#but also steven just being like a neglectful parent and using his manager power to let dave steal is So fucking funny to me

[the-acid-pear]

Y'know this little throwaway gag is so bizarre to me and I know this game is a bit very different to 2 and 3 but look at Matt's reaction when Jack raids the place in 3:

You'd argue he's simply stopping Jack bc he hates this guy and he also hates this job which Could Be True but i highly doubt bc overall despite his virginity and overall cursed vibe, Matt seems to be a good employee, by all means (I mean, Peter literally gave him a vacation instead of firing him in 2, so that says a lot).

Plus, Dave hates this guy as much as he hates him! He literally always calls him creepy and, AND!

This is the only footage you get of the prize corner in 2. Which is also the first game to show Matt and Dave's disdain for one another, Dave being likely more scared of Matt than Matt will ever be of him.

Which is all very curious. 2 does set a drastic change for Matt too with him going from being just strange to outright creepy, so was the old pizza place closing something that actually affected him or was he consistently that creepy all along? And if the later, did he just start hating Dave after that or did they always have beef and they simply had some sort of arrangement (or even higher word from Steven who tended to let Dave do whatever he wanted in general) that let him do so?

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

@thecorteztwins

So, I wound up writing another piece of that “Fabian and Maximus kidnap Luna” scenario, this time from Luna’s perspective.  This is kind of turning into a fan-fic, but feel free to tell me to stop, or tell me to do specific things in the story, since I am using your ideas here.  If I manage to keep this up, I think the next scene will be Fabian’s perspective at the mall, pretending to be Luna’s two dads. 

(Also, I’m pretty sure that Fabian didn’t actually kidnap Luna to “teach Quicksilver a lesson,” but I figure that’s how he’d explain it to her.  Maximus and Fabian are both entirely full of bullshit most of the time.)

           Luna was used to being alone.  Inhuman parents didn’t hover over their children constantly the way human parents seemed to, and royal Inhuman parents even less so.  Her mother was constantly away on some kind of official business, like long, boring meetings or fancy dinners, or dealing with yet another crisis that threatened to destroy the entire city.  Other children took lessons together, but as a princess, Luna was given private tutors.  She’d outgrown nannies, so she was usually on her own when lessons were over. At least when Ahura was around they could play together, when he wasn’t moody and moping.  

           Being alone at the Avengers compound was nothing new, either.  Her father had dashed away to deal with the Wrecking Crew destroying buildings in downtown New York.  At least they were living up to their names.  According to her father, they usually stole things and robbed banks, which seemed weird, since they didn’t call themselves the Bank Robbing Crew.  Luna knew she shouldn’t mind, it was her father’s job to fight bad guys and save people, but he’d promised her that they’d go out for ice cream that afternoon.  And there were so many Avengers, did he really have to go?  He could fight bad guys any time, but Luna would only be staying with him another month before heading back to Attilan (assuming her mother didn’t forget because the Kree attacked or Attilan fell into a time portal or whatever).  

           So Luna was sitting on the couch watching Steven Universe, and feeling very sorry for herself, because this was supposed to be Luna and Dad time, and she was alone again.  The cartoon cheered her up a little bit.  The show was about magic sentient space gems, which was a really neat idea, and they had cool designs, and sometimes there were songs.  But mostly, Luna could totally relate to the main character being a half-human, half-alien hybrid, struggling to fit into either world.

           Absorbed in the show, Luna didn’t look up when the door opened.  Two of the gems had fused into some kind of giant woman, and were fighting weird bird monsters.  It wasn’t until someone picked up the remote and switched the TV off that Luna looked up.

           One man she didn’t recognize.  He was kind of handsome, except for the haughty expression on his face.  He was wearing coveralls and a hat, but she could see wisps of red hair peeking out around his face, and a long ponytail down his back.  His emotions were much uglier.  Luna could see golden pride running through his psyche, polished to an arrogant gaudiness.  The too-bright gold color was twined with sharp neon green malice, a rich, luxurious royal purple of greed, and tightly coiled spirals of orange anxiety.  This wasn’t a good sign.  

           The other man was Uncle Maximus, which was an even worse sign.  He was wearing the same coveralls and cap, reminding Luna of the work clothing that he often wore in the Chamber of Devices.  The anxiety inside him was tinted white, closer to excitement, lying in tangled knots across the same garish pride Luna saw in the other man.  Uncle Max’s emotions were far less orderly, though. His psyche was a polychrome nightmare, constantly shifting like a stained glass window come to life, colors clashing as they shot jagged spikes across his torso.   The only constant was the black.  It wasn’t like the cool pools of blue-black calm inside Uncle Black Bolt, it was a writhing darkness that reached out to stain any color that came into contact with it.   It twisted through her uncle’s body, coiling into his brain, wrapped around his heart. Or maybe it was coming out of his heart? It was hard to tell.  

           “Oh, hi Uncle Max!”  Luna said, not quite sure yet whether she should be worried. Somewhere in the rainbow mess, she could see a faint pink of affection.  “Are you bad again?”

           “I’m never bad, dear child,” Maximus cooed, in a tone more oily than honeyed.  “Others label me so because they don’t have the mental capacity to understand my actions.”

           “Oh.  That sounds like you’re bad again.”      

