New Releases by Rick Lewis

An illustrated guide to the National and State Parks of the United States. Including itineraries for a 55 day road-trip from the east to the west coast and back again. Each page has been hand illustrated and includes campground and hiking recommendations along with travel routes and attractions along the way.

Stress is directly linked to six of the leading causes of death in the U.S. today, and it seems obvious that environmental, economic and social stresses are not going away. In fact, they''re predicted to get worse. For this reason, the vast majority of "stress less" books are concerned with the modern problem of too much stress and how to reduce it. Not this one! Confident Under Pressure is about the advantages of stress, clarifying the critical role that intentionally engaged stress plays in personal and professional development. Author Rick Lewis makes his living by putting leaders, executives and organizational teams into challenging situations to help them see the habitual ways they respond to stress. He then offers unique guidance in the practice of "stress production," rather than stress reduction - revealing how to make a dynamic turnaround, an attitude of YES to stress. Confident Under Pressure weaves colorful personal stories, recent neuroscience, the research of human performance experts, and the inspiration of leading business executives into a compelling and lucid argument for moving toward stress, conflict and change in order to become more creative, effective and happy in life, on the way to making our highest contribution in the world. The result is an eminently readable and practical book that anyone can use, at home, on the job, and in one-on-one relationships. Lewis points out that we commonly approach stress with avoidance or downright denial, which basically postpones the inevitable and makes matters worse. We might try to avoid the reality of some situation, or deny how strongly our emotions are affected; we may try to circumvent the uncomfortable by some denial of purpose, or by side-stepping our creativity, or failing to engage appropriate action. Sound familiar? Taking each of these common avoidance strategies, he highlights the high price we pay for such behaviors, and invites us back to the playing field - the only place where goals are scored. The author has been a corporate consultant for over twenty years, with contracts with over 500 corporations, associations and government agencies. He has presented to audiences that have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, the Prime Minister of Canada, and worked with CEOs, dignitaries, and government organizations from The Federal Reserve Bank to the International Board of Mastercard. The result of this lifetime of experience - both successes and failures - is distilled within this book.

Mentoring Matters explains a reproducible model for maximizing the potential of leaders and helping them go the distance. It gets behind the issues of leadership skills to address the leader as a person - their spirituality, emotional health, key relationships, vulnerabilities and rhythms of life. This approach to mentoring is highly flexible so that it can be tailor-made for each mentoring partnership, not relying on a strict format or curriculum. The mentor functions as a doctor of the soul, pulling us back to our most noble intentions and perceptive insights. The approach is formal and organised - and highly effective.

7 Rules You Were Born to Break is an exploration of 7 rules we unconsciously obey and the power of breaking them. This book reveals the secrets of a professional misbehaver who turned his passion for mischief into a successful career as an internationally renowned entertainer. In his rise from the streets as a juggler, jester and busker, to the banquet halls of the corporate elite as a headlining comedian, Rick Lewis faced the 7 hidden rules that oppose our fulfillment and success. Lewis guides us through the silent shadows of our rule oriented society through his performing stories, illustrating with warmth, humor and passion the unwritten laws that disempower us and which we must break to claim our birthright to excellence. Celebrities and a break-dancing dwarf, Santa Claus and CEOs, may never have shared a stage so equally as they do in Lewis''s inspiring and remarkable tales. From the top of his twelve-foot unicycle Lewis shows us how we can rise above mediocrity in our day to day lives and give our greatest hopes, aims and visions a fighting chance. Today Rick Lewis is a world-class corporate entertainer, comedian and speaker who has appeared at events attended by the Clintons, the Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Gates, the international board of Mastercard and upper management teams for Fortune 500 companies all over North America.

Maybeland and Cinnamon Bear come to life in this colorfully illustrated picture book based on the 1937 radio show.

With sparkling clarity and humour, Rick Lewis explains exactly what meditation can offer to those who are ready to establish an island of sanity in the midst of an active life. This book offers a comprehensive look at everything a beginner would need to start a meditation practice, including how to befriend an overactive mind and how to bring the fruits of meditation into all aspects of daily life. Experienced mediators will also find refreshing perspectives to both nourish and refine their practice. Lewis''s twenty-five years of disciplined sitting practice allow him to clarify common myths and confusions about meditation and its applications to life. His use of both inspiring insights and practical examples, together with anecdotes from the lives of masters and students of many traditions, make this book immediately accessible for mediators of all levels.

In this text, Rick Lewis weaves practical considerations about spiritual life with profound mystical understanding. He describes the illusion of unworthiness, the challenges of spitirual practice and his own awe in discovering the majesty of the present moment.

Abstract: "There are many useful applications of three dimensional polyhedral building models, such as visualization, light, sound, energy, or fire simulations, and cost analysis. Unfortunately, construction of polyhedral building models using currently available modeling software is a tedious process that involves considerable human effort, and often results in topologically incorrect or incomplete models. This paper describes a system called the Building Model Generator (BMG), that creates correct 3D polyhedral building models from architectural floor plans, while requiring minimal user interaction. Two-dimensional architectural floor plans are a standard format for expressing the detailed architectural design of a building. These plans are abstracted orthographic projections of the structure of each floor onto two dimensions, with symbolic annotations indicating special entities such as doors and windows that are not visible from the top-down orthographic view. These plans are easier to create than the corresponding 3D model of the building because they involve drawing in two dimensions rather than three, and the sheer number of geometric entities drawn is much lower. While these plans may contain small inconsistencies, most can be solved algorithmically in two dimensions. With the BMG system, input floor plans from AutoCAD are passed through filters that perform topological correction and semantic analysis. Disjoint and overlapping entities are corrected, symbols indicating doors and windows are located, and edges are grouped into contours representing each labeled space on the plan. The result is then extruded to form the correct polyhedral model of the floor. A method is provided for stacking and assembling individual floors, and incorporating other structural elements such as staircases, into a composite building model with correct topology. Results are compatible with the Berkeley WALKTHRU system for interactive visualization of polyhedral environments, and the NIST CFAST fire simulator for buildings. The system was used to generate a new model of the new Soda Hall computer science building at Berkeley, using floor plans drawn by architects."