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At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. 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
In this book, Leif Dag Blomkvist and Zerka Moreno explore the depths of this long-neglected concept. In addition, each chapter is prefaced by Leif Dag Blomkvist's explanations and illuminations of the forces and energies - from early religious rituals and festivals to the art of Surrealism - which have influenced psychodrama.
Psychodramatists and mental health professionals who wish to take therapy beyond the 'verbal' will find the book valuable reading.
Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.
Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.
Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:
First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it. Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to. Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions. Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world. Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day. Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing—and so much fun to read.
Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
"Explores a happy state of mind called flow, the feeling of complete engagement in a creative or playful activity." —Time
Translated into more than seventeen languages, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the world's most widely used instructional drawing book. Whether you are drawing as a professional artist, as an artist in training, or as a hobby, this book will give you greater confidence in your ability and deepen your artistic perception, as well as foster a new appreciation of the world around you. This revised/updated fourth edition includes:
• a new introduction;
• crucial updates based on recent research on the brain's plasticity and the enormous value of learning new skills/ utilizing the right hemisphere of the brain;
• new focus on how the ability to draw on the strengths of the right hemisphere can serve as an antidote to the increasing left-brain emphasis in American life-the worship of all that is linear, analytic, digital, etc.;
• an informative section that addresses recent research linking early childhood "scribbling" to later language development and the importance of parental encouragement of this activity;
• and new reproductions of master drawings throughout
The authors examine topics including assessment, treatment, supervision and safeguarding. Skills and strategies for successful engagement with offenders are a key focus of the book, as well as improving understanding of underpinning factors associated with offending and desistance.
This volume, which is derived from well-received presentations hosted by the UK’s National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers (NOTA) over a number of years, also offers a detailed examination of individual, organisational and societal roles in relation to identifying and preventing sexual abuse in our communities.
Using case examples throughout, Working with Sex Offenders will be essential reading for all professionals involved in the management and treatment of sex offenders.
This comprehensive handbook brings together history, philosophy, methodology and application. It shows the pioneering role that Zerka, along with her husband J. L. Moreno, played in the development, not only of the methods of psychodrama and sociometry, but of the entire group psychotherapy movement worldwide. It demonstrates the extent to which Zerka's intuitive and intellectual grasp of the work, combined with her superb ability to organize and synthesize, continue to exert an influence on the field. Toni Horvatin and Edward Schreiber have selected articles that span a career of some sixty years, from Zerka’s very first publication to recent, previously unpublished, work. Personal anecdotes and poetry from Zerka herself provide a valuable context for each individual article. The selection includes:
psychodrama, it's relation to stage, radio and motion pictures psychodramatic rules, techniques and adjunctive methods beyond aristotle, breuer and freud: Moreno’s contribution to the concept of catharsis psychodrama, role theory and the concept of the social atom.This book provides a rich source of insight and inspiration for all those interested in the history, development and practice of psychodrama, sociometry and group psychotherapy, whatever their level of experience. It will be of interest to anyone involved in the fields of psychology, counselling, sociology, social work, education, theatre, or human relations.
#1 New York Times Business Bestseller
#1 Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller
#1 Washington Post bestseller
From the bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind comes a surprising--and surprisingly useful--new book that explores the power of selling in our lives.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase.
But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges:
Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight.
Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.
To Sell Is Human offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in Drive and A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it's no longer "Always Be Closing"), explains why extraverts don't make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an "off-ramp" for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.
Along the way, Pink describes the six successors to the elevator pitch, the three rules for understanding another's perspective, the five frames that can make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more. The result is a perceptive and practical book--one that will change how you see the world and transform what you do at work, at school, and at home.
The authors examine topics including assessment, treatment, supervision and safeguarding. Skills and strategies for successful engagement with offenders are a key focus of the book, as well as improving understanding of underpinning factors associated with offending and desistance.
This volume, which is derived from well-received presentations hosted by the UK’s National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers (NOTA) over a number of years, also offers a detailed examination of individual, organisational and societal roles in relation to identifying and preventing sexual abuse in our communities.
