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The endless summer
Work Your Way Around the World, $6 It’s many a graduate’s dream — pay your way as you travel around the world. I lived the dream myself when I was younger, so I know it is possible. Since then I’ve been tracking this subject faithfully, and have read through scores of books and websites offering how-to advice on the dream. They won’t hurt, but this fantastic book — now in its 14th edition! — is really the only one that will give you much help before you leave.
Most of these kind of books are a bunch of hand-waving generalities, or out of date particulars; this one is very specific and very current. It is massively researched, with tons of incoming gossip on where the easily-gotten jobs are this year, and what to do about paperwork and visas in that particular place, and how to land the job, and what you should expect, and letters from those who just did it. It’s all very helpful, practical and inspiring. But don’t get your hopes too high. There are really only two kinds of dependable quick jobs to be found “around the world”: 1) In the service industry in Europe — working at hotels, resorts, bars, camps for other tourists; and 2) teaching English in Asia. For most kids, that’ll be enough. There are hundreds of exceptions to these two, and this book will do its best to point you to them, but they are far fewer, and more dependent on chance. But even that skill — cultivating chance — is tackled with great intelligence in this meaty book, which I can’t recommend too much.
The author Susan Griffith is very prolific and at the center of a number of other related ongoing books, also recommended: Teaching English Abroad, Your Gap Year, and Summer Jobs Worldwide. – KK
How to sell your crafts
The Handmade Marketplace, $13 The giant crafts website Etsy makes it easy to list homemade stuff to a potential audience of millions. But the hard part is getting anyone to pay attention and actually buy it. That requires some basic business and online marketing skills, which are reviewed here, with the home crafter in mind. – KK
What best advice would you offer a crafter who is looking to gain national attention for their work? Invest in great product photography. Great work sells itself, so you need to do everything possible to make sure the beauty of your work comes through in a way that’s apparent to people reading about you online or in print because most people won’t see your work in person.
Are you getting some really great feedback about something in particular that you’ve made? Consider posting these compliments in the description of your item.
Keep these customer service practices in mind at all times: The customers may not always be right, but they do deserve your full attention and respect regarding the matter at hand. Apologize first. What if you didn’t do anything wrong? you may ask. Well, while that may be the case, that’s not really the point. You can, in fact, regret that your customer is upset in any regard. Simply recognizing that your buyer has a problem and has had to take the time out of a busy day to alert you to it is reason enough to apologize. Ask what will make the situation right. If what the customer wants is reasonable and you can do it, you should consider it. Taking a hit on a sale is a small price to pay when it comes to your overall reputation and the trust you are trying to build with your market.
Everyone is in sales
To Sell is Human, $16 Dan Pink argues that hard selling no longer works as it once did; what we need in this new information economy is soft selling. Soft sales are not just for sales people; everyone now is in the business of selling. Soft persuasion techniques are useful to anyone sending an email, writing a resume, doing a kickstart project, even twittering. A seller – either professional or citizen – can no longer rely on the old tactics such as “overcoming objections” and “closing an offer” but must shift to new skills such as improvisation, attunement, and service. Pink arrives at the radical idea that selling well makes us better humans, and better humans sell better. This book accomplished two things: it persuaded me that I am in sales, and it gave me some new tools for gently selling what I have to offer. – KK
Successful negotiators recommend that you should mimic the mannerisms of your negotiation partner to get a better deal. For example, when the other person rubs his/her face, you should, too. If he/she leans back or leans forward in the chair, you should, too. However, they say it is very important that you mimic subtly enough that the other person does not notice what you are doing, otherwise this technique completely backfires. Also, do not direct too much of your attention to the mimicking so you don’t lose focus on the outcome of the negotiation. Thus, you should find a happy medium of consistent but subtle mimicking that does not disrupt your focus.
After someone hears your pitch … 1. What do you want them to know? 2. What do you want them to feel? 3. What do you want them to do? If you’ve got strong answers to these three questions, the pitch will come together more easily.
One way to do better is with what I call “emotionally intelligent signage.” Most signs typically have two functions: They provide information to help people find their way or they announce rules. But emotionally intelligent signage goes deeper. It achieves those same ends by enlisting the principles of “make it personal” and “make it purposeful.” It tries to move others by expressing empathy with the person viewing the sign (that’s the personal part) or by triggering empathy in that person so she’ll understand the rationale behind the posted rule (that’s the purposeful part).
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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
Of my maybe dozen books on anatomy, this is the masterpiece: Atlas of Human Anatomy by Frank Netter. How any one human could do all these exquisite drawings in a lifetime is beyond me. The drawings of the hand are spectacular. There is no descriptive text, so I don’t know if this is the perfect text for helping with self-diagnosis, but this is a reference book anyone interested in the human body should have. I have an older 4th edition, but they recently released the 5th.
