Don T Trust Your Gut

"Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is more than a data scientist. He is a prophet for how to use the data revolution to reimagine your life. Don’t Trust Your Gut is a tour de force—an intoxicating blend of analysis, humor, and humanity.” — Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human Big decisions are hard. We consult friends and family, make sense of confusing “expert” advice online, maybe we read a self-help book to guide us. In the end, we usually just do what feels right, pursuing high stakes self-improvement—such as who we marry, how to date, where to live, what makes us happy—based solely on what our gut instinct tells us. But what if our gut is wrong? Biased, unpredictable, and misinformed, our gut, it turns out, is not all that reliable. And data can prove this. In Don’t Trust Your Gut, economist, former Google data scientist, and New York Times bestselling author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz reveals just how wrong we really are when it comes to improving our own lives. In the past decade, scholars have mined enormous datasets to find remarkable new approaches to life’s biggest self-help puzzles. Data from hundreds of thousands of dating profiles have revealed surprising successful strategies to get a date; data from hundreds of millions of tax records have uncovered the best places to raise children; data from millions of career trajectories have found previously unknown reasons why some rise to the top. Telling fascinating, unexpected stories with these numbers and the latest big data research, Stephens-Davidowitz exposes that, while we often think we know how to better ourselves, the numbers disagree. Hard facts and figures consistently contradict our instincts and demonstrate self-help that actually works—whether it involves the best time in life to start a business or how happy it actually makes us to skip a friend’s birthday party for a night of Netflix on the couch. From the boring careers that produce the most wealth, to the old-school, data-backed relationship advice so well-worn it’s become a literal joke, he unearths the startling conclusions that the right data can teach us about who we are and what will make our lives better. Lively, engrossing, and provocative, the end result opens up a new world of self-improvement made possible with massive troves of data. Packed with fresh, entertaining insights, Don’t Trust Your Gut redefines how to tackle our most consequential choices, one that hacks the market inefficiencies of life and leads us to make smarter decisions about how to improve our lives. Because in the end, the numbers don’t lie.

“This book is Moneyball for management. It will help you understand your subconscious biases that can lead to bad decisions, and it will teach you the techniques to help you make better decisions.” —Gordon Tredgold, author of Fast “This well-written, go-against-the-grain book is full of practical ways to tap into your very best mental resources to make better and better decisions.” —Brian Tracy, bestselling author of Eat that Frog! Want to avoid business disasters, whether minor mishaps, such as excessive team conflict, or major calamities like those that threaten bankruptcy or doom a promising career? Fortunately, behavioral economics studies show that such disasters stem from poor decisions due to our faulty mental patterns—what scholars call “cognitive biases”—and are preventable. Unfortunately, the typical advice for business leaders to “go with their guts” plays into these cognitive biases and leads to disastrous decisions that devastate the bottom line. By combining practical case studies with cutting-edge research, Never Go With Your Gut will help you make the best decisions and prevent these business disasters. The leading expert on avoiding business disasters, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, draws on over 20 years of extensive consulting, coaching, and speaking experience to show how pioneering leaders and organizations—many of them his clients—avoid business disasters. Reading this book will enable you to: Discover how pioneering leaders and organizations address cognitive biases to avoid disastrous decisions. Adapt best practices on avoiding business disasters from these leaders and organizations to your own context. Develop processes that empower everyone in your organization to avoid business disasters.

A research-based guide to navigating the newest dating phenomenon--"the love gap"--and a trailblazing action plan to help smart, confident, career-driven women find (and keep) their match. For a rising generation young women, the sky is the limit. Women can be anything and have everything. They are outpacing their male peers in higher education and earning the corner office at work. Smart, driven, assertive women are succeeding at just about everything they do--except romance. Why are so many men afraid to date smart women? Modern men claim to want smarts, success, and independence in romantic partners. Or so says the data collected by scientists and dating websites. If that's the case, why are so many independent, successful women winning in life, but losing in love? Journalist Jenna Birch has finally named the perplexing reason: "the love gap"--or that confusing rift between who men say they want to date and who they actually commit to. Backed by extensive data, research, in-depth interviews with experts and real-life relationship stories, The Love Gap is the first book to explore the most talked-about dating trend today. The guide also establishes a new framework for navigating modern relationships, and the tricky new gender dynamics that impact them. Women can, and should, have it all without settling.

