#frontierbooks

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THE ESSENTIALS

"If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will." 

Listen on SoundCloud or iTunes for more from Greg McKeown's Essentialism shared by Frontier Academy.

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Our views on Social Intelligence, the very heavy read of Daniel Goleman's follow-up to his best selling Emotional Intelligence. Listen on Soundcloud or iTunes.

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The Power of Habit

We just finished reading "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg, and are all now trying to make and break certain habits. As the NYT suggests, "this is not a self-help book conveying one author’s homespun remedies, but a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.

Duhigg is optimistic about how we can put the science to use," claiming that the real power of habit is the insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. "He also suggests that by understanding the nature of habits we can influence group behavior, turning companies into profit makers and ensuring the success of social movements."

While Duhigg's approach and the examples and cases he presents are fascinating, at times the science seems too simplified. If there is a difference between a habit and a routine, he doesn't make the distinction, and glosses over the chemical dependencies forming such habits as smoking and drinking. Habits come in many different shapes and sizes, and trying to retrofit them all into a simple formula ("the habit loop," in which a cue kicks off the performance of the habit, resulting in a reward) misses some of the nuances of how habits are formed and how to alter them.

Still, Duhigg writes an engaging book, giving us food for thought and presenting at least a first step in changing some of our bad habits and forming some new good ones.

Check back soon for a new podcast on the book!

Source: New York Times

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How To Win Friends And Influence People

And oldy but a goody. This book has been helping me as I've been reaching out to new people from all different backgrounds to talk about Frontier client products and The Frontier Project services. It has helped me understand how to connect with their wants and needs to see if there's ways we can effectively add to their lives and organizations. I've also been able to realize things about myself to make myself an easier person to work with on a daily basis. - JB

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So Good They Can't Ignore You

Why skills trump passion in the quest for work you love A fascinating read for those passion-seekers who are always looking for the job of their dreams. So Good They Can't Ignore You, addresses the notion that we should find jobs based on our passion and instead implores upon the reader that they should be brilliant at a job first, and the passion will follow. A testament to good work ethic and developing unique skills. - BC

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Old Ideas

For the next time your designer-glasses-wearing innovation consultants are talking about the "ideas economy" and how contemporary markets demand the ability to generate ideas.  May we present a petite, eloquent book crafted in the 1940s.  Sufficient to keep you ahead of today's buzzword economy.

- SW, New York

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Bibliotheque

We're asked often for book recommendations.  We'll be posting occasionally on books we think are worth reading (sometimes scan reading).  We're geeks at heart, so expect some obvious business books and some less-than-obvious-but-have-an-abstract-tie-to-our-work books.  Each will be tagged as "FrontierBooks" so when you're short on library inspiration, you can find a recommendation... and blame us if you leave the chapters uninspired.