The World's Best Book Summaries
How is technology manipulating you? Is it your fault you have trouble focusing? Johann Hari, the author of Stolen Focus, believes the solutions put forward for the attention crisis aren’t working because they focus on personal responsibility. However, he claims that the tech industry is manipulating you to believe that it’s your fault. Continue reading to learn more about overcoming technology’s manipulation.
If you want to succeed with your startup, what must you believe to be true? What should you value? According to entrepreneurs Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba, your mindset determines your level of motivation and your ability to set ambitious but realistic goals. If you lack the right mindset, any action you take is less likely to succeed. We’ll look at two main aspects of the right mindset Ali and Kubba describe: first, believing that both hard work and luck matter, and, second, knowing your purpose. Keep reading to learn more about the optimal startup mindset.
What’s the goal of life? Did Aristotle get it right? Aristotle spent a lot of time thinking about life and its ultimate goal. He considered what we do and why we do it. He concluded that a good life is a happy life—and a happy life is a good life. Read more to better understand Aristotle’s view.
Is disappointment or boredom getting you off track in life? What does it mean to “gamify your life,” and how can it motivate you toward your goals? You might have experienced how gamification can help you stick to an exercise plan or a project at work. You can apply the same model to your life. Peak performance expert Eric Barker shows you how, discussing four features that your game must have if you want to stay motivated in life. Keep reading to learn how to gamify your life’s journey.
Are your business meetings productive? How can you get the most out of your meetings? According to Julie Zhuo in The Making of a Manager, a core function great managers perform to facilitate great outcomes is running productive meetings. Meetings take up a large portion of company time, so it’s essential to extract maximum value when people come together. Continue reading to learn how to run an effective meeting.
What are the dangers of big data? How do businesses use data to exploit their customers? In Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz warns that big data can easily lend itself to exploitative practices by businesses and by governments. They do this by making inappropriate assumptions about individuals. Continue reading for more details about the dangers of big data.
What can networking do for you and your business? What’s particularly powerful about networks of three? In Tribal Leadership, authors Dave Logan, Halee Fischer-Wright, and John King explain how tribes develop through stages. At Stage 4, a tribal leader deliberately cultivates relationships with potential tribe members. The authors discuss three-part relationships (triads) in particular, identifying three main benefits: They’re stable, they’re easily expanded, and they enable creativity. Keep reading to learn about the importance of networking in business, the Tribal Leadership way.
What is the normal distribution in statistics? How do measures of central tendency relate to the normal distribution? The normal distribution is a foundational concept in statistics. When data is normally distributed, it means that most values cluster around the center. Therefore, the mean, median, and mode are exactly the same in a normally distributed data set. Keep reading for the theory of normal distribution, explained in simple terms.
Why did Eurasian society thrive throughout history? What set Eurasian farming apart from other areas of the world? According to the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, a large part of why Eurasia thrived was due to its history of domesticated animals. Diamond claimed that Eurasia had more domesticable farm animals than most parts of the world. Keep reading to learn about the history of domesticated animals on Eurasian farms.
Why is trust important in a team? What are the symptoms of low trust in a team? How can you build team trust? Stephen Covey wrote The Speed of Trust to explain the far-reaching and sometimes subtle impacts of trust in your life. Covey believes society has learned to undervalue trust even though it affects your success in all your relationships, including your career. Fostering team trust in the workplace is one of Covey’s key points. Read on to find out why trust is important in a team, including how to build team trust, according to Covey.