Books
Charley Chipmunk and the Chipmunk Race : Matt Lincoln
An encouraging and uplifting story of a chipmunk named Charley who dreamed of winning a chipmunk race.
Charley’s legs were a little different from those of the other chipmunks, so he couldn’t run as fast. But with the support of his friends, Charley wins his first race.
The story aims to help children with disabilities see their potential and inspires able-bodied children to cheer on their friends, regardless of their differences.
Charley Chipmunk and the Chipmunk Race is available in hardcover, paperback and digital formats and is available on-line via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart and other booksellers.
Yes is the Answer. What is the Question? : Cameron Mitchell
Free airline flights for an associate to spend time with her terminally ill sister. A manager who fires a customer for mistreating a server. Passing the hat to raise $20k for colleagues who lost wages after Hurricane Irma. Hourly associates who rave about how their company feels like a family.
These are real-life stories from a company that has built a wildly profitable business in the restaurant industry, known for quite the opposite – poor treatment of workers, high turnover, and high failure rates.
What makes this restaurant company so unique? And more importantly, what can business leaders in any industry learn from them?
Cameron Mitchell—CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants (CMR) and Chairman Emeritus of the Culinary Institute of America—shares lessons for business leaders in his new book Yes is the Answer. What is the Question?: How Faith in People and a Culture of Hospitality Built a Modern American Restaurant Company (Ideapress Publishing; November 13th, 2018).
As companies in every industry face a culture crisis, Mitchell shares the key to his company’s 25 years of success: a work culture where people feel cared for, valued, and which nurtures their wellbeing and greatness.
Against all odds, Mitchell went from a high school dropout and teenage runaway to a nationally-renowned restaurateur who sold two of his most popular restaurant concepts for $92 million. Today, CMR is celebrating 25 years in business, has 60 restaurants from coast to coast, employs almost 5,000 people, and generates over $300 million in annual sales.
According to Mitchell, the single most important factor in the company’s success is its culture based on values that have been around since day one. They put their people first – in turn, their associates stay for 5, 10, 15, 20, even 25 years as proven by extremely low turnover rates, which are consistently well below national restaurant averages. They always prioritize culture over profit, and yet, their bottom line is higher than that of comparable companies.
With insights and retrospection, Yes is the Answer. What is the Question? reveals:
- Cameron Mitchell’s personal journey from a run-away, small-time drug dealer to a Culinary Institute graduate mapping his goals out at his mother’s kitchen table, to going 14 months without a paycheck while starting “Cameron’s”, to now a successfully celebrated CEO
- The cornerstones of CMR’s success: the “51% culture, 49% profit” and “people-first” philosophies, and how they have helped the company weather difficult times and have led to some of the highest staff retention rates in the industry
- Cameron Mitchell Restaurants’ growing pains and rock-bottom lows, including difficulty raising capital in the early days, barely weathering the Great Recession, and a reckless expansion that nearly tanked the company
- Mitchell’s growth as a leader and steadfast commitment to training the next generation of leaders: including insight into creative training approaches to attract millennials, the importance of continuing education, how a culture of candor builds trust, and Mitchell’s belief that you should empower every associate to think like an owner.
With engaging narration and practical business insights, Yes is the Answer. What is the Question? brings to the table lessons for entrepreneurs and CEOs alike.
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The Sober Journey, A Practical Guide to Health, Nutrition and Fitness in Early Sobriety : Dirk Foster
Being sober and being healthy are often two different things. Addiction to alcohol and drugs causes serious damage to the human body, so it’s important to find a way to recover our health after recovering our sobriety.
Based on the author’s own experience with addiction, The Sober Journey: A Practical Guide to Health, Nutrition and Fitness in Early Sobriety offers a simple and easy plan for getting healthy, one day at a time.
Sobriety is difficult for anyone. If you’re new to sobriety, or have been sober for years, there are unique challenges to face every day. What you eat, how you exercise, and how you treat yourself spiritually and mentally are crucial if you want to live a happy and productive life.
Written with many examples from the author’s own life, and offering an easy guide to follow, The Sober Journey is for anyone seeking to develop a healthy body, mind and spirit.
Includes:
- How Addiction Harms Our Body
- Proper Nutrition Guides and Tips
- Easy Exercise Routines and Ideas
- Spiritual Development Tools
The Sober Journey: A Guide to Prayer and Meditation in Recovery, Polluted! My Sober Journey and Sobertude by Dirk Foster are also on Whizbuzz Books.
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American Revolution: A Gay Novel : Byrne Fone
Is America ready for a gay president?
What is the connection between a murder in a gay bathhouse in New York, a front-running presidential candidate, and a shadowy cabal who want to destroy the candidate at any cost?
Gay reporter Philip Kristopher discovers that he is playing a double game as both hunter and hunted as his quest leads from gay activist rallies to the inner sanctums of the rich and powerful, the pulpits of the religious right, and the secret headquarters of militant private armies, and finally to the door of the White House itself.
This compelling gay novel is about America’s great obsessions: Power, Politics, Money, and Sex.
Utopia Falls and Achilles by Byrne Fone are also on Whizbuzz Books.
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A Manhood Doctrine : Jason Powers
A Survival Guide Versus Societal Shifts & Ideological Subversion
In 1963, The Feminine Mystique was published. The second wave of Feminist goals followed from its publication.
A Manhood Doctrine discusses the origins, results, and ongoing malaise facing not only the United States, but also the majority of the Western world. The author presents the issue in three parts: societal radicalization, family history, and individual responsibility and action.
