We are living in a time of mounting political segregation that threatens to tear us apart as a unified society. The result is that we are becoming increasingly tribal, and the narratives of life that we get exposed to on a daily basis have become echo chambers in which we hear our beliefs reinforced and others' beliefs demonized.

At the core of tribalism exists a paradox: as humans, we are hardwired with the need to belong, which ends up making us deeply connected with some yet deeply divided from others. When these tribes are formed out of fear of the “other,” on topics such as race, immigration status, religion, or partisan politics, we resort to an “us versus them” attitude. Especially in the digital age, when we are all interconnected in one way or another, these tensions seep into our daily lives and we become secluded with our self-identified tribes. Global diversity and inclusion expert Howard J. Ross, with JonRobert Tartaglione, explores how our human need to belong is the driving force behind the increasing division of our world.

Drawing upon decades of leadership experience, Ross probes the depth of tribalism, examines the role of social media in exacerbating it, and offers tactics for how to combat it. Filled with tested practices for opening safe and honest dialogue in the workplace and challenges to confront our own tendencies to bond with those who are like us, Our Search for Belonging is a powerful statement of hope in a disquieting time.

Second edition of this bestselling book on creating robust, thriving, positive communities using seven ancient principles any organization can follow.

Now with 25% new content, including a chapter on building virtual communities.

Healthy communities strive for their members to support one another, share their passions, and achieve personal growth. This book will help you learn to be connected and defeat loneliness by understanding where and how we belong. No matter the kind of organization, company, or social group, this book is a guide for leaders seeking to build a community or strengthen the ones they already have.

Drawing on both 3,000 years of history and his personal experience, Charles Vogl lays out seven time-tested principles for developing connected communities that last. These include:
•Boundary: The boundary between members and outsiders
•Initiation: The activities that mark a new member
•Rituals: The things we do that have meaning
•Temple: A place set aside to find our community
•Stories: What we share that allows others and ourselves to know our values
•Symbols: The things that represent ideas that are important to us
•Inner Rings: A path to growth as we participate

With hands-on tools for applying these principles to any group-formal or informal, mission driven or social, physical or virtual-this book will guide you in your journey to become a community builder that brings people together

7 Principles for Finding Meaning in Life & Work

World-renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is one of the most important books of modern times. Frankl's extraordinary personal story of finding meaning amid the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps has inspired millions. Frankl vividly showed that you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude—you don't have to be a prisoner of your thoughts.

Dr. Alex Pattakos—who was urged by Frankl to write Prisoners of Our Thoughts—and Elaine Dundon, a personal and organizational innovation thought leader, show how Frankl's wisdom can help readers find meaning in every moment of their lives. Drawing on the entire body of Frankl's work, they identify seven “core principles” and demonstrate how they can be applied to everyday life and work.

This revised and expanded third edition features new stories, practical exercises, applications, and insights from the authors' new work in MEANINGology®. Three new chapters outline how we all can benefit by putting meaning at the core of our lives, work, and society. And a new chapter on Viktor Frankl's legacy illustrates how his work continues to influence so many around the world.

As a response to the increasing violence in our culture, the widening ideological divides, and the growing gap in economic well-being, there is greater awareness that a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. But even as we acknowledge the need to build community, the dominant on-the-ground practices about how to engage people, civically and organizationally, remain essentially unchanged. We still believe community is built with better messaging, more persuasion, and social events for people to get to know each other better. All of which is naïve.

In this new edition, Block draws on a decade of putting these ideas into practice to emphasize what has worked and extract those thoughts that were nice but had no durability. He explores how technology, instead of bringing us together, has driven us into more isolation. New examples show that community building can be a more powerful way to address social problems than more traditional policies and programs. And encouragingly, Block insists this is really simple, once we decide it is essential. He offers a way of thinking that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.

In a world overcrowded with labels, don't allow your identity to be defined by other people. Learn how to take back your power, choose to feed the aspects of your identity that serve you, and let go of those that don't.

Everyone feels like an outsider at some point in their life-when we walk into a room and think to ourselves, I don't belong here. To avoid these feelings of exclusion, many of us hide our authentic selves and allow others to define our identity.

