Shortform Books

How Niche Marketing Strategies Hurt Your Business

What is a niche marketing strategy? Why are they so popular, yet drive so many businesses to fail? Niche marketing strategies aim to sell a company’s products to a very small and specific audience. However, Byron Sharp in his book How Brands Grow says that limiting your target audience can make you lose potential customers who aren’t a part of that specific group. Let’s look at how niche marketing strategies work, and why it’s better to advertise to a larger demographic.

TED Talks: Review and Critical Reception

What is Chris Anderson’s TED Talks about? What is the key message to take away from the book? Published in 2016, TED Talks is a nuts-and-bolts guide to public speaking that takes you from the initial idea to your final bow. The book became a New York Times bestseller, and Publisher’s Weekly dubbed it an “invaluable guide.” Read the Shortform review of TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson.

Delivering Your Speech: How to Make an Impact

What is the key to delivering a truly great speech? What do all great speakers have in common? When it comes to delivering your speech, how you present yourself is just as important as what you say. If you want to give a truly great speech, it isn’t enough to have the perfect words, strategies, and setup—you also need stage presence. The way you present yourself makes the difference between a forgettable speech and one that leaves your audience inspired. Here are some things to keep in mind.

The 1962 Stock Market Crash: Panic on Wall Street

Where can panic on Wall Street lead? What’s a “flash crash”? In his essays on Wall Street, John Brooks discusses how letting gut reactions override logical thinking can lead to dire results. He uses the 1962 stock market crash as an example. Continue reading to learn about this incident and what it teaches us about economics and human behavior.

Stumbling on Happiness: Review & Critical Analysis

Are you considering reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert? How was the book received by the public and critics? If you’re looking for a how-to guide on happiness, look elsewhere. In Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert shows how, despite our best efforts, we often fail to make choices that maximize our future happiness. It seems that we more often stumble on happiness than successfully create it. Here’s our Stumbling on Happiness review.

Healthcare Culture: Should Failure Be Acknowledged?

Is healthcare culture failure-averse? When mistakes and failures occur, should they be acknowledged and treated as learning opportunities? In Black Box Thinking, the author talks about how certain industries progress from failures. For example, the airline industries carefully track and learn from their mistakes while our healthcare culture has an aversion to failure. Keep reading to learn why failure aversion in healthcare culture stunts growth in the healthcare system.

Why Do We Lie? Jordan Peterson Explains

Why do we lie? What’s really behind our efforts to conceal the truth? How does lying compromise your personal integrity? We may lie to get what we want or to make a certain impression. However, lying may not be the best strategy to achieve either of those things. According to Jordan Peterson, when we lie to others, we also lie to ourselves. In his book, 12 Rules for Life, he says“Tell the truth—or at least don’t lie” for lying obscures your personal truth. Here’s why we lie, according to Peterson.

The 4 Leadership Techniques to Amplify Your Team

Are you having a hard time asserting yourself as a leader? What are some leadership techniques you can implement in your role? Without a leader, a team is liable to fall apart. An effective leader steps in and assures that every team member has an important role to play. In his book The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey describes four leadership techniques that can make you a strong and confident leader. Keep reading to learn how to apply these leadership techniques in your organization.

TED Talks: The Official Guide to Public Speaking

What is Chris Anderson’s TED Talks about? What advice does he give to aspiring public speakers? In TED Talks: The Official Guide to Public Speaking, Chris Anderson, the head of TED, shares his secrets to a spectacular public speech from the initial idea to the final bow. A great speech has the power to inspire and change the world, but most people believe that public speaking is an innate talent. Chris Anderson wrote this book to derail that self-limiting belief. Below is a brief overview of TED Talks by Chris Anderson. We’ll take you through Anderson’s advice piece by piece,

Describing Happiness: 5 Reasons Why It’s So Difficult

Have you ever tried to describe happiness to someone? Why is it so difficult to discuss happiness in an objective way? Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor and the author of Stumbling on Happiness, theorizes that happiness is difficult to describe and discuss for five specific reasons. Gilbert further theorizes that most of the time people don’t even realize when they’re happy or unhappy, which complicates the issue further. Here’s why it’s difficult to objectively discuss and describe happiness.