Start building bridges instead of barriers! This essential guide offers a simple 5-part framework that will help you have honest and enlightening conversations despite deep and fundamental disagreements.Divisions are on the rise around the world, and 2024 may well be a peak year. We’re losing the ability to disagree without dehumanizing. There is a deep need for this practical and accessible guide to having challenging conversations in any situation, from the workplace to the classroom to the dinner table.It’s not about saying the right words at the right time but something vastly deeper. In this book, you’ll discover the 5 pillars of respectfully disagreeing:Challenge your perspectiveBe the studentCultivate your curiositySeek the grayAgree to respectBut this is not a weighty tome. Each chapter features a cartoon, and Justin Jones-Fosu tackles this serious subject with a playful and compassionate tone. For example, he writes “I have become more and more intentional in my desire to respectfully disagree with others (except those who think putting ketchup on eggs is wrong…there is no hope for respect there).”With a wide range of examples and exercises throughout, this is a timely and reader-friendly handbook to disagreeing with someone’s ideology while passionately pursuing their humanity.
Stop running toward someone else’s definition of success, and start intentionally shaping your own. This prequel to Aesop’s famous tortoise and hare fable shows exhausted professionals how to shift from chasing external validation to creating internal meaning and alignment.Stop chasing visibility. Start creating meaning.In today’s high-pressure workplace, professionals are depleted from constantly proving themselves to others—yet struggling to find genuine satisfaction in their work. What if the breakthrough isn’t working harder within the system but instead reimagining what success means to you?Stop Chasing, Start Creating reveals the untold story of Tano the tortoise before his famous race with the hare. In this prequel to the beloved Aesop’s fable, we discover that Tano wasn’t always the steady, purposeful creature we know. He once chased visibility, approval, and validation just like the rest of us—until a moment of awakening changed everything.Through Tano’s journey from external pressure to internal clarity, readers discover the crucial difference between chasing meaning and creating it. Grounded in motivation science, this framework shifts professionals from extrinsic motivation (external rewards, recognition, and belonging) to intrinsic motivation (purpose, contribution, and alignment).Perfect for burned-out professionals in healthcare, education, nonprofit management, and other purpose-driven fields, this story-first approach offers the metaphor-rich reflection modern workers crave without feeling like another productivity manual.