Travel diary of a recent winter spent in Russia by the Baron and Baroness de Rothschild.

"Having an understanding of the human mind and how it functions is probably the single most important thing anyone who wants to be successful can do." We make thousands of decisions every day. In fact, research suggests that an adult brain makes on average about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions on a daily basis. When we were younger, choices were most likely simple. As we get older, our level of responsibility increases and so does the amount of choices that we are faced with on a daily basis. With ever increasing choices and responsibility at least our decision making process stays the same, right? In actuality, our decision making process is broken. It's warped and sometimes even shattered by cognitive bias. Why are we so afraid of sharks or plane crashes yet continue to do far more dangerous things? Why do we instinctively look for patterns to inform our decision making and bring meaning to our world? Why can't we listen to reason when we need it most? Join Spencer Fraseur through a journey of real stories of flawed logic and bad behavior in business (and in life) to discover what can be done to overcome the hidden forces that impact our everyday decisions.

What was the real reason for the failure of South Canterbury Finance and could it have been saved? Was it really the fall in coal prices that sank Solid Energy? Why did Pumpkin Patch collapse? Why do over 2000 small businesses go into liquidation every year in New Zealand? Why did David Ross defraud over $100 million from Kiwis¿ life savings in the failure of Ross Asset Management? Why did the leaders of these businesses make decisions that ultimately saw the demise of the business they led? Why do we all make decisions that we know are not likely to be good for us, whether in business or in life? To take a journey through the failures of kiwi business requires a journey through all our irrational minds. While failures were caused by factors such as excessive debt, no cash, external forces, weak governance, poor skills, failure to pay taxes and more, all can be linked back to the decisions people did or didn¿t make. This book is backed by the extensive research of leading academics, and interviews with the CEOs, CFOs and board members of failed businesses. It includes discussions with journalists, fraudsters, insolvency experts, lawyers, official information requests and much more. The author also shares details about his experiences within the corporate world, and the price he paid suffering a significant breakdown and four years battling depression dealing with the often irrational world that exists within business Take a journey through the irrational mind that we all share and see what part that mind plays in the success and failure of business. Share the background and the stories of those at the heart of these failures and many other real-life events in business in New Zealand and from around the world.

A powerful, life-affirming true story begins like a fairy tale come true when attractive, assertive and well-educated Patty Sutherland meets a handsome prince from Malaysia and they fall in love. At his insistence Patty converts to the Muslim faith so they can marry. They settle on an idyllic island resort he owns in the South China Sea. Soon their happiness is enhanced by the birth of a daughter and later a son. But as time passes, Patty begins to see another dimension of the man and the family into which she married: they are violent, amoral and involved with the Muslim extremist group which consorts in secret to bring down the West. Realizing she and her children have to get away, Patty tells her husband the marriage is over. Immediately, he snatches the children's passports and demands Patty leave the country alone or, he threatens, he will have her and the children killed.In the next years, as she travels between America and Malaysia trying to get custody, Patty sees that even with the excellent lawyer she has hired, there will be no justice since the all-powerful Islamic clergy close to her husband rule the religious court system.Finally, Patty realizes the only way to rescue her children is to smuggle them past the extremists guarding them. And she begins to plan, as the story accelerates with chilling momentum, their escape to freedom...a perilous journey.

In iWant, investigative journalist and author Jane Velez-Mitchell traces her unique quest for an addiction-free life over the course of many years, detailing her struggles to stop drinking, smoking, overeating, and overworking. During this journey, Velez-Mitchell comes closer to discovering her authentic self, embracing her ethnic identity, and accepting her true sexual orientation. With layers upon layers of addictions removed, she is able to distinguish between what she wants and what she truly needs, and ultimately confronts her addiction across the board--Overconsumption. Using the Twelve Steps in every aspect of her life, Velez-Mitchell shares how she shed many of the self-destructive habits that plague Americans, habits responsible for a host of social ills from the obesity crisis to environmental wreckage. She admits to having been one of the 300 million Americans who shops and acquires addictively and describes how the Twelve Steps have put her on the road toward shedding unnecessary material possessions and limiting waste--despite a society that glorifies excess. While her journey is ongoing and she is still seeking answers, the culmination of Velez-Mitchell's work to date is having held the first Overconsumers Anonymous meeting, in which she and others like her admit to being powerless over this very real addiction and are ready to adopt a more spiritually fulfilling, economical, and environmentally friendly lifestyle.

For those who have a philosophical interest in the foundation of Western thought as well as those whose interests in the humanities encompass the nature of the examined life, Socrates and the Irrational is both an accessible and an erudite journey into the mind of this central figure of our civilization.