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Devotions from Oakdale are to encourage the reader with daily inspirational and motivational encouragement from the writer, Greg Smith, while serving a prison sentence in Oakdale Federal Correctional Institute in Oakdale, Louisiana. Greg wants to uplift and share his positive attitude even under adverse times to show that anyone can overcome anything in life if you allow God to be the center of your daily walk.

An insightful and devastating account of how Wall Street lost its way from an insider who experienced the culture of Goldman Sachs first-hand. On March 14, 2012, more than three million people read Greg Smith's bombshell Op-Ed in the New York Times titled "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs." The column immediately went viral, became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, and drew passionate responses from former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. Mostly, though, it hit a nerve among the general public who question the role of Wall Street in society -- and the callous "take-the-money-and-run" mentality that brought the world economy to its knees a few short years ago. Smith now picks up where his Op-Ed left off. His story begins in the summer of 2000, when an idealistic 21-year-old arrives as an intern at Goldman Sachs and learns about the firm's Business Principle #1: Our clients' interests always come first. This remains Smith's mantra as he rises from intern to analyst to sales trader, with clients controlling assets of more than a trillion dollars. From the shenanigans of his summer internship during the technology bubble to Las Vegas hot tubs and the excesses of the real estate boom; from the career lifeline he received from an NFL Hall of Famer during the bear market to the day Warren Buffett came to save Goldman Sachs from extinction-Smith will take the reader on his personal journey through the firm, and bring us inside the world's most powerful bank. Smith describes in page-turning detail how the most storied investment bank on Wall Street went from taking iconic companies like Ford, Sears, and Microsoft public to becoming a "vampire squid" that referred to its clients as "muppets" and paid the government a record half-billion dollars to settle SEC charges. He shows the evolution of Wall Street into an industry riddled with conflicts of interest and a profit-at-all-costs mentality: a perfectly rigged game at the expense of the economy and the society at large. After conversations with nine Goldman Sachs partners over a twelve-month period proved fruitless, Smith came to believe that the only way the system would ever change was for an insider to finally speak out publicly. He walked away from his career and took matters into his own hands. This is his story.

Devotions from Oakdale are to encourage the reader with daily inspirational and motivational encouragement from the writer, Greg Smith, while serving a prison sentence in Oakdale Federal Correctional Institute in Oakdale, Louisiana. Greg wants to uplift and share his positive attitude even under adverse times to show that anyone can overcome anything in life if you allow God to be the center of your daily walk.

America's National Guard was once considered a ragtag gaggle of pretend soldiers. Beginning in the 1980s the National Guard gradually transformed into today's highly flexible operational force that answers our nation's call for overseas combat deployments as well as domestic emergencies that run the gamut from lifesaving disaster responses to staffing Covid clinics. Brigadier General Paul "Greg" Smith describes his personal journey during these years, from a callow cadet to a committed commander leading military forces in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Smith gives a humorous, gritty, and sometimes touching glimpse into the inner workings of this unique military organization while offering portraits of the men and women who serve as the minutemen of our age. His reflections on service, duty, and the complexities of command will enlighten anyone who seeks to better understand the challenges of leadership.

Use communication as your key to transformation. Connection is a fundamental need, but creating it isn't easy-this is where communication is your cornerstone. But like any foundation, this cornerstone is only as strong as you make it. Whether you need to share insight, develop a brand, or craft your company's story, you can make an impact by identifying your purpose, discovering the power in public speaking, and forming a plan for effective presentations. In Command the Room, Greg Smith and Vince Bevacqua share their strategies for building connections through compelling communication. By first analyzing your purpose, you'll understand your true motivations and the part they play in the story you create. You'll learn the tools and tactics for speeches that resonate, along with the delivery techniques used by professional speakers. From recognizing your inspiration to understanding how to inspire others, Command the Room is your complete guide to mastering the art of powerful communication.

