QuickRead Podcast - Free book summaries

Discover your Authentic Leadership.

How do you become an authentic leader? How is it that some people are born natural leaders while others struggle to make the right decisions? Well, Bill George interviewed 125 great leaders and learned that they all share one thing in common: they make the right decisions based on what’s important to them. This might seem vague, so let’s explain. Each leader follows their True North or their internal compass. Your True North represents who you are as a human being, it is the fixed point that helps you stay on track as a leader. It is based on your values, your passions, and your motivations. When you follow your True North, your leadership will be authentic, and people will naturally want to associate with you and follow you. So whenever you feel overwhelmed and as if the world is spinning uncontrollably around you, following your True North can put you back on track. As you read, you’ll learn how to become self-aware, how to set your leadership and ethical boundaries, and whether or not you fall into one of the five archetypal leaders.

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Explore JAY-Z’s impact on culture, art, and music through this biography.

Although it’s not written by JAY-Z himself, Michael Eric Dyson’s reflection on the rapper’s life and work nonetheless offers readers a uniquely personal exploration. Written with reverence and sensitivity, Dyson takes us through a tour of what he calls “JAY-Z’s America,” positing that the artist has fundamentally shaped the American public’s understanding of race, culture, music, and social justice.

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Discover Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

In today’s modern world, people are feeling the pressure to excel and specialize in a certain area. Constantly, people hear about the importance of choosing a niche and becoming an expert in that area. However, sportswriter David Epstein uses research and real-life stories to argue that businesses today need generalists, not specialists. So what’s a generalist? A generalist is a person who has experience in many different areas, someone who took a bit longer to find out what they are good at and what they enjoy. These people are often more creative and can make connections across different fields that specialists often miss. As a result, generalists are more powerful and innovative, allowing them to become better problem solvers and forecasters. So instead of trying to specialize early in your career, it’s best to explore different interests and become knowledgeable in many areas. As you read, you’ll learn the myth of getting ahead early and why those who discover their skills later in life have an advantage.

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Learn About the Secret Life of the Brain.

When you feel sad, angry, happy, or anxious, what is really going on inside of you? For centuries, scientists have believed that our emotions come from a part of the brain that is triggered by our environment: the excitement for an upcoming holiday, the fear of losing a loved one, or the anxiety of meeting a deadline for work. These emotions seem uncontrollable and as if they surface automatically from within, eventually finding themselves on the expressions of our faces and in how we carry ourselves. People have long believed this theory about emotions since the days of Plato. But what if everything we know about emotions is wrong? Psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett gathers the latest scientific research and evidence to reveal that our common-sense ideas about emotions are long outdated. Instead of emotions being pre-programmed into our brains and bodies, emotions are much more complex than previously thought, and Dr. Barrett aims to prove how our emotions are shaped by our experiences and personal history.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended it to be. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]

Learn about the short history of modern delusions.

In today’s era, we have experienced an epidemic of mumbo-jumbo as we see a rise in cults, gurus, irrational panics, and moral confusion. According to Francis Wheen, this mumbo-jumbo has conquered the world and created a society full of superstition, relativism, and emotional hysteria. We see this in Middle Eastern fundamentalism, the rise of lotteries, astrology and mysticism, poststructuralism and the Third Way. In the Western societies of today, people have become disillusioned with mainstream politics and inundated with “self-improvement” books which have now become an $11 billion industry. The country that has become the most displaced by nonsense is the one founded to embody Enlightenment values: the USA. How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World aims to reveal how far the absurdity of our times has come and examines how many aspects of our lives are influenced by superstition and irrationality versus reason. As you read, you’ll learn about the rise of neoliberalism and how its policies created today’s income inequality and why self-help books rose in popularity in response to these policies. You’ll even learn about post-structuralism and progressive politics and discover why you should be skeptical of the language and rhetoric they use.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended it to be. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]

Learn about the commercialization of human feeling.

Does your job require you to engage in emotional labor? That is, are you required to bury your true feelings, slap on a smile, and engage with customers as if everything is fine? We see people who work in customer service do this every day. People like waitresses and flight attendants shockingly maintain an upbeat attitude throughout their day as they interact with hundreds of customers. While many people believe these types of jobs don’t require much labor, they actually require some of the toughest skills that we don’t often discuss: emotional labor. Each day these employees must hold back their emotions, keep their cool, and avoid getting upset. But what’s the true cost of this “emotional work?” From a humanist and feminist perspective, Hochschild describes the toll this process of estrangement has on our personal feelings and its role in becoming an “occupational hazard” in one-third of Amerca’s workforce. As you read, you’ll learn how emotional labor is used as currency in today's society and why women find their jobs more taxing than men.

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DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original book. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended it to be. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and would like us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected]

Learn how to Build Products that Create Change

Modern companies today often look like an episode of Mad Men when deciding which products and services they should create. People throw around ideas until one sounds sexy enough to eventually implement. From there, they scale it up and launch it to the public, costing them tons of money in marketing to drive engagement. Even worse, these products and services aren’t what the people want and don’t do anything to positively impact the world. Therefore, Matt Wallaert aims to change the way you look at designing products and services and offers a framework based on his expertise in behavioral science. He believes that the purpose of everything should be behavioral change. The iPhone, for example, has changed the way humans behave and communicate and has impacted the world in ways we never thought possible. If you start with the outcomes instead of the processes and understand why people perform a certain behavior or don’t already perform it, you too can create something just as revolutionary. As you read, you’ll learn what the Intervention Design Process is and how it works, you’ll learn how to identify why your target population is behaving the way they do, and finally, you’ll learn how to design products and services that aim to change the world and the way we behave.

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Discover How to Overcome the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

What does it take to manage a successful company while still fostering creativity? The current president of both Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, Ed Catmull, and co-founder of Pixar Studios has succeeded in both. After fulfilling his lifelong dream of creating the first-ever computer-animated film, Ed dedicated himself to turning Pixar into a successful company that focused on fostering the creativity of its employees and animators. So how did he do it? Throughout Creativity, Inc., Ed aims to teach you exactly what it takes to manage a successful company. As you read, you’ll learn how to ensure that your team achieves success and excellence while living up to their full creative potential. Additionally, you'll learn about Braintrust, how cubicles are dangerous, and why hierarchical structures are detrimental to your company.

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Learn how to develop Your talents and those of the people you manage.

As you’ve navigated through life, you’ve probably identified your weaknesses. You know all about your flaws, shortcomings, and what areas you need to improve upon. Perhaps you know that math is not your strong suit or that any sport involving a ball is simply not where you thrive. Companies and organizations even make sure that we know all about our weaknesses. They send employees to various trainings so they can develop the necessary skills to do their job better. But what if we’ve been doing it all wrong? According to Marcus Buckingham, we have. We shouldn’t be focusing on our weaknesses, it’s our strengths that we should be growing and developing. In Now, Discover Your Strengths, you’ll learn how to identify your strengths and use them to launch you further in life and your career. As you read, you’ll learn how your brain plays a role in developing your innate talents, why playing up your strengths is far more powerful than fixing your weaknesses, and whether you’re an Achiever, Arranger, or Input type.

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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.

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