Nonfiction4Life

SUMMARY

Dr. BJ Fogg, founder and director of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University, unveils his breakout book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. A bright yellow sheath striping the book cover boldly claims, “This Book Will Change Your Life!” Inside the book, Fogg explodes myths promoting traditional approaches to change, explaining why old ideas such as exercising willpower, strengthening resolve, and getting motivated just don’t work. In their place, we learn the Fogg Behavior Model that cracks the code to human behavior by revealing how we actually form new habits. In brief, we can change by simply starting small. Indeed, by starting tiny! Beloved by more than 40,000 students, Fogg himself embodies his own teachings, finding success at every turn by creating Tiny Habits. His advice: "You don't need to procrastinate changing your habits. It's so simple and easy and straightforward!"

KEY POINTS

• Only three things can change behavior: having an epiphany; redesigning an environment; and making tiny, incremental changes that wire in habits.
• Tiny Habits don’t require tapping into willpower or sustaining high levels of motivation.
• Willpower is effective in helping us get things done, but it’s not good for creating habits over time.
• Focus on “wants” rather than on “shoulds.”
• Big aspirations or audacious goals are great, but the way to get to them is through Tiny (consistent) Habits.
• Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, creators of Instagram, found wild success because their original design was very simple.
• “After” is the best place to place a prompt, relying on a routine already in place. Action prompts (AKA: anchors or routines) work best for creating Tiny Habits.
• “Pearl Habits” originate with something that annoys us.
• To be most effective, Tiny Habits should be immediately followed by a celebration.

SOME MYTHS FOGG EXPLODES

• It takes 21 days to create a habit.
• I need to measure my progress in order to create a habit or break one.
• By setting a resolution I can change my habits.
• If I find what’s behind my habit -- the craving -- then I can break it.
• Changing behavior is painful or unpleasant.
• I must have an accountability partner in order to stick to my new habit.
• You should change only one habit at a time.
• The only way to stop a bad habit is to replace it with something else.
• You need to track your behavior daily to form or break a habit.
• As you get older, you lose the ability to change your habits.
• If you repeat a behavior enough, it becomes a habit.

QUOTES BY FOGG

• “Information alone does not reliably change behavior (AKA 'the Information Fallacy').”
• “Help people do what they already want to do.”
• “Behavior change is a skill…but as you practice it, it becomes second nature—just like driving.”
• “Forget about everything you thought you knew about habits and behavior change, and start over! There’s a new and better way of thinking about this.”

BUY Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything

• RECOMMENDATION
  BUY the movie What About Bob?

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SUMMARY 

After learning important communication skills, author Michael Sorensen decided to “pay it forward” by writing I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships. Especially powerful is the skill of validation, which Sorensen packages in a 4-Step Validation Process.

KEY POINTS

• Validation – showing we understand another’s emotions; the act of helping someone feel heard
• Validating ourselves – practicing self-compassion; vital for getting past our own self-criticism and for allowing space to feel our emotions without judgment
• Micro validation – a short comment or response showing engagement and understanding that affirms the validity of a person’s emotions or opinions
• Re-validation – reiterating your initial understanding of others, including expressing appreciation for any vulnerability they may have exposed
• “The iPhone Effect” – the mere presence of a smartphone can lessen the quality of a conversation—even if it’s just sitting on the table (2014 study)
• Listening mistakes: leading responses with “I”; inserting “but” between understanding and your feedback; using absolutes such as “always” and “never.”

QUOTES FROM SORENSEN

• “There’s a difference between being listened to and being heard, and…we as humans crave both.”
• “Communication experts suggest that as much as 70 percent of our communication is nonverbal—meaning it’s delivered via body language, tone of voice, etc.”
• “While rephrasing what you’ve heard is a valuable tool, validation shows an understanding of the other person’s emotions and the ‘why’ behind them.”
• “Giving unsolicited advice or assurance—especially before you validate the other person’s emotions—trivializes their experience.”
• “Claiming to know ‘exactly’ how someone feels nearly always puts the other person on defense.”
• “Learning to identify your own emotions will increase your ability to feel empathy for others.”
• “Matching another person’s energy is a critical part of effective validation.”
• “When someone shares a personal experience or emotion with you, they make themselves emotionally vulnerable…in an effort to find support.”