Using case examples throughout, Working with Sex Offenders will be essential reading for all professionals involved in the management and treatment of sex offenders.
The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't.
Drawing on research from around the world, Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment--and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.
The printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery--these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that seem to appear at moments of originality.
The structure of the book innovatively reflects that of the classic psychodrama session - Warm Up, Action, Sharing and the subsequent Processing.
Chapters on psychodrama in action include discussion on the new use of psychodrama in the treatment of depression, and the relationship of the discipline to other group psychotherapies. The contributors vividly illustrate the contribution dramatic improvisation can make to emotional health.
In his international bestseller, The Happiness Advantage, Harvard trained researcher Shawn Achor described why happiness is the precursor to greater success. This book is about what comes before both. Because before we can be happy or successful, we need to first develop the ability to see that positive change is possible. Only once we learn to see the world through a more positive lens can we summon all our motivation, emotion, and intelligence to achieve our personal and professional goals.
In Before Happiness, Achor reveals five actionable, proven strategies for changing our lens to positive:
- The Most Valuable Reality: See a broader range of ideas and solutions by changing the details on which your brain chooses to focus
- Success Mapping: Set goals oriented around the things in life that matter to you most, whether career advancement or family or making a difference in the world
- The X-spot: Use success accelerants to propel you more quickly towards those goals, whether finishing a marathon, reaching a sales target, learning a language, or losing 10 pounds
- Noise-Canceling: Boost the signal pointing you to opportunities and possibilities that others miss
- Positive Inception: Transfer these skills to your team, your employees, and everyone around you
By mastering these strategies, you’ll create an renewable source of positivity, motivation, and engagement that will allow you to reach your fullest potential in everything you do.
The Satanic Witch is not designed for Barbie Dolls, but women cunning and crafty enough to employ the workable formulas within, which instantly surpass the entire catalogue of self-help tomes and New Age idiocies.
The Introduction — Peggy Nadramia, High Priestess of the Church of Satan, tells us how this book changed her life.
The Afterword — Blanche Barton, Anton LaVey’s biographer, Chairmistress of the Council of Nine, and mother of Satan Xerxes Carnacki LaVey, Anton’s third child, informs us how The Satanic Witch came to pass and influence the behavior of so many women.
The perfect gift for Graduation! Rosamund Stone Zander's new book, Pathways to Possibility, is now available from Viking.
Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment. The authors' harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world.
Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity? Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire’s popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking. Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes— like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration – to show that it is by embracing our own contradictions that we are able to tap into our deepest creativity. Each chapter explores one of the ten attributes and habits of highly creative people:
Imaginative Play * Passion * Daydreaming * Solitude * Intuition * Openness to Experience * Mindfulness * Sensitivity * Turning Adversity into Advantage * Thinking Differently
With insights from the work and lives of Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Marcel Proust, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Edison, Josephine Baker, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, musician Thom Yorke, chess champion Josh Waitzkin, video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and many other creative luminaries, Wired to Create helps us better understand creativity – and shows us how to enrich this essential aspect of our lives.
From the Hardcover edition.
Jocelyn K. Glei, author and Founding Editor, 99U
We are living in an age of unprecedented creative stimulation—via the internet, social media, all-pervasive technology, and an “always on” working culture.
Which means we are living in an age of unprecedented distraction from focused creative work—from all the same sources.
First, computers and the internet transformed the work we did at our desks. Then along came smartphones to transform our social lives and make our work mobile.
Now we have our work, our network, our media, and our social media with us wherever we go. Augmented Reality (AR) is layering more and more virtual elements over the physical world we inhabit, and Virtual Reality (VR) promises us escape to unlimited virtual worlds.
The pace of change is exciting, overwhelming, and unstoppable.
And creators are increasingly discovering a downside to the brave new world:
* countless distractions and interruptions
* endless email
* pressure to keep up
* anxiety about falling behind
* difficulty concentrating
* aches and pains from too much time at the keyboard
Dig a little deeper, and the biggest concern for many creatives is a nagging sense that their most important work is being left undone.
