An often invigorating guide to pursuing change with confidence.
Tasler, an organizational psychologist, offers a motivational book on maximizing change.
The author offers a unique perspective on personal and professional growth. His simple framework asserts that “Change happens. You grow. Then you win”; he blends social science with storytelling to reinforce these theories and offers examples from the careers of leaders such as IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Tasler observes that people who’ve reached a certain level of success find themselves at a crossroads: They either cling too closely to their survival instincts and avoid change, or they embrace a growth mindset and evolve. He explains how one can leverage the “spring fever effect,” in which the anticipation of a win triggers a greater dopamine release than the win itself, and explores the “power of a nudge,” such as a mentor’s encouragement, to push one toward new opportunities. The book urges readers to shift from “fragile optimism” (a belief in one specific positive outcome) to “agile optimism” (a belief that one will gain insights leading to any number of desirable outcomes). It also intriguingly questions the role of resilience, noting that “bouncing back to our original form isn’t the optimal response to change.” His “push-and-love approach” encourages leaders to challenge their team members while also reassuring them that they’re capable of more. Similarly, in times of change, rather than infuse subordinates with fear (via “jump-or-fry ultimatums”), leaders can inspire creativity through “dream-and-fly suggestions.” Some readers may find the “Change→Grow→Win” scenario to be overly optimistic, as it assumes people immediately have enough agency to instigate change and will ultimately come out on top. Still, throughout this book, Tasler offers creative conceptualizations of self-improvement, such as contrasting “chameleon resilience” (a survival instinct in which someone returns to the status quo after change) versus transformative “caterpillar resilience.” Overall, his advice is simple and practical, and he offers several insightful exercises, such as considering one’s current situation from a future perspective or writing about oneself in the third person to alter common self-perceptions.
An often invigorating guide to pursuing change with confidence.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781643435466
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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