BUY I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships

RECOMMENDATION
BUY How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk - a book for parents and non-parents alike!

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SUMMARY

Issuing a warning against “global cooling,” world-renowned Italian psychotherapist Piero Ferrucci offers a guide for individual and societal well-being in his book, The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life.

In his tenth-anniversary edition, Ferruci delivers in great depth 19 distinct facets of kindness. With his own gentle and genteel demeanor, he offers up solutions to help turn us away from cynicism, violence, and narcissism. “Writing with a rare combination of sensitivity and intellectual depth, Dr. Ferrucci shows that, ultimately, kindness is not a luxury in our world but rather a necessity for us all.”

KEY POINTS

• At a United Nations conference, experts discussed forgiveness as a medical issue since withholding forgiveness correlates directly with serious health threats such as hypertension.
• In this age of digitization, we diminish conversations and detract from opportunities to connect with others through verbal and nonverbal cues even by merely leaving a cellphone on the table during a meal.
• Reading novels helps us develop both emotional and cognitive empathy.
• Humor can help us take ourselves less seriously and develop humility.
• A sense of awe, especially when we feel it in nature or experience it with beauty, helps put us in perspective.
• Time opulence – a feeling of having all the time in the world – increases as we serve others.
• Represented by water, adaptability (also seen as flexibility and availability) is the paramount virtue in Taoism.

QUOTES FROM FERRUCCI

• “Kindness is the simplest way of coping with so many hurdles, of feeling better, of enjoying life. It is problem solver #1.”
• “Kindness is its own reward.”
• “Forgiveness is a positive quality. It contains joy and faith in others, generosity of spirit. Illogical and surprising, sometimes sublime, it frees us from the ancient chains of resentment. Whoever forgives, feels uplifted.”
• “The quality of attention you give to a person is the quality of the relationship.”
• “Empathy is the best means of improving any relationship.”
• “We’re completely equipped, programmed, and built to be empathic. It’s what we are!”
• “When people experience a sense of awe, their ego begins to shrink.”
• “In these times of accelerated pace…patience is an unpopular and seemingly tedious quality.”
• “One component of kindness is a happy disposition. And akin to happiness is humor—a capacity to see the contradictions and absurdities of our life and not take ourselves too seriously. Anyone who has this quality is safe from emotional inflation and the dramas of everyday life.”
• “Getting married and having children made me more human…and put me much more in touch with the reality of feelings.”

BUY The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life--Tenth Anniversary Edition

RECOMMENDATION

BUY Be Kind: You Can Make the World a Happier Place! 125 Kind Things to Say & Do

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SUMMARY

Embedded deep in the heart of Northern Arizona with the Chinle High School boys’ basketball team, sportswriter Michael Powell gives us a behind-the-scenes look in Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation. Given access to the team through coach Raul Mendoza, Powell is able to pull back from the game and see the larger Native American culture for both its flaws and strengths. As a mechanism for describing the tugs and pulls of the Navajo people, Powell uses “rez ball,” a unique brand of basketball characterized by intense running and the passion of the entire community. Hovering above all the fierce competitions, he sees the boys' dreams and fears of leaving the reservation.

KEY POINTS AND CHARACTERS

• Raul Mendoza – as much counselor and mentor as he is the Chinle High School team coach and strategist
• Parsifal – high school English teacher determined to stay on the reservation; gifted at “setting young brains on fire”; never worries about having a real purpose in life
• Cooper Burbank – the team star whose parents decide to prioritize family unity over money
• Perhaps more than economics, fear and worry hold kids back from leaving home.
• Navajo kids live with the tug and pull of twin worries: “Will you leave? And, if you leave, will you be able to make it?”
• Being “functionally homeless” make it tough for kids to attend school and get a good education.
• For every game, the fans--from grandparents to cousins--drive long miles to fill every seat in a stadium.
• Families fight against splintering from alcoholism, drugs, suicide, and fathers who work far away from home.
• Still alive in the Navajo Nation is long-standing pride and a profound sense of belonging.

