The Wise Advocate

Leadership is the habit of making good choices. Even in difficult and uncertain circumstances, the most effective leaders focus their attention and overcome entrenched patterns of behavior to push an organization to new heights of success. This capability is no fluke: the latest research on the brain shows that we can pinpoint the mental activity associated with it—and cultivate it for our benefit. In this book, Art Kleiner, a strategy expert; Jeffrey Schwartz, a research psychiatrist; and Josie Thomson, an executive coach, give a transformative explanation of how cutting-edge neuroscience can help business leaders set a course toward better management. Mapping the functions of a manager onto established patterns of mental activity, they identify crucial brain circuits and their parallels in organizational culture. Strategic leaders, they show, play the role of wise advocates: able to go beyond day-to-day transactional behavior to a longer-term, broader perspective that articulates their organization’s deeper purpose. True leaders can play this influencer role in an organization because they have cultivated similar self-reflective habits in their own minds. Providing a powerful guide to decision strategies and their consequences, The Wise Advocate helps managers find their own inner voice and then make that voice ring out loud and clear, with a four-step program for practice and catalytic implications for management strategy, executive education, and business results.

The choice of the moment -- Low and high ground -- Finding your inner voice -- Relabeling your messages -- Reframing your situation -- Refocusing your attention -- Revaluing your leadership

Two neuroscience experts explain how their 4-Step Method can help identify negative thoughts and change bad habits for good. A leading neuroplasticity researcher and the coauthor of the groundbreaking books Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz has spent his career studying the human brain. He pioneered the first mindfulness-based treatment program for people suffering from OCD, teaching patients how to achieve long-term relief from their compulsions. Schwartz works with psychiatrist Rebecca Gladding to refine a program that successfully explains how the brain works and why we often feel besieged by overactive brain circuits (i.e. bad habits, social anxieties, etc.) the key to making life changes that you want—to make your brain work for you—is to consciously choose to “starve” these circuits of focused attention, thereby decreasing their influence and strength. You Are Not Your Brain carefully outlines their program, showing readers how to identify negative impulses, channel them through the power of focused attention, and ultimately lead more fulfilling and empowered lives.

This text challenges readers to reflect on what they want to accomplish in their own careers and offers a behind-the-scenes look at becoming an effective leader and advocate. The authors provide information essential to the growth and development of counseling leaders and give newer professionals a clearer sense of what leadership and advocacy look like on the job. After a current perspective on what ethical and culturally responsive leadership entails, 13 counseling leaders—both long established and emerging and representing a wide range of cultural and intersectional backgrounds—share their unique stories in poignant personal profiles. The final section of the text highlights pertinent themes in the profiles and explores implications to strengthen the future of the profession. *Requests for digital versions from ACA can be found on www.wiley.com *To purchase print copies, please visit the ACA website here *Reproduction requests for material from books published by ACA should be directed to [email protected]

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.

The definitive classic that has helped more than 400,000 people defeat obsessive-compulsive behavior, with all-new material from the author An estimated 5 million Americans suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and live diminished lives in which they are compelled to obsess about something or to repeat a similar task over and over. Traditionally, OCD has been treated with Prozac or similar drugs. The problem with medication, aside from its cost, is that 30 percent of people treated don't respond to it, and when the pills stop, the symptoms invariably return. In Brain Lock, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., presents a simple four-step method for overcoming OCD that is so effective, it's now used in academic treatment centers throughout the world. Proven by brain-imaging tests to actually alter the brain's chemistry, this method doesn't rely on psychopharmaceuticals. Instead, patients use cognitive self-therapy and behavior modification to develop new patterns of response to their obsessions. In essence, they use the mind to fix the brain. Using the real-life stories of actual patients, Brain Lock explains this revolutionary method and provides readers with the inspiration and tools to free themselves from their psychic prisons and regain control of their lives.

A slave runs away from his master. A mutual friend steps in to mediate between the two of them. Can there be healing in such a scarred relationship? In the face of such a daunting breach, is reconciliation (not to what was, but to what God designed) even possible? This is the situation faced in the book of Philemon. From this short New Testament letter, pastor and author Dhati Lewis (Among Wolves) unpacks key principles that Paul applied to being an advocate in the midst of division. The divisions of our day don’t look the same as Paul’s, but the principles are timeless. In 2 Corinthians 5, God commissioned us to be his ambassadors and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Whether we’re engaging in issues of politics, ethnicity, or religious beliefs, our heart posture should be one of an advocate set on reconciliation. The problem is, too many of us approach difficult conversations with the heart of an aggravator. Aggravators sometimes look like they are pursuing good things, but their heart is not toward reconciliation. Any motive less than reconciliation falls short of the desires of God’s heart. We need godly advocates in every sphere of life. This book will specifically apply these principles to issues of ethnic division. Are you willing to call any division caused by discrimination, prejudice, or racism a sin? Do you want to grow in your ability to navigate tense and emotional conversations about ethnic divisions? Are you ready to become an advocate?

