QuickRead - Book Summaries
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Debra Fine
Learn how to start a conversation, keep it going, build networking skills, and leave a positive impression!
Whether we’re standing in the elevator with a colleague, attending conferences, or simply meeting your child’s new teacher, small talk is a major part of our daily lives. Perhaps you spend your days avoiding these awkward situations because the mere idea of striking up a conversation with a stranger makes your stomach churn. Perhaps you avoid social situations entirely or hide out in bathrooms and hang out at the buffet table to avoid small talk. Maybe the idea of networking makes you sick to your stomach. If this sounds like you, then it’s time to master The Fine Art of Small Talk. Though many of us disregard small talk and find it meaningless, small talk has the power to change our lives. Small talk is the foundation of building meaningful connections with friends and colleagues which can open up opportunities you never thought possible. Once you master small talk, you’ll be guaranteed to build a business, make friends, improve networking skills, get dates, and land jobs. So if you struggle with conversation, it’s time to learn how to feel more comfortable in any type of social situation, from lunch with your boss to a networking conference to a cocktail party where you don’t know a single person. As you read, you’ll learn how small talk can change your life and receive tips and tricks for starting, keeping, and exiting a conversation.
12 minutes
Jim Rohn
Tried and tested strategies for unlocking your potential.
Everybody wants to be happy and wealthy, but few actually manage to achieve it. This vast disparity between fulfilment and desire leaves many of us wondering, “What’s the secret?!” 7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness (1985) aims to fill this gap by offering tried and tested strategies from the author’s own experience as an entrepreneur and motivational speaker.
15 minutes
Robert C. Pozen
How to make the most of your time.
Have you ever felt like there aren’t enough hours in the day? Have you ever wished you had more time on your hands? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then this is the book for you! Extreme Productivity (2012) is your guide to making the most of your time.
13 minutes
Thomas Erikson
Learn about the four main personality types and how to communicate effectively with each of them.
Surrounded by Idiots (2014) pierces through the confusion that often characterizes our daily lives and seeks to answer the question we’re always asking — “What were they thinking?? Are they just stupid?” Backing up an exploration of human behavior with proven psychological research, Erikson takes us on a journey through the four main personality types you’ll encounter and how this impacts human behavior. Once you understand the psychology behind it, Erikson posits that you’ll be able to communicate more effectively and avoid frustration.
12 minutes
Malcolm Gladwell
Perfect for learning how humans are notoriously bad at judging strangers through the stories of high-profile cases like Sandra Bland and Amanda Knox.
Combining academic research in sociology and psychology with journalism, Malcolm Gladwell continuously writes books that attempt to change society’s perceptions of social issues. Talking to Strangers is no different and discusses the implications of judging others without truly knowing or understanding one another. The book’s introduction and final chapter discuss the case of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman stopped by a white highway patrolman in 2015 who was later found dead in her cell by apparent suicide. Bland was arrested after a typical traffic stop escalated into a confrontation, and her death “is what happens when a society doesn’t know how to talk to strangers,” according to Gladwell.
Throughout the book, Gladwell explores the nuances and intricacies of talking to strangers and shows how even experts trained in judgment and psychology lack the ability to predict how a stranger will behave. Covering high-profile cases like those of Sandra Bland and the Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff, Talking to Strangers will reveal how little you really know about the people that walk among you.
19 minutes
Dan Harris
Learn How to Tame the Voice in Your Head, Reduce Stress Without Losing Your Edge, and Find Self-Help that Actually Works.
Have you ever experienced anxiety? Perhaps you’ve experienced anxiety so crippling that you subsequently have a panic attack. Has this ever happened to you in front of millions of people? Well, it has to Dan Harris. After having a nationally televised panic attack, Dan knew it was time to make some change in his life. From then on, Dan began a journey seeking to quiet the incessant, insatiable voice inside his head. The internal narrator begins as soon as he wakes up and heckles him all day long. It’s the same voice that tells you to continue eating even when you’ve had enough and prompts you to lose your temper even when you know you shouldn’t. To help calm and control that voice, Dan Harris has turned to meditation. If you’re anything like Dan, you might be thinking that meditation is exclusively for “bearded swamis, unwashed hippies, and fans of John Tesh music.” But as Dan learned, meditation is for everyone and can have profound effects on both your mental and physical health. As you read, you’ll learn how meditation makes you more productive, why your ego is to blame when you lash out at your spouse, and how separating from your emotions will help you control your ego.
17 minutes
Dale Carnegie, J.B. Esenwein
Learn how to become a confident, effective speaker.
What are you afraid of? Spiders? Small spaces? Heights? For many, our biggest fear, more fearful than jumping off a building or out of a plane, is public speaking. But why? Why is public speaking such a terrifying thing? As you’ll find out, speaking in front of strangers is an art that requires practice. Many teachers begin teaching public speaking on how to speak publicly. They study voice, gesture, and the rest but this approach is futile. Instead, the best way to improve is to just do it. In fact, "it is an ancient truism that we learn to do by doing." Once you have begun speaking, you can then improve by observing your speeches, fixing the mistakes, and listening to constructive criticism. So take the plunge and the rest will fall into place, you’ll be a master speech in no time. Of course, it’ll take lots of practice, but you’ll learn the tips and tricks from author Dale Carnegie to make the most of your practice. You’ll learn everything, including how to overcome your stage fright to the importance of arranging your audience. So if you're ready to take the plunge, let’s begin.
25 minutes
Michelle Tillis Lederman
Learn how to grow your business by making people like you!
Everybody wants to be liked. And everybody wants to do business with people they like. So, how do you make yourself likable? And how can you grow your business through mutually beneficial relationships? The 11 Laws of Likability (2011) is your guide to doing just that! By exploring your most likable qualities and examining top tips for connecting with others, you’ll learn how to forge meaningful connections and make people like you.
14 minutes
The Princeton Language Institute, Abby Marks Beale
The competing pressures of our daily lives often leave us little time to read, but by applying this life hack, you can improve your reading speed in under 10 days!
Written for everyone who doesn’t have the time to read as much as they’d like or for those whose to-be-read pile has taken over their apartment, 10 Days to Faster Reading outlines why our inability to read quickly isn’t formed through overcommitment. Positing that bad habits and toxic mindsets prevent us reading effectively, the joint research of The Princeton Language Institute and author Abby Marks Beale offers practical solutions for tackling those setbacks and developing efficient reading habits.
16 minutes
Sarah Knight
Learn how to stop worrying about what you should do so you can finish what you need to do and start doing what you want to do.
Welcome to Get Your Shit Together, before you keep reading you should know a few things. First, this is not a traditional self-help book. Instead, think about this as more of a “let Sarah help you help yourself” help book. In other words, Sarah is here to offer “help” when your “self” gets in the way. I mean, if you could help yourself, you would’ve done it by now, right? Second, this book is not about cleaning up your physical messes in your life. You won’t be getting tips about how to gather your shit, thank it for its service, and sending it off to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Instead, you’ll be learning how to tidy up your mental clutter like your career, finances, creative pursuits, relationships, and health. Sarah thinks of this book as a “delightfully profane one-stop-shop for tidying your mind - and making your life easier and better.” No matter where you are in your life, whether you’re in a rut with your career, finances, or your health, you have the power to hoist yourself out of your rut and begin living the life you want, and deserve, to live. As you read, you’ll learn “how to set goals, how to push through small annoyances and thorny obstacles to meet those goals, and then how to imagine and achieve even bigger goals that you may not, until now, have thought possible.”
14 minutes
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