Luna was never really clear on whether she should be afraid of her uncle.  She had first heard of Maximus as a kind of boogeyman, someone that her tutors spoke of in fearful whispers.  He’d seemed to fit that description when Medusa dragged her down to his dark cell, a soft-spoken monster hiding behind a smiling mask.  Despite his kind behavior (he even explained things to her like she was a grown-up!), talking with him felt a little like cuddling up to a tiger. He seemed to change every time Luna saw him – one day cold and sly, the next day practically jumping up and down with excitement while explaining one of his machines.  He certainly didn’t remain soft-spoken, he got very shouty when his emotions boiled over inside him in an eruption of colors.

Even the adults couldn’t seem to decide how to treat him – he was locked away in a dark dungeon forever, he was ruling Attilan, he was the family’s trusted scientific expert, he was trying to kill everyone, he was building machines for Black Bolt, he was a prince to be respected, he was a reviled lunatic.  No one trusted him, but Crystal had left Luna in his care when she and the rest of the family went to rescue Uncle Black Bolt and Ahura from the Skrulls.  (He hadn’t hurt her then, only talked to her for hours in a way that sounded very much like he was talking to himself.) Was Uncle Maximus good or bad or brilliant or crazy or all of those things?  He certainly wasn’t the nightmare under the bed any more.  Lately, Luna had started to think of him as a badly-behaved child, hiding behind a grown-up mask.

           “What does ‘bad’ even mean, really?”  Maximus asked, taking her by the arm.  “A word to keep people in their place.  It’s a word for the peasants, Luna, not for us. Royalty is beyond good and bad.”

           “I really don’t think that’s true Uncle Max,” Luna said, letting herself be pulled up away from the TV.  She’d seen this episode, anyway.

           “You’ve obviously been spending too much time with these humans, you’re starting to absorb their mindset.  You need to be back with your own people.”

           “Is that where you’re taking me?  Back to Mom and Aunt Medusa?”  Maximus grinned broadly at her.

           “Yes, child, exactly!”  Bright flashes of sickly pale blue inside him screamed insincerity.

           “Really?”

           “Well, we’ll go back to Attilan eventually, but first you can spend some fun time with your Uncle Max and my….associate here. I’ll teach you all sorts of interesting things.  Your education has been far too neglected.”

           “I don’t wanna learn.”  Luna wrinkled her nose as she paused, not letting herself be pulled any further.  Maximus paused with her, apparently unwilling to yank her along.  “I’m supposed to be on vacation from school.  Can’t we do something fun?”

           “Yes, poppet, we’ll do all sorts of fun things,” Maximus promised, and the blue blended with a forest green that suggested he was at least partially telling the truth.

           “For God’s sake, Maximus, just grab the kid,” interrupted the man with the ponytail, annoyance flashing a jagged red.  “We need to get out of here before anyone else walks in.”

           “Watch your tongue, Cortez!” Maximus snapped. “Luna is a princess of Attilan and she will be treated with respect.  Even if she’s part mutant, poor thing.”  He patted Luna on the head at that last comment.  Luna was used to this kind of talk.  Most citizens of Attilan approached her half-breed status with something between barely disguised contempt, or, at best, horrified fascination and pity.  She didn’t see why it was such a bad thing.  Her father had powers just like Inhumans, better powers than most of them!

           “That’s her better half, anyway,” the man grumbled. “Mutants will inherit this world.” Uncle Max waved his hand dismissively.

           “Can I say good-bye to Mr. Jarvis before we go? And I should leave a note for my Dad -” Maximus’ grip on her arm tightened. Luna was suddenly completely certain that she was being kidnapped.  It was hardly the first time.

           “Let’s not bother Mr. Jarvis right now, he’s very busy,” Maximus said quickly.  “Don’t worry, we’ve already told Quicksilver that we’re coming to pick you up.” Luna’s father would never in a million years agree for Maximus to take Luna back to Attilan.  He was the only grown-up who’d always been consistent in his opinion of Uncle Max – namely that they should lock him up and throw away the key.

           “Wait, let me get my clothes!  And my toothbrush!  I can’t go without my toothbrush, can I?”  If Uncle Max let her go to her room, Luna could leave a note for her father.  Or even make a run for it.  Maybe she could hide in one of the many spare rooms until the Avengers came back.

           “You don’t need all that, poppet.  We’ll buy you some new clothes.  We’ll have a shopping spree, won’t that be nice?”  Now Maximus was pulling her towards the door again, so that Luna had to stumble along to keep up.  Luna made a frustrated sound, not quite a growl or scream, just a long “Rrgggghhhh….”

           “Quiet!”  ordered the pony-tailed man.

           “Uncle Max, if you’re gonna kidnap me, can’t I at least take my clothes along?  And my DS? It gets really boring being kidnapped!”

           “What does ‘kidnap’ even mean, really?  Just another silly word,” Maximus said cheerfully. Luna rolled her eyes and thought about screaming at the top of her lungs.  That would at least bring Mr. Jarvis from the kitchen.  But Mr. Jarvis didn’t have any powers, and he’d try to stop them.  Luna was fairly sure that Uncle Maximus would not hurt her.  But he would probably hurt Mr. Jarvis.  Screaming was out.    

           “It means you’re taking me someplace I don’t wanna go!” Luna snapped, as they went through the main doors towards the stairs.

           “But you do want to go with us,” Maximus insisted.  “We’re family.  Family members can’t kidnap each other, right?  We’re going to buy you some lovely new things, and have a really fun time together!”

