The School of Life Collected Essays

Your Step-By-Step Guide to Successfully Navigate Change

Know --- Focus --- Go

Krista Ryan was captivated by the music under the Las Vegas lights the night of the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival when a gunman opened fire, unleashing a barrage of bullets and terror that would become the largest mass shooting in US history.

As Krista ran to safety, she thought one thing: Keep F*!#ing Going. KFG.

This mantra became the foundation for Krista’s KFG Method, a formula for navigating change and living life to the fullest. In this guide for work, family and life Krista opens up this motivational framework that will help you transition your life.

• Know. It all starts with understanding your current reality through awareness and accountability.
• Focus. Achieve clarity on your next optimal move by self-support and sidestepping potential obstacles.
• Go. Take immediate action towards embracing this fresh approach to life and leadership.

Read the stories…how team members, military personnel, athletes, and organizations worldwide have applied KFG to live better and lead stronger. Whether processing a challenge, navigating a crisis, or seeking self-accountability for success, Krista’s strategies provide the actionable steps you need to thrive through moments of chaos or change and step into your best self.

People have been using tobacco in a variety of forms for centuries. Remarkably, it was originally seen as something that could promote vigor and health. Of course, now we all know that tobacco use causes death and disability in epidemic proportions. If smoking is so bad for us, why in heaven’s name would anyone still smoke?

Quite a bit has changed since tobacco first made the transition to a widely available agricultural product. Unfortunately, the general clinical approach to addressing this problem has failed to keep pace with tobacco technology and its addictive properties. People around the world who have fallen prey to the subtleties of nicotine addiction, or who care for those who have, would benefit from a deeper understanding of the ways in which nicotine can affect the brain’s function and change behaviors over a lifetime. Why People Smoke breaks down the science of tobacco dependence and presents it in a way that is both easily understandable and clinically useful for anyone interested in helping people break free of nicotine’s influence.

Why People Smoke is a first-of-its-kind clinical guide to treating tobacco dependence. The book helps readers make meaningful connections between tobacco’s effects at the cellular level, the predictable behavioral manifestations of the disorder, and the social science and systems requirements required to make a fundamental impact on this disorder. Unlike previous publications like self-help books, step-by-step curricula, or clinical guidelines, Why People Smoke puts practical clinical insights—gained from twenty-five years of practice—into perspective, helping the reader understand how “brain change” translates into “mind change” and the persistent compulsion to smoke . . . despite a person’s desperate desire to stop.

Reading Why People Smoke will change the way you see smoking forever.

Platinum Rules for Enjoying Life is an inspirational and uplifting book that encourages readers to reflect on ways to enhance their enjoyment of life. 

Platinum Rules for Enjoying Life contains easy-to-read advice, common-sense guidance and tips for developing skills and activities that bring more pleasure and fulfillment to each day. It contains 40 concise rules organized in five sections: rules for self-improvement, spending time, enhancing relationships, healthy living and enjoying the seasons.  Everyone who wants to develop inner peace, joy and contentment is encouraged to read this insightful book. Given today’s modern busy lifestyles, it's easy to overlook our own needs and lose ourselves as we devote all of our time and energy to the needs of others.  This little book reminds us all how to stay true to ourselves while living a life of significance on a daily basis.

2024 Kingdom Indie Author Award 3rd Place in the Teen & Young Adult category

Do you ever feel like you just don’t measure up? There’s always someone smarter, richer, prettier, skinnier, funnier, holier, or (you fill in the blank)? Too much of my life—oh, let’s say, give or take decades—was spent figuring out that there is life beyond rejection. This book is written for those who doubt their worth, thanks to memories of betrayal by others who used them as their personal punching bag.

For these hurting individuals, walking into a room full of strangers produces enough sweat to frizz their hair, and if asked to spearhead the church social, they hyperventilate. I get it. After a group of my high school seniors asked me to lead them in a Bible study, the message became clear: If my students could recognize from Whom their value came and not from what others thought of them, their lives forever would be changed. The message is true for everyone.

So, if you desire to move past the pain that has left you joyless or insecure, if you are ready to take risks and refuse to give anyone or anything the power to make you less than God desires, if you seek to know your immeasurable value (and perhaps even laugh in the process), A Little Faith Lift is for you.

“Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others―the final stage of healing. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control what happens next.” —Gloria Steinem

• 2020 Nautilus Book Award—GOLD/Psychology
• 2020 Book Award from the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology
• 2019 Book of the Year Award Finalist in Religion and Self-Help categories

Our past does not simply disappear. The painful history of our ancestors and their rich cultural wisdom intertwine within us to create the patterns of our future. Even when past trauma remains unspoken or has long been forgotten, it becomes part of us and our children―a legacy of both strength and woundedness that shapes our lives.

In this book, Tirzah Firestone brings to life the profound impact of protracted historical trauma through the compelling narratives of Israeli terror victims, Holocaust survivors, and those whose lives were marred by racial persecution and displacement. The tragic story of Firestone’s own family lays the groundwork for these revealing testimonies of recovery, forgiveness, and moral leadership.

Throughout, Firestone interweaves their voices with neuroscientific and psychological findings, as well as relevant and inspiring Jewish teachings. Seven principles emerge from these wise narratives―powerful prescriptive tools that speak to anyone dealing with the effects of past injury. At the broadest level, these principles are directives for staying morally awake in a world rife with terror.

An elegant hourglass sand timer which measures 15 minutes precisely from the start of each turn. In our time-pressed and information-rich world, it can be a challenge to find a moment for ourselves. Our lives are so busy and frenetic; we are always forgetting to make time for what really matters. The result is that anxiety builds and nagging concerns emerge in unhelpful ways. This hourglass sand timer reminds us to carve out 15 minutes a day for what truly counts. It demarcates a very modest and manageable period to dedicate to the important things we so often let slide - finally writing that letter to an old friend, rationally analysing our career ambitions, or playing in a concentrated way with a child. It’s an antidote to wasted days and a counter to the urge to procrastinate, prompting us to do a minimum of what really counts.