Book picks similar to
Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History's Ten Most Revolutionary Minds by Michael J. Gelb
self-help
non-fiction
creativity
history
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Seth Godin - 2010
But this book is about you—your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose.There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there's a third team: the linchpins. These people figure out what to do when there's no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. They may not be famous but they're indispensable. And in today's world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.As Godin writes, "Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must."
Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future
Joichi Ito - 2016
The world is more complex and volatile today than at any other time in our history. The tools of our modern existence are getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, transforming every aspect of society, from business to culture and from the public sphere to our most private moments. The people who succeed will be the ones who learn to think differently. In Whiplash, Joi Ito and Jeff Howe distill that logic into nine organizing principles for navigating and surviving this tumultuous period: Emergence over AuthorityPull over PushCompasses over MapsRisk over SafetyDisobedience over CompliancePractice over TheoryDiversity over AbilityResilience over StrengthSystems over Objects Filled with incredible case studies and cutting-edge research and philosophies from the MIT Media Lab and beyond, Whiplash will help you adapt and succeed in this unpredictable world.
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
Mortimer J. Adler - 1940
It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated. You are told about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them – from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading, you learn how to pigeonhole a book, X-ray it, extract the author's message, criticize. You are taught the different reading techniques for reading practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science. Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests whereby you can measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension and speed.This a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780671212094
Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain
Ron Hale-Evans - 2006
This book can make you smarter.Mind Performance Hacks provides real-life tips and tools for overclocking your brain and becoming a better thinker. In the increasingly frenetic pace of today's information economy, managing your life requires hacking your brain. With this book, you'll cut through the clutter and tune up your brain intentionally, safely, and productively.Grounded in current research and theory, but offering practical solutions you can apply immediately, Mind Performance Hacks is filled with life hacks that teach you to:Use mnemonic tricks to remember numbers, names, dates, and other flotsam you need to recall. Put down your calculator and perform complex math in your head, with your fingers, or on the back of a napkin. Spark your creativity with innovative brainstorming methods. Use effective systems to capture new ideas before they get away. Communicate in creative new ways-even using artificial languages. Make better decisions by foreseeing problems and finding surprising solutions. Improve your mental fitness with cool tricks and games.While the hugely successful Mind Hacks showed you how your brain works, Mind Performance Hacks shows you how to make it work better.
The Act of Creation
Arthur Koestler - 1964
All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Stephen R. Covey - 1988
This book was wonderful education for people, education in how to live life effectively and get closer to the ideal of being a ‘success’ in life.But not everyone understands Stephen Covey’s model fully well, or maybe there are some people who haven’t read it yet. This is definitely true because we still see so much failure all around us. Now, I am not saying that by using Covey’s model, or anyone else’s model for that matter, you can become a sure-shot success, but at least we should have seen many more successes around us already judging by the number of copies the book has sold! So, where is the shortcoming?There are two main problems here, and we are talking only about the people who have read the book already. The first problem is that most people are too lazy to implement the ideals of Stephen Covey in their lives. They consider his masterpiece of a book as a mere coffee-table book or a book that you use for light reading when you are traveling and then forget all about it. They do not realize that this book contains life-changing information. Or, they take the information and do not make the effort to actually utilize it so that it becomes knowledge for them.The second problem is that a lot of people have a myopic view of Covey’s ideals. These are people who are impressed by the book already. If you ask them what the seven habits are, they can rattle them off end to end, but then they miss the larger picture. They do not understand that Covey was trying to tell more than he wrote in words. There are hidden implications in this book, yes, and a lot of people have just failed to see through them.That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to show you how Covey’s book, or rather, his model, was a complete model in itself. There was nothing amiss about it. If you implement it, there should be no aspect of your life that should go untouched. The only thing is that you have to understand these ideals and try to implement them in your life.But, before we barge into that area, it is extremely important to understand what these ideals are. What was the model that was propounded by Stephen Covey in his mega-famous book? We shall begin by trying to understand his model first, and then interpret it in such a way that it pertains to every aspect of our life
The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes
David Robson - 2019
This is the "intelligence trap," the subject of David Robson’s fascinating and provocative book.The Intelligence Trap explores cutting-edge ideas in our understanding of intelligence and expertise, including "strategic ignorance," "meta-forgetfulness," and "functional stupidity." Robson reveals the surprising ways that even the brightest minds and most talented organizations can go wrong—from some of Thomas Edison’s worst ideas to failures at NASA, Nokia, and the FBI. And he offers practical advice to avoid mistakes based on the timeless lessons of Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman, and Daniel Kahneman.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Susan Cain - 2012
They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society. In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel - 2020
It’s about how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. How to manage money, invest it, and make business decisions are typically considered to involve a lot of mathematical calculations, where data and formulae tell us exactly what to do. But in the real world, people don’t make financial decisions on a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. In the psychology of money, the author shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important matters.
Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want
Nicholas Epley - 2014
It’s a sixth sense you use every day, in every personal and professional relationship you have. At its best, this ability allows you to achieve the most important goal in almost any life: connecting, deeply and intimately and honestly, to other human beings. At its worst, it is a source of misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict, leading to damaged relationships and broken dreams. How good are you at knowing the minds of others? How well can you guess what others think of you, know who really likes you, or tell when someone is lying? How well do you really understand the minds of those closest to you, from your spouse to your kids to your best friends? Do you really know what your coworkers, employees, competitors, or clients want?In this illuminating exploration of one of the great mysteries of the human mind, University of Chicago psychologist Nicholas Epley introduces us to what scientists have learned about our ability to understand the most complicated puzzle on the planet—other people—and the surprising mistakes we so routinely make. Why are we sometimes blind to the minds of others, treating them like objects or animals? Why do we sometimes talk to our cars, or the stars, as if there is a mind that can hear us? Why do we so routinely believe that others think, feel, and want what we do when, in fact, they do not? And why do we believe we understand our spouses, family, and friends so much better than we actually do? Mindwise will not turn other people into open books, but it will give you the wisdom to revolutionize how you think about them—and yourself.
Lying
Sam Harris - 2011
Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption—even murder and genocide—generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie.
Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change
Timothy D. Wilson - 2009
The world-renowned psychologist Timothy Wilson shows us how to redirect the stories we tell about ourselves and the world around us, with subtle prompts, in ways that lead to lasting change. Fascinating, groundbreaking, and practical, Redirect demonstrates the remarkable power small changes can have on the ways we see ourselves and our environment, and how we can use this in our everyday lives. "There are few academics who write with as much grace and wisdom as Timothy Wilson. Redirect is a masterpiece." -- Malcolm Gladwell
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Anna Lembke - 2021
It's also about pain. Most important, it's about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We're living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting... The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we've all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain...and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery."Brilliant... riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued."--Beth Macy, author of DopesickINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER“Brilliant… riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of DopesickAs heard on Fresh Air
Fascinate: Unlocking the Secret Triggers of Influence, Persuasion, and Captivation
Sally Hogshead - 2010
It's more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers: lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust.Fascination plays a role in every type of decision making, from the brands you choose to the songs you remember, from the person you marry to the employees you hire. And by activating the right triggers, you can make anything become fascinating.To explore and explain fascination's irresistible influence, Sally Hogshead looks beyond marketing, delving into behavioral and social studies, historical precedents, neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, as well as conducting in-depth interviews and a national study of a thousand consumers, to emerge with deeply rooted patterns for why, and how, we become captivated.Hogshead reveals why the Salem witch trials began with the same fixations as those in "Sex and the City." How Olympic athletes are subject to obsessions similar to those of fetishists. How a 1636 frenzy over Dutch tulip bulbs perfectly mirrors the 2006 real estate bubble. And why a billion-dollar "Just Say No" program actually increased drug use among teens, by activating the same "forbidden fruit" syndrome as a Victoria's Secret catalog.Whether you realize it or not, you're already using the seven triggers. The question is, are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result? This book will show you.
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
David Goggins - 2018
But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.