Tag Archives: Books

In My Hands Today…

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Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It – Ethan Kross

Tell a stranger that you talk to yourself, and you’re likely to get written off as eccentric. But the truth is that we all have a voice in our head. When we talk to ourselves, we often hope to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead. When we’re facing a tough task, our inner coach can buoy us up: Focus – you can do this. But, just as often, our inner critic sinks us entirely: I’m going to fail. They’ll all laugh at me. What’s the use?

In ‘CHATTER’, acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves. Interweaving groundbreaking behavioral and brain research from his own lab with real-world case studies – from a pitcher who forgets how to pitch, to a Harvard undergrad negotiating her double life as a spy – Kross explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships. He warns that giving in to negative and disorienting self-talk – what he calls “chatter” – can tank our health, sink our moods, strain our social connections, and cause us to fold under pressure.

But the good news is that we’re already equipped with the tools we need to make our inner voice work in our favor. These tools are often hidden in plain sight – in the words we use to think about ourselves, the technologies we embrace, the diaries we keep in our drawers, the conversations we have with our loved ones, and the cultures we create in our schools and workplaces.

Brilliantly argued, expertly researched, and filled with compelling stories, ‘CHATTER’ gives us the power to change the most important conversation we have each day: the one we have with ourselves.

In My Hands Today…

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Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals – Oliver Burkeman

The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.

In My Hands Today…

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Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? – Seth Godin

There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there’s a third team: the linchpins. These people figure out what to do when there’s no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art.

Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. They may not be famous but they’re indispensable. And in today’s world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

As Godin writes, “Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.”

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Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World – Ginni Rometty

Ginni Rometty led one of the world’s most iconic companies, and in Good Power she recounts her groundbreaking path from a challenging childhood to becoming the CEO of IBM and one of the world’s most influential business leaders. With candor and depth, Rometty shares milestones from her life and career while redefining power as a way to drive meaningful change in positive ways for ourselves, our organizations, and for the many, not just the few—a concept she calls “good power.”

Rometty’s “memoir with purpose” combines the experiences that defined her life—personal hurdles, high-stakes decisions, passionate advocacy—with the actionable advice of a coaching session to highlight lessons that shape authentic leadership. Behind-the-scenes stories and practical guidance offer us a blueprint for how we can all use good power to advance our careers, inspire our teams, improve our companies, and create healthier societies.

The book begins with raw, vivid memories from Rometty’s youth and early professional years as she recalls the trauma and the role models that formed her belief that how we lead is as important as what we achieve. She learns early on that good power is a choice available to everyone, even to those without money, status, or impressive titles.

Rometty then shows us how her concept of good power evolved as she grew from a first-time manager to a transformative CEO. Stories told through the lens of five principles—be in service of others; build belief; know what must change and what must endure; steward good tech; be resilient—reveal tools that anyone can apply to achieve real change at any stage of their life and work.

Rometty also encourages us to use good power at scale to bring about urgent societal change. She shares insights from her own journey to create a more equitable world by leading the SkillsFirst movement, which connects underserved populations with family-sustaining jobs by transforming hiring, education, and training.

With heart, humility, and conviction, Good Power offers an inspiring, compelling guide to creating meaningful change in our lives.

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How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms – Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones

From facial recognition—capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn’t just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search.

Expanding on the popular course they created at Columbia University, Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones illuminate the ways in which data has long been used as a tool and a weapon in arguing for what is true, as well as a means of rearranging or defending power. By understanding the trajectory of data—where it has been and where it might yet go—Wiggins and Jones argue that we can understand how to bend it to ends that we collectively choose, with intentionality and purpose.