Wise Leadership provides current and emerging leaders with a grounded, intuitive framework to help them understand and master multiple leadership identities, allowing them to adapt seamlessly to different leadership settings and challenges. Anchored in a wisdom-based approach, Kessler digs into leadership’s philosophical core to uncover the six fundamental challenges leaders face and presents the corresponding set of six synergistic competencies or tools that readers can develop to solve them. Bridging scholarship with practice, each part of this leadership toolbox is outlined in a clear and consistent way so that readers can learn exactly when, why, and how to use it. The user-friendly format also eases comparison and customization of the different approaches along with a consideration of their strengths and dangers. Incorporating colorful examples and practical guidelines, this book will equip both students and professionals with a dynamic repertoire of flexible leadership skills that will help them succeed in any situation.

On the verge of a new millennium, in an age of unprecedented affluence, personal freedom and scientific power, millions of us--young and not so young--find ourselves emotionally and morally adrift. Even as our mastery of the material world reaches new heights almost daily, mastery of the inner world--of our own actions, emotions, and deepest hopes--often tragically eludes our grasp. As families come apart, adults become bitter and emotionally detached. Children fall prey to a "culture" of sex and drugs, cynical materialism, and self-destructive nihilism. It increasingly seems that, in the piercing words of Jesus, we have "gained the whole world, and lost our own souls." In A Return to Innocence, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Schwartz--a Jewish student of both Buddhist meditation and Christian philosophy--combines 3,000 years of wisdom with cutting edge brain and behavioral research to guide us in recovering our souls, our safety, our integrity and our capacity to love. After a 35-year experiment in unbridled self-gratification that has left a burden of tremendous suffering in its wake, at last we are ready to understand that innocence--in its original meaning of "not harming"--is actually the highest and most difficult of human achievements. The lost art of self-command that empowers us not to harm ourselves or one another is the core teaching of humanity's greatest spiritual masters, including Moses, Jesus, and Buddha. If we value our children, our culture, even our very freedom, we must return to true innocence as our source of inner lightness, clarity and spiritual power. A practical path to this wellspring of inner purity was mapped out 2,500 years ago by Gotama Buddha--in Dr. Schwartz's view the greatest psychologist who ever lived--whose still-fresh insights into human nature can serve as a bridge joining the wisdom of the Bible to the discoveries of 21st century science. A deeply felt, thought-provoking exchange of letters between "spiritual coach" Dr. Schwartz and sixteen-year-old Patrick Buckley, the son of a single mother, frames this fascinating, powerful code for living that shows how the best in each of us can thrive. Spiritual and philosophical ideas become hands-on tools for dealing with real-life dilemmas as Dr. Schwartz addresses Patrick's urgent questions about morality, responsibility, and freedom of choice. This book offers an empowering combination of hope, inspiration, accurate information about the biology of human nature, as well as desperately-needed guidance for keeping that nature on a life-affirming path. To everyone--young and old--A Return to Innocence offers dynamic, concrete solutions for the pain in our hearts, the fear in our streets, and the cynicism that has corroded our ideals. It speaks directly to our longing for a decent, meaningful, and fulfilling life. The traditional values that made civilization possible were thought to be outrageously radical and daring when they were first introduced by revolutionaries like Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. . . . Yet those codes of behavior became "traditional"--that is, they got handed down from generation to generation--for one simple reason: they work. And they work because they're based on a highly sophisticated and deeply wise understanding of human nature. We often hear the phrase "Knowledge is power"--but nowhere is it truer than when it comes to knowledge of ourselves. Are we humans primarily driven, or "drivers"? Are we blameless puppets of our genes, our hormones, our childhoods, or do we have the power, and so the responsibility, to choose what we will do? In our day and age, everyone wants to be, or at least appear to be, streetwise, experienced, cool, and cynical. What people don't realize is that the source of the word "innocent" is a place of great power. It comes from the Latin words for "not" and "to harm." True innocence is the highest of human accomplishments. Not doing harm requires the utmost in awareness, effort, and courage. The state of the world begins right here--in the state of your mind.

An eminent conductor's theories on musical training--musicians should read full scores and be familiar with the musical conventions and cultural milieu of the composer's time--are punctuated by lively anecdotes and reminiscences of his international musical career