The Chris Voss Show

Cybersecurity - Chuck Brooks, ​CEO ＆ Co-Founder of Brooks Consulting International Brooksci.com

Saving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of COVID-19 by Gary Rivlin A veteran journalist follows an inspiring ensemble cast of small business owners fighting to keep their businesses alive through Covid-19, while exploring the sweeping trends and government policies that had brought small businesses to the breaking point long before the coronavirus hit. There is a tendency to fetishize small business even as it shrinks before our eyes. Americans extol the virtues of small, local, often family-run shops, yet buy from big-box retailers and chains that dominate the competition. Even before the pandemic, small businesses seemed endangered. When Covid-19 hit, the resounding question was: How will they be able to survive this? Saving Main Street is an unfiltered, up-close examination of a small group of business owners and their employees, their struggles, and their strategies to survive. It is an eye-opening tale of grit, perseverance, and entrepreneurial spirit that follows three businesses: a restaurant owner and his rambunctious staff, an immigrant running her own hair salon, and the owner of a “non-life sustaining” gift shop—alongside a larger cast of vividly drawn characters. Gary Rivlin focuses on the first days of the Covid lockdown and the ensuing eighteen months of chaos, including the personal and financial risks, a contentious presidential election, and contradictory governmental guidelines—all which compounded the everyday challenges of running an independent business trying to attract and retain customers who expect low prices, convenience, and endless choice. Rivlin keenly observes small businesses from all angles, examining commonly held “myths”; contradictions in government policy; enormous racial and class fissures; a national self-identity intrinsically connected to the ideal of small business, and how the decline of this American way of retail impacts our notions of American exceptionalism, community, and civic duty. As Rivlin reveals, there’s something enduring about small business in the American psyche. Life will have changed in unprecedented ways on the other side of this pandemic, yet hard times will also create opportunities, offering hope and survival.

Leslie Chen, Owner of Rise Lean - The Ultimate Coach For Sustainable Weight Loss Riselean.com

Saints and Soldiers Inside Internet-Age Terrorism, From Syria to the Capitol Siege by Rita Katz More than a decade ago, counterterrorism expert Rita Katz began browsing white supremacist and neo-Nazi forums. The hateful rhetoric and constant threats of violence immediately reminded her of the jihadist militants she spent her days monitoring, but law enforcement and policy makers barely paid attention to the Far Right. Now, years of attacks committed by extremists radicalized online―including mass murders at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, as well as the Capitol siege―have brought home the danger. How has the internet shaped today’s threats, and what do the online origins of these movements reveal about how to stop them? In Saints and Soldiers, Katz reveals a new generation of terrorist movements that don’t just use the internet, but exist almost entirely on it. She provides a vivid view from the trenches, spanning edgy video game chat groups to what ISIS and Far-Right mass-shooters in El Paso, Orlando and elsewhere unwittingly reveal between the lines of their manifestos. Katz shows how the online cultures of these movements―far more than their ideologies and leaders―create today’s terrorists and shape how they commit “real world” violence. From ISIS to QAnon, Saints and Soldiers pinpoints the approaches needed for a new era in which arrests and military campaigns alone cannot stop these never-before-seen threats.

THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF BASEBALL: ECHOES FROM A DISTANT PAST by WILLIAM R. DOUGLAS Authorwilliamrdouglas.com In the year 2166, a post Second Civil War America is finally back on its feet. Among the countless personal and cultural casualties of the war, the sport of baseball has been dead for over a hundred years. 12-year-old Joe Scott lives in the northern Illinois city of McHenry and goes exploring in the woods one day in a no man's land that a hundred years earlier was the site of the bloodiest battle of the war. While there, he discovers a relic from the distant past, from before the war. It sparks a search for its meaning. Little does he know that the wheels of Providence have been unwittingly set in motion which leads to a stunning discovery in Dyersville, Iowa. This second discovery has a direct connection with the relic found in McHenry. As events unfold, Joe finds himself at the center of the rediscovery of a sport long lost and forgotten by the ravages of time and war. With no living person having any first-hand knowledge of the game, can he figure out the pieces of the puzzle to resurrect the game of baseball? Will his friends take to the game? What will the adults think? Soon, the answers begin to unfold, and a magical sequence of events leads to an epic finale on a national stage!

Ruari Fairbairns, Founder of One Year No Beer Oneyearnobeer.com

Picking Presidents: How to Make the Most Consequential Decision in the World by Gautam Mukunda Celebrated leadership expert and political scientist Gautam Mukunda provides a comprehensive, objective, and non-partisan method for answering the most important question in the world: is someone up to the job of president of the United States? In Picking Presidents, Gautam Mukunda sets his sights on presidential candidates, proposing an objective and tested method to assess whether they will succeed or fail if they win the White House. Combining political science, psychology, organizational behavior, and economics, Picking Presidents will enable every American to cast an informed vote. In his 2012 book Indispensable, which all but predicted the Trump presidency, Mukunda explained how both the very best and very worst leaders are "unfiltered"—outsiders who take power without the understanding or support of traditional elites. Picking Presidents provides deep analysis of filtered and unfiltered presidents alike, from failed haberdasher and skillful president Harry Truman, to the exceptionally well-qualified—and ultimately reviled—James Buchanan; from Andrew Johnson, who set civil rights back by a century, to Theodore Roosevelt, who evaded party opposition to transform American society. Picking Presidents lays out a clear framework that anyone can use to judge a candidate and answer the all-important question: are they up to the job?

Lauren V. Mingee, Founder & CEO of Quintessa Marketing Quintessamarketing.com

Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter by Yohuru Williams, Michael G. Long An enthralling, eye-opening portrayal of this barrier-breaking American hero as a lifelong, relentlessly proud fighter for Black justice and civil rights. According to Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson was “a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the Freedom Rides.” According to Hank Aaron, Robinson was a leader of the Black Power movement before there was a Black Power movement. According to his wife, Rachel Robinson, he was always Jack, not Jackie―the diminutive form of his name bestowed on him in college by white sports writers. And throughout his whole life, Jack Robinson was a fighter for justice, an advocate for equality, and an inspiration beyond just baseball. From prominent Robinson scholars Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long comes Call Him Jack, an exciting biography that recovers the real person behind the legend, reanimating this famed figure’s legacy for new generations, widening our focus from the sportsman to the man as a whole, and deepening our appreciation for his achievements on the playing field in the process.

Ron Feldman, President of World Business Services Inc. Worldbusinessservices.com