The Stormy Sea is a true story about ordinary men coming together to protect the vulnerable fleeing Vietnam on the Southern Cross ship. The band of brothers dealt with everything from pirates, birth, fire and flooding on board to organising their own rescue from the Indonesian island where the Southern Cross eventually ran aground.
To this day, the author still remembers in detail the calm water and the smell of diesel on the fishing trawler he was cramped in all night with his family.
Lawrence was appointed leader on the ship backed by the European Captain and his crew to lead the 1,200 refugees on the deck of the Southern Cross. This was prompted by a gang of young men confiscating food and extorting money for instant noodles. Lawrence realised his five young children wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving had he not taken charge.
Catagory: Non Fiction
Why Am I like This?
‘Why am I like this?’ If you’ve asked this question to yourself quietly time and again… get ready to unpack and process like never before. Embark on a textured journey that will illuminate the hidden, unspoken and often unconscious experiences of the traumatized self. Chapter by chapter, you’ll make sense of your emotions, body, nervous system and relationships.
Through concept, vulnerable story-telling and self-inquiry, author Natalia Rachel ignites a shift towards self-compassion and the dissolving of shame. Like the brilliant formations of a kaleidoscope, your awareness will continue to morph, crystalize and clarify until you make the utmost sense. Natalia’s life journey as a patient turned therapist opens an incredibly special doorway to trauma recovery, healing and post-traumatic growth.
The Great Career Paradox
Why are some people with highly successful careers… still unhappy in life?
At the pinnacle of their careers and lauded by many for their achievements, they struggle to find joy in the work they do. To fill this void, they drive their careers even harder, only to feel more isolated and frustrated.
Therein lies The Great Career Paradox of our time – that contrary to popular belief, Career Success does not always create Happiness, and might even have an opposite effect!
This lack of Career Fulfilment is a key driving force fueling the mass exodus of staff in many organisations today.
How can individuals achieve Career Happiness? What can employers do to engage their teams to improve retention?
Having coached thousands of Executives, Authors Adrian and Yen were piqued by this Paradox and combined their experiences in Headhunting, Consulting and Coaching to unlock the Secrets to Career Happiness.
In-depth interviews and massive surveys were conducted with Business Leaders and Executives and they created a new Career Framework based on Career Strategy™ and Career Agility™.
Correctly executed, these concepts will help you navigate your life journey and ultimately achieve meaningful Career Success.
Threading Worlds: Conversations on Mental Health – Stories We Don’t Tell
Stories We Don’t Tell consists of a series of heartfelt and moving repositories of conversations with people who have lived experiences of mental health challenges. These candid talks revealed not just the challenges these individuals faced, but the immense amount of courage and strength and self-love they carried throughout their mental health journey.
While the mental health conversation was elevated in 2020, people have always been navigating mental health issues, whether it be through major life changes, relationship difficulties, financial struggles or more. Understanding how life’s challenges affect our mental and emotional states is crucial if we want to become a society that is more compassionate towards each other. An unexamined life is not worth living, and an unlived life is not worth examining. These raw transcribed stories from dialogues that were taken in real time will take you through the personal journeys of those who lived, and are still living, with mental health-and hopefully allow you to better understand what mental health truly is, beyond the hearsay.
Threading Worlds: Conversations on Mental Health – Growing Pains
Growing Pains talks about pains experienced by children and youth that can leave deep emotional wounds on us. In our formative years, we yearn to be accepted and loved by our family and friends, all while trying to find our place and identity in the world. As we show the people around us who we are, an identity that is still in its raw and unchanged form, it can sometimes be met with disappointment and rejection even from those closest to us. These experiences can either make us stronger and more resilient individuals, or tear our inner worlds apart. Trauma is a word that is still very often misunderstood. Just the word alone by itself caries a negative taboo and social stigma. We have an obligation to re-educate ourselves in our understanding of how we become the person we are today, such that we can move our lives forward to the future that we yearn of, and to pay it forward to the next generation and ensure that they become the best version of themselves through their growing years.
Today, young people have to find their way in an increasingly noisy and uncertain world, on top of navigating their relationships with family, friends and loved ones. The stories in this book capture the challenges of youth, and provide insights on what it takes to support the young as they go through the ups and downs of life.
Wild Wisdom
Wild Wisdom recounts the story of social entrepreneur and philanthropist Christine Amour-Levar and the all-female expeditions she has led across the globe via her two non-profit organisations, Women on a Mission and HER Planet Earth. Over a decade, she has taken hundreds of women, of all nationalities, ages and backgrounds, to off the beaten track locations around the world on challenging, often pioneering, expeditions that really push them outside of their comfort zone.
