Genius Health

Literature is a technology like any other. And the writers we revere - from Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, and others - each made a unique technical breakthrough that can be viewed as both a narrative and neuroscientific advancement. Literature’s great invention was to address problems we could not solve: not how to start a fire or build a boat, but how to live and love; how to maintain courage in the face of death; how to account for the fact that we exist at all.

As Jamie Holmes shows in Nonsense, being confused is unpleasant, so we tend to shutter our minds as we grasp for meaning and stability, especially in stressful circumstances. We’re hard-wired to resolve contradictions quickly and extinguish anomalies. This can be useful, of course. When a tiger is chasing you, you can’t be indecisive. But as Nonsense reveals, our need for closure has its own dangers. It makes us stick to our first answer, which is not always the best, and it makes us search for meaning in the wrong places.

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.

For decades, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a fundamental matter: How did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf? In The Real Work, Gopnik apprentices himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor (from the DMV), among others, trying his late-middle-age hand at things he assumed were beyond him.

Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry? Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), and more.

In Me, Myself, and Us, Brian Little, Ph.D., one of the psychologists who helped re-shape the field, provides the first in-depth exploration of the new personality science and its provocative findings for general readers. The audiobook explores questions that are rooted in the origins of human consciousness but are as commonplace as yesterday's breakfast conversation. Are our first impressions of other people's personalities usually fallacious?

In The Daemon: A Guide to Your Extraordinary Secret Self, Anthony Peake proposes that people consist of not one but two separate consciousnesses - everyday consciousness and that of The Daemon, a higher being that seems to possess knowledge of future events. Drawing upon phenomena such as déjà vu and near-death experiences, he explores the ways that our Daemon breaks through into our consciousness and can subconsciously impact upon our decisions.

The Artist's Way has helped more than a million people access their creativity and realize their dreams. Now, authors Mark Bryan, Julia Cameron, and Catherine Allen extend and expand the original Artist's Way tools in an all-new program specifically designed to encompass the world of the workplace.The authors asked hundreds of businesspeople to tell them the things that concerned them, receiving such heartfelt questions as: How do I stay creative in a hostile and competitive environment? Remain creative despite criticism? Clarify and apply my strengths to my work? Overcome the depression I feel at my job? Handle an impossible workload?This audiobook answers these question and many more. The Artist's Way at Work will help you thrive at the job you now have, move into the career you truly want, or launch the business of your dreams. It combines the strength of three fields: the art world, the entrepreneurial world, and the corporate world. The Artist's Way at Work will give you a more satisfying, fully creative life in which you will feel a sense of wholeness, not fragmentation, a sense of cooperation, not competition. This audiobook will help you become more authentic, more productive, and better able to see and speak your truth in all facets of your life.

Why do so many world-changing insights come from people with little or no related experience? Charles Darwin was a geologist when he proposed the theory of evolution. And it was an astronomer who finally explained what happened to the dinosaurs. Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect shows how breakthrough ideas most often occur when we bring concepts from one field into a new, unfamiliar territory, and offers examples on how we can turn the ideas we discover into path-breaking innovations.

From Amie McNee, the voice behind Inspired to Write, a manifesto on the vital, human importance of creating, with guidance for all artists in all endeavors, whether they're starting their journey or seeking a fresh perspective. In We Need Your Art, Amie McNee calls artists and aspiring artists of all kinds to do the work they’re meant to do: create.

To finish tasks and achieve goals, most people believe that more focus is the solution. We rely on to-do lists, calendar reminders, noise-blocking headphones, and sometimes medication to help us concentrate - even though these tactics often fail to substantially improve productivity. Drawing on the latest brain research, compelling stories from his psychological practice, and colorful examples of counterintuitive success from sports, business, education, and the arts, neuroscientist Srini Pillay, MD, challenges traditional ideas about productivity.

One of the world's 50 living autistic savants is the first and only to tell his compelling and inspiring life story and explain how his incredible mind works. Worldwide, there are fewer than 50 living savants, those autistic individuals who can perform miraculous mental calculations or artistic feats. (Think Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man.) None of them has been able to discuss his or her thought processes, much less write a book. Until now.

What exactly is a work of art? Within the context of this guided trip inside the artist's psyche, Author traces the development of transcendent books, paintings, jokes, movies, songs, and other forms of artistic expression. Together with the diary entries, napkin doodles, and sketches that were their tools, Moss lays down the work—the tortuous roads and creative decisions—that lead to outstanding art. He does this by weaving together conversations with some of the most renowned artists of our time.

In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas.

Award-winning author Michael Harris examines why our experience of solitude has become so impoverished and how we may grow to love it again in the frenzy of our digital landscape. Solitude is an optimistic and encouraging story about discovering true quiet inside the city, inside the crowd, inside our busy and urbane lives. Harris guides listeners away from a life of ceaseless pings toward a state of measured connectivity, one that balances solitude and companionship.

A powerful and inspiring examination of the connection between the potential for great talent and conditions commonly thought to be "disabilities", revealing how the source of our struggles can be the origin of our greatest strengths. In The Power of Different, psychiatrist and best-selling author Gail Saltz examines the latest scientific discoveries and profiles famous geniuses who have been diagnosed with all manner of brain "problems".

Our ability to remake our world is unique among all living things. But where does our creativity come from, how does it work, and how can we harness it to improve our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions? The Runaway Species is a deep-dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. Composer Anthony Brandt and neurologist David Eagleman seek to discover what lies at the heart of humanity's ability - and drive - to create.

There is a complexity paradox that we all need to understand. We humans have a natural inclination towards connection, engagement, and creativity–all necessary skills to thrive in complexity. The problem is that the stress caused by uncertainty and ambiguity makes it difficult to tap into this inclination when we need it the most. This book offers a set of practices that help you not only understand complexity but actually hack into your own nervous system to bring your natural capacities back online.

« L’essentiel, à partir du moment où vous entrez dans ce livre, c’est ce que vous déciderez de faire de votre désir d’écrire, qu’il vous conduise à réaliser une œuvre littéraire, à explorer votre existence, ou encore à mieux vous connaître et ainsi à mieux vivre. » Que faire de notre désir d’écrire quand des peurs et des freins nous nous musèlent ? Selon Eudes Séméria, psychothérapeute existentiel, il faut écrire pour se connaître et de se connaître pour écrire. Accéder à sa créativité passera alors par un travail d’analyse mais aussi par une mise à l’épreuve guidée permettant d'atteindre sa maturité.

The biggest threat facing modern business is the sheer complexity of an uncertain future. That, and the fact that everyone is busy. Too busy for progress. Workplace cultures have become cursed with efficiency. And so when it comes to developing strategy, we default to our defaults. We favor quick fixes, easy templates, and familiar approaches, developing 'robust plans' that do little to mitigate strategic risk or generate new value. The result? The future comes, and businesses die.