Book picks similar to
Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan by Francesca Gino
psychology
business
non-fiction
nonfiction
Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success
Napoleon Hill - 2011
This powerful tale has never been published, considered too controversial by his family and friends.Using his legendary ability to get to the root of human potential, Napoleon Hill digs deep to identify the greatest obstacles we face in reaching personal goals: fear, procrastination, anger, and jealousy, as tools of the Devil. These hidden methods of control can lead us to ruin, and Hill reveals the seven principles of good that will allow us to triumph over them and succeed.Annotated and edited for a contemporary audience by Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Three Feet from Gold co-author Sharon Lechter, this book is profound, powerful, resonant, and rich with insight.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals
Chris McChesney - 2011
A #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold, The Four Disciplines of Execution will radically change your business.Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organization? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it’s likely no one even noticed. What happened? Often, the answer is that the “whirlwind” of urgent activity required to keep things running day-to-day devoured all the time and energy you needed to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow. The 4 Disciplines of Execution can change that forever. The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) is a simple, repeatable, and proven formula for executing your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the whirlwind. By following the 4 Disciplines—Focus on the Wildly Important; Act on Lead Measures; Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; Create a Cadence of Accountability—leaders can produce breakthrough results, even when executing the strategy requires a significant change in behavior from their teams. 4DX is not theory. It is a proven set of practices that have been tested and refined by hundreds of organizations and thousands of teams over many years. When a company or an individual adheres to these disciplines, they achieve superb results, regardless of the goal. 4DX represents a new way to think and work that is essential to thriving in today’s competitive climate. The 4 Disciplines of Execution is one book that no business leader can afford to miss.
The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership
Bill Walsh - 2009
There is no guarantee, no ultimate formula for success. It all comes down to intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. When you do that, the score will take care of itself." (Bill Walsh) Bill Walsh is a towering figure in the history of the NFL. His advanced leadership transformed the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports to a legendary dynasty that won three Super Bowls. In the process, he changed the way football is played-pushing it into the twenty-first century. Walsh is famous for his strategic brilliance and innovations, such as the West Coast Offense, but his enlightened philosophy of leadership was just as crucial, if not more so, to the unprecedented success of his teams. And that philosophy of leadership is just as powerful and productive in business or any other endeavor as it was for him on the football field. Prior to his death, Walsh granted exclusive interviews to bestselling author Steve Jamison. They became his ultimate lecture on leadership-illustrated by dramatic and apt anecdotes from throughout Walsh's career. A small sample of what you'll learn from one of America's greatest coaches: * Believe in People: Push them hard to be their very best. No one will ever come back later and thank you for expecting too little of them. * Professionalism Matters: There was no showboating allowed after touchdowns, no taunting of opponents, no demonstration to attract attention to oneself: "Champions act like champions before they're champions." * Keep a Short Enemies List: One enemy can do more damage than the good done by a hundred friends. * Protect Your Blind Side: Prompt yourself to aggressively analyze not only your organization's strengths, but also its unseen vulnerabilities. * Sometimes You Can't Have he Last Word. A leader cannot escape harsh criticism. Ignore the undeserving; learn from the deserving. Lick your wounds and move on. Your bruised ego will get over it. Additional insights and perspective are provided by his son Craig Walsh, by legendary quarterback Joe Montana, and by other important figures who knew Bill well. Bill Walsh taught that the requirements of successful leadership are the same whether you run an NFL franchise, a Fortune 500 company, or a hardware store with twelve employees. His final words of wisdom will inspire and enlighten readers in all walks of life.
The Greatest Salesman in the World
Og Mandino - 1968
If Mandino's suggested reading structure is followed, it would take about 10 months to read the book.What you are today is not important... for in this runaway bestseller you will learn how to change your life by applying the secrets you are about to discover in the ancient scrolls.
Lateral Thinking
Edward de Bono - 1970
This works well in simple situations - but we are at a loss when this approach fails. What then?Lateral thinking is all about freeing up your imagination. Through a series of special techniques, in groups or working alone, Edward de Bono shows how to stimulate the mind in new and exciting ways.Soon you will be looking at problems from a variety of angles and offering up solutions that are as ingenious as they are effective. You will become much more productive and a formidable thinker in your own right.
