Shortform Books

Verne Harnish: 4 Tips to Keep Your Business Growing

What does business growth expert Verne Harnish recommend to keep your business growing once it’s up and running? What are the keys to the successful implementation of your growth plan? In Scaling Up, Verne Harnish discusses what it takes to navigate an organization through the growth process. Once you’ve established a strong foundation, he offers four things you should do to guide the implementation of your scaling-up strategy. Continue reading to learn these four keys from Verne Harnish.

Why You Must Stop Setting Low Goals

Do your low goals help you achieve a higher-level goal? Why should you be picky about which goals you pursue? If you are pursuing a goal that does not directly connect to your high-level goals (e.g. writing a novel or starting a business), you should drop it. Otherwise, you are wasting valuable time that could be spent pursuing your high-level goals. Here is why you should prioritize which goals you spend time on.

How to Overcome the Halo Effect Bias

The 25 Cognitive Biases: Halo Effect Bias

What is the halo effect bias? How do you correct the halo bias? The halo effect bias is the tendency to let your dislike of someone or another group blind you to the virtues and strengths of the other party. This can lead to bad decisions or dangerous underestimation of a hated enemy. You can correct the bias by inverting your feelings to see what you can find to like about the object of your hatred. Read on to learn more about the halo effect bias.

Self-Teaching: You Are Your Own Best Teacher

What are the benefits of self-teaching? Do you really learn more through slow, directionless learning? Is there such thing as overlearning? In his book Range, David Epstein asserts that the slow and directionless self-learning process is more effective than structured learning. This is because when you learn on your own, you’re forced to struggle through experimentation—which ultimately leads to a better understanding of the subject matter. Here is why learning through self-teaching may actually be better than taking structured classes.

How to Stay Hungry for Success: Think of Your “Why”

Do you struggle to find the motivation to work on your goals? How can you get yourself to push forward when motivation runs low? Oftentimes, people think they want to achieve a certain goal, yet their behavior indicates otherwise. If you lack the drive and hunger to pursue a goal in spite of the obstacles, you must remind yourself on a regular basis why it’s worth persevering for. Here are some lessons on staying hungry for success.

The Aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election

Why did the rates of violence increase following the 2016 presidential election? How did the election of Donald Trump invoke white supremacism? In her book Caste, Isabel Wilkerson discusses how the caste system in America led to violence after Donald Trump’s election. According to Wilkerson, many white Americans had been feeling threatened because people of color were gaining more recognition and the election of Trump gave them permission to act on their white supremacist beliefs. Here’s what happened in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election.

How to Overcome Learned Helplessness With Optimism

What is learned helplessness? How can learned helplessness lead to depression and hopelessness? Learned helplessness is when you’re taught that bad things can’t be prevented or controlled. This is a dangerous way of thinking because it makes you give up and suffer through negative events rather than trying to escape or prevent them. Learn how to overcome learned helplessness through grit.

Psycho-Cybernetics & Subconscious Mind Programming

How does the subconscious mind sabotage your behavior? Is it possible to reprogram your subconscious mind to make yourself act in a more goal-oriented way? Subconscious mind programming is rooted in the assumption that your mind can be programmed—just like a computer can be—to think in ways that are conducive to your goals. So, if your subconscious mind is working against you (preventing you from performing the behaviors needed to achieve your goals), you can reprogram it to be willing and able to perform those behaviors. In this article, we’ll discuss two ways your subconscious mind programming impacts how you

How to Build the Next Trillion-Dollar Business

What do you need to build the next trillion-dollar business? What are the factors that can affect businesses in the 21st century? To build your company into the next trillion-dollar business, you will need exceptional brand recognition, enduring customer loyalty, and scale. You must also recognize the impact of the depreciating dollar, technology, and changing consumer purchasing power on your business goals. Read on to discover more about what it takes to build the next trillion-dollar business.

Incentive-Caused Bias: Definition and Examples

The 25 Cognitive Biases: Incentive Caused Bias

What is incentive-caused bias? How do you prevent reward bias? Incentive-caused bias is the tendency of people to maximize their rewards within any incentive scheme. When people gain rewards for acting in a certain way, they will find it difficult to act otherwise, even when doing so would violate the intent of their obligations. You can prevent reward bias by designing incentive schemes that cannot be easily manipulated. Read on to learn more about incentive-caused bias.