The World's Best Book Summaries
How to deal with failure is a crucial lesson, but we’re not always taught the most productive or effective ways. Mindset drives how people define and cope with failure. For people with a fixed mindset, failure is an identity that they fear and try to avoid, rather than something that happens. To learn how to deal with failure, you need to change your mindset. We’ll cover Carol Dweck’s advice for dealing with failure.
To instill in children the value of hard work, we teach them such stories as “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Little Engine That Could.” The lesson is to keep trying and you’ll succeed: Slow and steady wins the race. But those with fixed mindsets take away a different lesson: Hard work is for those who lack talent. They’d rather be the faster, more talented hare than the tortoise, who only succeeded because the hare messed up. A smarter hare would beat a no-talent tortoise. We’ll cover why fewer and fewer people believe in the value of hard work,
We all experience change in our lives. It can be distressing or rewarding, depending on our approach. “Who Moved My Cheese” is a parable that demonstrates in practical terms how to handle change better and avoid pitfalls, by practicing a few key principles: anticipate and prepare for change, overcome fears, envision success, and enjoy change. By depicting simple, memorable characters and scenarios, the parable gives you a framework for responding to change successfully. Learning to prepare for change comes at the beginning of the process of dealing with change, but it’s one of the most important steps. The better you
What are the most common “bad boss” characteristics? Why are they so common? What do they have to do with having a fixed mindset? And are you guilty of any of these bad boss characteristics? We’ll cover the five most common bad boss characteristics to help you learn from the mistakes of other leaders (and perhaps feel better about the foibles of your own boss).
Why is it so important to anticipate change? Anticipating change can help you better prepare for it, and change is a part of life. We’ll cover why anticipating change is essential in work, life, and relationships, using the powerful strategies set out by the parable “Who Moved My Cheese.” Learn to anticipate change so you can better cope with it.
What is the meaning of success? Does your definition of success in life matter? How do you define “successful”? We’ll cover why how you define “successful” actually influences how successful you are in life. Learn how the world’s best athletes and CEOs define success, and why it makes them more successful than the rest of us.
Are you a fox or a hedgehog? If you manage a business, you probably want to be a hedgehog (or at least act like one). People can be divided into foxes and hedgehogs: Foxes know many things and engage with a complex world on its own terms; hedgehogs know one big thing and subsume the world’s complexity to a single, simple, unifying idea. We’ll cover why hedgehogs make the best leaders, how to act like a hedgehog if it doesn’t come naturally to you, and how to answer the question, Are you a fox or a hedgehog?