The World's Best Book Summaries
Is financial success a matter of luck or know-how? What plays a bigger role? There are so many memoirs and self-help books out there by millionaires that teach readers how to follow in their footsteps—”they got rich by following these steps, and you can too!” However, what these books fail to account for is the role of chance in financial success. Here’s why success is luck, according to behavioral finance expert Morgan Housel.
What is the ten-thousand-hour rule? Who first came up with the rule, and what is the research behind it? The ten-thousand-hour rule basically says that you need to practice a skill for at least ten thousand hours before you can be considered an expert. After Malcolm Gladwell published these findings in his book Outliers, there have been a number of criticisms. Here’s why the ten-thousand-hour rule doesn’t hold up.
How do incentives change behavior? What is the danger in offering incentives to encourage better performance? Incentives inspire hard work and better cooperation. But there is also a dark side to incentivizing the desired behavior: People will perform the behavior, but they’ll strive for those incentives however suits them best, even if their actions contradict the principle behind the incentive. Keep reading to learn about the psychology of incentive manipulation and how to set effective incentives.
Does fear of uncertainty hold you back from investing? Are you nervous about putting your money in a long-term investment account, not knowing how much it will grow? According to Morgan Housel, the author of The Psychology of Money, investment uncertainty holds many people back. However, the longer you put off investing due to fear, the smaller your returns will be. Here’s why accepting uncertainty is key to achieving long-term investing success.
Are you clear on your goals? Are you effective at reaching them? In the bestselling classic The Sales Bible, Jeffrey Gitomer outlines three simple steps to set goals. Whether you have sales targets, business objectives, or basic life goals, you can follow these steps to get clarity and focus on what you want to achieve. Keep reading to learn Gitomer’s three simple steps for setting goals.
How do you deal with failure? How can embracing failure help you on the way to success? Most of us will do anything we can to avoid failure—it’s embarrassing and painful. However, to achieve success, you’ll need to fail a few times. Every failure teaches you how not to do something and forces you to come up with ideas you wouldn’t have normally thought of. Here is why you must fail to succeed.
Do you want to know how to create a new habit? Why are rewards so crucial in making new habits stick? In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg says that the key to creating new habits is to put a reward system in place. You need your brain to crave that reward, otherwise, the habit won’t stick. Here’s how to create new habits, according to Charles Duhigg.
Are 360-degree reviews effective at Netflix? Would you give criticism to a coworker if your name was attached to it? Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and CEO, wrote about his 360-degree assessment process in his book No Rules Rules. At first, Hastings believed that written, anonymous feedback would be given to each employee. But later, he decided that live feedback given from an employee’s coworkers was more effective. Continue reading to learn about the evolution of Netflix’s 360-degree assessment process.
Do you seek validation from others—whether that be online or in-person? Why is that setting an impossible goal? In a world that is focused on social media and external validation, many people have started to seek happiness through the approval of others. The problem is that other people’s opinions are out of your control and if you rely on them for happiness, then you don’t control your own happiness levels. Continue below for an in-depth look at how seeking external validation can affect you.
Are you ever overwhelmed by choices and don’t know what decision to make? What tips can help you come to a decision that you’ll be satisfied with? You’ve probably experienced this before: you’re starving, but you keep scrolling through delivery apps and can’t decide what to eat. Finally, you get so frustrated that you just give up and heat up some leftovers, or you just pick something at random. We’ve all been there—it’s called decision paralysis. Here are 11 tips for how to make a decision when you’re overwhelmed by choices.