She has run expeditions to some incredible places, from regions of the Arctic circle to the coldest, windiest and most remote continent on earth, Antarctica. Her teams have crossed the largest caves in the world in Vietnam, sailed across remote islands in Asia, were the first all-female team to bike across the frozen Arctic Circle Trail of Greenland and the Danakil Depression of Ethiopia – the hottest place on earth. And all these expeditions have had as mission to raise awareness and funds for vulnerable women, transforming the lives of thousands of women and girls in the process.
By sharing her personal story and highlighting her life lessons, from growing up on multiple continents to leading teams on expeditions, she sets the stage for a new approach to caring for the human condition and the planet, at a deeper, more intrinsic, heart level. Ultimately, this is a story about roots and values, sisterhood and adventure, pushing limits and the power of our common humanity and compassion to drive change and impact the world for the better.
ChinaPhobia
ChinaPhobia – A Wasted Opportunity is an informative book, unbiased towards either China or America. It has been written in the form of a conversation between a father-a former journalist and senior diplomat-and his businessman son. Both academics present the facts combined with insights gained from years of observations of China.
Part one describes the factors that have led to ChinaPhobia: pace of China’s economy, gravitational shifts towards Asia, territorial disputes, lack of soft powers, Belt and Road Initiative, resignation as the ‘world’s factory’, Covid-19, and tries to explain China’s cultural and political thinking.
The second part of the book concerns changes within the economic partnership which led to the increasing distrust of the US government and corporations towards China, reflected not only in their trade war, but also in growing US and Western support for China’s red-lines including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. It is mirrored in an ongoing behind-the-scenes arms race, which has a paramount impact on the relationship between the two regimes-and on the rest of the world.
Thirdly, China’s increasingly sensitive ambition towards global leadership is explained, and the roles of various think tanks and experts on both sides is analyzed objectively.
Urgent questions are addressed in the final part of the book. Without a timely response, inflating ChinaPhobia could become the biggest threat to global peace, economic growth and stability, poisoning international relations in the coming years. The authors discuss the means of mitigation at home and abroad.
Managing People, Culture and Data in the Modern Organisation
While organisations need stand out products and services to be competitive, to remain competitive, organisations need much more. We believe the much more includes how organisations manage people, culture and data.
The world of work is changing at an unprecedented rate. Other than the COVID-19 pandemic, there are four other disruptive forces including demographic imbalances, geopolitics, technology and economic contraction that are accelerating the future of work.
Written by Jaclyn Lee and Jovina Ang, the book focuses on the three fundamental elements of organisational success. The book is unique because it is a culmination of the authors’ practical experiences and observations of how leaders and managers are managing the modern organisation.
The authors draw upon the best practices from the top employers in Asia and across the world to illustrate the proven strategies for inculcating a digital and a data driven culture for making the right decisions and getting the most out of people. And they also refer to the many insights from leading thought leaders to substantiate their arguments throughout the book.
Movies to Save Our World
Through a close analysis of more than seventy popular documentaries and feature movies from around the world, produced in the twenty-first century, this book explores the theme of poverty, inequality, ecological degradation and revolutionary change, all associated with a contemporary crisis of neoliberal globalization in a world where it has become so pervasive. Profit rules, while poverty and inequality make the political ground fertile for populist manipulation. By returning power to the people, healthier forms of populism can lead the way to progressive revolutionary change that enriches democracy and corrects for social injustice. However, through ideological and political manipulation, populism can also take more debased authoritarian forms, promoting conformism, domination, exploitation, marginalization and degradation of humanity and its habitat.
The book urges progressive moviemakers to take advantage of advancements in digital technologies and to collaborate, in post-pandemic times, with educators to develop public deliberation skills and inspire a new generation of informed and compassionate change-makers.
Malaysian Son
Malaysian Son is the story of Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Setiawangsa. Growing up privileged under the authoritarian regime of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim led him to join the Reformasi movement.
As a member of the multiracial People’s Justice Party (KEADILAN), he later became the youngest elected state representative in the 2008 General Elections.
In 2018, as Youth Leader of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, he participated in the 2018 campaign against Prime Minister Najib Razak, spending time in jail and the courts.
PH achieved a historic victory but, in spite of warnings from Nik who was a backbench MP, failed to achieve a cohesive and stable government. It eventually collapsed in 2020, leading to years of political instability that has yet to abate.
Malaysian Son is a must read for all who want to understand the country’s tumultuous recent history.