Today, I share my research on the books coming out in the first half of 2023, and I’ve narrowed the ones you should have on your radar to six.
Based on their titles, descriptions, the author’s background, and their research, these are the books that I”m really excited about reading. Just yesterday I reached out to the first two authors on this list to invite them on to the show (the first of which has already responded with a “yes”). Hopefully we’ll accomplish getting all six on the show.
Perhaps I’ll do a similar episode in early July to cover books I’m jazzed about coming out in the second half of the year. We’ll see.
For a full list of the books I feature, as well as a brief summary of each, simply scroll down.
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In today’s episode, I feature:
- Attention Span by Gloria Mark
- Magic Words by Jonah Berger
- The Real Work by Adam Gopnik
- The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-Mele
- Awaken Your Genius by Ozan Varol
- Anatomy of a Breakthrough by Adam Alter
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The 6 Books I’m Most Excited About Coming Out in the First Half of 2023
Attention Span
Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (January 10, 2023)
Author Bio
Dr. Gloria Mark is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where she holds the Donald Bren Endowed Chair in Information and Computer Sciences. She is an expert on digital distraction and the impact of technology on human behavior and productivity. She is the author of the book Attention Span: From the Age of Distraction to the Age of Intention, which explores how technology affects our attention spans, creativity, and productivity. Dr. Mark has also conducted research on how to design technology to reduce stress and increase productivity.
Book Description
We spend an average of just 47 seconds on any screen before shifting our attention. It takes 25 minutes to bring our attention back to a task after an interruption. And we interrupt ourselves more than we’re interrupted by others.
In Attention Span, psychologist Gloria Mark reveals these and more surprising results from her decades of research into how technology affects our attention. She shows how much of what we think we know is wrong, including insights such as:
- Why multitasking hurts rather than helps productivity
- How social media and modern entertainment amplify our short attention spans
- What drains our mental resources and how to refuel them
- The four types of attention that we experience every day and how to recognize them
While the concept of “flow” has previously been considered the ideal state of focus, Dr. Mark offers a new framework to help explain how our brains function in the digital world: kinetic attention. This book reveals how we can take control, not only to find more success in our careers, but also to find health and wellness in our everyday lives.
Magic Words
Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way by Jonah Berger (March 7, 2023)
Author Bio
Jonah Berger is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an author. He is best known for his books Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and other publications. He has also written articles for Forbes, Fast Company, and The Harvard Business Review. His research focuses on word of mouth, influence, and consumer behavior.
Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Jonah Berger’s cutting-edge research reveals how six types of words can increase your impact in every area of life: from persuading others and building stronger relationships, to boosting creativity and motivating teams.
Almost everything we do involves words. Words are how we persuade, communicate, and connect. They’re how leaders lead, salespeople sell, and parents parent. They’re how teachers teach, policymakers govern, and doctors explain. Even our private thoughts rely on language.
But certain words are more impactful than others. They’re better at changing minds, engaging audiences, and driving action. What are these magic words, and how can we take advantage of their power?
In Magic Words, internationally bestselling author Jonah Berger gives you an inside look at the new science of language and how you can use it. Technological advances in machine learning, computational linguistics, and natural language processing, combined with the digitization of everything from cover letters to conversations, have yielded unprecedented insights.
Learn how salespeople convince clients, lawyers persuade juries, and storytellers captivate audiences; how teachers get kids to help and service representatives increase customer satisfaction; how startup founders secure funding, musicians make hits, and psychologists identified a Shakespearean manuscript without ever reading a play.
This book is designed for anyone who wants to increase their impact. It provides a powerful toolkit and actionable techniques that can lead to extraordinary results. Whether you’re trying to persuade a client, motivate a team, or get a whole organization to see things differently, this book will show you how to leverage the power of magic words.
The Real Work
The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery by Adam Gopnik (March 14, 2023)
Author Bio
Adam Gopnik is an award-winning Canadian-American author, essayist, and critic. He is best known for his work at The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1986. He has written several books, including Paris to the Moon, Through the Children’s Gate, and The Table Comes First. Gopnik has won numerous awards, including three National Magazine Awards and the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. He is also an occasional lecturer at Princeton University.
Book Description
Longtime New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik investigates a foundational human question: How do we learn―and master―a new skill?
For decades, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a fundamental matter: How did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf?
In The Real Work―his title the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick―Gopnik apprentices himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor (from the DMV), among others, trying his late-middle-age hand at things he assumed were beyond him.
He finds that mastering a skill is a process of methodically breaking down and building up, piece by piece―and that true mastery, in any field, requires mastering other people’s minds. Exuberant and profound, The Real Work is ultimately about why we relentlessly seek to better ourselves in the first place.
