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5 books to deal with tough challenges at work and life
Summary
From chasing productivity to conflict resolution, find hands-on frameworks to improve your mental health in these new booksUnless you are among the lucky few, the world of work throws a range of challenges at you every day. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the many problems that confront us, these new books provide ways of reframing the difficulties that beset our lives and careers.
Tiny Experiments by Anna-Laure Le Cunff
Written by an award-winning neuroscientist and entrepreneur, this book comes with glowing recommendations from a host of influential voices, from writer Oliver Burkeman to productivity guru Ali Abdaal. The subtitle “How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World" captures the crux of the matter. In a corporate ethos, where goal setting and targets are the North Stars, Le Cunff offers strategies to help you deal with the ups and downs of your performance without crippling guilt or self-flagellation. (Hachette, ₹499)
Healing the Modern Brain by Drew Ramsay
While the relationship between mental and physiological health continues to be explored by scientists, there is substantial evidence that the two are correlated. In this ‘how-to’ book, a physician combines clinical experience with scientific research to offer “Nine Tenets to Build Mental Tenets and Revitalize Your Mind." Particularly illuminating are the sections on nutritional psychiatry, a field which Dr Ramsay specializes in. (HarperCollins, ₹399)
Conflict Resilience by Robert C. Bordone and Joel Salinas
How do you navigate a conflict, be it at work or in life, without giving in or giving up? This book attempts to give you tools to handle this million-dollar question to which there are no definite answers. That’s partly because the nature of conflict and the strategies we adopt to tackle it must evolve with the times. With a simple but effective three-step framework—name, explore, commit—the authors bring in a fresh perspective to negotiation. (HarperCollins, ₹499)
What You're Made For by George Raveling and Ryan Holiday
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday teams up with his mentor and iconic basketball coach George Raveling to tell the story of his life. From his activism during the segregation era, which included a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., to being appointed the first Director of International Basketball at Nike, a role in which Raveling signed up Michael Jordon, this is a gripping story of a richly variegated life. As with so many books on sports, there are striking parallels with the world of business, as leadership lessons can be transposed from one domain to the other. (Hachette, ₹699)
Hunting Discomfort by Sterling Hawkins
No one likes to experience discomfort, but we don’t have a choice. Life is bound to throw curveballs at all of us at some point or another and test our resilience. Entrepreneur Sterling Hawkins shares stories from his career to help you to not only deal with discomfort when it finds you, but to actively seek it as a stepping stone to your personal growth. Having been there and done that, from building and selling businesses to running ultramarathons, he tells you how he did it all #NoMatterWhat. (Rupa, ₹295)
