The game-changing approach to success that will transform the way you master new skills and generate creative ideas. Learn how to work like top performers and use reverse engineering to unlock your full potential. 'An eye-opening, fast-paced read that will transform the way you approach your next project.' Shawn Achor For generations, we've been taught there are two ways to succeed - either from talent or through practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path - one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering. To reverse engineer is to decode what works for others and learn how to apply those same methods and strategies to develop your own unique ideas and projects. Exploring what lies behind the success of top performers - from Agatha Christie to Andy Warhol, Barack Obama to Serena Williams, and many more - you will learn from the best. Combined with ground-breaking research on pattern recognition, skill acquisition, motivation, performance and creativity, this book is a practical guide to achieving success within any field. Decoding Greatness provides a new way of thinking and working, and through unforgettable stories and strategies, you will learn how to improve your skills and spark break-through ideas. And once you have learned this formula, you can apply it to anything.

For readers of Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, and Freakonomics, a captivating and surprising journey through the science of workplace excellence. Why do successful companies reward failure? What can casinos teach us about building a happy workplace? How do you design an office that enhances both attention to detail and creativity? In The Best Place to Work, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D., uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work. Combining powerful stories with cutting-edge findings, Friedman shows leaders at every level how they can use scientifically proven techniques to promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance. Among the many surprising insights, Friedman explains how learning to think like a hostage negotiator can help you defuse a workplace argument, why placing a fish bowl near your desk can elevate your thinking, and how incorporating strategic distractions into your schedule can help you make smarter decisions. Along the way, the book introduces the inventor who created the cubicle, the president who brought down the world s most dangerous criminal, and the teenager who single-handedly transformed professional tennis vivid stories that offer unexpected revelations on achieving workplace excellence. Brimming with counterintuitive insights and actionable recommendations, The Best Place to Work offers employees and executives alike game-changing advice for working smarter and turning any organization regardless of its si

This textured and heart-rending novel explores the dynamic of a Midwestern Jewish family in the booming post-war 1950's. Twins and their older brother endure covert abuse and neglect from parents who are pillars of a small suburb. The story is told unflinchingly in the first person by one of the twins, in a narrative which is by turns, poetic, fierce, funny, sad, and joyous. The book assembles itself into crystalline vignettes which particularize and celebrate life, landscape, and characters. The darker tale, that of the sins of fathers and mothers being visited upon sons, is told without hyperbole or self-pity. Those readers enthusiastic for a well-crafted sentence and a fresh, insightful voice that is muscular, eloquent, and at times, outright funny will find this work memorable. The true theme is the roiling landscape of the mind and the resilience of the human heart.

The game-changing approach to success that will transform the way you master new skills and generate creative ideas. Learn how to work like top performers and use reverse engineering to unlock your full potential. 'An eye-opening, fast-paced read that will transform the way you approach your next project.' Shawn Achor For generations, we've been taught there are two ways to succeed - either from talent or through practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman illuminates a powerful third path - one that has quietly launched icons in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes, inventors and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering. To reverse engineer is to decode what works for others and learn how to apply those same methods and strategies to develop your own unique ideas and projects. Exploring what lies behind the success of top performers - from Agatha Christie to Andy Warhol, Barack Obama to Serena Williams, and many more - you will learn from the best. Combined with ground-breaking research on pattern recognition, skill acquisition, motivation, performance and creativity, this book is a practical guide to achieving success within any field. Decoding Greatness provides a new way of thinking and working, and through unforgettable stories and strategies, you will learn how to improve your skills and spark break-through ideas. And once you have learned this formula, you can apply it to anything.