You Belong Here offers a new framework that allows each of us to define how we want to be seen, heard, and valued on our own terms so we feel a sense of belonging in any situation. Further, it serves as a launchpad for organizational leaders and culture builders to create safe spaces for individuals to show up as their authentic selves.

Readers will explore our four identities:

• Our Lived Identity is made up of the aspects of our identity we inherit when we are born into the world.
• Our Learned Identity includes the parts of our identity that we've chosen or claimed as we make our way through the world.
• Our Lingering Identity is the identity we default to when we feel like an outsider and fall back into as a survival mechanism.
• Our Loved Identity is where we find our authentic selves and see ourselves through a lens of empowerment.

In the journey to understand our past experiences and how society has established barriers to entry, we can design our own future, rooted in our Loved Identity. We learn to rewrite the stories that aren't serving us and embrace the ones that do. Rather than look for a seat at someone else's table, we find the tools to build our own.

When we fully leverage this and live with authenticity and purpose, we can be seen, heard, and valued in a way that gives us a sense of belonging at home, at work, and in society. Belonging is realized when we understand everyone is an outsider and it's the power to create space for those differences that unite us all.

In this revised and updated new edition of a classic—over 560,000 copies sold and translated into 18 languages—is a practical guide for "unpacking" your physical, emotional, and intellectual baggage and "repacking" for the journey ahead.
 
People everywhere feel overwhelmed today—weighed down by countless responsibilities and buffeted by never-ending changes in their personal and professional lives. Repacking Your Bags shows readers how to climb out from under these burdens and find the fulfillment that is missing in their lives.
 
“Living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose.” This is how Richard Leider and David Shapiro define the good life. Technological advancements, economic shifts, and longer lifespans mean most of us will need to repeatedly reimagine our lives. In this wise and practical guide, Leider and Shapiro help you weigh all that you're carrying, leverage what helps you live well, and let go of those burdens that merely weigh you down. 
 
This third edition has been revised with new stories and practices to help you repack your four critical “bags” (place, relationship, work, and purpose); identify your gifts, passions, and values; and plan your journey, no matter where you are in life. 

• New edition of the classic bestsellerover 500,000 copies sold and translated into seventeen languages

• An indispensable tool in the lifelong journey of living a purposeful life

• Thoroughly revised and updated with new stories, exercises, and tools

The first and second editions of this classic book showed readers how to develop their own unique vision of the good lifewhich Leider and Shapiro define as "living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose"and take practical steps to achieve it. Inspired by a spirit of travel and adventure, it uses packing and repacking your bags as a metaphor for deciding what you really need in your journey through life.

So why a third edition? Because the world has changed. When they wrote the first two editions, Leider and Shapiro assumed that repacking was something people might do once or twice in their lives. But technological advances, major economic shifts, longer life spans, and changing social roles are revolutionizing the way we live and work. Today we have to repeatedly unpack and repack as the inevitable shifts and surprises life has to offer continually unfold before us. With each step along the way, we must reexamine what has brought us here and continue asking ourselves if the choices that have sustained us so far are continuing to do soor if they're just weighing us down.

This new edition has been thoroughly revised and reimagined with this lifelong focus in mind. It contains new stories and practices for repacking your four critical "bags"place, relationship, work, and purposeas well as a new Repacking Journal for planning your "trip" and Leider's immensely popular Calling Card exercise for identifying your gifts, passions, and values. Repacking Your Bags reminds all of us to regularly ask why we carry what we do and try to lighten our loadsbecause the good life is worth striving for at every age.

What sets this book apart from similar titles

• Another book in this genre is The Happiness Project, but it focuses on the author's personal journey, making it a good fit mostly for readers who share the author's personality.  Repacking Your Bags is a happiness book that applies to a wide range of people and personalities.  
• Books like the Power of Less suggest you approach happiness through simplification and efficiency, whereas Richard Leider points to deeper themes such as finding one's true purpose or calling.  
• And the book Stumbling on Happiness devotes many pages to the psychology and neuroscience of unhappiness, which leads to some interesting insights but is less focused on practical, easy-to-implement advice.