We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
I don’t know why I began curating this collection of things that caught and kept my attention. At some point I began discovering there were connections between all of them. I often remind myself of the little robot in WALL•E (especially the scene with the spork). As an artist friend said, “In my work, I get emotional feedback if something feels good, and if I follow that it takes me to a good result.”
Today we live in a renaissance of creative insight into these topics (i.e., ourselves), but people have been exploring them from the earliest written documents. That stream continues in these references, which I list in no particular order:
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
The definitive textbook on the psychology of choice – how we decide to do what we do. - Robert M. Persig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I believe this journey of rediscovery explores the same terrain that Kahneman does, from the inside. - Malcolm Gladwell, Blink
An entertaining and eye-opening tour of how our brains work. - Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
Haidt popularized the “rider on an elephant” metaphor for our cognitive and emotional brains. I believe his hypothesis of “90% chimp, 10% bee” is fundamental for society and economics. I also like his concept of hiving, esppecially during playoff season. - John Gottman has a number of books, articles, and videos, and now a series of seminars.
Gottman is the pioneer of studying emotional brains in conversation. His work has primarily been with couples, but I believe the principles he uncovered will be shown to apply in every relationship, from leadership to partnership to a one-time sale.
Books include Why Marriages Succeed or Fail: What You Can Learn from the Breakthrough Research to Make Your Marriage Last, with Nan Silver;
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, with Nan Silver.The Relationship Cure: A Five-Step Guide for Building Better Connections with Family, Friends, and Lovers, with Joan Declaire. - Brandon Bays, The Journey
The most powerful way to work with your emotional brain. Journey work achieves extraordinary results in healing, health, and empowerment. - The NTL Institute (National Training Laboratories). In the 1940s Kurt Lewin began developing the use dialog groups to build interpersonal skills, based on the insight that emotional intelligence (the term would not be common for 50 years) requires experiential learning. NTL is the custodian of that legacy and conducts courses and coaching.
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence
Goleman changed our public conversation about “street smarts,” “common sense,” and “people skills” and brought intellectual rigor to the truth that our highest IQ citizens do not and should not run the planet. - James Gleick: Chaos: Making a New Science
An entertaining and accessible recounting of the emerging math and science of systems with feedback loops. Gleick keeps the story simple. This topic applies to everything, from marriages to stock markets, politics, the internet, climate… and our very selves.
Also a great treatise on the limits of our science and engineering, the world beyond what we can easily describe. - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Should be a required reading for all advanced degrees. A great history of cognitive and emotional bias in science, that applies equally well to most other fields of learning. - Sue Johnson, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
The title of this book is misleading, because the underlying principles are just as valid for a client-vendor relationship as a married couple. The same forces are a work – they are just applied differently. - Marshall Goldsmith, Triggers
Elephant training 101. Our list finally gets to implementing personal change. So far he is the best source I have seen on self-training System 2, which learns by conditioning. Kahneman explores this indirectly in his section on “expert intuition,” which I believe is the result of training System 2. - William Glasser, Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom
Perhaps the core book about empowering choice and change. His section on depression alone is a profound and compelling window into how absolutely our unconscious self can rule our lives, and how we can discover and change that.
Pending citation:
- Crucial Conversations
Difficult Conversations
Both good in different ways. Both good at showing the case for effective influence. Because both are cognitive texts, full of tips and ought-tos which instruct Sytem 1, perhaps not as good at helping the reader implementing the wisdom.
Unread:
Elephants and Economics 