QUOTES

• “There was no grander sport on the reservations of the Southwest than rez ball, a quicksilver, sneaker-squeaking game of run, pass, pass, cut, and shoot, of spinning layups and quick shots and running, endless running, with an athleticism that found its origin in that Native American time before horses.”
• “Suicide is a door ajar on native reservations, where its incidence is well above the national average. It is the second-leading cause of death for Navajo teenagers.”

BUY Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation

RECOMMENDATION

BUY Goods Galore Navajo Mother and Child 8.5x11 Photo Print Ansel Adams Native American History

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Bestselling author and clinical psychologist Dr. Susan Albers hits on a topic familiar to all of us in her latest book, Hanger Management: Master Your Hunger and Improve Your Mood, Mind, and Relationships. An expert in mindful eating, she sheds light on the causes of “hanger” (a toxic combination of hunger and anger) and shares 45 tips for “turning hungry into happy.”

Instead of being another diet book, Hanger Management offers “a set of strategies and a way of being.” Albers confronts many of the common moments when “hangry” can turn a great day into a disastrous day. Combining her personal parenting experience with extensive research, she shares ideas for traveling with kids, having healthy snacks on hand, avoiding marital stress, learning how to deal with long lines at restaurants, getting back on track after holiday feasting, and more strategies for approaching everyday interactions. In the end, she teaches us how to tackle negative relationships with food so our relationships with people can thrive.

KEY POINTS

• Cinnamon regulates our blood sugar.
• Magnesium is involved in more than 300 chemical reactions in our body, in particular, our insulin regulation, metabolism, and mood regulation.
• A couple of the “Ten S’s of Mindful Eating” include: always SIT while you eat, and SLOW down while you eat by eating with your non-dominant hand.
• When traveling, be sure to stay hydrated with water or water-rich foods.
• People who have fruit bowls on their counter end up weighing 14 pounds less than the average person.
• Putting smiley faces on healthy foods can draw people to eating better.
• Some power food suggestions: avocados, almonds, apples, pumpkin seeds, and puffed chickpeas.

QUOTES FROM ALBERS

• “When we are running on empty…we are distracted constantly by thoughts of food. Or when we are just plain too busy to make eating well a priority, hunger-induced moodiness can take over. Often we chalk our bad moods up to stress. In fact, it’s the impact of being undernourished—or filled with foods that completely wreck our mood.”
• “Always eat off of your feet.”
• “Hanger can lead us to overeat, which leaves us feeling what I call ‘regretfull’…the physical and emotional discomfort that comes from overeating in a mindless way.”
• “Ditch dieting and eat mindfully.”
• “Mindfully choosing foods that give the body and mind the fuel they truly need to function feels good. It gives us greater clarity and better emotional stability.”

BUY Hanger Management: Master Your Hunger and Improve Your Mood, Mind, and Relationships

RECOMMENDATIONS 
BUY Rubbermaid FreshWorks Produce Saver Food Storage Containers to keep your healthy snacks fresh!

Find Dr. Susan Albers on social media and online:  IG:@drsusanalbers, Twitter: @DrSusanAlbers Facebook: @eatdrinkmindful

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SUMMARY

Melody Warnick's debut book, This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, chronicles her experience navigating a cross-country move while also providing the rest of us a practical guide for loving the place we live—wherever that may be. With humor, candor, and loads of data, Warnick takes us through her personal exploration of the fairly new social concept of place attachment. Wanting to feel more connected to her new hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia, she fashions a social experiment, which she dubs “Love Where You Live." After creating a list of ten behaviors of place-attached people, she dives headlong into doing the very same things to see if she can make herself fall in love with where she lives. In the end she discovers how much relationships matter to be able to say, "This is where you belong!" 

KEY POINTS

• Americans have a certain degree of restlessness, with 12 percent moving every year. They’re plagued with a fear of missing out.
• Apps and surveys about best places to live can confirm people’s choice to land in the “right place.”
• People tend to be either “Movers” or “Stayers.” When things don’t work out well, Movers are inclined to believe changing location will solve their problems.
• “Place attachment” – the emotional bond people develop with the place they live
• “Placemaking” – things people do in a community to make it better (DIY citizenship); usually done from the ground up (grass roots); on the rise
• “Place satisfaction” – never wanting to leave a place; feeling a place really works for you
• Examples of placemaking include sharing a Little Free Library, preserving green spaces, painting murals, repurposing abandoned buildings, etc.
• Walking is one of the most fundamental activities that makes us feel at home in a community. It forces you to slow down, notice things, and talk to people.
• “Windshield perspective” – found in people who are always driven places rather than walking the streets of their neighborhood
• Showing up for town events creates success and makes a town thrive.

