Shortform Books

Elizabeth Gilbert: What Kills Creativity

What kills creativity? Do you often put off your creative work because of the pressure to produce something groundbreaking? Many creatives, no matter the field, get stuck in their creative process because they believe their work should look a certain way or live up to some kind of standard they made up. Such prescriptive thoughts prevent you from fully exercising your creativity and ultimately only stymie you. Below are three common prescriptive thoughts that get in the way of your creativity and which you should dispel.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces: Book Overview

Why is Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces important? What was the role of mythologies in ancient societies? The book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces explores the existence of common themes and story elements in the mythologies of ancient societies, even though those cultures belonged to vastly different eras. Those myths served as the manifestations of the inner conflicts and desires of each society. They helped people make sense of their subconscious desires. Read on to discover how the book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces explains the functional template of hero myths in ancient societies.

How Mass Employment Causes Inefficiency at Work

Why does mass employment promote inefficiency? Do you think it’s possible to completely eliminate labor market inefficiency? According to Nassim Taleb, inefficiency at work is an unavoidable weakness of mass employment. Employees limit their freedom in order to maintain productive organizations for their employers, and what they get in return—the paycheck. However, it’s impossible to get employees totally invested in the company’s game. In this article, we’ll discuss why inefficiency is an inherent by-product of mass employment.

Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Lollapalooza Effect

The 25 Cognitive Biases: The Lollapalooza Effect

What is Charlie Munger’s lollapalooza effect? How do you know when this phenomenon is influencing your actions? The lollapalooza effect is triggered when more than one of the cognitive biases work together to influence your behavior. The cognitive biases reinforce each other, often leading to extreme consequences. You can recognize the phenomenon when you see extreme behaviors in individuals or a group. Read on to learn more about the impact of the lollapalooza effect.

Don’t Be a Jack of All Trades—Hire an Expert

Why should you hire an expert rather than trying to do everything yourself? In what three ways are you wasting time if you don’t hire an expert? Many business owners and managers struggle when it comes to giving up control—they strive to do everything on their own. However, rather than saving you time and money, doing everything yourself will often cost more money and waste your valuable time. Here is why you need to give up control and hire an expert.

What to Do If You Feel Like Giving Up on Your Dreams

What do successful people do when they feel like giving up? How can we re-inspire ourselves when pushing forward just feels like too much or worse—pointless? To achieve success, we must resist the urge to give up and our inclination towards losing faith. One way to keep pushing forward when you feel like giving up on your dreams is to amp up your levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Here is what to do when you feel like giving up.

Charlie Munger: The Reciprocation Tendency

The 25 Cognitive Biases: Reciprocation Tendency

What is the reciprocation tendency? How can reciprocity be harmful? The reciprocation tendency is the inclination of humans to reciprocate both favors and harm done to them. The reciprocation of favors enhances social cohesion and group cooperation, while the reciprocation of harm deters bad behavior in the future. Reciprocity can be harmful when the tendency is exploited by manipulators who use small concessions to demand big favors. Read on to learn more about the reciprocation tendency.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: Discussion Questions

Are you looking for The Five Dysfunctions of a Team discussion questions? What are some of the key themes and ideas to discuss? In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni explores how teams fail to work cohesively through the lens of the five-dysfunction model. Further, he gives advice on how to recognize and root out each dysfunction by working your way up the dysfunction pyramid. To help you evaluate your team on each of the five dysfunctions, we’ve put together some discussion questions.

Scaling Up: Rockefeller Habits for the 21st Century

How do Scaling Up and the Rockefeller Habits compare? How do they address 21st-century business realities? Author Verne Harnish presents the ideas in his book Scaling Up as a “2.0” version of the Rockefeller Habits—the business principles that guided the career of John D. Rockefeller. Both frameworks provide insights for successfully growing your business, with Scaling Up modernizing the Rockefeller Habits for our time. Read more to learn about Scaling Up and the Rockefeller Habits.

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind: Review

Is Joseph Murphy’s The Power of Your Subconscious Mind worth reading? Do you believe that you can influence your subconscious mind with conscious thought? In The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Joseph Murphy argues that you need to align your conscious thoughts with a higher power and have faith that your life will dramatically improve. He supports his argument with anecdotes that demonstrate how people have applied their conscious thoughts to solve a variety of problems, create happiness, and improve their lives. Here is a quick review of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.