            “That’s right!” agreed the pony-tailed man, smiling as if it hurt him to do so. “We’re great fun!”

           Luna fumed quietly as they went down the stairs. She didn’t think she could use her powers on both of them at once.  It was really hard to use her powers on Uncle Max, anyway, like trying to run underwater. If she tried he would fight, and then the other man, “Cortez,” would probably do something nasty to her.  It would be easier to take over Cortez, but then Uncle Max would use his own powers to stop him.  She wished desperately for her mother to appear and light both men on fire (not like, completely on fire, just enough to hurt them a little.  Maybe just their toes.)  She wanted her father to zip up the stairs and whisk her away, safe in his arms.  But neither of them did, because they were busy.

           They were always busy.  For a moment Luna hated her entire stupid family.  This wouldn’t be happening if either of her parents had been there, like parents were supposed to be.  Maybe they’d finally learn their lesson when her father came back and found her gone.  She smiled a little to herself, imagining her father dropping to his knees and weeping.

           “Oh Luna, how could I have left you all alone? We should have gone out for ice cream like you wanted!”  He would wail.  “How could I have ever considered anything more important than my precious daughter?” Crystal would join him, and they would cry into each other’s arms.  “Our daughter is gone forever because we were such bad parents!  By Randac, I swear if Luna comes back safe I’ll never make her do boring algebra worksheets ever again!”

           Luna was so caught up in fantasy that she barely noticed as they exited the building and climbed into a van.  She realized as the doors shut that she should have gotten a look at the license plate, but it probably didn’t matter.  If this was a kidnapping (and it totally was!), Uncle Max would announce himself to the family soon enough and make a big showy spectacle out of it.  He was “extra,” a human word that Luna had learned from She-Hulk.  And maybe it wouldn’t hurt that her parents would worry about her for a little while – maybe they should.

           Maximus was strapping her into the backseat while Cortez got into the driver’s seat.

           “Where did you get this Uncle Max?  You didn’t do something bad to someone, did?”  

           “Nooooo, of course not,” Maximus tried to assure her as he settled into the front passenger seat.  “A nice man gave it to me.”

           “Oh.”  Luna mentally supplied quotes to the word “gave,” just hoping that her uncle hadn’t hurt the man.  “Are you Uncle Max’s friend?”  She asked Cortez, who was driving them towards the gate.

           “We are…associates.  Partners, you could say,” Cortez said, glancing back at her. “Listen child, I know we have had our differences in the past, but if you behave yourself and cooperate, I promise not to harm you.”

           “What differences?”

           Cortez abruptly stepped on the brake, Uncle Maximus letting out a startled yelp as he jerked forward into the dashboard.

           “I wasn’t even belted in yet, Cortez!  Can you not even drive through a parking lot without some display of incompetence – “   He went on in that vein, but Cortez was not listening, only looking back at Luna, bright yellow surprise flaring up, then smoldering down into a dull, dark red anger.

           “Do you really not remember?  I once kidnapped you to teach your dreadful father a lesson!  How can you forget someone like me?!”

           “Maybe I was a baby?  People don’t remember things from when they were babies,” Luna suggested, trying to be helpful, and maybe calm his anger a bit.  

           “You were old enough!  You were – no, never mind.  I am the great Fabian Cortez, Spanish royalty, leader of the Acolytes, true successor to the legacy of Magneto, the very pinnacle of the race of homo-superior.”

           “That means mutant,” Maximus supplied.  “Now will you drive the van, or must I lower myself to the task, Cortez?”

           “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cortez,” Luna said. “Don’t feel bad if I don’t remember. I get kidnapped a lot.  It’s hard to remember every time.”

           “Fine.  Fine. I forgive you forgetting.  You are only a child, and children can be forgiven these things,” Cortez conceded, anger visibly cooling.  “But more importantly, Maximus, how will we get her past the guard?  I assume you’ll….”  Cortez glanced at Luna, then back at Maximus, and tapped his forehead in a way that meant to be secret.  Obviously he wanted Uncle Max to use his mind control powers.  Luna wondered if they’d keep using charades around her if she pretended not to understand.

           “Why don’t we do this the easy way?” Maximus said, turning to Luna.  “Luna, we’re going to play a fun hide-and-seek game where you lay under this tarp.”  

           “That doesn’t look very clean.  I don’t think I want to play that game.”  And Uncle Max couldn’t force her.  He couldn’t use his powers on her, that was the one advantage she could play.  That, and the cell-phone in her dress pocket that neither man had noticed yet, but she’d have to pull it out when they weren’t watching her.

           “Oh, but you must!  It’s one of the many delightful games we’ll be playing today,” Maximus insisted.

           “Can we also go to store and buy me some new clothing?  Like you said?  I’ll play the game if we can go to the mall.”  Luna knew they could overpower her if they really wanted to.  But Maximus probably didn’t want to do something like that, and he probably didn’t want to deal with her crying or screaming. Buying her presents would be the path of least resistance.  And it seemed only fair, since they were kidnapping her and everything.

           “That’s really not-“ Cortez started, but was cut off by Maximus.

           “Yes, of course, princess!  Just like I said!  I promise!”  The colors seemed to indicate sincerity, although Uncle Max could change his mind on a dime.  But then, resisting might mean that they hurt the poor security guard, and Luna didn’t want that.