If you’re excited by the opportunities of the creative age, but worried about the effect of all those interruptions and digital distractions on your creative work, Productivity for Creative People has been written for you.
For the past twenty years creative coach Mark McGuinness has helped hundreds of creatives like you to overcome these challenges.
A poet and creative entrepreneur, he is the author of Motivation for Creative People and Resilience: Facing Down Rejection and Criticism on the Road to Success. He is also a co-author of the bestselling books from 99U, Manage Your Day-to-Day and Maximize Your Potential.
Mark’s latest book, Productivity for Creative People, is a collection of insights, tips, and techniques to help you carve out time for your most important work – while managing your other commitments. All the solutions he shares have been tested with real people in real situations.
You will learn:
* How getting organized can make you more creative
* Why multitasking doesn’t work
* How to tell if you’re really overloaded – and what to do about it
* The importance of panicking early
* How doing nothing can make you more productive
* The crucial difference between incubation and procrastination
* How to carve out time for your most important creative work
* Why boredom is necessary for creativity
* What to do about all that email
* How to nap like a fighter pilot
* A simple technique to reduce smartphone addiction
Productivity for Creative People is the perfect guide to creating extraordinary work without (necessarily) disappearing to a cabin in the woods, or even giving up your smartphone.
“Many creative people are busier than ever, but rarely get around to the work that truly matters. Mark McGuinness offers solid and practical advice for busy creative people who want to make their mark on the world.”
Todd Henry, author of The Accidental Creative
“Authors now have amazing online tools to reach readers all over the world, but those same tools can distract us from the focused creativity that we love and that we need to write better books. In Productivity for Creative People, Mark McGuinness outlines a way of working that will help you sort out what’s really important and achieve your creative goals, while still managing your daily tasks. Recommended for any author who is feeling overwhelmed.”
Joanna Penn, bestselling author and award-winning entrepreneur. TheCreativePenn.com
Creators, he shows, apply in particular ways the everyday, ordinary thinking of which we are all capable, taking thousands of small steps and working in an endless loop of problem and solution. He examines why innovators meet resistance and how they overcome it, why most organizations stifle creative people, and how the most creative organizations work. Drawing on examples from art, science, business, and invention, from Mozart to the Muppets, Archimedes to Apple, Kandinsky to a can of Coke, How to Fly a Horse is a passionate and immensely rewarding exploration of how “new” comes to be.
How did the movie The Shawshank Redemption fail at the box office but go on to gross more than $100 million as a cult classic?
How did The 48 Laws of Power miss the bestseller lists for more than a decade and still sell more than a million copies?
How is Iron Maiden still filling stadiums worldwide without radio or TV exposure forty years after the band was founded?
Bestselling author and marketer Ryan Holiday calls such works and artists perennial sellers. How do they endure and thrive while most books, movies, songs, video games, and pieces of art disappear quickly after initial success? How can we create and market creative works that achieve longevity?
Holiday explores this mystery by drawing on his extensive experience working with businesses and creators such as Google, American Apparel, and the author John Grisham, as well as his interviews with the minds behind some of the greatest perennial sellers of our time. His fascinating examples include:
• Rick Rubin, producer for Adele, Jay-Z, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who teaches his artists to push past short-term thinking and root their work in long-term inspiration.
• Tim Ferriss, whose books have sold millions of copies, in part because he rigorously tests every element of his work to see what generates the strongest response.
• Seinfeld, which managed to capture both the essence of the nineties and timeless themes to become a modern classic.
• Harper Lee, who transformed a muddled manuscript into To Kill a Mockingbird with the help of the right editor and feedback.
• Winston Churchill, Stefan Zweig, and Lady Gaga, who each learned the essential tenets of building a platform of loyal, dedicated supporters.
Holiday reveals that the key to success for many perennial sellers is that their creators don’t distinguish between the making and the marketing. The product’s purpose and audience are in the creator’s mind from day one. By thinking holistically about the relationship between their audience and their work, creators of all kinds improve the chances that their offerings will stand the test of time.
Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“The leading researcher into ‘flow states.’” — Newsweek) reveals what leads to these moments—be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab—so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists, to politicians and business leaders, to poets and artists, as well as his thirty years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous flow theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the "tortured genius" is largely a myth. Most important, he explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.
In this book, Brian Little, one of the psychologists who helped re-shape the field, provides the first in-depth exploration of the new personality science and its provocative findings for general readers. The book explores questions that are rooted in the origins of human consciousness but are as commonplace as yesterday's breakfast conversation. Are our first impressions of other people's personalities usually fallacious? Are creative individuals essentially maladjusted? Are our personality traits, as William James put it “set like plaster” by the age of thirty? Is a belief that we are in control of our lives an unmitigated good? Do our singular personalities comprise one unified self or a confederacy of selves, and if the latter, which of our mini-me-s do we offer up in marriage or mergers? Are some individuals genetically hard-wired for happiness? Which is the more viable path toward human flourishing, the pursuit of happiness or the happiness of pursuit?
Little provides a resource for answering such questions, and a framework through which readers can explore the personal implications of the new science of personality. Questionnaires and interactive assessments throughout the book facilitate self-exploration, and clarify some of the stranger aspects of our own conduct and that of others. Brian Little helps us see ourselves, and other selves, as somewhat less perplexing and definitely more intriguing.
This is not a self-help book, but students at Harvard who took the lecture course on which it is based claim that it changed their lives.
Words are the most powerful tools at our disposal. With them, writers have saved lives and taken them, brought justice and confounded it, started wars and ended them. Writers can change the way we think and transform our definitions of right and wrong.
Writing to Change the World is a beautiful paean to the transformative power of words. Encapsulating Mary Pipher's years as a writer and therapist, it features rousing commentary, personal anecdotes, memorable quotations, and stories of writers who have helped reshape society. It is a book that will shake up readers' beliefs, expand their minds, and possibly even inspire them to make their own mark on the world.
From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our happiness and intelligence throughout our lives
We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.
Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six-thousand "play histories" of humans from all walks of life-from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play (20,000 copies in print) explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve and more. Particularly in tough times, we need to play more than ever, as it's the very means by which we prepare for the unexpected, search out new solutions, and remain optimistic. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.
In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and bestselling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries, profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain “problems”—including learning disabilities, ADD, anxiety, Depression, Bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and Autism—and tells the stories of lay individuals to demonstrate how specific deficits in certain areas of the brain are directly associated with the potential for great talent. Saltz shows how the very conditions that cause people to experience difficulty at school, in social situations, at home, or at work, are inextricably bound to creative, disciplinary, artistic, empathetic, and cognitive abilities.
In this pioneering work, readers will find engaging scientific research and stories from historical geniuses and everyday individuals who have not only made the most of their conditions, but who have flourished because of them. They are leaning into their brain differences to:
*Identify areas of interest and expertise
*Develop work arounds
*Create the environments that best foster their talents
*Forge rewarding interpersonal relationships
Enlightening and inspiring, The Power of Different proves that the unique wiring of every brain can be a source of strength and productivity, and contributes to the richness of our world.
Life today feels more overwhelming and chaotic than ever. Whether it’s a confounding work problem or a faltering relationship or an unclear medical diagnosis, we face constant uncertainty. And we’re continually bombarded with information, much of it contradictory.
Managing ambiguity—in our jobs, our relationships, and daily lives—is quickly becoming an essential skill. Yet most of us don’t know where to begin.
As Jamie Holmes shows in Nonsense, being confused is unpleasant, so we tend to shutter our minds as we grasp for meaning and stability, especially in stressful circumstances. We’re hard-wired to resolve contradictions quickly and extinguish anomalies. This can be useful, of course. When a tiger is chasing you, you can’t be indecisive. But as Nonsense reveals, our need for closure has its own dangers. It makes us stick to our first answer, which is not always the best, and it makes us search for meaning in the wrong places. When we latch onto fast and easy truths, we lose a vital opportunity to learn something new, solve a hard problem, or see the world from another perspective.