For years, the DeCavalcantes, the most powerful Mob family in Jersey, labored in the shadows of the more famous families in New York—the likes of the Gambinos and the Columbos. Dismissed by the big-city capos, the DeCavalcantes finally came into their own when they found their lives mirrored in the television hit, The Sopranos. Overnight it legitimized the made men of the Garden State. Now they were a familia to be reckoned with. Unfortunately with high profile came high risk. As member turned against member, as trusted friend turned terrified informant, the FBI put the brakes on the DeCavalcante’s explosive ride into infamy, hastening a fall from honor that would become as infamous as their notorious ascension into the annals of organized crime. Based on more than 1,000 hours of secretly recorded conversations, Made Men delivers for the first time, the unprecedented and completely uncensored behind-the-scenes truth of a historically clandestine world—of violent life and sudden death inside and outside the mob, told by the very men who made it.

Lessons learned and ideas on restoring declining inner citiesincluding Haltom City and other small citiesWhy can't we identify declining inner cities and save them instead of waiting to rebuild them?An aging city core is not unusual, and arguably is almost imminent. There have been many studies about the struggle to rebuild the inner cities, especially for housing and transportation systems. But as people look for the shiny penny, properties get old, rents fall, businesses move or close, and what is left is hard to bring back to its former glory. This book explores a not unique perspective, identifying these trends in advance, and taking steps to prevent the demise. Lessons learned and illusive solutions for revitalizing the inner city before it failsMayors, City Managers, and members of City Councils across our nation are struggling to find ways to bring prosperity and jobs back to once-proud neighborhoods. Written like a business book, the lessons seem obvious, but illusive public money is unlikely to bring a quick revitalization, and private investment is a must. The authors research shows that the best place to start is with a vibrant business community, and a city mantra of nurturing small businesses, old and new, to bring jobs services and employment. The benefits including a stronger tax base seem like a no-brainer, yet cities are slow to change, and without dynamic leadership including business experience, the job is daunting. Such a focus when leveraged with public tools, housing and transportation restorative efforts, can prevent decrepit boarded up buildings and a downward spiral which no one wants. As COVID has changed everything which cities will win the beauty contest with a plan for revitalization, and backfill the closing retail and office spaces?This book examines ways to help local government understand and leverage the power of entrepreneurial thinking and private investment.

Great photos of the flashiest, eye-catching, show-stopping, and just plain cool custom semi trucks ever built. Photographer Greg Smith captures these spectacular heavy haulers in all of their customized glory-from their gleaming chrome bumpers to breathtaking paint work and rows and rows of LED lights. This is a calendar that will have big rig fans rubber-necking all year long.

Risk Conversations is the result of three days of discussion, dialogue and listening from thee dispositions: the law, social psychology and ?collective coherence'. Sometimes what makes a conversation ?risky? is that those involved belong to different groups or collectives. This means that there is the potential for disagreements or confusion to occur based not on a difference of opinion over a particular idea, discourse or ?text?, but over a deeper conflict of colliding trajectories of one or more, alternate, coherent views of reality, that is, different Collective Coherences. This can happen when people belong to different groups that make assumptions about:... the nature of things, the categories in which they think, and the logic that organises these categories into a coherent understanding of reality. It becomes increasingly clear that people live not in the same world with different labels attached to it but in radically different conceptual worlds Hiebert (2008, p. 15).The three authors gathered together for three days and recorded their conversations producing a series of videos, a talking book and the transcripts that formed the content of this book.Knowing that people make mistakes is one thing; understanding why they behave as they do will provide a much more meaningful and effective roadmap to help us navigate within the boundaries prescribed by the law.A proper appreciation of the social psychology of risk, and the legal boundaries within which it operates, helps us understand how to tackle risk in a more mature and intelligent way.

We all love heroes... We all love to hate villains... But how well do movies create characters that we love and hate? Psychologist Scott Allison and writing expert Greg Smith present a new way of understanding heroes and villains. Inside this book you'll find: * An innovative new classification scheme of heroes and villains * The key to good characters in the movies: Transformation * The Eight Great Arcs of Transformations in heroes and villains * How heroes and villains transform morally, emotionally, and physically * How the hero's journey differs from the villain's journey * 50 reviews of movie heroes and villains in 2014 "Allison and Smith have deftly crafted THE premier text of heroes and villains in contemporary cinema. A shiny portrait that brilliantly dissects the hero-villain dichotomy through a dense mixture of passion, knowledge, and humor to offer profound insights into the hero-villain relationship." -- Jason Roy, The Hero Construction Company