You're anxious all the time, experiencing panic attacks over and over, and maybe afraid to leave your house or to be left alone for even a few minutes.. You are avoiding simple things like driving, eating in restaurants, attending family functions, or going to the supermarket. You are terrified of the next wave of anxiety or the next panic attack. Your anxiety problems are ruining your relationships, your family life, and your career. Your anxiety problems have you afraid, confused, lost, and feeling hopeless. How did you get here? What went wrong? You've tried so many things, but nothing has cured your anxiety? What can you do now? The Anxious Truth is a step-by-step guide to understanding and overcoming the anxiety problems that have plagued you for so long. This book, written by a former anxiety sufferer, best-selling author of "An Anxiety Story", and host of the The Anxious Truth podcast will walk you through exactly how you got to where you are today, why you are not broken or ill, and what the true nature of your anxiety disorder is. Next, the book will walk you through what it takes to solve your anxiety problems, how to make an anxiety recovery plan, then how to correctly execute that plan. The Anxious Truth isn't always what you want to hear, but it's what you NEED to hear in order to solve this problem once and for all and move toward the life you so desperately want. Based firmly on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapies that have been shown over decades to be most effective in treating anxiety problems, the Anxious Truth will teach you how to move past your anxiety symptoms, past endless digging for hidden "root causes", and into an action oriented plan that will help your brain un-learn the bad reaction and fear habits that have gotten you into this predicament. The Anxious Truth will take the cognitive mechanism that got you into a corner, throw it in reverse, and use it to your advantage, backing you out of this jam and into a life free from irrational fear and needless avoidance. More than just a book, The Anxious Truth goes hand-in-hand with The Anxious Truth podcast (https://theanxioustruth.com) and the growing and vibrant social media community surrounding it. Read the book, listen to five years worth of free podcasts chock full of helpful advice and information, and join a large online community of fellow anxiety sufferers that are done talking about this problem and ready to actually take action to solve it. Change is possible. No matter how long you've suffered with your anxiety issues, you can get better. The Anxious Truth will tell you what you need to hear and will arm you with the information, understanding, and skills you need to get the job done. Let's do this together!

Everyday Resilience is about developing our children’s resilience muscle in the everyday moments of life, so when the big challenges arrive they are ready. The way our children handle ‘small knocks’ is crucial, as it will be the foundation for much bigger things. Parents have an opportunity to see each small knock as a teachable moment to build resilience and help kids deal with the increasing challenges of friendship issues, academic pressure and the self-doubt they experience on a daily basis. Our children can ‘have it all’ and still be ill-prepared to handle life’s challenges. Despite the posters on our school’s walls and the endless research on resilience, there has been a significant rise in mental illness over the past five years. For many of our young ones, resilience is much easier to talk about than put into practise. In this book Michelle shows every family how they can cultivate resilience in their children or adolescents by focussing on 7 key traits – courage, gratitude, empathy, self-awareness, responsibility, self-care and contribution. She answers questions like: How can I help my child be more confident? What do I say when my child is rejected by friends? How do I help a child who is struggling academically? What do I say when my child says, “I can’t”? How do I help an anxious or shy child find their voice? What can I do to help them discover their potential? As a teacher, and founder of Youth Excel, Michelle has witnessed first-hand what works. Using every day scenarios and how-to actions, Michelle explains resilience in a way that will relate to every family. Her practical tone, humour and hands on experience provide every parent with tools to nurture strength in young lives.

"In the early 1990s, a small group of "AIDS denialists," including a University of California professor named Peter Duesberg, argued against virtually the entire medical establishment's consensus that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Science thrives on such counterintuitive challenges, but there was no evidence for Duesberg's beliefs, which turned out to be baseless. Once researchers found HIV, doctors and public health officials were able to save countless lives through measures aimed at preventing its transmission"--

Discusses the practice of using one's instincts in five ways to achieve success and happiness, including acting before you think, committing to just enough, and knowing when to do nothing.

Fear can't help you in a dangerous situation. A former FBI profiler shows you what can. As one of the world's top experts on psychopathy and criminal behavior, Mary Ellen O'Toole has seen repeatedly how relying on the sense of fear alone often fails to protect us from danger. Whether you are opening the door to a stranger or meeting a date you connected with online, you need to know how to protect yourself from harm-physical, financial, legal, and professional. Using the SMART method, which O'Toole developed and used at the FBI, we can confidently know how to: Respond to a threat in any situation Hire someone who will work inside your home like a contractor or housekeeper Figure out whether a prospective employee is a safe bet Know whom you can trust with your children An especially useful book for women living alone, parents who are concerned about their children's safety, and employers worried about employees who might go postal, Dangerous Instincts gives us the tools used by professionals to navigate potentially hazardous waters. Like The Gift of Fear and The Sociopath Next Door, it will appeal to anyone looking to make the right call in an ever threatening world.