"It's not that we're dumb. We're wired to avoid pain and pursue pleasure and security. It feels right to sell when everyone around us is scared and buy when everyone feels great. It may feel right-but it's not rational." -From The Behavior Gap Why do we lose money? It's easy to blame the economy or the financial markets-but the real trouble lies in the decisions we make. As a financial planner, Carl Richards grew frustrated watching people he cared about make the same mistakes over and over. They were letting emotion get in the way of smart financial decisions. He named this phenomenon-the distance between what we should do and what we actually do-"the behavior gap." Using simple drawings to explain the gap, he found that once people understood it, they started doing much better. Richards's way with words and images has attracted a loyal following to his blog posts for The New York Times, appearances on National Public Radio, and his columns and lectures. His book will teach you how to rethink all kinds of situations where your perfectly natural instincts (for safety or success) can cost you money and peace of mind. He'll help you to: • Avoid the tendency to buy high and sell low; • Avoid the pitfalls of generic financial advice; • Invest all of your assets-time and energy as well as savings-more wisely; • Quit spending money and time on things that don't matter; • Identify your real financial goals; • Start meaningful conversations about money; • Simplify your financial life; • Stop losing money! It's never too late to make a fresh financial start. As Richards writes: "We've all made mistakes, but now it's time to give yourself permission to review those mistakes, identify your personal behavior gaps, and make a plan to avoid them in the future. The goal isn't to make the 'perfect' decision about money every time, but to do the best we can and move forward. Most of the time, that's enough."

Intends to remove the complexity from investing by encouraging readers to identify deeply personal goals and to use a series of steps to help set up and attain a workable, meaningful financial plan.

Adolescents around the globe are demonstrating for a sustainable future. Businesses, too, increasingly embrace the idea of sustainable economic activities. Sustainability has evolved from a niche topic into a mainstream one. Nevertheless, there still is a discrepancy between people’s attitudes toward sustainable practices and the extent to which they actually act on them. Which drivers and barriers of sustainable consumption exist? What are the reasons for the attitude-behavior gap? Bea Alexandra Wintschnig discusses the necessity of sustainable consumption patterns in practice as a key enabler of a general sustainable development. The variety of identified factors can broadly be subdivided into two categories: individual-related and environmental determinants. The former includes socio- demographics, personal characteristics and value orientation. The environmental determinants comprise product, service or behavior-related factors, such as cost of consumption or stereotypes of sustainable products. Bea Alexandra Wintschnig explains why people seem to talk more about environmental protection than they actually do for it. In this book: - Climate protection; - Sustainability; - Corporate Social Responsibility; - Self-efficacy; - society

The world of investing normally sees experts telling us the 'right' way to manage our money. How often do these experts pull back the curtain and tell us how they invest their own money? Never. How I Invest My Money changes that. In this unprecedented collection, 25 financial experts share how they navigate markets with their own capital. In this honest rendering of how they invest, save, spend, give, and borrow, this group of portfolio managers, financial advisors, venture capitalists and other experts detail the 'how' and the 'why' of their investments. They share stories about their childhood, their families, the struggles they face and the aspirations they hold. Sometimes raw, always revealing, these stories detail the indelible relationship between our money and our values. Taken as a whole, these essays powerfully demonstrate that there is no single 'right' way to save, spend, and invest. We see a kaleidoscope of perspectives on stocks, bonds, real assets, funds, charity, and other means of achieving the life one desires. With engaging illustrations throughout by Carl Richards, How I Invest My Money inspires readers to think creatively about their financial decisions and how money figures in the broader quest for a contented life. With contributions from: Morgan Housel, Christine Benz, Brian Portnoy, Joshua Brown, Bob Seawright, Carolyn McClanahan, Tyrone Ross, Dasarte Yarnway, Nina O'Neal, Debbie Freeman, Shirl Penney, Ted Seides, Ashby Daniels, Blair duQuesnay, Leighann Miko, Perth Tolle, Josh Rogers, Jenny Harrington, Mike Underhill, Dan Egan, Howard Lindzon, Ryan Krueger, Lazetta Rainey Braxton, Rita Cheng, Alex Chalekian

We like to think of ourselves, our friends, and our families as pretty decent people. We may not be saints, but we are basically good, fairly honest, relatively kind, and mostly trustworthy. 0One of the central themes of 'The Character Gap' is that we are badly mistaken in thinking this way. In recent years, hundreds of psychological studies have been done which tell a rather different story. We have serious character flaws that prevent us from being good people, many of which we do not even recognize in ourselves. Does this mean that instead we are wretched people, vicious, cruel or hateful? Christian Miller does not argue that this is necessarily the case either.

The market for business knowledge is booming as companies looking to improve their performance pour millions of pounds into training programmes, consultants, and executive education. Why then, are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and waht they actual do? This volume confronts the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. The authors identify the causes of this gap and explain how to close it.

Faith and Finances is a timely and much needed exposition on the subject of money.