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A Publisher's Conversation with Authors: 🌸 The Book That Won’t Die

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Bouquets of Bitterroots and the Strange Longevity of Ideas Some books refuse to fade. They don’t sell in large numbers anymore, but they keep circulating — through conversations, memories, used bookstores, and the occasional surprise royalty deposit. My own example is Bouquets of Bitterroots: How to Get Anyone to Do Anything for You and Be Happy About It , published in the early 2000s. Every couple of years, a tiny royalty arrives, just enough to remind me the book is still out there, still being found, still being read. But the real proof of its longevity came in a far more unexpected moment. I was once in a dispute with an organization, and their lawyer — a sharp, confident professional — told me he wanted to offer me a “bitterroot.” He had read the book. He was trying to use my own techniques on me. He did it so poorly that I won the engagement. I doubt he was happy about it. That moment taught me something: a book’s influence isn’t measured by sales. It’s measured by memory. When ...

Publisher's Pride: Books on Bestseller Lists - When Liberty Enslaves (Aveta)

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  Today's Publisher's Pride is  When Liberty Enslaves  by Jerry Aveta, which reached  #88 in campaigns & elections, #95 in U.S. abolition of slavery history, and #98 in abolition history of the US. Book Description There is a common experience between our experiences today and those before the Civil War many years ago.  The effect of the intersection of faith and politics during these two experiences has had on our elections and our governance is uncanny in their similarities.  Both times an election insurrection was stopped by the sitting vice president.  Both times had people of the same faith on both sides of the social issues of the day claiming God’s favor and willing to divide the nation over those competing positions. Part 1 of this writing focuses on the Civil War era and how liberty centered around the issue of equality.  Some people of faith believed all men were equal, some did not. Part 2 focuses on our present times and how libert...

Free book. When Liberty Enslaves (Aveta)

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  Kindle will be offering free copies of  When Liberty Enslaves  by Jerry Aveta, a winner of multiple awards, which recently reached  #88 in campaigns & elections, #95 in U.S. abolition of slavery history, and #98 in abolition history of the US. Go get your copy March 23-27! Book Description There is a common experience between our experiences today and those before the Civil War many years ago.  The effect of the intersection of faith and politics during these two experiences has had on our elections and our governance is uncanny in their similarities.  Both times an election insurrection was stopped by the sitting vice president.  Both times had people of the same faith on both sides of the social issues of the day claiming God’s favor and willing to divide the nation over those competing positions. Part 1 of this writing focuses on the Civil War era and how liberty centered around the issue of equality.  Some people of faith believed all me...

Reframing Perception

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  Hofstede (1980) urged us to teach the “invisible cultural differences” that shape human behavior long before we notice them. Alanazi and Leaver (2024) extend that insight: to lead abroad, we must understand how people’s values transform in some contexts and conform in others. But this understanding doesn’t come from memorizing cultural facts. It comes from something deeper— reframing perception . Cross‑cultural leadership is not about learning what people do. It’s about learning how to see what they do. Why Reframing Perception Is the Real Work Most leaders abroad don’t fail because they lack information. They fail because they interpret what they see through the wrong lens. They assume their perception is neutral, when in fact it is culturally conditioned. Reframing perception means: noticing your own assumptions suspending the instinct to judge asking what a behavior means in its own cultural logic recognizing that your first interpretation is usually incomplete ...