In other words, confusion—that uncomfortable mental place—has a hidden upside. We just need to know how to use it. This lively and original book points the way.
Over the last few years, new insights from social psychology and cognitive science have deepened our understanding of the role of ambiguity in our lives and Holmes brings this research together for the first time, showing how we can use uncertainty to our advantage. Filled with illuminating stories—from spy games and doomsday cults to Absolut Vodka’s ad campaign and the creation of Mad Libs—Nonsense promises to transform the way we conduct business, educate our children, and make decisions.
In an increasingly unpredictable, complex world, it turns out that what matters most isn’t IQ, willpower, or confidence in what we know. It’s how we deal with what we don’t understand.
From the Hardcover edition.
The highly innovative findings of social psychologist Dr. Ellen J. Langer and her team of researchers at Harvard introduced a unique concept of mindfulness, adapted to contemporary life in the West. Langer's theory has been applied to a wide number of fields, including health, business, aging, social justice, and learning. There is now a new psychological assessment based on her work (called the Langer Mindfulness Scale). In her introduction to this 25th anniversary edition, Dr. Langer (now known as "the Mother of Mindfulness") outlines some of these exciting applications and suggests those still to come.
Whether you can admit it to yourself or not, you are creative.
In today’s complex world, creativity is the key to finding and living your passion. Whatever that passion is—cooking, technology, writing, or even plumbing—Creative You reveals your own personal style of creativity to help you build an environment of innovation at work and home.
Discover your creative personality type with a simple quiz and detailed descriptions of the sixteen personality types. Plus, tools and techniques show you how to apply creativity to your everyday life. Drop excuses like I’m too old to start being creative and creativity is only for artists. Confidently use creativity to live your passion by using your natural style. Whether you are starting from scratch or enhancing an already developed skill, discover the creative you that you’ve been searching for.
Preview:
In this 30th anniversary edition of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks, M.D. brings together more than two dozen narratives of patients with many different neurological impairments. The narratives illuminate medical details of the diseases while illustrating how those diseases play out in a patient’s thoughts and actions, bringing a more human aspect to the ailments.
These neurological impairments take on many forms. Losses can be highly disruptive to a patient’s life, such as Jimmie G.’s severe memory loss. However, many patients find ways to adapt to their ailments and recoup those losses in other ways, such as Mr. P., a music teacher who lost his ability to distinguish faces and objects, even mistaking his wife for his hat, who learned to sing to himself to keep from becoming disoriented. And MacGregor, who installed a level on his glasses to enable him to stand upright to correct a persistent lean…
PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book.
Inside this Instaread of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat:Overview of the bookImportant PeopleKey TakeawaysAnalysis of Key Takeaways
New research suggests that the superior achievements of famous thinkers may have been more the result of mental conditioning than genetic superiority. Now you can learn to condition your mind in the same way and improve your performance in virtually all aspects of mental ability, including memory, quickness, IQ, and learning capacity.
Intelligence pioneer Dr. Win Wenger has identified the tools you need to reach greater levels of sharpness, insight, and overall intelligence. Using Wenger’s Image Streaming technique, you learn to bypass inhibitions and access the hypernormal capabilities hidden in your own subconscious. Discover how you can:
·Improve your memory
·Read faster and learn more quickly
·Solve problems like a genius
·Score higher on tests
·Build self-esteem
·Induce a state of total creative absorption
·Access powerful subconscious insights through visualization
·Increase your intelligence
The Einstein Factor is your key to living an extraordinarily effective and creative life!
A unique new guide to creativity from Questlove—inspirations, stories, and lessons on how to live your best creative life
Questlove—musician, bandleader, designer, producer, culinary entrepreneur, professor, and all-around cultural omnivore—shares his wisdom on the topics of inspiration and originality in a one-of-a-kind guide to living your best creative life.
