I HIGHLY recommend this book if you want an in depth understanding of the science behind success & how to apply it to maximize your results in your own unnique situation.

This was a great listen. What makes a great listen for me is one where I learn all the new things I didn't know I didn't know, about a subject.

Most people think you should always be optimistic about your chances of easily achieving success when you start something challenging. But Ayelet explains why it's not that simple.

When we anticipate how difficult something will be, we work harder to increase our chances of success over the long term.

Research shows that people who think losing weight will be easy lose more weight forup to 6 months, but those that assume it will be hard, lost & maintained more weight loss after a year & beyond.

You read that right, start optimistic & excited, but once you've established a solid committed habit, anticipate how hard it will be to maintain.

Set " pre-commitments ", also known as " if / when / then " plans, or " implementation intentions " to maintain success long term, or for a lifetime.

My favorite chapter was " The Glass Half Full and Half Empty ". She talks about when setting avoidance goals works better than approach goals & vice versa.

She dispells the oversimplified myth that approach goals are always better & digs into when they are & aren't the best way to maximize your odds of success.

Even though it's obvious, many founders & leaders don't outsource all the things they could train others to do. If that's you, get this book & learn how.

Imagine investing 100% of your time doing ONLY what you love & are excited about. How much happier & more energized would you feel wasting 0% of your time on all the things you hate doing.

That's what this book teaches you how to do using simple, tested techniques.

What it's REALLY about is growing your business faster than ever because you spent all you time doing only the few things nobody else can do.

The thing I didn't love about this book is the pie in the sky, 10X, " Anything you can conceive 7 believe, you can achieve. " Tragically people still believe such bunk because of " survivorship bias ".

Having a vision & inspiring trajectoty is a psychologically solid motivational strategy, but overly specific timebound goals that are unrealistic or attainable tend to backfire & demoralize those who set them.

I'd say ignore that advice & focus on the core message & namesake of the book.

This book is about everything the " Success Experts " don't know about the SCIENTIFIC psychology & practice of success. this boo will teach you more than all the famous, half truth gurus premium retreats, masterminds, or paid groups COMBINED. It'll take just 8 hours & 24 minutes.

That's because what the gurus sell HAS to be simple, prescriptive & work in every situation. The reality of success & everything else isn't that simple. None of this book is complicated, but there's so much REAL knowledge based on scientific research that it'll take more time & effort to understand & apply than the $3,000 / weekend up to what's rumored to be $ 1,000,000 / year PLUS a profit share in your company!

It'll cost you $ 11.57 U.S. and FAR exceed the value about becaue it's the whole truth ( as we know it at the time of this writing ) rather than the oversimplified 1/2 or 1/4 truth the cost of one of those feel good seminars or memberships.

The truth is that being overly optimistic & positive is as, if not more useless than being completely pessimistic & negative.

BOTH have valuable parts to play in maximizing your odds of success using the whole scientific truth.

If you MUST, go to one of those seminars, listen to this book first so you can openly, or privately mock the fruitloopery they're selling ;-)

I just finished listening to this book today. I LOVED it!!
I'm a natural or perhaps trained contrarian because tha's how science rolls, skeptically.

I think we need more skepticism in this age of rampant " fruitloopery". And this book makes handy work of the notion that " Winners never quit & quitters never win."

I used to call it "strategic quitting" but after this excellent book, I'll be calling it "opTimal quitting" inspired by this book.

Annie Duke has lived what she writes & does an AWESOME job explaining the poorly understood & underutilized insights behinda long list of cognitive biases including " THe Endowment Effect", " Sunk Cost Fallacy" & many more tightly associated with an escalation of commitment.

The science behind the truth is that quitting when something isn't likely ( statistically speaking ) to return high enough expected value, quitting is often the fastest & shortest path to success.

I LOVED that she used a strategy she called " Kill Criteria " via premortems to create " Implementation Intentions " BEFORE " you're in it " so you have the best chance to be gritty, or " quitty " when it counts most.

RECOMMENDED, with extreme scince geek prejudice!!

This is my new favorite book about teaching because it introduces the neuroscience of teaching, learning & memory in a very accessible way.

An example is " Your working memory is a four armed octopus. "

It's also VERY close to my heart because it teaches the uncommon sense I've been struggling to convince my industry & colleagues of since I arrived in Japan.

Specifically, the counterintuitive use, overuse & misuse of praise, reinforcement, reward & empathy to maximize student motivation, success & memory.

This book is for everyone who wants to understand blockchain technology.

The authors do an exceptional job of making it easy for anyone to understand.

It delivers a hopeful message about blockchain technology & how it can be used as a force for good.

It can protect our private data, TRULY democratizes the internet, & provide access to investments previously unavailable to the masses & so much more.

It can help build trust, facilitate value & information exchange in a way never before possible, or imaginable.

It can be used to create a future with more inclusion & equity of virtually everything we value.

I have mixed feelings about Jay Abraham & his books, but I think this one is excellent because both authors taught a great deal, especially Ronald Frasier.

I think the ideas in this book need to be shared & applied to create wealth & win - win deals.

People who don't have access to the resources of the very rich can use the strategies in this book to acquire businesses, or other resources without using or risking their own money.

I don't care for the title which is typical of the phrasing Jay Abraham likes to use. Back in the REAL world, risk CANNOT be eliminated, but it can be managed. Despite the questionable title, the strategies in this book seem solid. While you may not always be able to acquire these resources with no money down, I think the strategies maximize your odds of doing so.

Impact Players is the 2nd of Liz Wiseman's books I recommend.

I recommend them equally, but for different purposes. This one is about identifying, growing, leading & becoming an outstanding employee, team member & colleague.