           “Okay, it’s a deal.  You promised!” Luna lay flat against the seat and pulled the tarp over herself.  If she played her cards right, maybe she could get her uncle to buy her a new DS.  

[ulrichfoester]

Too Afraid to Care

Richard Nicastro, PhD explores the impact of having an avoidant attachment style in relationships and why a deep emotional connection can feel so scary to some.  

For those who have an avoidant attachment style, caring comes at a significant emotional cost.

“It’s always been hard for me to get close to people. I have this wall that goes up. Maybe it’s never completely down. I know it’s frustrated my wife. I’ve been accused of not feeling, of being distant, of not caring, of being afraid of intimacy…it’s just that…well, there’s this wall, it’s always been a part of me.” —Kiefer, age 39

Once you care deeply about someone, there is always the threat of loss. Loss and caring go hand-in-hand. When others become important to us, they have considerable power —  power to uplift, power to sway, power to hurt. The emotionally avoidant anticipate that this power will lead to pain. A pain that may arise from clashing agendas, incompatibilities of desire and interest, pain for caring more than the other, a pain that may be reminiscent of earlier relational wounds.

For too many, the road to emotional intimacy is paved with potential danger.

For those of us who have learned to prioritize avoidance strategies, the residue of negative feelings resonates the loudest. Distress; helplessness; being overwhelmed; frustrations that consume; longings that go unfulfilled; shame and humiliation; rejection that immobilizes.

These wounds shape the inner relational blueprint that mobilizes avoidant attachment, a blueprint that makes connecting with others feel risky (Saakvitne, Gamble, Pearlman, Lev, 2000).

Avoidant attachment in a response to the pain of caring

“In order to deal with the loss of my parents when I was nine, I had to stop caring. Once I stopped caring, it didn’t matter what happened to me.” —Bruce, age 53

The story from attachment theory focuses on the plot-line of closeness and distance. To oversimplify in order to make a point, those of us who more often than not received what we needed from our caregivers as children end up feeling comfortable with opening ourselves emotionally to others later in life (the securely attached amongst us). Relationships are a safe harbor, a place to return to again and again in order to be seen and experienced and to emotionally refuel (Mahler, Pine, et al., 2000).

Attachment wounds have the potential to turn our inner security into longstanding states of uncertainty, anxious self-doubt, fears of abandonment, and for some, the need to forego (dismiss) their own attachment needs.

A range of relational failures can leave us prone to mistrust, a suspiciousness about emotional intimacy, a leeriness that drives us to keep others (including our spouse/partner) at arm’s length. Attempts to connect with someone who has an avoidant attachment style may frequently lead to frustration and confusion; the partner of someone with an avoidant attachment style may find that connection is supplanted by remoteness — a reaching for someone who is emotionally unavailable.

It can feel like there is a void in the person who is distant, a remoteness between people that parallels the inner remoteness, an inner disconnect of the person who had to mute his/her desires and emotions.

We remain distant or avoidant of a certain level of closeness in order to shield ourselves from (further) emotional injury. We sever our capacity for empathy and caring in order to wall off our inner world. Here self-imposed loneliness is preferred over the risk of loss.

In these cases, avoidance is a protective maneuver — a pattern of relating which centers around regulating closeness and how much of ourselves we show (or are able to show) to others. This relational stance isn’t necessarily a conscious choice, but rather, one created out of early attachment experiences that shaped us.

How much of the raising and lowering of our protective walls is truly within our control?

It’s not surprising to find that our earliest relational experiences set in motion our internal “working models” (Main, et al., 1985), a mental road-map of what a relationship can offer; these deep-seated relational expectations prime us to experience others in particular ways. Expecting pain or disappointment, we may discount many positive interactions with our spouse/partner only to zero in on a particular painful event that reminds us of the dangers of caring, of opening ourselves to the influence of another.

Our partner’s behavior can set in motion strong feelings in us when his/her behavior is reminiscent of the wounding we endured in childhood. These past-present collisions (the wounds of our past triggered in our current relationship) are often unconscious, occurring rapidly and without full awareness. We may lose perspective in the moment, discounting the circumstances surrounding what happened, feeling convinced that distance is the only viable option to being in a relationship.

Avoidant attachment strategies: Mitigating vulnerability, desire and need

“My preference is to be as self-sufficient as possible. The less I rely on others, the better.” —Kay, age 56

The dependency of childhood and our early reliance on others make us extremely vulnerable; we are shaped by the psychology and relational capacities of those we depend upon at an early age. Attachment traumas/neglect can significantly diminish our capacity to identify, regulate and use our emotional experiences (Stevens, 2014). Our disconnection with our inner life and our struggles with emotions make navigating relationships and intimacy more challenging.

One solution to the dilemma of believing that others cannot meet our needs is to turn against ourselves, to attack or mentally disown the vulnerable parts of ourselves that hunger for emotional closeness. In these instances, a central part of who we are, our need for relatedness, places us at risk — a risk of further wounding at the hands of those we open ourselves up to. This felt-danger is stirred by our need/desire for connection, and to defend against this, we must somehow learn to keep these desires in check.

In order to manage our attachment needs, we may fall back on self-reproach (“You are so weak”; “Don’t be an idiot, you always get hurt”). We bully and shame ourselves into not needing, an ongoing inner battle that intensifies whenever we find ourselves caring for another. Or we may turn the reproach toward our partner, attacking her/him for having the very needs we’ve had to deny within ourselves.