In Creative Quest, Questlove synthesizes all the creative philosophies, lessons, and stories he’s heard from the many creators and collaborators in his life, and reflects on his own experience, to advise readers and fans on how to consider creativity and where to find it. He addresses many topics—what it means to be creative, how to find a mentor and serve as an apprentice, the wisdom of maintaining a creative network, coping with critics and the foibles of success, and the specific pitfalls of contemporary culture—all in the service of guiding admirers who have followed his career and newcomers not yet acquainted with his story.
Whether discussing his own life or channeling the lessons he’s learned from forefathers such as George Clinton, collaborators like D’Angelo, or like-minded artists including Ava DuVernay, David Byrne, Björk, and others, Questlove speaks with the candor and enthusiasm that fans have come to expect. Creative Quest is many things—above all, a wise and wide-ranging conversation around the eternal mystery of creativity.
The Problem: We talk so much that we don't think very well. Powerful as words are, we fool ourselves when we think our words alone can detect, describe, and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. They can't-and that's bad, because words have become our default thinking tool.
The Solution: This book offers a way out of blah-blah-blah. It's called "Vivid Thinking."
In Dan Roam's first acclaimed book, The Back of the Napkin, he taught readers how to solve problems and sell ideas by drawing simple pictures. Now he proves that Vivid Thinking is even more powerful. This technique combines our verbal and visual minds so that we can think and learn more quickly, teach and inspire our colleagues, and enjoy and share ideas in a whole new way.
The Destination: No more blah-blah-blah. Through Vivid Thinking, we can make the most complicated subjects suddenly crystal clear. Whether trying to understand a Harvard Business School class, or what went down in the Conan versus Leno battle for late-night TV, or what Einstein thought about relativity, Vivid Thinking provides a way to clarify anything.
Through dozens of guided examples, Roam proves that anyone can apply this systematic approach, from leftbrain types who hate to draw to right-brainers who hate to write. This isn't just a book about improving communications, presentations, and ideation; it's about removing the blah-blah- blah from your life for good.
Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done-but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers---from Darwin to Stephen King---to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.
David Rothkopf believes in the power of questions. When sweeping changes have occurred in history—the religious awakenings of the Reformation; the scientific advances of the Age of Exploration; the technological developments of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution—they have brought with them, not just new knowledge, but provoked great questions about how we must live.
With the world at the threshold of profound change, Rothkopf seeks the important questions of our time—ones that will remake the world and our understanding of it. From the foundational questions: "Why do we live within a society?" and "What is war?" to modern concerns such as "Is access to the internet a basic human right?" The Great Questions of Tomorrow confronts our approach to the future and forces us to reimagine fundamental aspects of our lives—identity, economics, technology, government, war, and peace.
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Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is a book of motivational passages, anecdotes, and quotes meant to inspire readers to embrace creativity in whatever form is most natural for them. By exploring creativity through real life experiences and words of encouragement, readers learn to face what holds them back from embracing inspiration and activating their creative nature, also known as finding Big Magic…
PLEASE NOTE: This is key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book.
Inside this Instaread of Big Magic:Overview of the bookImportant PeopleKey TakeawaysAnalysis of Key Takeaways
In Ungifted, cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman—who was relegated to special education as a child—sets out to show that the way we interpret traditional metrics of intelligence is misguided. Kaufman explores the latest research in genetics and neuroscience, as well as evolutionary, developmental, social, positive, and cognitive psychology, to challenge the conventional wisdom about the childhood predictors of adult success. He reveals that there are many paths to greatness, and argues for a more holistic approach to achievement that takes into account each young person's personal goals, individual psychology, and developmental trajectory. In so doing, he increases our appreciation for the intelligence and diverse strengths of prodigies, savants, and late bloomers, as well as those with dyslexia, autism, schizophrenia, and ADHD.
Combining original research, anecdotes, and a singular compassion, Ungifted proves that anyone—even those without readily observable gifts at any single moment in time—can become great.