QUOTES FROM WARNICK

• “Places really are a little like people. They have different personalities. So, finding the right people feels a little like finding your tribe, finding the right friend group.”
• “Every time you move is kind of traumatic. You feel really lost and lonely and alone for a while.”
• “Two-thirds of college-educated Millennials say they’d pick the city where they want to live first, then find the job to get them there.”
• “No matter where you live, you have a hand in creating the kind of place you want to live in.”
• “Every town has something it’s good at. But we may have to shift our mindset about social offerings.”
• “Even in the Great Recession, the happier residents were with their town, the more the town prospered economically.”
• “’Falling in love with your town’ is a set of strategies that you can use wherever you live…even if you lived in a place a million years already.”

BUY This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Warnick writes for livability.com, which often features “Top 10 Cities…” articles.
• The “CityData”website is now usa.com, which features forums by state and town.
• “The Soul of a Community” – a three-year study conducted by Gallup, Inc. that answers what makes people like where they live and that the town is providing for their needs. Determines the factors that attach residents to their communities and the role of community attachment in an area's economic growth and well-being.
• Insert your home address on the Walk Score website to get a sense of your town’s walkability.
• Civic Dinners is a website designed to help strangers get together for a meal and meaningful conversation to spark real and lasting change.
• ArtPlace America offers large grants for placemaking as do The National Association of Realtors, AARP, and many other organizations.

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SUMMARY

Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winner for her feature story about immigration, turned her articles into her bestselling memoir, Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. By physically retracing the very steps and train rides of teenage immigrant Enrique, Nazario faced the same obstacles and dangers. Her bravery and authenticity make her book a standout among immigrant literature.

Historically, immigrants on the southern border have been mostly men. However, Nazario joined the newest wave of American immigrants—single moms who have left their children to find work. Consequently, their abandoned children eventually follow, desperate to find their absent mothers. So, from the beginning, Nazario insisted on publishing Enrique’s Journey in both Spanish and English in order to inform the women migrating. They need to know, she insists, both the advantages and potential costs and dangers of such a choice. Simply put, “For most migrants, the biggest downside to coming to the United States is the damage caused by years of separation for parents and children.”

Evenhanded and honest about a hotly debated topic, Nazario manages to transcend the details of Enrique’s story and to invite us to consider vetted solutions that can stem the exodus at its source. She proposes we provide economic opportunities to keep people stay in their countries; help stop the flow of drugs; reduce gang violence; bolster good governance; promote foreign aid to nonprofits; be more compassionate towards those trying to escape harm; make it easier to get to our immigration courts, including providing attorneys for children.

Although Nazario still carries post-traumatic stress from riding the rails, the price she paid to capture this raw memoir continues to pay dividends. Today, thousands of readers are not only armed with powerful immigration statistics but also emotionally charged to improve immigration policies.

KEY POINTS

• Train trips on El Tren de la Muerte (“The Train of Death”) through Central America and Mexico characterize a modern-day immigrant odyssey in which children face perils such as gangsters, drug lords, corrupt cops—a whole cast of characters out to rob, beat, rape, and deport them.
• Mexico reports 40K children are traveling alone from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala—the most violent countries in the world. Most don’t make it but, instead, end up back in Central America.
• Biggest danger – gangs who see a business opportunity in controlling the tops of trains and shaking down migrants who ride on top
• Emotional distress is rampant among children who reunite with mothers. Having once idealized their mothers, they feel angry, resentful, and distrusting. They say they would have preferred having their mothers stay to having received money from them.
• One in four Fortune 500 companies has been founded by immigrants who are full of gumption, willing to take risks, and able to see things from a different perspective.
• As a result of immigration, two groups lose out: 1) Americans without a high-school education whose wages meet a downward pressure and 2) migrants themselves (who, ironically, often lose their children’s love)

QUOTES FROM NAZARIO  

• “[Today’s immigrants] are not coming here for a better life; they are fleeing for their very lives.”
• “Whatever [immigration] policies we have…should involve keeping families together whether it’s finding a way to keep more of them together in their home countries or having folks migrate here as a unit.”
• “Walls do not work. Ask China. They built the mother of all walls, and it did not keep out the Mongols.”
• “Republicans need an immigration policy that has more heart, and Democrats need a policy that has an element of the rule of law—we can’t take in everyone from around the world, but don’t deport people who’ve been here 30 years.”