The denial or muting of our attachment needs reduces the emotional impact others can have on us. The less hold our desire for connection has over us, the less someone (even someone important to us) can send us into an emotional tailspin. Here self-sufficiency is prioritized and prized. Yet it’s a defensive self-reliance that may not completely eradicate our desire for contact with others.

The self-fulfilling prophecy of relational disappointment

One possible outcome of distal relating is that it will create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In short, your cynicism of emotional closeness frustrates others and they end up reacting accordingly to you: they become frustrated/angry, withdrawing, rejecting, etc; but rather than identify how you may have contributed to their pulling away or ending the relationship, you experience their behavior as evidence that others cannot be trusted and you are therefore justified in keeping your emotional distance.

In other words, distance begets distance.

Relationships usually involve patterns of closeness and distance, a movement between the opposing poles of the close-distant continuum. Life circumstances, stress, and particular relationship and personal dynamics all contribute to this intimacy ebb-and-flow. It would be a mistake to think that closeness should be static and remain at the same level across time periods and circumstances.

Too many of us carry our past over into our current relationships. Avoidant attachment is one such carry-over that stems from the pain of earlier relationships. A pain that has, for some, been managed by protective armor. “My wall goes up” is a phrase often repeated by those who find it necessary to protect themselves in this way.

Understanding how these current protective maneuvers might also contribute to the pain we are attempting to avoid can be an important first step in healing the psychic scar tissue of our attachment wounds.

Rich Nicastro, PhD is a psychologist in Austin & Georgetown, TX. He works with individuals and couples and specializes in treating men who struggle to connect emotionally in their relationships. He can be reached at Rich@RichardNicastro.com or 512-931-9128.

Citations 

Malher, M., Pines, F. (2000). The Psychological Birth Of The Human Infant Symbiosis And Individuation.

Main, M., Kaplan, N., & Cassidy, J. (1985). Security in infancy, childhood and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. In I. Bretherton & E. Waters (Eds.), Growing points of attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50 (1-2, Serial No. 209), 66-104.

Saakvitne, KW, Gamble, S, Pearlman, LA, Lev, BT.  Risking Connection: A Training Curriculum for Working With Survivors of Childhood Abuse. 2000.

Stevens, F.L. Affect Regulation Styles in Avoidant and Anxious Attachment. Individual Differences Research, 2014, Vol. 12 (3), pp. 123-130.

Too Afraid to Care published first on https://familycookwareshop.tumblr.com/

[makeitwithmike]

7 Inspiring Books You Must Read

By Jeff Bullas

She told me to turn off the light.

It was 8pm and it was time to sleep according to the adult’s house rules. These were non-negotiable. My desire and passion for reading that I had discovered after mastering “the cat sat on the mat” sentence at the age of five, made this a cruel and arbitrary time.

And a seven year old’s passionate response…

…”But I want to keep reading“.

Despite protestations and mumblings, the light switch was flicked to the off position. First battle lost. The adults (sometimes referred to as my parents) had all the fun. But they didn’t count on my patience that was driven by an inherited trait of passionate persistence.

As the house went silent I grabbed my bedside lamp and positioned it under the bedcovers so that an orbiting spy satellite would have trouble knowing what I was doing. Parents score zero and child chalks up a win.

This was the start of a reading habit that has sometimes bordered on obsessive.

Glimpses of genius

Inspirational books are your access to the best minds in the world. From creativity, to business and marketing and beyond. They distill the essence of what often is a life of learning into a few pages. It is where you will discover ideas, tactics and habits that are the seeds to success.

A great book is one that reveals the ideas with clarity. They expose the genius but don’t hide it in dross and words that don’t matter. Often the best books are the short books.

It’s also what you do with those concepts that will define you.

Self publishing doesn’t need permission

Some of us may want to not just read but write. Today you do not need to beg for permission to publish a book. You can write it in a word document, send it to your designer (that you found on Freelancer) to create a great looking cover and then upload it to Amazon.

You are now an author!

New age writers and authors are taking advantage of that and building a lifestyle and businesses based on their creative output.

But you must keep in mind that becoming a good or even a great writer requires practice and also that means reading and more reading. Steven King said that “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Great ideas do not emerge from a vacuum.

It’s a new age and you need to reinvent yourself

In an age of video, multimedia and digital innovation the book and the business landscape has evolved. You can read books on tablets, book readers and even your smart phone. You can gain ideas that were made public just a few seconds after the author hit the publish button on their blog.

In a digital age that changes every day, the role of books, blog posts and self-education are more vital than ever. We cannot rely on just the wisdom of the last century or even a decade that has just passed. We need to continue to hunt down the new ideas and innovations that are driving an ever changing world.

Here are some inspiring books to read that are woven into my creativity, business and marketing habits.

1. Elon Musk: Tesla SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

In this book, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance provides the first inside look into the extraordinary life and times of Silicon Valley’s most audacious entrepreneur. Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family and friends, the book traces the entrepreneur’s journey from a rough upbringing in South Africa to the pinnacle of the global business world.

Vance spent over 40 hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to 300 people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk’s world-changing companies: PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, and to characterize a man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation while making plenty of enemies along the way.

