Committed to sharing what the scientific community already knew about self-control, McGonigal created a course called "The Science of Willpower" for Stanford University's Continuing Studies Program. The course was an instant hit and spawned the hugely successful Psychology Today blog with the same name.Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, McGonigal's book explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. Readers will learn:Willpower is a mind-body response, not a virtue. It is a biological function that can be improved through mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and sleep. People who have better control of their attention, emotions, and actions are healthier, happier, have more satisfying relationships, and make more money. Willpower is not an unlimited resource. Too much self-control can actually be bad for your health. Temptation and stress hijack the brain's systems of self-control, and that the brain can be trained for greater willpower.In the groundbreaking tradition of Getting Things Done, The Willpower Instinct combines life-changing prescriptive advice and complementary exercises to help readers with goals ranging from a healthier life to more patient parenting, from greater productivity at work to finally finishing the basement.

    Now that connection is infinitely easier to make through Nicholas Boothman's program of rapport by design.How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less is the work of a master of Neuro-Linguistic Programming whose career is teaching corporations and groups the secrets of successful face-to-face communication. Aimed at establishing rapport-that stage between meeting and communicating-How to Make People Like You focuses on the concept of synchrony. It shows how to synchronize attitude, synchronize body language, and synchronize voice tone so that you instantly and imperceptibly become someone the other person likes. Reinforcing these easy-to-learn skills is knowing how to read the other person's sensory preferences-most of us are visual, some are kinesthetic, and a minority are auditory. So when you say "I see what you mean" to a visual person, you're really speaking his language. Along the way the book covers attitude, nervousness, words that open a conversation and words that shut it down, compliments, eye cues, the magic of opposites attracting, and more. It's how to make the best of the most important 90 seconds in any relationship, business or personal.

    Efficiency expert Ari Meisel details his "Less Doing" philosophy, which will streamline your life, and make everything easier. In business and our personal lives, it often seems as if the only way to get more done is by putting in more time—more hours at the office, more days running errands. But what if there were a way that we could do less, and free up more time for the things and people we love? If this sounds like what you need, Ari Meisel—TEDx speaker, efficiency consultant, and achievement architect—has the program for you. In Less Doing, More Living , Meisel explores the fundamental principles of his “Less Doing” philosophy, educating the reader on:Optimizing workflow with twenty-first-century apps and toolsCreating an “external brain” in the Cloud to do all of your “lower” thinking—like keeping track of appointments, meetings, and ideasHow to use technology to live a paper-free lifeThe three fundamentals of wellness—fitness, sleep, and nutrition—and technological  approaches to improving these areas of lifeAnd so much more!This book will give readers new tools and techniques for streamlining their workload, being more efficient in their day-to-day activities, and making everything in life easier.

    Whether you are a newly elected president, CEO, or executive at any level, what you do in your first 100 days will be absolutely pivotal to your success or failure. Your First 100 Days in a New Executive Job will help you to seal your leadership, build a team you can count on, and have a bottom line impact before your first few months on the job is up. It will take you through all the steps of successful executive onboarding and show you how to avoid the typical pitfalls. Hargrove emphasizes the importance of getting clear on your going-in mandate—your contract with key stake holders. He also shows you how to use your first 100 days to declare an Impossible Future that represents the difference you want to make, while delivering on your Day Job. According to Hargrove, the key idea is to go for "quick wins" that establish a virtuous circle of increasing credibility and help you to avoid a vicious circle of decreasing credibility. This book will expand your aspirations and motivations, and give you a treasure trove of practical, down-to-earth tips to immediately apply in your new leadership role. * Have a story ready day one, as key stakeholders look for signals immediately—take symbolic action within 72 hours * Develop a "teachable point of view"—This is how we intend to win in this business * Build a team of 'A' players—get the right people on the bus * Declare an Impossible Future that unites warring tribes * Jump start your vision with 30, 60, 90-day catalytic breakthrough projects * Master the political chessboard and culture—It's all politics! * Drive bottom-line results before the end of your first 100 day

    Now, in Head Strong, Asprey shows readers how to biohack their way to a sharper, smarter, faster, more resilient brain.Imagine feeling like your mind is operating at its clearest and sharpest, and being able—possibly for the first time in your life—to do more in less time? What it suddenly became easier to do the very hardest things you do? Or if you could feel 100% confident about your intellect, and never again fear being the person in the room who just isn’t smart enough, or can’t remember something important? How would you treat people if the mood swings, short temper, and food cravings that disrupt your day could simply disappear?In Head Strong, Asprey shows us that all of this is possible—and more. Using his simple lifestyle modifications (or "hacks") to take advantage of how the structure of your brain works, readers will learn how to take their mental performance to the next level. Combining the latest findings in neuroscience and neurobiology with a hacker-inspired "get it done now" perspective, Asprey offers a program structured around key areas of brain performance that will help you:Power the brain with exactly what it needs to perform at its best all day longEliminate the sources of "kryptonite," both nutritional and environmental, that make the brain slower.Supercharge the cellular powerhouses of our brains, the mitochondria, to eliminate cravings and turn up mental focus.Reverse inflammation to perform better right now, then stay sharp and energized well into your golden years.Promote neuron growth to enhance processing speed and reinforce new learning—hotwiring your brain for success.Asprey’s easy to follow, two-week program offers a detailed plan to supercharge brain performance, including: which foods to eat and which ones to avoid, how to incorporate the right kinds of physical activity into your day, a detox protocol for your home and body; meditation and breathing for performance, recommended brain-boosting supplements; and how to adjust the lighting in your home and work space to give your brain the quality light it thrives on.A better brain—and a happier, easier, more productive life—is within reach. You just need to get Head Strong.