From the family story of a left-leaning son, of a single mom, to facing the future individually, the author provides a theory of self-development approach and insights from forty-plus years of “failures” and more recent improvements.
Derived out of Maslow’s hierarchy pyramid, the keystone habits of health and energy form the foundation and supports one’s trek to growth. Career, knowledge, finance, relationships, and legacy lead to a path of self-fulfillment. This is meant to thwart the ideological pushes of the 21st century. Men must weigh out their future interactions in a different light and assess risks therein.
Mr. Powers provides the links to the history, his intimate path trekked, for good and ill, and a better way ahead as surmised in a Self-Fulfillment model.
A Manhood Doctrine does not speak for all men. But it hopes to dent the psyche of those that wonder why this reality is not as expected from the years of social conditioning. It serves up data to buttress the argument against much of what has been taught and a way out to a better you.
Mr. Powers holds an MBA from Valparaiso University and an Industrial Engineering degree from Purdue University. He lives in West Lafayette, Indiana.
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Silent Retribution Man : J. Sato
“Instead of due process, I give the process that is due.”
Lionel Seaver has had it with the indecent, arrogant, rude, mean-spirited and for lack of more negative adjectives, pricks in today’s society. It’s about time these people get what’s coming to them.
And its not just about people who break the law either. It is not always against the law to be a prick, on the contrary, it is often rewarded. The jerks, bullies and greedy don’t go to jail. They use their power and possession to abuse people. Decency and kindness are often viewed as a sign of weakness, a trait that can be taken advantage of.
Where conscience and law fail to direct people to do the “right” thing, Seaver decides to step in and secretly and violently set them on a different course.
Seaver lost his family, job and identity in society. He embarks on a course to nevertheless create what he deems is a positive existence for himself as Silent Retribution Man. He accomplishes this by systematically stalking and beating people up who do anything from being rude to waiters, to scamming people out of money, to sexually harassing subordinates, to molesting children. Nothing too big or small, whoever has it coming is going to get it.
Lester Burnham in American Beauty was “an ordinary guy with nothing to lose”, Tyler Durden in Fight Club, once he lost “everything was free to do anything”. Seaver is all of the above, and wants to become the guy in the conclusion of the news story that beat the jerk up because he had it coming. The journey is long and Seaver is forced to confront his own conscience, sanity, and ultimately his mortality.
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Poverty Crusade : Robert Peprah-Gyamfi
A Little African Village’s Campaign Against World Poverty
The poor of this world, especially those in the developing world, are caught between a rock and a hard place. Their countries suffer under the burden of the unfavourable trading practices of the advanced countries. Their plight is further worsened by their own greedy and corrupt leaders who squander whatever meagre resources are left at their disposal.
It is against this backdrop that residents of Mpintimpi, a tiny impoverished village in Ghana, dispatch a delegation to draw the attention of their President to their appalling plight.
Eventually, the determined villagers take their case to the West, which their President identified as partly responsible for their predicament. In frank exchanges with Merkel, Juncker, May and Trump, they make their concerns known. A surprise invitation by Queen Elizabeth II leaves them thunderstruck.
What begins as a petition of a tiny village goes global, culminating in a global poverty march a la Greta Thunberg’s Global climate movement, with millions of people from Sydney to Accra, Manila to Sao Paulo and New York marching for urgent action aimed at world-wide poverty eradication—with one striking difference. Whereas the climate change movement plays out in the real world, this enthralling narrative is a virtual phenomenon, a product of a vivid dream fantasy of the author.
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Bloopy : Simone Faith
The Lines Between Us : Leopold Figaro
Traumatized by a failed relationship, Ade believed he can only go about the rest of his life portraying a cold and unfeeling appearance. He is strict and all business until Eva crashes into his life and forces his heart back into the game.
Even though Eva grew up feeling unwanted and unworthy, her determination and happy spirit never wavered. When she meets Ade, she looks past his sternness and is drawn to his solitude and sadness. When she catches a glimpse of the caring man within him, she is unable to walk away.
With negativity surrounding them, the two attempt to explore the connection they realize is between them.
Poetry and Other Poisons by Léopold Figaro is also on Whizbuzz Books.
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The Jesus Ring : Daniel Harry
An ancient ring washes onto the sand and shells of the Florida shoreline. Peter Christian, a young American veteran struggling with PTSD, finds the ring and slips it on his finger. He isn’t aware the ring’s last wearer was God’s own son.
The ring’s purpose is to find the person chosen to champion the faithful into the future, if it has one. Peter discovers the ring that will change him physically and gives him the ability to communicate directly with God. God has given the humans this last chance to come back to him, or he will wash his hands of the petri dish we call Earth and leave it to Satan and his swarm to devour and destroy.
This time, the ring has chosen a warrior instead of a lover of peace, as there are harsh times coming. Peter is very familiar with the ominous, horrific events predicted for the end-time, and he will be given the means to build fantastic devices to help save mankind, if the faithful win.
Peter and eleven disciples have been destined for this seemingly insurmountable task. This time God will take a bigger presence in the fight, but He won’t win the battle for them if there are not enough faithful to make winning worthwhile.
Satan’s harvesters, huge carnivores that can only prey on the unfaithful, are coming, and time is running short for the Golden Twelve to save as many as they can.
The Jesus Ring is a modern-day interpretation—but with many new twists—of the events foretold in the Bible’s book of Revelation.
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