My key lessons from this book are the three vital ingredients that all successful people have. An appetite for hard work, passion and a higher purpose that is not about money. It’s what you need if you want to change to world or make a dent in the universe.

Sorry…I forgot one other lesson. Dare to dream big.

2. The One Thing

This inspirational book by Gary Keller reveals the power of focusing on your “one thing”. His New York Times bestselling books have sold more than 2 million copies.

He also reveals the “One” thing that made Keller Williams Realty, Inc., one of the largest real estate companies in the world. What was that? It was writing a book that positioned him and his company as the authority in real estate in the USA.

In The ONE Thing, you’ll also learn productivity tips such as:

Cut through the clutter

Achieve better results in less time

Build momentum toward your goal

Dial down the stress

3. Steal like an an Artist

Creativity and genius is sometimes thought of as being that one insight or flash of inspiration that appears from nowhere. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In this this very insightful book by Austin Kleon explains that you don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself.

That’s the message from Austin, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

4. Now, Discover Your Strengths

The biggest challenge for all of us is discovering what your mission on this planet is. That is often the journey of a lifetime.

It also means working on your strengths but many of us don’t know what they are.

Or how to find them.

Unfortunately, most of us have little sense of our talents and strengths, much less the ability to build our lives around them. Instead, guided by our parents, by our teachers, by our managers, and by psychology’s fascination with pathology, we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, while our strengths lie dormant and neglected.

Marcus Buckingham, (who was also coauthor of the national bestseller First, Break All the Rules), and Donald O. Clifton, have created a revolutionary program to help readers identify their talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy consistent, near-perfect performance. At the heart of the book is the Internet-based StrengthsFinder Profile, the product of a 25-year, multimillion-dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human strengths.

This book comes with free access to the web based “Strength Finder Test” that you will find very revealing. I know I did.

5. The Lean Startup: How Relentless Change Creates Radically Successful Businesses

The digital age has turned almost every aspect of our world on its head. This extends to our personal lives and how we do business.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs – in companies of all sizes – a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. The author Eric Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

I found this a great book to challenge my thinking and grow my business.

6. Insanely Simple: The Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success

This book by Ken Seagall caught my attention after reading Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson while travelling by train through Italy. After that 630 page exposure to the mind of a genius, I became a bit of a Steve Jobs fanboy. So finding out more about the person that has redefined our world was tempting.

To Steve Jobs, simplicity was a religion. It was also a weapon. Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple—it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.

What does this book cover?

Think Minimal: Distilling choices to a minimum brings clarity to a company and its customers—as Jobs proved when he replaced over twenty product models with a lineup of four.

Think Small: Swearing allegiance to the concept of “small groups of smart people” raises both morale and productivity.

Think Motion: Keeping project teams in constant motion focuses creative thinking on well-defined goals and minimizes distractions.

Think Iconic: Using a simple, powerful image to symbolize the benefit of a product or idea creates a deeper impression in the minds of customers.

Put it on your reading list!

7. Do the Work

This short but powerful and inspiring book by Steven Pressfield was revealing about a problem that many of us have. Having a lot of great ideas but not doing the work. This book led to me adopting the Mantra “Done is better than perfect”.

It also helps answer questions such as:

Could you be getting in your way of producing great work?

Have you started a project but never finished?

Would you like to do work that matters, but don’t know where to start?

So the answer is Do the Work, a manifesto by bestselling author Steven Pressfield, that will show you that it’s not about better ideas, it’s about actually doing the work. Do the Work is a weapon against Resistance – a tool that will help you take action and successfully ship projects out the door.

Over to you

Books are great and reading them is fun. You can gain many great ideas that are inspiring, motivating and lead to many conversations.

But if you don’t take the key lessons and start the work then nothing happens. I hope this list of the best inspirational books will help you get started.

Over to you.

The post 7 Inspiring Books You Must Read appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

The post 7 Inspiring Books You Must Read appeared first on Make It With Michael.

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Jonda cynecki hasn't seen her twin sister Wanda in 13 years and doesn't hold out much hope that she ever will. Their last contact came at a family gathering in Ohio for Christmas, after which Wanda returned to her home in Key West, Fla. Then she disappeared. She didn't call, didn't write and couldn't be reached. When her parents died several years later, her siblings had to use intermediaries to get through to her. She called to borrow money about a year ago. Since then, the only sign she's still alive is that no one has heard anything to the contrary. And yet Jonda, 54, a school librarian, says wistfully of Wanda, "There isn't a day that goes by that something doesn't remind me of her."

Usually that something is doing the laundry. Whenever Jonda goes down to her basement to wash clothes, she sees, tucked under the stairs, an old tandem stroller. Her father crafted it from spare parts, painted it white and wrapped rubber around its wooden wheels. Jonda won't get rid of the stroller, even though it provokes sorrow and anger toward the sister who walked out on her family. What Jonda doesn't know--and might never know--is why.

Estrangement from siblings is a powerful ache not only for Jonda but for millions of other Americans as well--especially during the year-end holidays, when the absence of relatives is most poignant. Many of the 77 million baby boomers, now well into middle age, live farther from their brothers and sisters than did previous generations. And with each passing year, they face more of the life passages that often trigger splits with siblings, particularly arguments over the care of elderly parents or over their estates. At the same time, boomers have more divorces and fewer children and are less tethered to neighbors than were their parents and grandparents, so they are more in need of strong relationships with sisters and brothers--the most-enduring ties many of us have in our lives. Eighty-five percent of adult Americans have at least one sibling, yet an estimated 3% to 10% have completely severed contact with a brother or sister.