Wiseman did some in depth interviews & research with leaders in some of the top organizations in the world including N.A.S.A. , Target & Ordinary People who have " The Right Stuff " to get noticed by working on & filling the gaps that are ever present in EVERY organizations.

They take responsibility & lead, especially when they nobody asks them to.

To me th most important point she makes is that it's only possible IFF the culture & leadership allow people to BE self- managed Impact Players.

This book redefined what I thought I knew about the importance of sleep. Unless you're the author, you owe it to yourself to listen to this book.

A few outstanding things I learned are:

1 ) That REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) are both essential to your memory, learning, physical health & psychological well being.

2 ) " The longer you sleep, the longer you live. "

3 ) If you disrupt the beginning of your sleep, everything you learned that day may be permanently lost, until you relearn it.

I can't do this book enough justice on how essential sleep is to your thinking, self development, health & success.

Get a full night's sleep, listen to this book, then get ANOTHER full night's sleep to maximize you life.

I just finished listening to this book today. I LOVED it!!
I'm a natural or perhaps trained contrarian because tha's how science rolls, skeptically.

I think we need more skepticism in this age of rampant " fruitloopery". And this book makes handy work of the notion that " Winners never quit & quitters never win."

I used to call it "strategic quitting" but after this excellent book, I'll be calling it "opTimal quitting" inspired by this book.

Annie Duke has lived what she writes & does an AWESOME job explaining the poorly understood & underutilized insights behinda long list of cognitive biases including " THe Endowment Effect", " Sunk Cost Fallacy" & many more tightly associated with an escalation of commitment.

The science behind the truth is that quitting when something isn't likely ( statistically speaking ) to return high enough expected value, quitting is often the fastest & shortest path to success.

I LOVED that she used a strategy she called " Kill Criteria " via premortems to create " Implementation Intentions " BEFORE " you're in it " so you have the best chance to be gritty, or " quitty " when it counts most.

RECOMMENDED, with extreme scince geek prejudice!!

This is a totally geek book, in fact, it's a neuroscience course about brain hacks based on neuroscience research.

That said, it's in everyday language & you don't need to know ANYTHING about neuroscience to use these science backed hacks.

I've already come across one that I'm not sure I agree with. That's the nature of science & learning.

We should embrace or at least give sober consideration to ideas that disconfirm our current knowledge, understanding & beliefs.

In this case, I think one works better under some conditions, the other under different conditions since both have scientific support.

If it ever turns out I find one is definitively correct & the other is not, I'll change my teaching, & modify this text to reflect it. Until then, I recommend testing both. Email me directly for details.

If you have one tactic or strategy that you believe works, & another comes along with good evidence that disconfirms & / or contradicts the second, test them BOTH in real life to see which works for YOU under those conditions.

You may choose to dump one, but I would encourage you to continue testing them until you're satisfied that both work, or one works best before excluding the other.

This isn't my typical book recommendation, yet I do so highly. Anyone who wants to learn the shortest path to finding that which is most likely to give you more success, career & life fulfillment.

Gallup has shown that people find all 3 in doing what they do BEST even better, NOT fixing what they do less well.

If you're great at something, focus on strengthening THAT. Strengthsfinder 2.0 is the book, & tool to help you...find those strengths.

If you are very self-aware & already KNOW what you do well, this book & its companion assessment will validate it. If you're not sure, this is the way to find out.

It's worth the small investment either way, & you may be surprised by what you learn.

Imagine doing more of what you're good at as the path to more success & fulfillment.

It's easier, more intrinsically rewarding & frequently what you like doing best anyway :-)

If you suck at something, outsource it. No you can't outsource your fitness, but nearly everything else.

If you can't outsource it, contact me tim@crush-it-club.com to maximize your progress through brain based learning.

Ths gist of this book couldn't be simpler.

1 ) Don't hire assholes.

Then he supports this position with scientific research.

2 ) Fire assholes who refuse to change, EVEN if they're superstars.

Then he supports this position with scientific research.

He also gives you deeper tools & insight on how to do both, plus how to work with, or for assholes until you can find a better job, or have them fired.

He also goes into some famous, ultra-successful assholes & why, even then, he'd choose to find a different job or company to work with.

And you guessed it, supported by scientific research;-)

Are you too smart & skilled to use a checklist?

Think again!

In this book Atul Gawande, a surgeon, dives deep into why everyone, no matter how smart or skilled they are, should be using checklists.

EVERY professional pilot on EARTH uses one, & tens of thousands of lives a year are being saved because world class surgeons, aircraft mechanics & many other top professionals put aside their egos & achieve superior consistency & results like never before by using the humble checklist.

The VERY BEST ARE the best, in part BECAUSE they use checklists.

Read this book to get world class results by doing what they do.

As a Leader & Decision Maker, you owe it to yourself, your family or anyone else you lead to read this book.

The over-arching message is very simple, but if you want to understand, create & apply it to your leadership & success, a deeper understanding is essential.

This is one of those books that many people reference when they're trying to impress others or demonstrate their authority, but that's silly, even foolish if you've never actually read it.

It's not an easy read despite the simple theme, but that's exactly WHY you should listen to it.

It's FAR better to have ACTUALLY read & learned from a book than to fake having done so & be seen as an imposter by those to those who actually have.

If you want to BE the best at what you do, you have to READ the best & this book is one of those books.

Daniel Kahneman of Thinking Fast & Slow & Noise fame talks about this book & Tetlock's Good Judgement Project.

If you want to make judgements like the VERY BEST, get this book.

By learning how superforecasters do what they do you can make decisions that maximize your results in life & business.

Superforecasters are even better in making predictions than top U.S. security analysts who have access to top secret information superforecasters lack, yet they consistently outperform the analysts.

No matter what you're making judgements about, learning how to superforecasters do it can radically improve your success by applying their superior decision making strategies.

I first learned what growth mindset meant from Dr.Angela Duckworth's TED Talk, & eventually her book. That talk led me to Dr. Carol Dweck's talk & this book.

From years in the classroom, I'd discovered what most mindful teachers learn there, students do their best by trying their best.

Some of the LEAST " talented " or intelligent students ourperform their smarter classmates just by learning that the ONLY failure in the classroom is not trying their best.

This book digs into the research, gives you scientific validation & a term for what I taught & saw in my classroom.

Get this book to learn how to apply growth mindset to your leadership, work & life.

I first learned of GRIT & Growth Mindset from the author's TED Talk of the same name. One of my student's had sent it to me as part of their homework assignment. Each week they presented & taught their partner about the TED talk they had seleted. Their partner did the same.

It was years later before I got around to listening to this book.

But when Angela mentioned Carol Dweck's " Growth Mindset "during her talk I bought & listened to Carol's book immediately.

Both verified scientificially what I had discovered experientially, students succeed best through GRIT & growth mindset. Listen to BOTH to get a deeper understanding of these topics, especially if you want to learn how to apply them in your leadership, coaching or teaching.

Like so many things " everybody knows " superficial understanding of what they are won't cut it when it comes to applying them effectively.

While this book focuses on using Motivational Interviewing in its traditional context of counseling, my interest is in how it can be applied to leadership.

I have a video on that topic, based mainly on this book here.

As leaders, even if you can TELL people what to do, your business culture is better off if you allow them to consider your perspective & decide for themselves.

Beyond your employees, & some business partners, nobody else has to do or believe anything you say.

Sadly, evidence does almost nothing to change people's minds, & often backfires as they push back ever harder on their current position BECAUSE of your evidnce. The more compelling it is, the more they're likely to resist
:-?

Motivational Interviewing takes a different path by encouraging others to consider thier own position by asking such questions as " What makes you think that? " , " How do you know that? " , or " Where did you learn about that? "...

In answering their own questions about what & how they think or believe, you up your chances they will consider the merits of your position more openly.

This book offers you the opportunity to lead & persuade better through the techniques of motivational Interviewing.

Chicken is more energy efficient ( has a smaller carbon footprint ) than tomatoes!

This book is as amazing as I expected it to be & where I learned the above surprising fact.

It was recommended to me by my brother in law & to everyone by Bill Gates.

I've just started listening, but I can tell that his perspective is REAL & science based.

He describes in clear terms how our ENTIRE economy & modern way of life is dependent on fossil fuels & petrochemicals & why that won't change anytime soon.

And how it will likely take decades of serious effort & commitment to decarbonize our economy without reverting to a pre-industrial standard of living.

He describes the energy requirements of food by teaching us how much diesel it takes to produce it.

It's a brilliant & simple way to compare & understand the REAL cost of anything in our modern world to any other.

It's a MUST listen if you want to be well informed about the scientific reality of what it will take to switch our economy to be carbon free, carbon neutral or sustainable.

To shoot images like the ones shown here, you NEED to use proper HDR ( High Dynamic Range ) techinque. At least until cameras with 24ish eV's ( Exposure Values ) of dynamic range are available & affordable.

This is the best in depth book on this topic in existence. If you find one better, please share it.

It came to mind during a conversation with my neice about photographing her artwork.

If you want to capture images that look exactly as you saw them with your own eyes, HDR is the only way to do that.

If want to properly light 3D computer animation & models, this book has that covered too. To make the most accurate & realistic renders you need " IBL ( Image Based Lighting ) & they require high dynamic range images to work properly.

If you want to capture & create remarkable HDR images & lighting for CG, this is the book you need.

It's rare I do this, but after listening to the 2nd edition, New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man I feel confident & compelled to share the latest edition.

I have yet to listen to this one, but will recommend it based on the author, his 2nd edition & its premise.

Given current economic & political events I feel it would be irresponsible not to recommend the most recent edition.

The gist is simple. Large, evil multinational corporations have been recruiting & colluding with " Econocmic Hitmen ", banks governments, the C.I.A., U.S. military, & private security contractors to extract wealth & natural resources from the poorest & funnelling it to the very wealthiest at the expense of the environment & everyone else.

I sounds so sureal that it seems like a wild conspiracy.

While there's no way for us to verify it, he provides compelling reference & decades of historical events to support his claims.

It's horrifying, but also hopeful so long as we choose take the specific actions like boycotting unethical companies, buying local, consuming less & letting companies know why you are choosing to buy, or not buy from them.

This is an excellent book, by an excellent thinker with a rare business model. Given the research, it's shocking that it's not MUCH more common, especially because, a company you may have heard of, Amazon uses a version of the same model.

Another far less famous pest control business ( link & name to come ) shows WHY you should probably follow suit.

Despite overwhelming evidence, most companies & coaches won;t do business that way, why?

Because they're ONLY exceptionally confident in their products when they're selling them, NOT on delivery.

But the book isn;t about that, it's about how a TRULY exceptional leadership consultant / coach does his thing, & teaches you how you might do something similar.

This is the ONLY book I've read on gamification that truly impresses me. While I thought that Jane McGonigal's Reality is Broken was quite good, I found her later book on gamification of your life SuperBetter less so.

Honestly, most book on gamification I've listened to that was theoretical to the point of being useless, or didn't go " Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards ". IOW, they were unimaginative & didn't enable me to gamify anything to a level that would be engaging.

This book is different because it goes more in depth & offers more game mechanics, & how to use them well, FAR beyond any other book I've yet heard.

I was impressed that he'd found many principles from persuasion & motivational psychology purely from his work in gamification. He later found their equivanents in the academic research & cited them throughout this book.

It'll take some real effort & thought to apply what he teaches well, but this is the one book you should read if you want to take gamification beyond games & into leadership, management, training & business.

At the time of this writing this in Daniel Pink's most recent book. Though my favorite of his books is Drive, this one is more universal in that it answers questions almost everyone has like:

" Is follow your bliss good career or life advice? " or " Should I reach out to my friend I haven;t spoken to in 30 years ? "

It's based on one of the largest online surveys of question about regret, why it's a good things & which of our intuitions about it are correct or not.

I was just reminded of this book at the " After Party " of a networking event. This is the book that taught me difinitively that learning styles are a MYTH why that matters, & how what we call learning styles are actual learning preferences.

The beauty of this book is it's a scientist teaching the rest of us, including other scientists the benefits of thinking like a scientist.

He points out how even N.A.S.A. ( a.k.a. ANYONE alive ) can get this wrong, because we are, everone one of us, human first, & everything else second.

This book both terrified and amazed me. As a long-time neuroscience geek, I was completely unaware of how advanced "Neuro-Tech" (Neuro-Technology) has become.

Neuro-Tech is the practice of using technology to directly or indirectly detect, interpret, and even stimulate parts of the brain, including deep structures, to produce a result.

Researchers have even used EEG and algorithms to steal a video game player's credit card PIN number! They did this by introducing game elements like signs and addresses, and then detecting a specific brainwave pattern that only occurs when the player recognizes something.

The scary and amazing part is that this process is involuntary and subconscious, so the subject is unaware that it has happened!

This is not just science fiction for the future, but a current scientific fact. Monkeys are already playing pong with their brains, typing with their brains, and even controlling a swarm of three drones using only their brains!

This is biofeedback taken to the level of Neuromancer, a science fiction work by Canadian author William Gibson. He is also the author behind the Amazon Original The Peripheral, which revolves around EEG Neuro-Tech.

Nowadays, you can buy multi-channel EEGs (electroencephalograms) that measure electrical activity in the brain and interpret it meaningfully for advanced forms of biofeedback, diagnostics, and self-care purposes.

There are even EMG wristbands that read signals originating from the brain, which can be used for the aforementioned purposes and even to control amputated or remote limbs!

This is the single best book on real world tested techniques for diversifying your problem solving skills, finding more & better solutions. While it's quite complete in its own right with respect to cognitive biases, Noise first & foremost, then The Wisdom of Crowds second will supercharge your results when their insights are combined with the strategies in this book.

May has been consulting on the topics in this book with top Fortune 500 companies for years.

This is an application first book whose strategies are derived primarily from his consulting practice, then supported by academic & scientific research after the fact.

My opinion of this book isn't the best , but it's still a book worth reading on the topic of story branding.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that every one of the 7 steps are necessary to create a storybrand since companies like Nike achieved in with 3 words ( Just Do It ).

That said, This book along with Stories That Stick & others I have yet to add are all worthy reads about this important topic.

Honestly, this one of my weakest areas when it comes to writing, that's why I seek out every decent sounding book on the topic of storytelling for teaching, branding & marketing I can get my hands on.

Read this book to tap into the collective intelligence of EVERYONE, in your company, but ONLY IFF you create the conditions described in this book.

Crowds aren't automatically wiser, but typically dumber, noisier & more biased by default unless they're intentionally designed to be otherwise.

First published in 2004, this book is probably first to bring the wisdom of crowds, or collective intelligence of groups into popular awareness & business practice.

It teaches us how to create groups whose collective intelligence can be higher than any member in that group.

It's the basis of creating an exceptionally effective mastermind group of which most are NOT.

The research described within it is supported by later work such as Noise by Daniel Kahneman, Cass R. Sunstein & Oliver Sibony published in 2021.

This book is essential listening if you want to lead or thrive in an international, multicultural team.

I've been in Japan over 17 years, but she still taught me some surprising things about Japanese business culture with which I'm quite familiar.

But she taught me far more about all the many other cultures she details in this book.

The best in necessarily saved for the last because she describes how to turn an overwhelming amount of detail into a simple visual for she calls...a culture map. But having a concrete, yet simple visual representation of each culture you can understand, potential problems, solutions & opportunities to create positive relationships between members & across cultures.

The biggest takeaway for me came early. She emphasizes that it's not just the culture of others, or yours that matters, but the relationship between them & their relative position to other cultures.

An America may find a Japanese colleague frustratingly evasive, indirect & slow to decide. And they may see you as too harsh & direct. And yet, another culture, like the Dutch will see you both as very similar. It's all about each culture fits on the scales relative to others. It's a very enlightening & coprehensive model of cultural differences.

This pair of adademic brothers are two of my favorite authors. I've read most, if not all of their books because they do extensive research, then distill it into well writtenb books that are accessible to anyone:-)

What follows is an ever expanding list of their books I've listened to or read by these authors.

Chip Heath is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University.

Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs.
He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin.

Watch my book review here.

This is my favorite of the Brother's Heath books. They're all excellent, but this one has something special beyond their other books.

I think it's because I think this one is applicable to anyone, & the E.P.I.C. formula can be used in any life situation to make business, family or romantic experiences into Powerful Moments your customers, partner or family will remember fondly for a lifetime:-)

I've read most if not all of their books & they will all appear on this page eventually.

This is the best book for identifying the elements that make anything more memorable. What it's NOT, is the best book on how to APPLY these emements to storytelling.

The best one I know of for that is Stories That Stick by Kindra Hall.

By my story telling power trio for supercharging your storytelling, read The Power Of Moments also by The Brothers Heath to maximize the emotional impact to the moments that matter within your brand stories.

These 3 books togethergive you a brand storytelling powerhouse:-)

But this book stands alone for helping you make anything more memorable by using their acronym S.U.C.C.E.S.s. It stand for:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story

While you don't have to use every element, the more you use, the more memorable your ideas will be.

It's been an age since I listened to this one, but phrase Decisive, brough it back to my attention.

As the Brothers Heath so oftent do, they use a mnemonic to help us remember their research backed cognitive frameworks.

In this book we learn THE W.R.A.P. FRAMEWORK for making better decisions.

WIDEN - your options
REALITY-test your assumptions.
ATTAIN -some distance before deciding.
And PREPARE - to be wrong.
As with every single one of their books, also recommended here, they're packed with REAL scientific research that's made understandable & usable by anyone.

I'm a big fan of the Brother's Heath books. I've listened to most, if not all of them, & several, more than once. My favorite is The Power of Moments also listed in this page.

Switch is well summarized in its subtitle. It's about how to use simple, common sense techniques whose effectiveness are backed by science.

While you may not hear me using many of the same words as they do, they have been very influential in my thinking & validatation of my own ideas. If you've watched 10 or more on my videos on my YouTube Channel - Crush-It-Club, you'll see that I their themes are a common thread across much of my principles, strategies & tactics.

If you listen to only one book on the topic of deep learning to create expertise, this is the one it should be.

It's not as entertaining or engaging as Smarter, Better, Faster or The Talent Code, but it IS more scientifically accurate.

It's also the only one of the 3 that made clear to me that practicing " micro-skills " is an essential part of deliberate practice.

It's co-authored by the inventor of the term " Deliberate Practice " & the " 10,000 hour Rule ".

Unlike all the other authors around this topic, K. Anders Ericsson is THE world authority on the science of mastery from which most other authors get much of their scientific insight on that topic.

If anyone knows of a more qualified expert on the science of expertise, please reach out & share it with me so I can listen to their work too:-)

If you're a student at ANY level, this book describe a scientifically proven way to study less & remember more.

This book is a no B.S., no frills look at the science of remembering, or more accurately, preventing forgetting by using flashcards CORRECTLY.

Brown describes why most study methods use & endorsed, even by prestigious educational institutions, are virtually useless. Most important, he teaches us how to do it RIGHT.

The title is a great summary of the book. It's one of a growing list of books that debunks the myth of " talent " & the dogma of " fixed mindset ".

Talent if it exists at all, is exceptionally RARE. That's great news for the rest of us mere mortals born without it.

It means that we ALL have the potential to EARN our talent, just like virtually every exceptional person on Earth & throughout history did.

It taught me about how struggle & effort are an essential requirement of deep learning & achieving excellence.

From a neuroscience perspective, it's mostly about the myelination. That's the insulation your brain makes every time you try your hardest to do something. Succeed or fail, with immediate & accurate feedback that circuit becomes better insulated, & faster. In fact, up to 300 times faster!

Faster Neuronal Connections ≈ " Talent " & Exceptional Performance at ANYTHING

This is the latest & greatest edition of their original book Nudge written in 2008.

I've read both, & assure you that the final edition is an improvement over the already excellent first edition.

The authors coined the term " Libertarian Paternalism " to describe the benevolent intent & goal of the nudges described in this book.

It means to persuade or nudge others toward the best outcome people would have chosen for themselves while maximizing their freedom to choose otherwise.

An example might be putting healthy food choices at eye level and making junk food available, but harder to find.

Richard Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize in behavioural economics.

And Cass R. Sunstein is a Harvard Law professor.

He's known for his work in constitutional law, behavioral economics & the ethics of influence among other topic around law & ethics.

This is one of my favorites. This & The Power of Habit are great because they're scientific subjects covered by professional writers, rather than by scientists, few of whom are good popular authors in their own expertise.

This book is very accessible & actionable for most readers with just enough science, & lots of great stories to illustrate the prinsiples he teaches in this book.

I'm pretty sure this is the book that put habits on the map as a way to achieve greater success to a popular audience.

As you might have guessed, it's about creating & maintaining good habits & / or breaking bad ones.

It's been a long while since I've read it but I remember enough to recommend it highly.

I first learn about Duhigg from his later book Smarter, Faster, Better here also in this list.

This book has some really good ideas & mindsets about developing mastery.

Specifically, that these days it's a DIY thing. You have virtually no choice except to self apprentice & take the initiative to learn and find the best teachers because the traditional apprenticeship system that created timeless masters like Leonardo DaVinci is gone :-?

That said, we have unprecidented access to knowledge & the best experts on Earth right from our phones. Just be careful, most famous virtually never means best.

A note on the author, he's probably a sociopath, & definately Machiavellian in his perspective so he's paranoid & doesn't hesitate discuss manipulating & scheming.

He's brilliant and has much to teach us, just take his psychologically dysfunctional & unhealthy mindset with a grain of salt.

He thinks every group or community is the same as the French royal court he frequently refers to.

This is a brilliant book about business development. The author is the nicest guy, one of the most professional professionals I've met in years. I met him digitally, years ago.

Mo started his career as an actuary ( numbers geek ) but his book impressed me because of his depth of knowledge of psychology & it's application to building relationships with people in general, but also in business. I've listened through this book 2 or 3 times, & it's not my last pass, which makes it an exception among the books I consume.

It's about building the momentum to keep your consulting business filled with a steady stream of clients by keeping his comprehensive "biz dev" Snowball System rolling downhill with consistent relationship building strategies. They are the core of own snowball & consulting practice.

Watch my book review here.

Reed Hastings is the co-founder, current CEO of Netflix ( at the time of this writing )& co-author of this book. It's about the unconventional, high performance culture inside Netflix, & how its exceptional team produces equally exceptional results daily.

Along with co-author Erin Meyer, an expert in workplace culture & author of The Culture Code we get an inside look from the founder & an outside view from a culture expert who frequently admits her initial surprise about the " culture deck " at Netflix.

I found myself chuckling at the commonalities between the culture at Netflix & my own intentionally created culture within all of my classrooms.

Sound scientific principles work EVERYWHERE, with people of every age & ability, but even better when excellence, transparency & psychological safety meets a team where excellence is not just expected, but REQUIRED.

This is an awesome book that brings together many scientifically proven principles of top performing teams from a LOOONG list of researchers including Robert Cialdini ( Influence ), Jim Collins ( Beyond Entreneurship 2.0 & many others ), Adam Grant ( Give & Take & Others ), Daniel Pink ( Drive & Others ), Brene Brown ( Daring Greatly ) & many more.

A must read for every business leader.

Patty McCord was the Chief Talent Officer at Netflix where she & Reed Hastings were two of the primary architects of the remarkable, high performance organizational culture at Netflix.

I listened to this book immediately following Reed's book No Rules Rules.

This book is a different perspective on the creation of The Netflix culture, both books bring differnt value & insight to the same IMO historic event organizational culture & psychology as they apply to the real world.

This book will show you WHY " Quantum Causation " is a narrative fallacy, myth, misunderstanding, or to put truthfully, lie based on ignorance of the topic.

It's easier to engage in magical thinking & superstition than to understand the complex & nuanced truth as far as humnity understands it. If you're interested in this topic, fair warning you'll learn why wishing for something, no matter how faithfully does NOTHING to " manifest it ". Acting on your wishes with consistency & GRIT is what " manifests " success.

Quantum physics is one of the most complex things humans have understanding of & most of us have no understanding of it at all.

I'm FAR from understanding quantum physics well, but there are reams of believers in " The Law of Attraction " who understand NOTHING about quantum physics whatsoever or they'd understand why it's not real.

This book isn't especially complex but even the simplest versions of quantum physics defies our everyday experience.

From the genius mind of Ray Dalio comes a horrifying picture of the future of financial markets & the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. It's based on his insights & extensive analysis the history of economics across the world & far back into history.

As a financial expert, former C.E.O. & founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, you should listen to this book if you want to understand the probable future of international ecomomics within our lifetime, starting NOW.

This is the book that made me such a HUGE fan of Ray Dalio. While he's not as knowledgeable about the scientific method, & especially neuroscience as he thinks he is, he's dead on MOST of the time, & probably one of the single most enlightened, intuitive & scientific business leaders in the world today.

Simply the best book on low risk investment authored by Warren Buffet's teacher.

It's not sexy, in fact I found it boring, but if you want to get rich the slow & lower risk way, like Warren Buffet did, this is the definitive book on that subject.

This isn't my typical book recommendation, yet I do so highly. Anyone who wants to learn the shortest path to finding that which is most likely to give you more success, career & life fulfillment.

Gallup has shown that people find all 3 in doing what they do BEST even better, NOT fixing what they do less well.

If you're great at something, focus on strengthening THAT. Strengthsfinder 2.0 is the book, & tool to help you...find those strengths.

If you are very self-aware & already KNOW what you do well, this book & its companion assessment will validate it. If you're not sure, this is the way to find out.

It's worth the small investment either way, & you may be surprised by what you learn.

Imagine doing more of what you're good at as the path to more success & fulfillment.

It's easier, more intrinsically rewarding & frequently what you like doing best anyway :-)

If you suck at something, outsource it. No you can't outsource your fitness, but nearly everything else.

If you can't outsource it, contact me tim@crush-it-club.com to maximize your progress through brain based learning.

It's been years since I listened to this book but the message is STILL with me. The greatest way to influence & change the behavior of a group or company is to identify, then influence the influencers withing that group. Influencers can be anybody from janitors to CEOs. Assigned positions are frequently irrelevant how influencial they are.

I don't remember the rest of the details, only that this was the 2nd of 3 excellent books by these authors & this groups all of which I highly recommend.

The other 2 are, Change Anything & Crucial Conversations, both of which are available on this page.

I listened to this book for the first time in the last year or so after a high level consultant who has been working with Fortune 500 companies for decades recommended it to me.

I was heartened that I had come to some of the same conclusions on my own & through my continuous learning.

This leads very natuarally into the topic of "psychological safety ". It's NOT about avoiding difficult, uncomfortable or awkward conversations, it's about making the most of, & getting the most from these crucial conversations.

There are 2 other books by this same group & I highly recommend all 3.

The other 2 are, Change Anything & Influencer, both of which are available on this page...after I links that no longer work with stripe amazon affiliate links :-?

This was the first of 3 book I've read / listened to by this group, & they're all excellent.

This one is more focused on personal or individual change for yourself or others, whereas the other 2 are more about helping others & groups change.

I don't remember many of the specifics, only that I was so impressed by the book & their actionable tactics for personal change that I wrote the company to tell them it was one of the best books I'd ever read on the topic.

Some of the changes they discuss in the book were challenging to the point of seeming impossible. It made their simple & direct, though not necessarily easy strategies all the more impressive. It's not because they were revolutionary or complex, but the opposite. They are usable for virtually any personal change effort you want to make.

There are 2 other books by this same group & I highly recommend all 3.

The other 2 are, Change Anything & Influencer, both of which are available on this page.

I LOVED this book! It's completely outside the wheelhouse of my Neuro-Cognitive Leadership, but well within my passions & interests.

If you care about & are interested in carbon sequestration technologies that are simple & available NOW, & for several thousand years previously, this is the book for you.

It's about how making biochar is an immediately available & inexpensive solution for removing & keeping greenhouse gases out of our atmosphere.

This is one step better than just reducing greenhouse gas emissions because it actually reverses the process. Biochar is like charcoal for ANY carbon based organic matter. It can store carbon in this form for hundreds of millions of years & has many useful properties from improving soil to becoming raw material for making carbon fiber & A sequestered carbon economy.

It's a well researched book with lots of specific, empirically derived values to make any science geek happy;-)

This book stands out for me because the author & his story are the subject of this book. Sure it's an autobiography, but it's so recent, & probably even more relevant since chat GPT has shown the public where A.I. is

I listened to it when it first came out after catching a famous podcast with Snoden & the host discussing the book.

Snowden was of course connect anonymously from somewhere in Russia.

The book was especially interesting because it was a first hand account of what happened rather than the excellent 2016 movie Snowden.

I think it would be really interesting to contrast his book, by watching the movie immediately afterward:-)

This book was recommended to me by a Court of Queen's Bench judge. I think that's the Canadian provincial equivalent to the supreme court, but don't quote me on that.

While his interest was probably the ethical, moral & practical implications of A.I. on making legal judgements & its affect on the law, mine was just to learn more about A.I..

To be honest, I was fascinated with everything the book had to say, including the the legal stuff.

If you're my age or older, it's likely you recognize the first author Henry Kissinger Former United States Secretary of State. His brilliance & insight was obvious throughout this book.

Whether you know nothinjg about A.I., like myself, or are an expert in it, this book will be as rewarding a listen for you as it was for me.

I'll expand this later. This book is a brilliant, sobering & terrifying look at the implications of A.I. & Social Media, the harm it can, has & will continue to do unless lawmakers & we as a society hold them accountable.

This isn't my typical book recommendation, yet I do so highly. Anyone who wants to learn the shortest path to finding that which is most likely to give you more success, career & life fulfillment.

Gallup has shown that people find all 3 in doing what they do BEST even better, NOT fixing what they do less well.

If you're great at something, focus on strengthening THAT. Strengthsfinder 2.0 is the book, & tool to help you...find those strengths.

If you are very self-aware & already KNOW what you do well, this book & its companion assessment will validate it. If you're not sure, this is the way to find out.

It's worth the small investment either way, & you may be surprised by what you learn.

Imagine doing more of what you're good at as the path to more success & fulfillment.

It's easier, more intrinsically rewarding & frequently what you like doing best anyway :-)

If you suck at something, outsource it. No you can't outsource your fitness, but nearly everything else.

If you can't outsource it, contact me tim@crush-it-club.com to maximize your progress through brain based learning.

It wasn't as good as I'd hoped but it's a very interesting look into one of the greatest minds in history.

This is one of my top all time favorite business books of ANY type. I've listened to this book 3 or 4 times, I love it that much:-) Its title clearly describes its core focus. They cite specific REAL companies & how they successfully scaled pockets in major international & national companies. 2 of my favorite things are:

1 ) The case study of Tamagoya ( Japanese for Egg House ) because I live in Japan & have cultural insight & familiarity bentos;-)

2 ) Their analogy of " Catholicism vs. Buddhism " as a business strategy. Catholicism represented centralized control, & standardization regardless of location or cultural variables. And Buddhism as decentralized control & adaption or integration of local & cultural variables. It was especially brilliant when they described it as a continuum where some aspects of a business may be highly standardized while others allow localized autonomy to find optimize & achieve the best of both worlds.

This is a MUST read for any leadrer wanting to scale & or translate excellence in their organization.

This is a brilliant book with a counter-intuitive insight. The author has Ph.D. in math. He worked for Microsoft & once believed technology could solve any problem.

After moving to India to save the world with technology he quickly learned he was mistaken.

Closets full of unused computers proved to him that without liasing technology with the people who use them technology was useless.

This book is about how human & cultural factors have to be considered & integrated into its use. The resulting behaviorial changes allow technology, modern medicine & anything else to be used in ways that maximally benefit those who use them.

I listened to this book immediately after Joseph Sugarman's The Adweek Copywriting Handbook ( Also in this list ). To be honest, I think this is the better book.

I learn a lot from both, but if you choose only one make it this book.

Ray Edwards uses a principle based top down approach that I found more clear and easier to apply to my own writing.

He starts with the idea, principle of goal behind the technique, THEN follow with an example.

This is my favorite & clearest of the 3 or so books I've read on copywriting.

I learned a lot from this book that confirmed what affect I hypothisized low standards al'a Atomic Habits & Tiny Habits would have on Millennials ( Gen Y ) & iGen ( Gen Z ).

It took exactly zero research & a few minutes of logic to realize the potential harm that unearned self esteem & validation would have on these generations. This book confirmed much of what I had thought ( mostly ) privately before.

Roy Baumeister was on the forefront of the self esteem movement way back when nobody had yet considered the obvious alternative, that success causes self-esteem, rather than the reverse.

Fortunately, Roy & his colleagues are REAL scientists & so tested their assumptions. They did an extensive meta-analysis of the self esteem research. Their conclusion, the direction of causation was backward. Unearned lavish praised has caused nothing but a two generation epidemic of narcissistically overconfident young adults, most of whom lacked any REAL skills. Worse yet, most have lower self esteem than previous generations since success in the REAL world isn't based on the insincere praise of mothers or misguided teachers.

During most of this time it was, & still is being misapplied in schools & training broadly. I have been a first hand witness as to the failed results of this unscientific nonsense here in Japan.

It's failed to teach the majority of its citizens beyond a beginner to low intermediate English despite having tried for over 140 YEARS.

To be fair, praising the slightest success, no matter how small has only been failing English students since that foolish idea was imported to Japan around the same time it was failing students in North America.

It's still the default core belief in the ESL industry. It's also why I've quit, or been fired repeatedly for trying to help my students succeed using such " heretical ", yet scientifically proven principles as deliberate practice, psychological safety & growth mindset:-)-

To this DAY, teachers & other professionals haven't got the message, high praise & low standards do not success or self-esteem make.

To be clear, there are plenty of genuinely successful young adults from both generations, but there are also more unsuccessful & / or lower self esteem victims of coddling than in any previous generations in modern history:-?

This is probably the book I refer to most often during any conversation about leadership & organizational culture.

The gist is that there are three core drivers of motivation for anyone whose work needs creativity & skill beyond the average assembly line worker.

You / People are motivated by:

1 ) Mastery: Having the opportunity & ability to continuously improve toward mastery in your work.

2 ) Autonomy: Having the freedom to do your work in whatever way you see fit rather than being micromanaged or forced to comply with " Best Practices " or SOPs ( Standard Operating Procedures ) that rob you of the ability to improve on or displace said processes.

3 ) Purpose: Having your work mean something beyond the paycheck. I know this from personal experience, printing junkmail, no matter the pay is still meaningless, soul crushing work. I'm confident many of you have your own version of the same.

Until & unless leaders address these areas, they should expect most or all of those they lead are quiet quitting every minute of the workday.

This book is AWESOME & I can't recommend it enough.

Ed Catmull is an exceptional leader, master of workplace culture & inventor of the Z Buffer.

If you don;t know what that is, it's cool, you don't need to. Just know that it means he's been a pioneer in digital animation since it's birth.

But it you know his name at all, it's probably for the same reason as myself, as the long time CEO of Pixar Animation.

He's a rare genius of people & technology & animation in computer science, which he hold a Ph. D in.

comments

This is also a good book, but honestly, I like How to write copy that sells by Ray Edwards ( above ) better.
Joseph Sugarman is apparently a more famous copywriter, but in my opinion Ray is a better author & teacher.

Reading both is probably better than reading either, but if you have to choose one, I recommend the other.

The best thing about this book is the fame of the author and some well known examples from famous products like BluBlocker Sunglasses.

It was instructive to listen to these books back to back to compare the simpler, but less skilled & writing of Sugarman against the superior skill & style of Edwards.

This book offers a combination of counter-intuitive strategies used by some of the most inovative businesses in the world & practices that come from research in psychology.

Sutton often blends the two by describing the techniques, then citing supporting research.

What I like most about this book is that he points out the nuances of real life few management & leadership researchers talk about in books aimed at a popular audience. Some of the the techniques seem contradictory, but aren't, others, taken to extremes can backfire, or are contradictory to others. WHen each is most useful depends on the goal, company culture & specifics of the project. He does a good job of pointing out those nuances so you can find the best approach for a given situation.

This isn't my favorite book by this author. Scaling Up Excellence is. You can find it elsewhere on this page. That said, I enjoyed the topic & this book because I'm a lifelong inventor & innovator.

I'm always on the lookout for new insights into innovation that I haven't heard of or used. I learned some new ideas & verified others I already use.

The main lesson I gained from this book was that leaders of innovative companies have to realize that what works for routine products in predictable environments can be counter-productive when applied to innovation.

Minimizing variation, diversity & variation is very good when a company is using 6 sigma or other systems to minimize errors in production. But those practices usually aren't appropriate for creative innovation & product development in the same company.

An exceptional book about media manipulation from an industry insider. This book outlines the deceptions & practices that make up the majority of our media today.

This is a brilliant book from Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahenman & Co - Author of Nudge, Cass R. Sunstein.

It's about how our judgement varies across time & mood even MORE than it's affected by biases.

It covers many interestting insights & techniques on how to improve your judgement by reducing noise & bias.

This is the update to a business classis by the genius who wrote Good to Great & Other books in this library.

Collins speaks on many time tested & researched back business practices that are mostly common sense that most business don't follow because of the rigid mindsets of their leadership.

Break away from dogma & the pack by applying the science & wisdom contained in this book.

I especially like their discussion of technology push vs. market pull & " O.P.U.R.s ".

This was the first Jim Collins book I ever read. I was extremely impresses by his matched pair experimental design. He paired & compaired 14 pairs of very similar companies. One of each ascended to greatness, while its matched company merely remained good.

Use the many brilliant insighte in this book to radically increase the chances of making your company GREAT!

I listened to this one recently. What I loved most about it was how down to Earth & pragmatic Walker's techniques are.

His " Product Launch Formula " takes much less time than other systems I've learned about.

I especially like his " Shot Accross the Bow " techniques & how he asks his new clients question to continuously improve his product not just every iteration, but EVERY DAY as he runs his trainings. BRILLIANT:-)

Dr. Robert Cialdini is the Godfather of modern persuasion & marketing psychology. Whether you've heard of him or not, most modern marketing is based on his research.

This is the second edition of this book, updated about 20 years after the original, twice the size & 10X better than the excellent original.

His insights in this edition are MUCH deeper, clearer & applicable to your marketing & leadership.

Honestly, you can skip the original, I've read both & this sequel FAR exceeds the first edition.

This edition introduces the 7th " Lever of Influence " a.k.a. Persuasion Principle as well as renaming & combining the original 6 into a superior & clear model of the psychology of influence, how to apply it ethically, & how to defend against it being used against you unethically.