Personal Well-Being
Neuroscientist Rick Hanson Ph.D. offers tremendous insight into our inherent "negativity bias" as well as tips and tricks for savoring or better "installing" our positive experiences in order to help us build a more consistent and higher level of well-being.
Famed psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, who started the most popular course ever offered at Harvard takes his readers on a journey through the science of happiness, providing tips along the way that can help us become happier, more satisfied human beings.
In her second book, Dr. Lyubomirsky tackles a lot of "zombie ideas", the notions we often carry about happiness that science has ultimately shown to be misguided, or just plain false, time and time again. This is a critical read for keeping ourselves from falling into all to common happiness traps.
Most of us are looking to be our best selves and lead a fulfilling, interesting life. What better way than to gamify it? Learn how to do just that from game theorist Jane McGonigal.
Shawn Achor's second best seller takes his readers into the world of reality-architecture, helping us to better understand how our mindsets and beliefs create our realities and ultimately impact our subjective sense of happiness.
Widely considered the "father" of Positive Psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman's seminal book takes its readers through the principles of this new and exciting field of psychology and provides insight into how we can better help ourselves thrive.
In his second title, Dr. Ben-Shahar takes on the issue of perfectionism through the lens of Positive Psychology, helping to give us permission to feel and ultimately enabling us to better cope with our self-defeating thoughts.
Optimists are better at just about everything in life and we can ultimately learn to carry a more optimistic mindset that can help us in both our personal and professional lives. Learn how with this excellent book from Dr. Seligman.
Dr. Kaufman is one of the pre-eminent psychologists of our day and his brand new book, Transcend revisits the popularized human needs first posited by Abraham Maslow, helping us to better understand them and ultimately enabling his readers to reach self-actualization and peak experiences.
Dr. Brene Brown has a handful of wonderful books. In Braving the Wilderness she guides readers to an understanding of "true belonging", a sense of comfort in which we feel and act as our authentic selves while also feeling a sense of connection and belonging to the people around us.
A pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology (a name she despises), Dr. Lyubomirsky expertly articulates the science behind what makes up our subjective levels of happiness and provides guidance on how to use this knowledge to better our lives.
Is technology helping or hurting when it comes to our productivity and happiness? According to Amy Blankson's research, it depends on how we use it. Learn some of the research, tips, and tricks for making sure your technology is actually enhancing your happiness and not hindering it.
Dr. Holton's personal favorite when it comes to books on mindfulness, Fully Present offers a well-researched perspective on the many ways practicing mindfulness can benefit us. From amplifying positive feeling or mitigating unpleasant feeling to enhancing our focus, there is something in this book for everyone.
Kelly McGonigal Ph.D. has written an incredible book detailing the science behind what many of us have always known to be true, that movement, exercise and being outdoors makes us happier. More importantly, her research helps the reader understand how to leverage that fact even more!
Dealing With Adversity
Another tremendous read from Dr. Kelly McGonigal, this time detailing our misconceptions about stress. It turns out that stress is often quite good for us and, when framed correctly, can bring us meaning, motivation and all sorts of cool enhancements. Learn how to harness stress better with this book!
Robert Sapolsky's work It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses as well as tremendous insight into the harm our stress can cause for us if we don't get ahold of it.
Dr. Karen Reivich is the Director of Resilience Training programs at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in cognitive skills we can use to endure and bounce back from adverse life experiences. She walks the reader through seven core skills all contextualized in real-life (anonymized) stories from her work in the field and backed by rigorous research.
Dr. Marc Brackett is the Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. His book details the important research behind how critical developing our intelligence around our feelings is to happiness, relationships, and success in school, parenting, and life in general. Don't miss this incredibly important work!
Psychologists Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener have written an important piece that disrupts the notion that Positive Psychology, or more importantly, flourishing, comes as a result of always feeling good. In this work, we learn bout the necessity of negative emotions and experiences and what it means to be "whole".
Shawn Achor has written another tremendous best-seller in Big Potential, a work detailing the research on how our happiness, motivation, personality, and success is ultimately intertwined with the people around us and the communities to which we belong. If individuals have small potential, unifying those individuals can turn it BIG!
Dr. Adam Grant has been the most popular professor at the Wharton Business School for six years running and it's not hard to tell why once you read Give and Take. It turns out that most of us have a dominant style of reciprocity in the workplace. The question is, is one style more advantageous than the others?
In an age in which free markets and big businesses are under fire for unethical practices, Conscious Capitalism might just provide a way out. Former CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, and Raj Sisodia deliver a well-thought-out and researched account of how some of the most successful businesses in the world also happen to be the most caring and conscious. It's a game-changer!
Is it in the interest of businesses to take care of their employees? A resounding yes and Jeffrey Pfeffer has the research to back it up. The U.S. is costing itself billions every year and taxing key resources primarily because of workplace stress and poor business practices. Find out how to change that in this great read.
Todd Rose's research has made one thing painfully obvious, we need to abandon the notion of "normal" and stop evaluating ourselves and others by the extent we deviate from the "average". Most of our word runs on this notion and it's creating incredible problems. Learn what to do about it in this fantastic read.
