In this powerful, no-nonsense guide, Navy SEAL combat veteran turned leadership expert Brent Gleeson teaches you how to transform every area of your life—the Navy SEAL way. Can anyone develop this level of resilience? Gleeson breaks it down to a Challenge-Commitment-Control mindset. He reveals how resilient people view difficulties as a Challenge, where obstacles and failures are opportunities for growth. Next, they have a strong emotional Commitment to their goals and are not easily distracted or deterred. Finally, resilient people focus their energy on the things within their Control, rather than fixating on factors they can't impact. Embrace the Suck provides an actionable roadmap that empowers you to expand your comfort zone to live a more fulfilling, purpose-driven life. Through candid storytelling, behavioral science research, and plenty of self-deprecating humor, Gleeson shows you how to use pain as a pathway, reassess your values, remove temptation, build discipline, suffer with purpose, fail successfully, transform your mind, and achieve more of the goals you set

    Procrastination might, for some people, be part of innovation and the creative process.” — Wall Street JournalA fun and erudite celebration of procrastinationAn entertaining, fact-filled defense of the nearly universal tendency to procrastinate, drawing on the stories of history’s greatest delayers, and on the work of psychologists, philosophers, and behavioral economists to explain why we put off what we’re supposed to be doing and why we shouldn’t feel so bad about it.Like so many of us, including most of America’s workforce, and nearly two-thirds of all university students, Andrew Santella procrastinates. Concerned about his habit, but not quite ready to give it up, he set out to learn all he could about the human tendency to delay. He studied history’s greatest procrastinators to gain insights into human behavior, and also, he writes, to kill time, “research being the best way to avoid real work.”He talked with psychologists, philosophers, and priests. He visited New Orleans’ French Quarter, home to a shrine to the patron saint of procrastinators.  And at the home of Charles Darwin outside London, he learned why the great naturalist delayed writing his masterwork for more than two decades.Drawing on an eclectic mix of historical case studies in procrastination—from Leonardo da Vinci to Frank Lloyd Wright, and from Old Testament prophets to Civil War generals—Santella offers a sympathetic take on habitual postponement. He questions our devotion to “the cult of efficiency” and suggests that delay and deferral can help us understand what truly matters to us. Being attentive to our procrastination, Santella writes, means asking, “whether the things the world wants us to do are really worth doing.”

    Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self, and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions, and cratered with falsehoods.Kwame Anthony Appiah’s "The Lies That Bind" is an incandescent exploration of the nature and history of the identities that define us. It challenges our assumptions about how identities work. We all know there are conflicts between identities, but Appiah shows how identities are created by conflict. Religion, he demonstrates, gains power because it isn’t primarily about belief. Our everyday notions of race are the detritus of discarded nineteenth-century science. Our cherished concept of the sovereign nation―of self-rule―is incoherent and unstable. Class systems can become entrenched by efforts to reform them. Even the very idea of Western culture is a shimmering mirage.From Anton Wilhelm Amo, the eighteenth-century African child who miraculously became an eminent European philosopher before retiring back to Africa, to Italo Svevo, the literary marvel who changed citizenship without leaving home, to Appiah’s own father, Joseph, an anticolonial firebrand who was ready to give his life for a nation that did not yet exist, Appiah interweaves keen-edged argument with vibrant narratives to expose the myths behind our collective identities.These “mistaken identities,” Appiah explains, can fuel some of our worst atrocities―from chattel slavery to genocide. And yet, he argues that social identities aren’t something we can simply do away with. They can usher in moral progress and bring significance to our lives by connecting the small scale of our daily existence with larger movements, causes, and concerns.Elaborating a bold and clarifying new theory of identity, "The Lies That Bind" is a ringing philosophical statement for the anxious, conflict-ridden twenty-first century. This book will transform the way we think about who―and what―“we” are.

    They will offer practical techniques to help readers sharpen the way they think, enabling them to connect better with those around them. This first book will be a general overview to the Mind Gym and will include a summary of their most popular courses, including: creative problem solving; dealing with stress; time management; influencing and persuading people and memory recall. The book will include reader questionnaires and exercises to demonstrate how individuals react in certain situations and what their thought processes are. The next three titles in the series will then focus on specific areas in more detail, in particular: Time Management, Creativity and influencing and Persuading People. range of readers from businesses to schools to retired people to those who are simply keen to keep their body and mind healthy - the list is endless!

    For good.Feel Better in 5 is the first daily 5-minute plan that is easy to maintain, easy-to-follow and requires only the smallest amount of willpower.Top tips include:· A strength workout that you can do anywhere· Gut-boosting snacks you can eat on the go · Yoga moves to relax and stay supple · Breathing exercises to calm the mindDrawing on Dr Rangan Chatterjee's twenty years of experience and real-life case studies from his GP practice, Feel Better in 5 is your daily plan for a happier, healthier you at no extra cost.

    Millions of patients are now routinely being given prescriptions for a wide range of drugs including Ritalin, Prosac, Zoloft and related drugs which can be harmful to the brain. A previous generation of patients would have had a course of psychotherapy without brain–damaging chemicals. Glasser explains the wide implications of this radical change in treatment and what can be done to counter it.

    Armed with the extraordinary new discoveries about our genes, Ridley turns his attention to the nature versus nurture debate to bring the first popular account of the roots of human behaviour. What makes us who we are?In February 2001 it was announced that the genome contains not 100,000 genes as originally expected but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature.Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes, too, and genes need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain; they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA, Nature via Nurture chronicles a new revolution in our understanding of genes. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling, up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experience.