Klein is a keen observer of people in their natural settings—scientists, businesspeople, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, family members, friends, himself—and uses a marvelous variety of stories to illuminate his research into what insights are and how they happen. What, for example, enabled Harry Markopolos to put the finger on Bernie Madoff? How did Dr. Michael Gottlieb make the connections between different patients that allowed him to publish the first announcement of the AIDS epidemic? What did Admiral Yamamoto see (and what did the Americans miss) in a 1940 British attack on the Italian fleet that enabled him to develop the strategy of attack at Pearl Harbor? How did a “smokejumper” see that setting another fire would save his life, while those who ignored his insight perished? How did Martin Chalfie come up with a million-dollar idea (and a Nobel Prize) for a natural flashlight that enabled researchers to look inside living organisms to watch biological processes in action?
Klein also dissects impediments to insight, such as when organizations claim to value employee creativity and to encourage breakthroughs but in reality block disruptive ideas and prioritize avoidance of mistakes. Or when information technology systems are “dumb by design” and block potential discoveries.
Both scientifically sophisticated and fun to read, Seeing What Others Don't shows that insight is not just a “eureka!” moment but a whole new way of understanding.
In short and engaging entries, this deceptively simple volume presents examples of creative thinkers from the worlds of writing, music, architecture, painting, technology, and more, shedding light on their process, and showing how each of us can learn from them to improve our lives and our work.
Subjects range from the grueling practice schedule of the Beatles and the relentless revisions of Tolkien, Sondheim, and Picasso to the surprisingly slapdash creation of The Simpsons. You’ll learn about the most successful class in history (in which every student won a Nobel Prize), how frozen peas were invented, why J.K. Rowling likes to write in cafes, and how 95 percent of Apocalypse Now ended up on the cutting-room floor. Takeaways include:
- Doubt everything all the time.
- Plan to have more accidents.
- Be mature enough to be childish.
- Contradict yourself more often.
- Be practically useless.
- If it ain’t broke, break it.
- Surprise yourself.
- Look forward to disappointment.
- Be as incompetent as possible.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
The limited signed cloth edition of Thee Psychick Bible quickly sold out, creating demand for any edition of this 544-page book, which will be available in a handsome smyth-sewn paperback edition with flaps and ribbon. According to author Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, "this is the most profound new manual on practical magick, taking it from its Crowleyan empowerment of the Individual to a next level of realization to evolve our species."
In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six extraordinary men: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver.
All six of these writers were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast. Often, they did their drinking together: Hemingway and Fitzgerald ricocheting through the cafés of Paris in the 1920s; Carver and Cheever speeding to the liquor store in Iowa in the icy winter of 1973.
Olivia Laing grew up in an alcoholic family herself. One spring, wanting to make sense of this ferocious, entangling disease, she took a journey across America that plunged her into the heart of these overlapping lives. As she travels from Cheever's New York to Williams's New Orleans, and from Hemingway's Key West to Carver's Port Angeles, she pieces together a topographical map of alcoholism, from the horrors of addiction to the miraculous possibilities of recovery.
Beautiful, captivating, and original, The Trip to Echo Spring strips away the myth of the alcoholic writer to reveal the terrible price creativity can exert.
In this counterintuitive book, psychologist Catherine Salmon and journalist Katrin Schumann combine science, history, and real-life stories to reveal for the first time that our perception of middle children is dead wrong.
Using unpublished and little-known research from evolutionary psychology, sociology, and communications, The Secret Power of Middle Children illustrates how adaptive strategies middleborns develop during childhood translate into stronger friendships, lasting marriages, successful careers, and effective parenting.
Over seventy million adult Americans are middle children, and forty percent of young American families have middle children. With constructive advice on how to maximize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of being a middle child, Salmon and Schumann help middle children at any age (and their parents) use birth order as a strategy for success.
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Quiet by Susan Cain illustrates the latest research findings about the opposing characteristics of introverts and extroverts.
This companion to Quiet includes:Overview of the bookImportant PeopleKey TakeawaysAnalysis of Key Takeawaysand much more!
