Personal Communication

Etiquette, Sara Jane says, is the glue that holds society together. Humans are social creatures, after all—we need connection to survive. But with global cultures in flux and the post-pandemic digital age, shadow epidemics of anxiety and loneliness are on the rise. Plus, the old rules of “decorum” don’t match the times. Amidst all this withdrawal and change, social growth can feel out of reach. How do we leave the comfort of our homes, step away from our screens, and interact face to face?

Get heard by being clear and concise. The only way to survive in business today is to be a lean communicator. Busy executives expect you to respect and manage their time more effectively than ever. You need to do the groundwork to make your message tight and to the point. The average professional receives 304 emails per week and checks their smartphones 36 times an hour and 38 hours a week. This inattention has spread to every part of life. The average attention span has shrunk from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight in 2012. So, throw them a lifeline and be brief.

Whether it's a manager who keeps moving the goal posts, an uncooperative colleague, negative friend, or critical family member, some people are just plain hard to get along with. Often, your immediate response is to shrink or sulk, become defensive or attack. But there are smarter moves to make when dealing with difficult people. This book explains how to cope with a range of situations with difficult people and to focus on what you can change.

After two decades as a behavior analyst in the FBI, Robin Dreeke knows a thing or two about sizing people up. He's navigated complex situations that range from handling Russian spies to navigating the internal politics at the Bureau. Through that experience, he was forced to develop a knack for reading people - their intentions, their capabilities, their desires and their fears. In Sizing People Up, Dreeke shares his simple, six-step system that helps you predict anyone's future behavior based on their words, goals, patterns of action, and the situation at hand.

This book is about understanding healthy relationships and what they are based on. Communication is tough, and we all have unhelpful tendencies. You'll learn about what you're doing, identify it, and re-direct your efforts into building bridges rather than walls. You’ll learn actionable techniques and frameworks to have the most productive conversations of your life - ones that will walk away with people praising how empathetic you are. Most importantly, you will gain profound insights on how to reprogram yourself into a natural communicator.

Beilock examines how attention and working memory guide human performance, how experience and practice and brain development interact to create our abilities, and how stress affects all these factors.

Assertiveness is a key social skill, as well as a tool for making your relationships more equal. Learning to respond more effectively to others can help you reduce stress and increase your sense of self-worth. In this fully updated and revised 10th edition, you'll learn practical advice on dealing with difficult people, handling criticism, and expressing your feelings. You'll also discover how to use humor in conflict resolution, ways to clarify others' intentions, and how to distinguish between encouraging and discouraging communication habits.

In The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, best-selling author Carmine Gallo reveals the qualities that make the Apple co-founder the most innovative leader in business today. Each principle is backed with research, quotes, and first-person interviews with experts and business leaders, as well as specific ideas for applying those principles to every business, large or small.

We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.

In today's social media and selfie-obsessed culture, we are living in an age of narcissism - and a society that often celebrates this potentially harmful trait rather than understanding it as a psychological disorder. Scientists are beginning to learn that narcissism exists on a spectrum - much like autism - and most of us exhibit some mild narcissistic tendencies.

Following on the runaway success of her book Boundary Boss, Terri Cole presents a practice-packed guide to help you establish the robust boundaries that are essential for an empowered and deeply satisfying life. The Boundary Boss Workbook greatly expands on the transformational tools Cole introduced in her debut book. You’ll start with the essential truths about boundaries and how they operate, then dive straight into potent exercises—including assessments, scripts, mindfulness, embodiment, gratitude, celebration, and more.

Better Vocabulary in 30 Minutes a Day offers a lively and entertaining method for adding a more impressive list of words to your everyday speech, and for learning how to use them effortlessly and accurately. Besides giving definitions, this invaluable guide also provides root meanings and elements of words so you can increase your vocabulary base by thousands of exciting new words and use them with aplomb in sentences.

Great speeches have influenced people, swayed the outcome of historical events, motivated people to wage wars and urged people to fight injustice and to even lay down their lives. Words, in other words, can comfort people during a tragedy, can move soldiers and partisans to risk life and limb, raise levels of patriotism and even change the course of history. Oratory is thus the art of influencing people, and those who master this skill command an almost godlike power. Hear more about the art of influencing people in this quick listen.

Train Your Empathy is an extreme deep dive into the topic of what makes people connect. It’s not small talk or even a sense of humor—only empathy makes people truly feel safe, heard, and yearning for more.

Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable. Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage.

The system design interview is one of the hardest challenges you'll face in the software engineering hiring process. This practical book gives you the insights, the skills, and the hands-on practice you need to ace the toughest system design interview questions and land the job and salary you want.

This clever and pithy audiobook challenges introverts to take ownership of their personalities...with quiet strength. Sophia Dembling asserts that the introvert’s lifestyle is not "wrong" or lacking, as society or extroverts would have us believe. Through a combination of personal insights and psychology, The Introvert’s Way helps and encourages introverts to embrace their nature, to respect traits they may have been ashamed of and reframe them as assets.

You are one conversation away from changing your life. We all crave connection. We were never meant to live alone or communicate only in “likes” and retweets. In Every Conversation Counts, TV host and human connection keynote speaker Riaz Meghji digs deep into the dangers of isolation and loneliness, our social pandemic, that have been brought into sharp relief by the coronavirus crisis. He tackles a uniquely modern question: Why are we so connected, and yet so alone - and how can we reconnect?

Build the successful, loving, long-term partnership you desire with the Emergent Love Model. If you feel disillusioned, disconnected, or unfulfilled, internationally-celebrated couples therapist Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh can help you redefine your relationship—perfect for perfect for fans of The 8 Rules of Love and The Love Prescription.

As a White House speechwriter, Terry Szuplat helped craft hundreds of speeches for President Obama. But when it came to public speaking himself, Szuplat—like many people—was gripped by anxiety and preferred to stay in the shadows. When he was invited to give the first major speech of his life, he faced a choice: keep hiding from what scared him, or finally face his fears.