SKU: 91242836276

The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully

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The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living FullyThe cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project and pioneer behind the compassionate care movement shares an inspiring exploration of the lessons dying has to offer about living a fulfilling life. Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most. Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be

The cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project and pioneer behind the compassionate care movement shares an inspiring exploration of the lessons dying has to offer about living a fulfilling life.

Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most.

Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate caregiving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points to a radical path to transformation.

The Five Invitations:
-Don't Wait
-Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing
-Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience
-Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things
-Cultivate Don't Know Mind

These Five Invitations show us how to wake up fully to our lives. They can be understood as best practices for anyone coping with loss or navigating any sort of transition or crisis; they guide us toward appreciating life's preciousness. Awareness of death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life, and letting go of regret. The Five Invitations is a powerful and inspiring exploration of the essential wisdom dying has to impart to all of us.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 01/22/2019
ISBN: 9781250076748
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 0.80d
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SKU: 91242836276

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C. Tucker
San Leandro, US
★★★★★ 5
Presentations with the audience in mind
Format: Paperback
I bought this hoping it would be a guide to creating Big-3 Consulting-style slides with fancy diagrams and eye-catching graphic design. That is not what this book is. Instead, this book is about how to tell a story with slides, using the framework of a five act drama. With this method forcing you to focus on who your audience is, what they need to know, and how much time you have to tell them (as opposed to trying to shoehorn everything you know about a subject into your pitch) you end up with a presentation that finishes on time for intelligent questions from an engaged audience. Since buying the book I have given several well-received presentations using precisely that technique. With no words on screen there is no temptation to just read the bullet points, and the audience cannot think ahead of you and must instead listen to what you're saying. You have to know your material to use this method, but when you succeed your audience will be impressed with your knowledge of the subject matter. (If you're working in a group project and want to Blue Falcon a non-contributing teammate, try giving them a few of these slides to speak to.) The recommended slide format is one picture and one headline per slide, with no bullet points at all. The book suggests creating Notes Pages with an outline of your talk as a handout, since the slides themselves don't stand alone. (And that's a good thing--visual aids are supposed to *augment* the presentation, not *be* the presentation.) In conclusion, this book might not be for everyone, but it was exactly what I needed.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2018
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Verified Purchase
mrliteral
Louisville, US
★★★★★ 4
An outsider's view
Format: Paperback
When it comes to Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points, I am a bit of an outsider. I don't read many computer books and, while I have worked with PowerPoint, my presentations are very simple. Since I admittedly use my share of bullet points in these presentations, I thought learning about an alternative approach would be useful. And while there are definite benefits to reading this book, it may not be perfect for everyone. Many people use bullet points in their PowerPoint presentations; this can be a great way to organize thoughts, but Atkinson has a difference approach. Essentially, the Beyond Bullet Points method treats presentations as stories told in three "acts." Act One develops the story, Act Two develops the action and Act Three frames the resolution. Each act is broken down into scenes which provide the details. The first portion of the book explains how to work with each act; the second portion deals with the evolution from initial outline to final presentation. This book assumes a certain amount of PowerPoint knowledge; if you want to learn about the application, this is not the place to start (on the other hand, you don't need to be a PowerPoint expert). One of the nicest things about Atkinson's approach is the way he allows presentations to be pared down to fit the time frame required: his method is designed best with a 45 minute presentation, but it can be easily compressed to a 15 minute or even 5 minute presentation. Another nice thing is that he has a website that readers can access that provides some helpful materials such as template documents. On the other hand, Atkinson treats the issue of bullet points/no bullet points as something of a black-and-white issue. He doesn't really acknowledge that there may be a middle ground where bullet points should be used in certain situations, perhaps even in conjunction with his approach. I think it's more appropriate to view the Beyond Bullet Points as an alternative approach to PowerPoint presentations, not the ONLY approach. Atkinson's writing style is straightforward, and like many computer books, a little dry. But as stated earlier, I am reading this book with something of an outsider's view. This is a good book, but Atkinson's inability to look beyond his own approach keeps it from being a five-star work. Nonetheless, if you do a lot of PowerPoint presentations, there is enough useful material in here to merit a read.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2006
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Verified Purchase
Arthur E. Williams
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 5
A Refreshing Approach to Presentations
Format: Paperback
I ran across this book while researching a college workshop on perfecting presentation, dealing with public speaking and effective use of PowerPoint. As one who has suffered through numerous electronic slides that did little or nothing to augment the speaker's efforts, I was delighted to see this fresh and innovative approach. I believe this process works best, however, when one's speech is primarily persuasive in nature. Although these ideas helped me set up a strong introduction and conclusion, in a recent lecture I resorted to bullet points for the material I felt the students had to master. Perhaps as I get more used to Atkinson's technique, I'll better about using it in lecture. However, the business applications seem quite worthwhile. My students' workshop presentations that used his techniques were highly engaging. I highly recommend this book and the supporting web site.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2006
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Verified Purchase
db
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 1
Simplistic and Inappropriate
Format: Paperback
I was hoping this book would provide insights into how to present complex information in a more comprehensible, useful format, using PowerPoint as the tool. Instead, the overall gist of this book is that presentations should be "dumbed down" as much as possible. The theme the author presents is that presentations should be story based. This is reasonable. However, the method the author recommends is that essentially *all* meaningful, complex (or, as the author prefers "boring") content be removed from the presentation. Presentations then become nothing more than catchy headlines and colorful graphics. All content should be in the presenter's notes (not typically to be provided). This is juvenile and useless and frankly reflects a complete lack of understanding of how presentations are made in a complex business environment.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2007
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Verified Purchase
SteelBlue
San Leandro, US
★★★★★ 3
On the right track
Format: Paperback
This book is a good introduction about how to use story-telling techniques in PowerPoint presentations. There are some good ideas here that you won't find in technical manuals. If you don't know film techniques these will be eye-opening. But the book could have been much stronger if it were to push these concepts to the next level. I saw a PowerPoint presentation with Andy Goodman, who teaches more or less the same thing, and his presentation nailed these concepts more cleanly than this book does. But again, this book is definitely worth checking out if you haven't studied storytelling before.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2005

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