the freedom he finally deserves. They assemble a team of misfits with varying abilities before facing a life-or-death challenge with international ramifications.

At the start of the 21st century, Matthew Spaur remarried, became a stepparent to three boys, and started a weekly newspaper--all at the same time. Almost overnight, he became a self-employed working parent with bad business timing. He did this despite having never owned a business, worked on a newspaper, taken a journalism class, or sold advertising.

In The Suffering of Lesser Mammals, acclaimed author Greg Sanders draws the listener into a world of believable absurdity, as individual crises meld with those of the age. Among the 13 stories in this collection, a young father’s anxiety throws the Earth out of orbit; a bachelor breaks up with his car; a “multivariate correlator” conjures a lonely deity; two sisters are abducted by a cadre of immortal alewives. Wildly inventive, morally wise, and achingly funny, this is the short story as reimagined by a fearless—and fearsome—voice. 

After 32 years of teaching, Joe Monninger, an avid outdoorsman in robust health, was looking forward to a long retirement with the love of his life. Three days after his last class, however, he’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, even though he has not smoked for more than 30 years. It was May, and he might be dead by early fall. Soon Joe learned, however, that he was a genetic match for treatment with a drug that could not cure his cancer, but could prolong his life. With this temporary reprieve, he sets out to live life to the fullest and to write about the year of grace that follows.