    Each day, it gets progressively more distracting. Just think for a moment. How many times have you checked your phone, your email, your Facebook, and other social networks... within the last hour? The upside of all these distractions has also created a lot of opportunities: More job opportunities, more creative outlets, and more social connectedness. To develop and maintain focus today, you must learn how to find balance in your life. You need the tools that will help you discipline yourself to step away periodically from the buzz and beeps of cell phones, the internet, and social media. You must assess and reassess what you want out of life, and focus on the different actions you can take to achieve those goals that you REALLY strive to achieve. Focus Forward - How to Focus Your Mind to Rid Yourself of Distractions, Maximize Your Time, and Achieve More contains long-term and short-term activities that will help manifest, cultivate, and maintain focus and flow in your daily life. Simple exercises like organization and outlining goals go a long way in helping you get through the day, but in order to achieve an overall sense of focus, you must also assess your passions, your inhibitions, and your fears. Becoming a conscious and concentrated individual means more than having a set plan -- it means having the fluidity to accept change, manage setbacks, and keep moving forward. Get Focus Forward - How to Focus Your Mind to Rid Yourself of Distractions, Maximize Your Time, and Achieve More today and get the tools you need to get yourself focused.

    Without structure or a sense of purpose, and fueled by a dependency on alcohol, he spent years running from the dark memories and feelings that had haunted him since childhood. Until one day, he hit rock bottom and decided to confront his demons. Now a successful soccer pundit, psychotherapist and mental-fitness teacher, Recovering, written with Dion Fanning is about a life shaped by efforts to escape, and how it is possible to rebuild a life, piece by piece, with the right help. Inspiring and groundbreaking, it is an important reflection on the need to move away from perceptions of shame in our discussions about mental health, sex, relationships and addiction.

    Primary Greatness is an ideal book for anyone looking for guidance in how to live a truly successful, worthwhile life of service.”—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing For fans of Principles, Grit, and The Power of Habit, Primary Greatness outlines the twelve levers of success—a set of principles for achieving a happy and fulfilling life.Many of us are hurting. We have chronic problems, dissatisfactions, and disappointments. We feel overwhelmed by burdens we carry. The idea of living a “great life” can seem like a distant dream. Stephen R. Covey—the late, legendary author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—believed there were only two ways to experience life: primary greatness or secondary greatness. Through his books and speaking, he taught that the intrinsic rewards of primary greatness—integrity, responsibility, and contribution—far outweighed the extrinsic rewards of secondary greatness: money, popularity, and the self-absorbed, pleasure-ridden life that some people consider “success.” In this posthumous work, Covey lays out clearly the 12 levers of success that will lead to a life of primary greatness: Integrity, Contribution, Priority, Sacrifice, Service, Responsibility, Loyalty, Reciprocity, Diversity, Learning, Teaching, and Renewal. For the first time, Covey defines each of these 12 qualities and how they can be leveraged in your daily life to lead you to both professional success and personal happiness. Featuring his trademarked wisdom that has inspired countless readers and leaders, Primary Greatness once again delivers classic Covey advice in a concise and reader-friendly way.

    A box set consisting of three Bill Bryson books, 'Notes from a Small Island', 'Notes from a Big Country' and 'A Walk in the Woods'.

    The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly.As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day.The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality.Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.

    Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals. As with his other books, Lencioni writes Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars as a fictional--but eerily realistic--story. The story is about Jude Cousins, an eager young management consultant struggling to launch his practice by solving one of the more universal and frustrating problems faced by his clients. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.

    What is it like to encounter cancer? How does it feel to face the unknown, to enter a world of hope, loss, and dread? From the diagnosis of his childhood friend's mother to his poignant memories in the lab, David Scadden's seen the unknown world of cancer from the lens of a young boy, a classmate, a researcher, a friend, a doctor, and a neighbor. Scadden chronicles his personal memories of cancer--his visits to his sick neighbor and his classmate who left school and never came back.Now Dr. David Scadden, co-founder of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and one of the world's leading experts on immunology and oncology, writes his memoir, Cancerland , with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio. With riveting stories and moving compassion, Scadden and D'Antonio paint a still rapidly changing landscape in the context of all too common stories of loss. Ranging from Scadden's personal childhood memories to his triumphs and regrets as a doctor, Scadden illuminates a light at the end of a dark tunnel.Through opening a window into the science of medicine in the world of unknown, Scadden and D'Antonio humanize cancer while inspiring action that we all so desperately need.

    Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.” For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.   As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:   • Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. • Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

    What if there was a better way to make quality decisions so you can think clearly, feel more confident, second-guess yourself less, and ultimately be more decisive and be more productive? Making good decisions doesn't have to be a series of endless guesswork. Rather, it's a teachable skill that anyone can sharpen. In How to Decide, bestselling author Annie Duke and former professional poker player lays out a series of tools anyone can use to make better decisions. You'll learn:  •  To identify and dismantle hidden biases.  •  To extract the highest quality feedback from those whose advice you seek.  •  To more accurately identify the influence of luck in the outcome of your decisions.  •  When to decide fast, when to decide slow, and when to decide in advance.  •  To make decisions that more effectively help you to realize your goals and live your values.Through interactive exercises and engaging thought experiments, this workbook helps you analyze key decisions you've made in the past and troubleshoot those you're making in the future. Whether you're picking investments, evaluating a job offer, or trying to figure out your romantic life, How to Decide is the key to happier outcomes and fewer regrets.

    That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves. It means embracing risk, eliminating fear, and knowing when to go slow. Slack allows for change, fosters creativity, promotes quality, and, above all, produces growth. With an approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook debunks commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and gives you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness.