Since I was 8 years old starting my journey to master the skill of playing the piano, my whole life has been devoted to two things: to constantly learn and to master new skills, and to help others achieve things they didn't think they were capable of. My journey has taken me through most if not all types of neurosciences and behavioral sciences, including psychology and psychiatry, to figure out how to manage your mind and body to live a life of learning. The lack of commitment to such a life is one of the reasons why so many people suffer from dissatisfaction and mental health issues.
I wrote...
Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before
For over thirty years I’ve helped thousands of individuals achieve things they didn’t think they were capable of. Drawing on my experience helping top business executives, special ops in the armed forces, and elite athletes succeed, my book offers more than 30 practical methods for you to unlock your limitless potential with the power of intrinsic motivation.
If you do, you'll be able to: command new topics and skills much faster than others; work successfully toward any goal or dream; and enjoy a high level of satisfaction in whatever you want or need to do. If you don’t, you risk: losing interest in things that used to interest you; viewing new ideas you encounter as uninteresting, uncomfortable, or too difficult; procrastinate, develop negative thinking; and suffer from increased stress levels.
Written by my mentor for many years, Mihaly “Mike” Csikszentmihalyi, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be truly creative and what is required to be able to generate important insights and contributions in any field.
You will learn about the habits of creative people and their complex personalities as well as understand which professional fields that are easy or difficult to make creative contributions in.
I would urge you to read very carefully what Mike writes about the complex personality of creative people and try to rebuild yourself in that manner.
“Although the benefits of this study to scholars are obvious, this thought-provoking mixture of scholarly and colloquial will enlighten inquisitive general readers, too.” — Library Journal (starred review)
The classic study of the creative process from the bestselling author of Flow.
Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“The leading researcher into ‘flow states.’” — Newsweek) reveals what leads to these moments—be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab—so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred…
The Pyramid Principle is about problem-solving and communication, two areas completely decisive for anyone who has the ambition to get the most out of their personal and professional lives.
It offers practical advice on how to organize your ideas and present them in a clear and persuasive manner. It provides a framework for effective problem-solving communication that can be applied to a variety of contexts, from business writing to presentations and speeches.
This excellent book explores the power of the unconscious mind and in how it shapes our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Our unconscious mind plays a much bigger role in our behavior than we realize. In fact, much of what we do is driven by unconscious processes.
The book provides a range of practical advice for using the insights from research on the unconscious mind to improve our lives, including setting goals, making better decisions, and forming better habits.
'John Bargh's Before You Know It moves our understanding of the mysteries of human behaviour one giant step forward. A brilliant and convincing book.' - Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and David and Goliath
How much of what we say, feel and do is under our conscious control? How much is not? And most crucial of all: if we understood how our unconscious worked - if we knew why we do what we do - could we finally, fundamentally, know ourselves?
From checking a dating app to holding a cup of coffee or choosing who to vote for, our unconscious…
In this book, my friend the late Professor K Anders Ericsson, proves that innate talent is not the most important factor in achieving expertise in any field.
Instead, deliberate practice is the key to improving performance and achieving mastery. But deliberate practice is not the same as regular practice: it involves specific and focused efforts to improve skills, often with the guidance of a teacher or coach.
It requires a high level of concentration and effort and can be mentally and physically exhausting. The book provides practical advice on how to apply this concept to any field.
Most athletes are not born with any natural advantage.
Three world-class chess players were sisters, whose success was planned by their parents before they were even born.
Anders Ericsson has spent thirty years studying The Special Ones, the geniuses, sports stars and musical prodigies. And his remarkable finding, revealed in Peak, is that their special abilities are acquired through training. The innate 'gift' of talent is a myth. Exceptional individuals are born with just one unique ability, shared by us all - the ability…
In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb describes the concept of convexity as a property of systems that benefit from volatility, stressors, or uncertainty, and suffer from calm or stability.
You should work to make your body and mind antifragile by exposing yourself to stressors, such as exercise, fasting, and solving complex cognitive problems. That will make you stronger and more resilient.
The principle of convexity can be applied to your own cognitive development in several ways for example make it an everyday habit to embrace small failures and mistakes, pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, and working on skills that are just beyond your current level of ability, and pursue diverse experiences.
By seeking out new experiences and challenging yourself to learn new things, you can increase your cognitive flexibility and resilience.
'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West
Tough times don't last. Tough people do.
In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. Here Taleb stands uncer tainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resil ient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil.…
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.
Now that he is in his eighties, she contemplates her obligation to an absentee father. The Truth About Unringing Phones is an exploration of responsibility and culpability told in experimental and fragmented essays.
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket. Now that he is in his eighties, she contemplates her obligation to an absentee father.
The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning is an exploration of responsibility and culpability told in experimental and fragmented essays.
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