Such absolute estrangements may not be the norm, but experts who study family relationships believe they are on the rise. Psychologist Carol Netzer, author of Cutoffs: How Family Members Who Sever Relationships Can Reconnect, thinks that today's broader cultural freedoms have made it easier for people to say goodbye to traditions and to relatives. "The nuclear family is not as tight as it once was," she says. Some rifts reflect larger trends. The Woodstock generation, Netzer explains, was full of young people leaving their families to lose themselves in drugs or join religious groups, political movements and communes. "Often, when that ripple in the culture passes," says Netzer, "people go back to their families." Terry Hargrave, family therapist and author of Families and Forgiveness, believes that while the psychological self-help movement has been largely positive, "it teaches the individual that 'you're the most important thing; family is not.'"

The origins of a sibling breach often can be traced to childhood. Psychologist Stephen P. Bank, co-author of The Sibling Bond, observes that eldest children who are expected to care for younger siblings may feel overburdened and resentful. Children born too many years apart, says Bank, may never share common interests or developmental stages. For them, slender ties are sometimes easy to cut.

Nancy B. (who asked that her full name not be used) is a management consultant with a sister older by six years and a brother older by 12. She doesn't speak to either of them but for differing reasons. "The age gap was so significant," she says. As a child, she worshiped her brother, whose trips home from college were cause for celebration. A few years ago, he stopped returning her calls. She doesn't know why.

On the other hand, she was never comfortable with her sister. "There was always tension between us," Nancy, now 52, says. "I couldn't figure it out." Nancy ended contact after the sister attached herself to yet another violent man, and Nancy felt relegated to the role of caretaker--for someone who didn't want to be helped. The three siblings were last together 25 years ago at their mother's funeral. Nancy still feels the loss, she says, "but my heart isn't breaking anymore. I've figured out a way to be in the world without trying to make love happen where it isn't."

Yet in other families, psychologist Bank says, large age differences can help alleviate competition for toys, friends and parental attention. Some older siblings enjoy being caregivers, often in exchange for adoration. Studies show bonds among sisters tend to be strongest, epitomized by Bessie and Sadie Delany, co-authors of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. And when parents are absent, neglectful or abusive, siblings often fill the void by forming tight bonds, as did the brothers in the movie Radio Flyer.

Major life changes such as marriage, divorce, birth, illness or death can trigger a separation, Netzer says, but usually only if tensions have been building for years. Consider, for example, the case of Michael Carr, 42, a money manager, and his older brother Steven, who ended contact with each other two years ago. When they were growing up, Michael saw Steven, two years older, as his best friend and guardian angel. "We were really close," Michael says. "He was the ringleader in the neighborhood. He was my hero." (Steven did not respond to requests for an interview.)

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n the early '70s, Michael says, Steven became temperamental and less reliable, no longer resembling the person Michael had admired. Steven wasn't crazy, Michael says, just increasingly moody and self-centered. About six years ago, their father was hospitalized, and the brothers went to Florida to see him. They stayed with their stepmother, with whom Steven had a quarrel. Steven told Michael he was going to the hospital to tell their father about it. "It was ridiculous," Michael says. "My father was at death's door, and my brother wanted to complain to him about my stepmother! I had to physically restrain him from going."

Their father died that night, and Michael hasn't seen his brother since the funeral. "I wouldn't be surprised if I never see him again," Michael says. "If I saw him on the street I would talk to him, but I wouldn't let him back in my life. I don't know who he is."

Money issues are a common source of strife between brothers and sisters: Why wasn't that loan repaid? Who can afford the bigger house? How should the family business be run? Behavior outside the family's value system can also trip the switch: coming out of the closet, marrying interracially or converting to a new religion. Then there are cutoffs linked to extreme emotional states, the reasons for which--such as untreated mental illness, substance abuse, incest and violence--may never be brought out into the open.

Wanda's older brother Charles Bucklew has only a few clues as to what might have caused his sister's self-banishment, including her drinking in the midst of their nearly teetotaling Lutheran family. Wanda, who no doubt has her own analysis of the split, never explained; her siblings never asked. And she could not be located by TIME reporters in Key West and New York. "There may be some reason out there that if you knew, it'd bring you to your knees, and you'd say, 'Oh, my God!'" says Bucklew. "But I don't know."

The drive to create sibling bonds or something like them is to some experts primordial--even for an only child. Parents always have a disproportionate power over offspring, but siblings teach peer-level tolerance, loyalty and constancy--qualities that later apply to colleagues, friends and lovers. In moderation, sibling discord is useful, says psychologist Bank. "If the frustration is too great, it cripples you. But we all need a level of frustration in our lives in order to move ahead."

In a 1996 study of people ages 18 to 86, 33% of those surveyed described their sibling relationships as "supportive," and only 11% were "hostile," with the rest falling somewhere in between. "I understand that there is sibling rivalry because I have two brothers and a sister," says Robert Stewart, chairman of the psychology department at Michigan's Oakland University. "But if something came up, and I needed to be on the other side of the country because one of them called, I'd go. There's not a whole lot of people in the world I'd do that for." Most people think of "rivalry" and "siblings" as synonymous and negative, he says, "but I think of it as a close affectional relationship where affection is not necessarily shown in a Hallmark card kind of way."