The Anatomical Chart Series by Peter Bachin and Ernest Beck is a flip-page guide that includes excellent anatomical charts. It appears to be out-of-print but you can find it used.
The Human Body by Ruth & Bertel Bruun is a great and colorful children’s anatomy book. You can find it used for around $3. — Lloyd Kahn
Anatomy Trains is a map of our musculoskeletal anatomy. It’s intended for hands-on and movement bodyworkers but is a great read for anyone interested in structure, whole-systems thinking, and brilliant design. I realized after doing Pilates for a while that I had no idea about anatomical structure and why Pilates was effective. While advocating no particular body/mind discipline, Anatomy Trains allowed me to understand why Pilates works. That was eight years ago; my understanding continues to expand over time.
Author Tom Myers asks a grand question: what would happen if we take a different cut at understanding the muscles and tendons? Instead of cutting against the grain at the ends, what happens when you follow the grain past the individual muscles and tendons and see how long the lines of tension go? Tom creates a set of rules and then starts mapping.
An anatomy expert could research and apply those rules themselves; I just followed along. The results are pretty cool: a map of about a dozen or so long lines of tension in our bodies. Most of them are longer than we are tall; some are almost twice as long. Some lines are roughly linear and some spiral around our torso and leg bones. Some lines are near the skin while some are next to the bones. Tom created a new term for these lines: myofascial meridians. Nobody has ever done this before, but the lines are real: Myers has gone into the lab multiple times with teams of students to dissect these long lines of tension in cadavers.
Myers studied under two remarkable body/mind instructors: Moshe Feldenkrais and Ida Rolf. He also studied under Buckminster Fuller, the great whole-systems engineer of the 20th century. The first chapter of the book, The World According to Fascia, provides a lot of background information for the mappings in the remainder of the book. Myers notes that there are three fractal/pervasive networks in our body: circulatory/chemical, nervous/electrical, and structural/spatial. He notes the elusiveness of the structural network: while we’ve had clear models of the first two for hundreds of years, our fine-grained structural network is still quite elusive. This is whole-systems thinking at its finest: lots of ideas how natural tech connects from the nano-scale to full-size human beings.
Like the great science book Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, this book can be read at many different levels. The first way is just to look at the maps and the supporting drawings and charts. A second way is to read the various side discussions and notes. A third way is to plough straight through the rather dense text. I’ve never read AT from cover to cover, but I’ve gone through most of it and read almost all of the side discussions.
My one criticism of the book: its full title, Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists, is enough to scare off those not in the industry. It is a wonderful and friendly book, but books like this must have a formidable title to be sold to medical/health professionals. The ideas it discusses are right on the edge of our understanding of biological systems, but there is not a milligram of woo-woo. — Phil Earnhardt
Humans are not assembled out of parts like a car or a computer. "Body as machine' is a useful metaphor, but like any poetic trope, it does not tell the whole story. In our modern perception of human movement anatomy, however, we are in danger of making this metaphor into the be all and end all. In actual fact, our bodies are conceived as a whole, and grow, live, and die as a whole- but our mind is a knife.
I have an inexpensive (and unfortunately no longer available) 30-inch visible man sitting on my desk. Putting it together was an education; I couldn’t believe how much stuff we have crammed into our insides. Everyday the man-model reminds me of the wonder of our temporary home. To go deeper into the full catalog of human meat, you need the Anatomical Chart Company, which carries replicas of most human body parts. Eyes, guts, brains, etc. in three dimensions. They aren’t cheap, but they are detailed. I am looking for a spot in my studio to park their budget life-sized skeleton. It focuses one’s productivity. — KK
Budget Bucky Skeleton
This economical, life-size articulated adult plastic model is our most popular school-level skeleton. It's ideal for teaching the basics of anatomy when intricate textural nuances of the bone are not required. Articulated joints allow for movement. The arms and legs are removable for study. Features nerve branches, vertebral artery and herniated lumbar disc. Skull includes movable jaw, cut calvarium, suture lines, and 3 removable lower teeth. Includes rolling stand and the PortAPack Systems Set of 5 laminated 8-1/2" x 11" charts covering the Muscular, Skeletal, Nervous, Circulatory, and Digestive Systems. Also includes extra hardware for emergency repairs. Size: 5' 6" tall. Weight: 23 lbs.
Human Muscle & Skeleton Anatomy Model
A ton of anatomical detail in a tiny package, this 8 inch human skeleton and musculature anatomical model contains 46 detachable parts and display stand. This puzzle-like anatomy model also includes an illustrated assembly guide and description of the human anatomy along with some fun Q&A to test your knowledge. The hand painted parts are medical education quality.
Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.
