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For Immediate Release

It’s Not Whether the Glass is Half-Empty or Half Full . . .

It’s How You Fill It Up.

 
“One of the few must-read books of the year. Packed with useful, practical advice, it’s also entertaining and frequently laugh out loud funny.”
—Jerry Colangelo, CEO Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks

“I’d make the book required reading for any MBA program . . . as readable as it is practical.”
—Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla Marketing series

 
If you can’t justify to yourself what you are doing with your life, if you aren’t working toward goals in which you honestly believe, then you will never be—by your own standards—successful. For many of us, there is a disconnect between what we believe we should be doing in our careers and our lives, and what we actually find ourselves doing. In Filling the Glass: the Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business (Dearborn Trade, $19.95), author and speaker Barry Maher provides ten strategies to overcome that disconnect, turning the job (and life) you have into the job (and life) you want—so that you never have to settle for half full or half empty again.

Maher is quick to separate himself from the “power of positive thinking” camp: “Positive thinking that isn’t firmly rooted on reality shouldn’t be called thinking at all.  It’s nothing but Pollyannaism—pixie dust . . . Pollyanna positive thinking strategies often make the problem worse.  You want to be positive so you try and block out the negatives. Unfortunately, reality has a way of refusing to stay blocked.”

  Maher’s realistic strategies include:

§         Brag about the Negatives: Turn your biggest liabilities into your strongest assets.

§         Put Your Values to Work for You: Who you are is your decision, not your company’s.

§         Bring out the Prospect in Yourself: Sell yourself out, and you may find that nobody—yourself included— is buying.

§         Be Your Own Guru: The most important decisions take place when Stephen Covey or Tony Robbins can’t be with you.

§         Fail toward Success: Make new and better—and more valuable—mistakes.

§         Change the Scale: Size may count, but it’s not how big it is, it’s how big it seems.

§         Never Settle for Success: Keep your goals from keeping you down.

 
From his early days as a world-class salesperson focusing on ethical selling, Barry Maher has become a highly successful keynote speaker and consultant to over 300 companies, including ABC/Capital Cities, Southwestern Bell, Time-Warner, Budget Rent a Car, and the American Management Association. He’s also coached a number of high-profile individuals.  Based in Santa Barbara, California, he’s received coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and on national radio and television.  An author with wide-ranging interests, his books range from The Prentice Hall Marketing Yearbook to Getting the Most from Your Yellow Pages Advertising to the fantasy cult novel, Legend.

 
Filling the Glass: the Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business by Barry Maher, (January 2001, $19.95 paperback, $29.95 Canadian; 6 x 9, ISBN 0-7931-3865-5) is available at neighborhood and online booksellers or by calling toll-free, 1-877-242-4941.

  Dearborn Trade, a Kaplan Professional Company—We Mean Business