The sibling relationship of D.B. (who asked that her name not be used) won't ever be confused with a greeting card. As a child, she looked up to her brother, 3 1/2 years older. After his marriage broke up, though, D.B. didn't like the way he treated his ex-wife. Well after the two divorced, he abandoned their original settlement agreement, demanding half the house and full custody of their daughter. D.B. saw his demands as unfair--and didn't think much of his parenting skills. "I just felt he was such a pig," she says. So she stopped talking to him--for seven years. "I come from a long line of grudge holders," she says. "They like their grudges. They air them and walk them and make jokes about them--embellish them."

The silence ended, though, when an aunt died, and D.B. and her brother were the only relatives left to arrange her burial. "I remember thinking, Damn, now I have to see my brother." But the two reconciled somewhat and now talk occasionally on the phone. D.B., now 54, says if she ever needed money, she wouldn't hesitate to ask him for it. She has no money to offer him if the situation were reversed but says, "I would give him lots of time."

Often, estranged siblings are struck by a sudden yearning to reconnect. Says Bank: "Your children leave home, your friends are sick, the leaves fall off the trees, and you say, 'Well, what do I have from my past?' And for better or worse, you've got this sibling who might have been a pain in the neck but who probably knows more about what it was like to live in your childhood home than anybody else."

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Yet even for siblings who wish to reconcile, breaking the ice is hard. "The difficulty most of us have is how do you pick up the telephone after so many years?" says Stewart. "People get into a pattern, and even though they're not comfortable in it, they can't imagine an alternative. Or the amount of courage and energy it would take to try to change may be beyond what they're capable of doing right now."

The ability to overlook imperfections for the sake of a relationship is one hallmark of maturity. Siblings may decide to forgive one another once they have their own children. For Mark Horton, 44, a recent falling-out he had with his eldest sister still baffles him. He's not sure what happened or why. Now that they are back in tentative contact, they still haven't talked about it. "It was kind of a Twilight Zone episode," he says. But he does hope things heal. Horton (whose sister declined to be interviewed) says she has done remarkable things for him--sending him money when he was a poor college student and then being the only one to show up at his Harvard graduation. And he wants his four children to know their aunt. "It places them in the world," he says. "They're not comets flying through space randomly; they're part of a solar system."

Reconciliation, experts say, is almost always worth an attempt. But about 40% of the families in Hargrave's clinical practice fail at reconciliation, mostly because when difficult issues get stirred up, no one is willing to take responsibility for what happened. Says Hargrave: "The person who has left just seals off again."

For Douglas Matthews, 49, a human-resources consultant, finally breaking off from his parents and three brothers three years ago brought immense relief--and not just to him. "I see it as the best thing he could have ever done for himself," says his wife Teri-Ann, "and for me and the kids."

Matthews has always been reluctant to discuss his family situation because he felt that well-meaning people just wouldn't get it that his parents and siblings were harmful to his happiness. "I learned early on that very few people understand the positive aspects of estrangement," he says. For decades, Matthews waffled between trying to be part of the family and retreating. He would try to initiate changes but says no one was willing to join in. Over time, and with therapy, he discovered that the yearning he felt was based on an unrealizable ideal of what his three brothers might have been to him. "A real brother would be there no matter what," Matthews says, "and not have an agenda for you--just accept where you are and listen. But it would be unconditional--nothing could break it. And also do the stupid things, you know. Go to a ball game together." But what Matthews has with his wife and two sons is no fantasy. "I have a home," he says, "and that's what I didn't have before. And I cherish it."

Cutting off can be beneficial in some cases, says psychology professor Stewart, if what you're getting is nothing but negativity or grief. But it's "escape learning," he says, and if the other people involved are ever willing to work on the problem, "you won't know it because they're gone."

For 15 years Keith Bearden, 33, had given up on his family, including his elder brother Dean, 38. Their parents' divorce cleaved the family into separate camps, and Keith wanted no part of either one. "I was really angry," he says. He also felt that he, a self-described "meek intellectual," had nothing in common with his tattooed, motorcycle-riding, machinist brother. Then Dean started telephoning a couple of years ago, just to see how Keith was doing. Keith, to his surprise, was happy to get the calls. Dean says he had no particular plan, that he had never even thought about the years when they were out of contact. "If you were never close," he says, "you never miss it."

But becoming a parent got Dean thinking about family, and as Keith says, Dean was never judgmental or bitter about what had happened in childhood. Now the brothers talk regularly. They visit each other every few months and have realized they have the same sense of humor, the same taste for adventure, and they notice the same things--someone's weird shoes on the subway or a cute woman in a bar.

Keith says he's much happier accepting rather than resenting the differences in his family, that it's helped him with all his relationships and that Dean deserves the credit for helping him reconnect. "Dean kept the door open, and I eventually walked back in," he says.

Jonda Cynecki hasn't closed the door on her sister but is at a loss as to how anyone can pass through it. Since the death of their parents, Jonda has felt an increasingly acute sense of the irreplaceable nature of family. "There's that line that connects you," she says of her missing twin, "and I don't know if it'll ever be broken. Certainly when one of us passes away--and she could be gone now--I don't know if I'll ever know that." Cynecki pauses, wipes away tears, and collects herself. "Someday, I really need to find her. But just not today. Not today."