As the Director of People Operations at Google, Laslo Bock has gathered a wealth of information that can help us better create and predict workplace satisfaction and develop policies to support them. What better way to learn than from one of the happiest places to work!
Many of us feel as though putting good "out there" into the world usually comes back to us. Now you can better understand the science behind why that is! Stephen Post delivers a well-researched account of why positive things happen to kind and altruistic people in this excellent work.
Prosocial brings in a rich blend of evolutionary science and psychology to detail a new vision for building collaborative teams, organizations and maybe even societies.
The world leader in the movement toward Positive Education has provided a how-to manual for any interested educational leader looking to do the same. Learn about the history of Geelong Grammar School and how they lead the charge to create a better educational experience for all of their stakeholders.
Does it pay to focus on purpose? Yes, yes, yes! Robert Quinn and Anjan Thakor have written an excellent account of what purpose in an organization (and in life) really means and detail a wealth of research on how it can lead to more positive outcomes for us all.
Ellen Ruppel Shell delivers an insightful account of how important work is to our collective satisfaction and articulates a nuanced view of how to better understand what "the job" needs to consider as we enter a new world economy.
Purpose, the reason our unique existence betters the world around us, is a huge source of motivation and success on both an individual and organizational level. Author Zach Mercurio details the research behind this fact and provides his readers with tangible strategies for building a purpose of their own.
Focus and Productivity
We are not doomed to our current ability to focus nor to our struggles with distraction. Learn how to deal with both as well as why spending time in the "default mode" can lead to some of our best ideas and innovations in this great read from Chris Bailey.
Stanford professor B.J. is THE habit guru and his new book, Tiny Habits is THE go-to when it comes to harnessing our bad habits and cultivating healthy ones. Don't miss out on Tiny habits!
James Clear still has this book atop the NYT bestseller list for non-fiction and its not hard to see why. We are the result of our habits and Clear makes it, well, clear how we can adjust them to better reach our potential.
Distraction derails the best of us but, armed with the knowledge and tips presented in Stanford professor Nir Eyal's book, we can better control them and set ourselves up to lead the lives we want to be living.
One of the earliest and most useful books on Habits, Charles Duhigg's seminal work will guide its readers to better strategies for making and breaking their own habits.
Willpower and self-control have been gaining recent attention as of late. It is one of the characteristics most highly associated with happiness, academic achievement, and success. In this third book from Dr. Kelly McGonigal you'll learn how to hack your willpower and better execute self-regulatory behaviors.
Motivation, Creativity, Passion and Achievement
The Happiness Advantage is a must-read. This bestseller from Shawn Achor details the basic principles of Positive Psychology but builds upon them wonderfully by showing the reader how they can lead not only to greater happiness but, greater success too. If you read one book from this page, this should be it.
Alan Waterman and colleagues have put together a terrific collection of academic articles and essays on Eudaimonia, the happiness we experience when we cultivate our virtues and experience personal growth.
Brendon Burchard is a coach to all sorts of high performers across various areas and industries. As a masters in applied positive psychology graduate, he details some of the tips and principles from the field and fuses them with his own twists on how they can better lead to high-performance and more consistent levels of motivation.
We get a lot wrong when it comes to both success and happiness. Eric Barker knows this and helps frame some of these myths in an entertaining and story-driven account of how we often bark up the wrong tree as well as what we can do to change it.
Daniel Pink has written multiple bestsellers but, this may be his best. In Drive, Pink details the nuances in the research between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, a key to understanding how to motivate us to reach our highest hights and peak potentials. Don't miss this one!
Another wonderful piece of work from Adam Grant, it's a must-have for anyone interested in the process of creativity and what tends to lead to creative outcomes.
Steven Kotler of the Flow Research Collective is an expert on Flow, an altered state of consciousness, and deep immersion in which we reach peak performance and experience intense levels of satisfaction. The Rise of Superman helps his readers understand what flow is and how to get more of it.
Sir Ken Robinson first came onto the scene in one of the most popular TED talks ever given. His book on passion, especially cultivating passion in young people is a great read at any age and especially important for educators looking to envision what it means to educate in the 21st century.
An earlier book from renowned psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, Wired to Create is one of THE best books for understanding the science of creativity and how to get more of it.
Director of the VIA Institute, Ryan Niemic is the guru of research on character strengths. When we identify, use, and develop these strengths it can lead to all sorts of positive outcomes. Niemic's book will teach you about these strengths and provide you with science-backed strategies for using and developing them.
Contrary to the "10,000-hour" rule popularized by Malcom Gladwell, Peak details the importance of deliberate practice, a key behavior that can lead to peak achievement. Don't miss out on Anders Ericsson's terrific and well-researched account.
One of the earliest happiness researchers out there, retired professor Dr. Csikszentmihalyi walks his readers through an account of what it means to be 'in the zone' on a psychological level and how we can do more to induce that state in ourselves.
Former Secretary of Education, Alfie Kohn takes issue with the idea of consistently using carrots and sticks to motivate ourselves and our kids. In many cases, these "gold star" approaches do more harm than good. Find out how to navigate these nuances in his wonderful book.
This bestseller from UPenn professor Angela Duckworth details her research on Grit, the passion and perseverance for very long-term goals a clear key to success in a variety of realms.
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