    Kids typically no longer expect their lives to be better than their parents’ were. Dystopian scenarios loom ever larger in public consciousness as fisheries collapse, CO2 levels rise, and clouds of radioactive steam billow from “fail-safe” nuclear plants that failed. Despite the technological marvels of our age—or perhaps because of them—these are dark days.As comedian Louis C.K. put it, “Everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy.”Even for the most fortunate among us, material abundance comes at a very high price. Facebook is a hollow replacement for face time. We produce more food than ever, but hunger and malnutrition are standard in most of the world while the rest of us stuff ourselves quite literally to death. Despair darkens ever more lives as rates of clinical depression and suicide continue their grim climb in the developed world. A third of all American children are obese or seriously overweight, and fifty four million of us are pre-diabetic. Pre-schoolers represent the fastest-growing market for anti-depressants, while the rate of increase of depression among children is over twenty percent, according to a recent Harvard study. Twenty four million American adults are thought to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—mostly attributable to the never-ending wars that have become part of modern life for the swelling underclass with few other employment opportunities.It’s common to wonder how an anthropologist from Mars would view our world or what sage advice an emissary from the future would bring back. But how would a time-traveler from our prehistoric past assess the lives we lead and the future prospects for the path we’re on? Such a visitor from 200 centuries ago would no doubt be impressed by much of what she found here. But once her amazement at iPhones, air travel, and liver transplants subsided, what would she make of our daily lives? Would she ultimately be more impressed by our advances or dismayed by what we’ve lost in our always accelerating rush toward the future?With faith in the future melting like an overheated glacier even as contentment with the present evaporates, it’s high time for a sober reassessment of the past. Ten thousand years since turning from the ancient path our ancestors trod forever, it’s time for a scientifically-informed, multidisciplinary look at the effects of this fateful divergence. It’s time to ask what may be the most subversive question of all: Are modern humans, even the most fortunate among us, living significantly better lives than our pre-civilized ancestors? Taken as a whole, is civilization a net gain for individual human beings?

    How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We're constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact--and usually we don't even realize we're doing it. The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individually oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. This book contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the world around us.

    Today's professionals feel rushed, overwhelmed, and perennially behind. So we keep our heads down, focused on the next thing, and the next, without a moment to breathe.How can we break out of this endless cycle and create the kind of interesting, meaningful lives we all seek?Just as CEOs who optimize for quarterly profits often fail to make the strategic investments necessary for long-term growth, the same is true in our own personal and professional lives. We need to reorient ourselves to see the big picture so we can tap into the power of small changes that, made today, will have an enormous and disproportionate impact on our future success. We need to start playing The Long Game.As top business thinker and Duke University professor Dorie Clark explains, we all know intellectually that lasting success takes persistence and effort. And yet so much of the relentless pressure in our culture pushes us toward doing what's easy, what's guaranteed, or what looks glamorous in the moment. In The Long Game, she argues for a different path. It's about doing small things over time to achieve our goals—and being willing to keep at them, even when they seem pointless, boring, or hard.In The Long Game, Clark shares unique principles and frameworks you can apply to your specific situation, as well as vivid stories from her own career and other professionals' experiences. Everyone is allotted the same twenty-four hours—but with the right strategies, you can leverage those hours in more efficient and powerful ways than you ever imagined. It's never an overnight process, but the long-term payoff is immense: to finally break out of the frenetic day-to-day routine and transform your life and your career.

    Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change - economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust - and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason wonders whether today we are on the brink of a change so big, so profound, that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system by which entire societies function, has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new.At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that, as Mason shows, has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership - in fact, he contends, it is already doing so. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swathes of economic life are changing.. Goods and services that no longer respond to the dictates of neoliberalism are appearing, from parallel currencies and time banks, to cooperatives and self-managed online spaces. Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism.In this groundbreaking book Mason shows how, from the ashes of the recent financial crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable global economy. Moving beyond capitalism, he shows, is no longer a utopian dream. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape, rather than simply react to, seismic change.

    You are missing what is happening in the distance and right in front of you. In reading these words, you are ignoring an unthinkably large amount of information that continues to bombard all of your senses. The hum of the fluorescent lights; the ambient noise in the room; the feeling of the chair against your legs or back; your tongue touching the roof of your mouth; the tension you are holding in your shoulders or jaw; the constant hum of traffic or a distant lawnmower; the blurred view of your own shoulders and torso in your peripheral vision; a chirp of a bug or whine of a kitchen appliance.On Looking begins with inattention. It is not meant to help you focus on your reading of Tolstoy; it is not about how to multitask. Rather, it is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived "ordinary." Horowitz encourages us to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities - taking a walk around the block - we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives. So turn off the phone and portable electronics and get into the real world, where you'll find there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

    Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.It's increasingly difficult to know what's true. Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don't feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data.You don't need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit.We have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of skepticism.

    Read this book and understand--at last!--why men never listen, why women can't read maps, and why learning each other's secrets means you'll never have to say sorry again.

    But the very existence of consciousness raises profound questions: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious? How are we able to think about this? And why should we?In this wonderfully accessible book, Annaka Harris guides us through the evolving definitions, philosophies, and scientific findings that probe our limited understanding of consciousness. Where does it reside, and what gives rise to it? Could it be an illusion, or a universal property of all matter? As we try to understand consciousness, we must grapple with how to define it and, in the age of artificial intelligence, who or what might possess it. Conscious offers lively and challenging arguments that alter our ideas about consciousness—allowing us to think freely about it for ourselves, if indeed we can.