Showing results for "Success" in Sociology

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

A funny and touching story about how to deal with the struggles of adulthood, how to live a good life, and how money can complicate it all. Money Sucks is the culmination of those discussions, rumination on the haves and the have-nots and a frank, thought-provoking look at some of the toughest questions life throws our way: What makes us happy? How much is enough? Funny and inspiring in equal measures, it’s a must-listen for anyone who cares about the future of their children, grandchildren, and the friends and family they love.

This reissue of Thomas Sowell’s classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell, one of America’s most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency but our very freedom.

What really drives success and failure? Can I trust you? It's the question that strikes at the heart of human existence. Whether we're talking about business partnerships, romantic relationships, child-parent bonds, or the brave new world of virtual interaction, trust, when correctly placed, is what makes our world spin and lives flourish. Renowned psychologist David DeSteno brings together the latest research from diverse fields, including psychology, economics, biology, and robotics, to create a compelling narrative about the forces that have shaped the human mind's propensities to trust.

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.

Drawing on his highly successful sales background and decades of research, he lays out a simple, repeatable, predictable, and ethical process that will enable you to lead others to discover for themselves what and why they need to change. Whether you hope to make a sale or improve a relationship, Jolles’ wise advice will help you ensure that changing someone’s mind is never an act of coercion but rather one of caring and compassion.

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities - businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government - do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost.

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country.

We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.

From Wall Street to the West Coast, from blue-collar billionaires to blue-blood fortunes, from the Google guys to hedge fund honchos, All the Money in the World gives us the lowdown on, among other things: the all-time richest Americans, who made and lost the most money in the past 25 years, the fields and industries that have produced the greatest wealth, the biggest risk takers, the most competitive players, the most wasteful family feuds, the trophy wives.

Em Aproveitar a vida e suas dores, somos lembrados por que o psicanalista e escritor Contardo Calligaris foi um dos grandes cronistas de nosso tempo. Nesta seleção de seus melhores textos, vemos o autor de Cartas a um jovem terapeuta e O sentido da vida – vencedor do Prêmio Jabuti 2024 – exercitar sua arte refinada da escuta do mundo com precisão e estilo, em crônicas para serem lidas sem pressa, na ordem ou ao acaso.

Whether we need to make better financial choices, find the love of our life, or transform our career, crowdsourcing is the key to making quicker, wiser, more objective decisions. But few of us even come close to tapping the full potential of our online personal networks. Zoref's clients are using his techniques to innovate and problem-solve in record time. Now he reveals how crowdsourcing has the ability to supercharge our thinking and upgrade every aspect of our lives.

How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.

It is taken for granted in the knowledge economy that companies must employ the most talented performers to compete and succeed. Many firms try to buy stars by luring them away from competitors. But Boris Groysberg shows what an uncertain and disastrous practice this can be.

If you think it’s getting harder to both make a living and make a life, economist and former secretary of labor Robert Reich agrees with you. Americans may be earning more than ever before, but we’re paying a steep price: we’re working longer, seeing our families less, and our communities...

Americans are taught to believe that upward mobility is possible for anyone who is willing to work hard, regardless of their social status. Yet it is often those from affluent backgrounds who land the best jobs. Pedigree takes listeners behind the closed doors of top-tier investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms to reveal the truth about who really gets hired for the nation's highest-paying entry-level jobs, who doesn't, and why.

Organizational consultant Adrian Pei describes key challenges ethnic minorities face in majority culture organizations. He unpacks how historical forces shape contemporary realities and what both minority and majority cultures need to know in order to work together fruitfully.

The Color of Success tells of the astonishing transformation of Asians in the United States from the "yellow peril" to "model minorities" - peoples distinct from the white majority but lauded as well-assimilated, upwardly mobile, and exemplars of traditional family values - in the middle decades of the 20th century. As Ellen Wu shows, liberals argued for the acceptance of these immigrant communities into the national fold, charging that the failure of America to live in accordance with its democratic ideals endangered the country's aspirations to world leadership.

Per uscire da una crisi serve un cambio di paradigma. Bisogna cambiare regole e prospettive, adeguare il proprio sguardo a un modo nuovo di interpretare la realtà. E prima che si stabilisca un nuovo paradigma, una nuova normalità, esiste un momento in cui tutte le possibilità sono aperte. Mauro Magatti è uno dei più importanti sociologi contemporanei, sempre più presente nel dibattito pubblico, e dimostra che ci troviamo esattamente in quel momento. Il 2008 ha segnato l'inizio di una crisi economica che si è rivelata anche politica e culturale e ha portato alla fine di un'epoca.

It’s comforting to think that we can be successful because we work hard, climb ladders, and get what we deserve, but each of us has been profoundly touched by randomness. Chance is shown to play a crucial role in shaping outcomes across history, throughout the natural world, and in our everyday lives. In The Random Factor, Mark Robert Rank draws from a wealth of evidence, including interviews and research, to explain how luck and chance play out and reveals how we can use these lessons to guide our personal lives and public policies.