Presenting an outline of the four necessary steps for meeting suffering with compassion, this insightful book shows how to build a capacity for compassion into the structures and practices of an organization. --

Everyone appreciates kindness. A smile, a few friendly words, a show of concern when we're troubled or feeling unwell, an offer of help - gestures of kindness like these brighten our day and ease whatever sadness we may feel in our hearts. Feeling that "someone cares" fulfills a very deep need that we all have. And just as we appreciate other people being kind to us, others appreciate it when we are kind to them. That is why it is important to learn to be kind, because it will help make our relationships and interactions with others more satisfying and less problematic. But it's not always easy to be kind. Sometimes our hearts are filled with anger, jealousy, or pride, and being kind is the last thing we feel like doing. Or we get so caught up in our work and responsibilities that we find no time to think of others and their needs, no time to be kind and gentle. However, these problems can be remedied. The Buddhist tradition offers a wealth of methods that can be used to overcome whatever prevents us from being kind and gentle. Some of these methods are explored and explained in this book - in a way that will allow you to practice them in your daily life. Awakening the Kind Heart offers powerful and inviting meditation techniques to activate the heart of kindness within us all - a modern and motivating interpretation of traditional and powerful practices.

Steer your organization away from burnout while boosting all-around performance The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit presents realistic strategies for leaders looking to optimize organizational achievement while avoiding the common nonprofit burnout. With a uniquely holistic approach to nonprofit leadership strategy, this book functions as a handbook to help leaders examine their existing organization, identify trouble spots, and resolve issues with attention to all aspects of operations and culture. The expert author team walks you through the process of building a happier, healthier organization from the ground up, with a balanced approach that considers more than just quantitative results. Employee wellbeing takes a front seat next to organizational performance, with clear guidance on establishing optimal systems and processes that bring about better results while allowing a healthier work-life balance. By improving attitudes and personal habits at all levels, you'll implement a positive cultural change with sustainable impact. Nonprofits are driven to do more, more, more, often with fewer and fewer resources; there comes a breaking point where passion dwindles under the weight of pressure, and the mission suffers as a result. This book shows you how to revamp your organization to do more and do it better, by putting cultural considerations at the heart of strategy. Find and relieve cultural and behavioral pain points Achieve better results with attention to well-being Redefine your organizational culture to avoid burnout Establish systems and processes that enable sustainable change At its core, a nonprofit is driven by passion. What begins as a personal investment in the organization's mission can quickly become the driver of stress and overwork that leads to overall lackluster performance. Executing a cultural about-face can be the lifeline your organization needs to thrive. The Happy, Healthy Nonprofit provides a blueprint for sustainable change, with a holistic approach to improving organizational outlook.

The revered Buddhist teacher and author of When Things Fall Apart presents the lojong teachings—pithy slogans for daily contemplation—and the ways in which they can enrich our lives Welcome compassion and fearlessness as your guide, and you’ll live wisely and effectively in good times and bad. But that’s easier said than done. In The Compassion Book, Pema Chödrön introduces a powerful, transformative method to nurture these qualities using a practice called lojong, which has been a primary focus of her teachings and personal practice for many years. For centuries, Tibetan Buddhists have relied on these teachings to awaken the deep goodness that lies within us. The lojong teachings include fifty-nine pithy slogans for daily contemplation, such as “Always maintain only a joyful mind,” “Don’t be swayed by external circumstances,” “Don’t try to be the fastest,” and “Be grateful to everyone.” This book presents each of these slogans and includes Pema’s clear, succinct guidance on how to understand them—and how they can enrich our lives. It also features a forty-five-minute downloadable audio program entitled “Opening the Heart,” in which Pema offers in-depth instruction on tonglen meditation, a powerful practice that anyone can undertake to awaken compassion for oneself and others.

Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done? A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion. But in hard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions—deliver negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some cases lay people off. How do you do the hard things that come with the responsibility of leadership while remaining a good human being and bringing out the best in others? Most people think we have to make a binary choice between being a good human being and being a tough, effective leader. But this is a false dichotomy. Being human and doing what needs to be done are not mutually exclusive. In truth, doing hard things and making difficult decisions is often the most compassionate thing to do. As founder and CEO of Potential Project, Rasmus Hougaard and his longtime coauthor, Jacqueline Carter, show in this powerful, practical book, you must always balance caring for your people with leadership wisdom and effectiveness. Using data from thousands of leaders, employees, and companies in nearly a hundred countries, the authors find that when leaders bring the right balance of compassion and wisdom to the job, they foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, loyalty, and well-being in their people. With rich examples from Netflix, IKEA, Unilever, and many other global companies, as well as practical tools and advice for leaders and managers at any level, Compassionate Leadership is your indispensable guide to doing the hard work of leadership in a human way.

A new edition of the #1 NYT’s bestseller by Mark Nepo, who has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time” and “a consummate storyteller.” Philosopher-poet and cancer survivor Mark Nepo opens a new season of freedom and joy—an escape from deadening, asleep-at-the wheel sameness—that is both profound and clarifying. His spiritual daybook is a summons to reclaim aliveness, liberate the self, take each day one at a time, and savor the beauty offered by life's unfolding. Reading his poetic prose is like being given second sight, exposing the reader to life's multiple dimensions, each one drawn with awe and affection. The Book of Awakening is the result of Nepo’s journey of the soul and will inspire others to embark on their own. He speaks of spirit and friendship, urging readers to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships. Encompassing many traditions and voices, Nepo's words offer insight on pain, wonder, and love. Each entry is accompanied by an exercise that will surprise and delight the reader in its mind-waking ability.

The lives we lead, particularly in the Western world, are technologically overburdened and spiritually impoverished. Our children can tell us the various merits of different operating systems for electronic devices, but are rarely in touch with how different emotions are experienced in the body, or how it feels to bring kindness to a moment of difficulty. They are bombarded almost constantly with information at a rate that mankind even 50 years ago would have struggled to begin to comprehend, and mental illness is at an all-time high. Research indicates that one of every four adolescents will have an episode of major depression during high school, with the average age of onset being 14 years of age. The human race is at a tipping point, and we have no sane choice but to begin to awaken the capacities within us that have too-long lain dormant. We can choose to lead a child towards awakening, and thus awaken ourselves.