In this magisterial study of the relationship between illness and art, the best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind brings a fresh perspective to the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Lowell. In his poetry, Lowell put his manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar disorder) into the public domain, and in the process created a new and arresting language for madness. Here Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell’s story, illuminating not only the relationships between mania, depression, and creativity but also how Lowell’s illness and treatment influenced his work (and often became its subject). A bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was—both despite and because of mental illness—a passionate, original observer of the human condition.
If...(Questions for the Game of Life) was a bestselling sensation with readers around the world. If 2 is a collection of 500 completely new and tantalizing, provocative questions that really make you think. It's an excellent source for party games, office water-cooler conversation, family dinners, and nights out at the local tavern. Crack open the secret dreams, the hidden desires, and the real personalities of your friends, your family, your lovers--and even yourself--with If 2...
From the Hardcover edition.
Klein is a keen observer of people in their natural settings—scientists, businesspeople, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, family members, friends, himself—and uses a marvelous variety of stories to illuminate his research into what insights are and how they happen. What, for example, enabled Harry Markopolos to put the finger on Bernie Madoff? How did Dr. Michael Gottlieb make the connections between different patients that allowed him to publish the first announcement of the AIDS epidemic? What did Admiral Yamamoto see (and what did the Americans miss) in a 1940 British attack on the Italian fleet that enabled him to develop the strategy of attack at Pearl Harbor? How did a “smokejumper” see that setting another fire would save his life, while those who ignored his insight perished? How did Martin Chalfie come up with a million-dollar idea (and a Nobel Prize) for a natural flashlight that enabled researchers to look inside living organisms to watch biological processes in action?
Klein also dissects impediments to insight, such as when organizations claim to value employee creativity and to encourage breakthroughs but in reality block disruptive ideas and prioritize avoidance of mistakes. Or when information technology systems are “dumb by design” and block potential discoveries.
Both scientifically sophisticated and fun to read, Seeing What Others Don't shows that insight is not just a “eureka!” moment but a whole new way of understanding.
Combining the latest science with an urgent call to cultivate curious minds, Curious draws on psychology, social history, and popular culture to show that being deeply curious is our only hope when it comes to solving current crises—as well as an essential part of being human.
• Shows the relationship between shamanism, near death experiences, and other mystical and altered states with those induced by psychedelics
• Lays the conceptual foundation for the creation of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology
Stanislav Grof’s first 17 years of research into nonordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles--the perinatal domain, which holds memories of the various stages of birth, and the transpersonal domain, which mediates experiential identification with other species and mythic figures, visits to archetypal realms, access to past life memories, and union with the cosmic creative principle.
The research presented in this book provides a map of the psyche that is essential for understanding such phenomena as shamanism and near death experiences as well as other nonordinary states of consciousness. This map has led to the development of important new therapies in psychiatry and psychology for treating mental conditions often seen as disease and therefore suppressed by medication. It also provides a new threshold to understanding and entering the numinous realm of spirit.
A father cleans up after his toddler and imagines a cup that won’t spill. An engineer watches people using walkie-talkies and has an idea. A doctor figures out how to deliver patients to the operating room before they die.
By studying inventions like these—the sippy cup, the cell phone, and an ingenious hospital bed —we can learn how people imagine their way around “impossible” problems to discover groundbreaking answers. Pagan Kennedy reports on how these enduring methods can be adapted to the twenty-first century, as millions of us deploy tools like crowdfunding, big data, and 3-D printing to find hidden opportunities.
Inventology uses the stories of inventors and surprising research to reveal the steps that produce innovation. Recent advances in technology and communication have placed us at the cusp of a golden age; it’s now more possible than ever before to transform ideas into actuality. Inventology is a must-read for designers, artists, makers—and anyone else who is curious about creativity. By identifying the steps of the invention process, Kennedy reveals the imaginative tools required to solve our most challenging problems.
“There’s ample interest here even for readers who aren’t actively inventing anything.” —The Boston Globe