Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EOX1L2A | Format: EPUB
Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence Description
In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the #1 international best-seller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today's scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention.
Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world.
Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on smart practices - mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental "prosthetics" that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness - excel while others do not.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 8 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Harper Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: October 8, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EOX1L2A
The book is well written with every chapter peppered with amusing examples and stories making it an interesting read. Most of us will agree that we are deluged by interruptions and distractions every step of the way. Be it the Email, or IM or text. Multiply by a factor of ten or hundred to see the interruptions a teenager faces. If any one had any doubt about the impact it is having on each one of us and the society as a whole, the book settles the issue.
But wait, how do I increase my focus ?
Do I do Yoga? . How do I effectively increase my focus while juggling between office work, Kids , pickup and drop off at school, Homework, Baseball,Watching NBA, America's Got Talent, shopping for Milk . Yes, superficial advice in the book like "walk in the nature" are good but they are not silver bullets. (Smart games > oh yeah, my kid will love it to improve Focus as he spends hours on it) The entire book reflects one side of the coin with no real solutions to improve focus. There are chapters on "Well focused Leader" .. It is a fact that the leaders get all the help, best training programs with or without reading the book...It is a common man like you and me who needs help .
The book would be a 4 star if it was written by anyone other than Goleman,but the benchmark set by him for himself in Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition makes me give this book three stars. Well, don't be disappointed. Do yourself a favor by reading other master pieces like
This book's title states a hypothesis that the author does not only fail to prove, he seems to hardly address it. What is switched for the bait? You get a slapdash collection of celebrity anecdotes with a science feel about them, a rundown of trendy notions and truisms such as having a positive mindset is good. This is newspaper writing to put one at peace with the death of newspapers.
Goleman either does not have a very scientific mind or simply has massive contempt for his audience. He tosses in at one point with little connection the notion that punishing children for bad grades unequivocally never works. Really? Never ever? Not in the slightest? Interviews with A-average students to prove it? Forget that. Goleman has no interest or ability to question or even add to any politically correct pop science theory.
Goleman does not seem interested at all in excellence. Fine. Can't condemn him for that. But then why the frick is the word in the title? We can condemn him for lying.
You would think this book would be packed with examples of those who have achieved excellence followed by analysis of how focus was the key element to their success. And you would be very wrong. You wound not even be in the same dimension of space, time or reality. This point is never considered much less addressed. Instead we get pages on the fun but totally irrelevant idea of a carbon handprint, which you will read about here and then never hear about again.
Goleman states as axiom the cliched notion that cavemen survived because they could not afford to focus, but modern people need focus for success. Really? Don't successful people have to juggle quite a bit? Can't excessive focus blind one to other options?
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