The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations
John P. Kotter - 2002
And that is never easy.The Heart of Change is your guide to helping people think and feel differently in order to meet your shared goals. According to bestselling author and renowned leadership expert John Kotter and coauthor Dan Cohen, this focus on connecting with people’s emotions is what will spark the behavior change and actions that lead to success. The Heart of Change is the engaging and essential complement to John Kotter’s international bestseller Leading Change.Building off of Kotter’s revolutionary eight-step process, this book vividly illustrates how large-scale business change can work. With real-life stories of people in organizations, the authors show how teams and individuals get motivated and activated to overcome obstacles to change—and produce spectacular results. Kotter and Cohen argue that change initiatives often fail because leaders rely too exclusively on data and analysis to get buy-in from their teams instead of creatively showing or doing something that appeals to their emotions and inspires them to spring into action. They call this the see-feel-change dynamic, and it is crucial for the success of any true organizational transformation.Refreshingly clear and eminently practical, The Heart of Change is required reading for anyone facing change and looking to build their leadership skills.Published by Harvard Business Review Press.
The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success
Albert-László Barabási - 2018
We did the work but didn't get the promotion; we played hard but weren't recognized; we had the idea but didn't get the credit. We've always been told that talent and a strong work ethic are the key to getting ahead, but in today's world these efforts rarely translate into tangible results. Recognizing this disconnect, Laszlo Barabasi, one of the world's leading experts on the science of networks, uncovers what success really is: a collective phenomenon based on the thoughts and praise of those around you. In The Formula, Barabasi highlights the vital importance of community respect and appreciation when connecting performance to recognition--the elusive link between performance and success. By leveraging the power of big data and historic case studies, Barabasi reveals the unspoken rules behind who truly gets ahead and why, and outlines the twelve laws that govern this phenomenon and how we can use them to our own advantage. Unveiling the scientific principles that drive success, this trailblazing book offers a new understanding of the very foundation of how people excel in today's society.
The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking
Roger L. Martin - 2007
Though following best practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger: By emulating what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is different.Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming entirely new and superior ones. Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as AG Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of the Institute for One World Health, and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Martin shows how integrative thinkers are relentlessly diagnosing and synthesizing by asking probing questions including: What are the causal relationships at work here? and What are the implied trade-offs?Martin also presents a model for strengthening your integrative thinking skills by drawing on different kinds of knowledge including conceptual and experiential knowledge.Integrative thinking can be learned, and The Opposable Mind helps you master this vital skill.
Turning Pro
Steven Pressfield - 2012
In the War of Art Pressfield identifies the enemy to living an authentic life – resistance. In Turning Pro, Pressfield teaches you how to defeat it.
Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success
Chip Conley - 2012
This powerfully authentic story makes for a compelling read and an invaluable operating manual for life. Chip’s stories are used to create emotional building blocks that define how we can understand and navigate our internal weather and emotions.In business and in life, we tend to gravitate toward people who inspire trust and create positive emotional connections. Yet, we learn very little about emotional intelligence in formal education. That’s what makes reading Emotional Equations so enjoyable -- it’s like taking a fun college course in understanding Curiosity, Jealousy, Despair, Authenticity, Wisdom, and nearly twenty different emotions or emotional states that regularly show up in our lives. Emotional Equations illustrates that the more unpredictable the world is, the more important it is to master our emotions in such a way that our internal world doesn’t mirror the chaos of the external world. Chip’s book amplifies the importance of creating that emotional space in our lives such that we don’t unconsciously react to everything.Chip’s goal is to take the idea of emotional intelligence and transform it into emotional fluency. It’s one thing to study a foreign language in theory, but quite another to try to use it in our daily lives. Emotional Equations provides the tools for doing both.Chip not only provides a comprehensive list of emotional equations that he’s derived, he also shows how to create your own emotional equations by encouraging readers to rethink their relationships with their own emotions and asking the question, “What is this emotion trying to tell me right now, and how can it serve me?” Emotional Equationsis one of those rare books that combine research and theory with actual practice. If you’re interested in learning how to understand and manage emotions both in work and in life, this book will definitely provide some new perspectives and plenty of food for thought."
Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
Brian Tracy - 2001
This new edition is revised and updated throughout, and includes brand new information on how to keep technology from dominating our time.
Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick
Wendy Wood - 2019
That means that almost half of our actions aren't conscious choices but the result of our non-conscious mind nudging our body to act along learned behaviors. How we respond to the people around us; the way we conduct ourselves in a meeting; what we buy; when and how we exercise, eat, and drink--a truly remarkable number of things we do every day, regardless of their complexity, operate outside of our awareness. We do them automatically. We do them by habit. And yet, whenever we want to change something about ourselves, we rely on willpower. We keep turning to our conscious selves, hoping that our determination and intention will be enough to effect positive change. And that is why almost all of us fail. But what if you could harness the extraordinary power of your unconscious mind, which already determines so much of what you do, to truly reach your goals?Wendy Wood draws on three decades of original research to explain the fascinating science of how we form habits, and offers the key to unlocking our habitual mind in order to make the changes we seek. A potent mix of neuroscience, case studies, and experiments conducted in her lab, Good Habits, Bad Habits is a comprehensive, accessible, and above all deeply practical book that will change the way you think about almost every aspect of your life. By explaining how our brains are wired to respond to rewards, receive cues from our surroundings, and shut down when faced with too much friction, Wood skillfully dissects habit formation, demonstrating how we can take advantage of this knowledge to form better habits. Her clear and incisive work shows why willpower alone is woefully inadequate when we're working toward building the life we truly want, and offers real hope for those who want to make positive change.
The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy
Lewis Howes - 2015
He started by reaching out to people he admired, searching for mentors, and applying his past coaches' advice from sports to life off the field. Lewis did more than bounce back: He built a multimillion-dollar online business and is now a sought-after business coach, speaker, and podcast host.In The School of Greatness, Howes shares the essential tips and habits he gathered in interviewing "the greats" on his wildly popular podcast of the same name. In discussion with people like Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Pencils of Promise CEO Adam Braun, Howes figured out that greatness is unearthed and cultivated from within. The masters of greatness are not successful because they got lucky or are innately more talented, but because they applied specific habits and tools to embrace and overcome adversity in their lives.A framework for personal development, The School of Greatness gives you the tools, knowledge, and actionable resources you need to reach your potential. Howes anchors each chapter with a specific lesson he culled from his greatness "professors" and his own experiences to teach you how to create a vision, develop hustle, and use dedication, mindfulness, joy, and love to reach goals. His lessons and practical exercises prove that anyone is capable of achieving success and that we can all strive for greatness in our everyday lives.
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition
Jay Abraham - 2000
Using clear examples from his own experience, Jay explains just how easy it can be to find and/or create new opportunities for wealth-building in any existing business, enterprise, or venture.And just how easy can it be? One entrepreneur took the concept of the ballpoint pen and refined it into a mulimillion-dollar idea: roll-on deodorant. Fred Smith of Federal Express took the methods that banks use for clearing checks to develop an overnight delivery company that has revolutionized the way we do business. Now, what have you seen-- or are going to see-- that you could take and turn to your advantage?In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition, the program focuses on helping you spot the hidden assets, overlooked opportunities, and untapped resources around you, and gives you, and gives you fresh eyes with which to see and capitalize on them. You'll also learn how to adapt and apply these tools to your unique circumstances to maximize your income, influence, power, and success.
Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives
Gretchen Rubin - 2015
Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives. So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits? Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Before explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation. Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readers’ most pressing questions—oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore: • Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do? • Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can’t change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why? • How quickly can I change a habit? • What can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit? • How can I help someone else change a habit? • Why can I keep habits that benefit others, but can’t make habits that are just for me? Whether readers want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits make change possible. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make readers eager to start work on their own habits—even before they’ve finished the book.