BUY Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother 

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Watch Sonia Nazario’s TEDx Talk, “Solving Illegal Immigration [For Real].”
• Read Nazario’s New York Times articles about immigration.

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SUMMARY

Author Flynn Coleman, attorney-at-law long interested in the intersection of human rights and technology, brings us A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining Who We Are. She examines the immense impact intelligent technology has and will have on humanity. These machines, while challenging our personal beliefs and our socio-economic world order, also have the potential to transform our health and well-being, alleviate poverty and suffering, and reveal the mysteries of intelligence and consciousness. In essence, Coleman explores what it means to be human. Because technology is developing so quickly, we have much less time than we once did to assimilate the technologies bringing us artificial intelligence (A.I.). So, Coleman argues that it is critical we instill values, ethics, and morals into our robots and other forms of A.I. to create a human algorithm.

KEY POINTS & DEFINITIONS

• The A.I. Effect – the point reached when we’ve integrated A.I. into our lives so much that we no longer want to call it A.I. (e.g., Google)
• Machine Learning – often used synonymously with A.I.; study of algorithms and models used to perform certain tasks on a computer
• Exceptionalism and other-ism – detrimental thinking that some lives matter less than others
• Encoding empathy, equality, fairness – an urgent prerequisite to A.I. design. For example, coders need to think of how their tools are affecting humans.
• Future data privacy – transparency and accountability will be key in developing new paradigms
• Nonhumans deserving rights and needing responsibility – rivers, ecosystems, self-driving cars, corporations, etc.

QUOTES FROM COLEMAN

• “We need to be more inclusive in bringing more diverse voices and ideas and working across silos and having 'courageous conversations’ about not just how to build the technology but building it for good.”
• “Technology is advancing inexorably, and our best course of action is to embrace it and to insist that it be designed with integrity. I don’t know if we will ever move past fear, but we can understand that we all have a stake and can build a brighter future.”
• “Optimism and hope are a rebellion in these times…No one of us has all the answers, but, together, there’s no star we can’t dream of exploring.”
• “Technology is a mirror of its designers.”
• “We should bestow dignity, rights, and esteem on nonhuman beings. Becoming more inclusive involves widening our lens to say, ‘We’re not the only ones that matter.’ But that doesn’t make us matter any less.”
• “When we don’t pay to use a platform online, we are the product! Our data is being collected and used and bought and sold. As the saying goes, ‘Data is the new oil.’”
• “It’s imperative we develop tools with the future of our children and planet in mind.”

BUY A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are

RECOMMENDATION

BUY 2001: A Space Odyssey [Blu-ray] by Warner Home Video 

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From a cryptic press release from Carl Hayden Community High School, former contributing editor for Wired magazine Josh Davis discovers a true David-and-Goliath story. Originally intended to be a historical document of 2014 immigration reform legislation, Davis’s magazine article goes viral and becomes the beginning of his bestseller Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. This underdog story of a ragtag team of poor illegal Mexican immigrants from West Phoenix, Arizona inspires even those most skeptical of the American Dream.

With little money, the boys scavenge spare parts and beg for donated materials from strangers to build an underwater robot (dubbed “Stinky”), which they enter in the National Underwater Robotics Championship. Even though the annual contest sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Navy attracts Ivy-League teams such as MIT, these underserved young men emerge as the unlikely winners. In Spare Parts, Davis captures their fierce determination, strict discipline, bright intellect, good humor, and unparalleled ingenuity.

KEY CHARACTERS

Christian

• The brains of the robotics team; enamored with how things work
• Lives next to a junkyard in an 8x8 plywood box slapped onto the side of a trailer
• Makes use of the random parts landing in his yard during the monsoon season
• Fan of the Bob Vila home-repair T.V. show

Oscar

• Team leader and highly patriotic ROTC member
• One of three Arizona State University 2009 graduates to receive “special honors,” presented by President Barack Obama
• Deports himself to Mexico, leaving behind his American wife and daughter
• After receiving permanent residency, serves in the United States Army

Lorenzo

• Turns his back on a gang to join the robotics team, feeling a sense of true belonging for the first time in his life
• Learns the importance of creativity by watching his cousins repair cars in the driveway—their impromptu auto shop
• Nicknames the team’s underwater ROV “Stinky”

Luis

• Big guy initially conscripted onto the team to do the heavy lifting, literally
• Quiet emotional ballast; peacemaker
• His love of cooking and cooking shows almost pulls him away from participating on the team

Fredi Lajvardi and Allan Cameron

• Create the Carl Hayden robotics club
• Aim to inspire a new generation of scientists, explorers, and astronauts

QUOTES FROM DAVIS

• “In the fall of 2013, Hollywood began filming a movie about the Carl Hayden robotics team….The attention paid to the team as a result of their victory coincided with a backlash against immigrants in Arizona. The state’s voters passed propositions 200 and 300, making it more difficult for immigrants living in the country illegally to attend college.”
• “It seems to me…that [immigration] can only be a good thing when people want to come to this country and contribute and build and drive economic activity. I would much rather they do that here and contribute to American society…or not have the opportunity where they come from.”
• “It doesn’t seem like we’re any closer now than we were four years ago to passing immigration reform.”
• “Supporting scholarships is a fantastic way for encouraging…hope for students who wouldn’t otherwise go to school.”

BUY Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream

RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY Spare Parts (DVD)

Get a sneak-peek into Spare Parts (the movie).

Listen to Josh Davis describing the real characters' reactions to the filming of the movie.

Listen to Josh Davis describe the real characters' reactions to the filming of the movie.

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SUMMARY

Coming from a long line of junk dealers, Adam Minter explores the “afterlife” of billions of tons of used goods in his second book, Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. Minter evaluates both the monetary and emotional value of things that we use then give away. Sobering and hopeful at the same time, his findings unveil why we feel both repelled and pulled toward used goods. His travels throughout the world lead him to vintage shops in Tokyo, used -goods enterprises in Ghana, and thrift stores in the American Southwest—all of which play a part in the multibillion-dollar reuse industry.

KEY POINTS/STATISTICS

• Hoarders contribute to the unhealthy side of consumption, contributing to the surplus of environmental waste.
• “Cleanouts” can be very painful because the process breaks bonds with things, stripping a person of who he is and rendering him almost anonymous.
• Mini-storage units are proliferating rapidly to meet the ever-growing demand from Americans for space to store their stuff, with the rental cost per square foot often exceeding that of their homes.
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in 2015, Americans tossed out 24.1 billion pounds of furniture and furnishings—a flood yet to crest.
• “Shoddy” – word assigned to low-quality wool textile recycled from earlier wool
• Small secondhand shops are often the dominant form of commerce across rural towns in Southeast Asia.
• Africa is the largest market for secondhand clothes globally.
• Older consumers are less willing to buy fast-fashion clothing, but the online fashion reseller thredUP is finding millennials are the demographic most likely to discard a garment after one to five wearings.
• Thirty percent of clothing tossed out in the U.S. is turned into rags, which are especially useful to big industries such as oil and gas; hotels, bars, and restaurants; auto manufacturers; painters; and healthcare.
• Goodwill began in Boston as a retraining program for wayward youth.
• Asians have a high reverence for Japan’s reputation for excellent manufacturing and design.
• Pyrex has become highly collectible among younger Americans with some pieces selling for thousands of dollars. 

QUOTES FROM MINTER

• “The world is filled with more things than at any time in history.”
• “Americans are prone to keep things longer, and sometimes value them more than they value themselves.”
• “The things that we buy tend to create [an] identity for us….We build up who we are by the things that we acquire.”
• “People value the things that they saw as children. We’re all kind of nostalgic in our hearts.”

BUY Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

RECOMMENDATION
BUY Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade

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