The Anxious Achiever
The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears Into Your Leadership Superpower by Morra Aarons-Mele (April 11, 2023)
Author Bio
Morra Aarons-Mele is an author, speaker, and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of Women Online, a digital consultancy that helps companies build their online presence and increase their influence. She is the author of The Mission Myth: How to Create a Meaningful Workplace and Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home). She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and other publications. She is a regular contributor to Forbes, and her work has been featured in The Harvard Business Review and Entrepreneur.
Book Description
Transform your anxiety into your biggest strength.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the world, affecting up to one in eight adults each year, but in our workplaces, and among our leaders, anxiety has been a hidden problem—there in plain sight but ignored. Until now.
The Anxious Achiever is a book with a mission: to normalize anxiety in the workplace and help leaders and high achievers transform anxiety from an apparent weakness into a strength. [[Morra Aarons-Mele]] argues that anxiety is normal, built into the very nature of leadership; it can—and should—be harnessed into a superpower.
Drawing from the successful podcast of the same name, The Anxious Achiever is filled with quotes from psychologists and experts in the field and packed with practical advice. You will learn how to:
- Figure out your own anxiety profile so that you can recognize and avoid common thought traps and triggers
- Confront bad habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms
- Resist perfectionism, manage social anxiety, and set boundaries to prevent burnout
- Deal with feedback, criticism, and impostor syndrome
- Model—and communicate—healthy behavior as a leader of an anxious organization
Whether you’re experiencing anxiety for the first time or have been battling it along with other mental health challenges for years, The Anxious Achiever is the only book you’ll need to help turn your stress and worries into a source of strength for you, your career, and your organization.
Awaken Your Genius
Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary by Ozan Varol (April 11, 2023)
Author Bio
Ozan Varol is an author, speaker, and strategic advisor. He is the author of the bestselling books The Rocket Scientist’s Guide to Tactical Thinking and Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, and has been a guest on numerous podcasts and radio shows. His work focuses on helping individuals, teams, and organizations unleash their creative potential and solve hard problems.
Book Description
From the acclaimed author of Think Like a Rocket Scientist comes a simple guide to unlock your originality and unleash your unique talents. We say that some people march to the beat of a different drummer. But implicit in this cliché is that the rest of us march to the same beat. We find ourselves on well-worn paths that were never ours to walk.
An extraordinary group of people pave their own path. They think and act with genuine independence. They stand out from the crowd because they embody their own shape and color.
We call these people geniuses—as if they’re another breed. But genius isn’t for a special few. It can be awakened in anyone.
This book will show you how. You’ll learn how to discard what no longer serves you and discover your first principles—the qualities that make up your genius. You’ll be equipped to escape your intellectual prisons and generate original insights from your own depths. You’ll discover how to look where others don’t look and see what others don’t see. You’ll give birth to your genius—the universe-denter you were meant to be.
Anatomy of a Breakthrough
Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most by Adam Alter (May 16, 2023)
Author Bio
Adam Alter is a professor of marketing and psychology at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He is the author of the bestselling books Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and Its Impact on Our Lives and Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave. His research focuses on how technology influences our behavior and how to promote healthier habits. He has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, and has been a guest on numerous podcasts and radio shows.
Book Description
A groundbreaking guide to breaking free from the thoughts, habits, jobs, relationships, and even business models that prevent us from achieving our full potential. Almost everyone feels stuck in some way. Whether you’re muddling through a midlife crisis, wrestling writer’s block, trapped in a thankless job, or trying to remedy a fraying friendship, the resulting emotion is usually a mix of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, anger, and numbness. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Anatomy of a Breakthrough is the roadmap we all need to escape our inertia and flourish in the face of friction.
Adam Alter has spent the past two decades studying how people become stuck and how they free themselves to thrive. Here he reveals the formula he and other researchers have uncovered. The solution rests on a process that he calls a friction audit—a systematic procedure that uncovers why a person or organization is stuck, and then suggests a path to progress. The friction audit states that people and organizations get unstuck when they overcome three sources of friction: HEART (unhelpful emotions); HEAD (unhelpful patterns of thought); and HABIT (unhelpful behaviors).
Despite the ubiquity of friction, there are many great “unstickers” hidden in plain sight among us and Alter shines a light on some exceptional stories to share their valuable lessons with us. He tells us about the sub-elite swimmer who unstuck himself twice to win two Olympic gold medals, the actor who faced countless rejections before gaining worldwide fame, the renowned painter who became paralyzed and had to relearn to paint with a brush strapped to his wrist, and Alter’s own story of getting unstuck from a college degree that made him deeply unhappy.
Artfully weaving together scientific studies, anecdotes, and interviews, Alter teaches us that getting stuck is a feature rather than a glitch on the road to thriving, but with the right tweaks and corrections we can reach even our loftiest targets.
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