Janet shares Just 3 books in the "Personal Development" category to help improve yourself and your life. She also announces "Recommendations," a brand-new feature on Nonfiction4Life podcasts.
00:20 Another episode of “Editor’s Picks” from the “Personal Development” category
00:25 Two other EP episodes (#20-Home & Family; #47-Biographies & Memoirs)
00:40 N4L adding “Recommendations” to the podcast; stay tuned to the end!
01:10 Just 3 Personal Development books
01:40 1st book: How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth, and Karen Dillon
01:50 Impressive resume includes being named “the world’s most influential thinker
02:50 Health fails; he’s a Harvard Business School professor, but he can’t write or speak
03:20 Relearning is demanding, slow, and discouraging
03:35 Arrives at a “fork in the road” where he decides his true purpose in life
03:50 1. Encourages his students to use time at school to figure out their lives’ direction
04:30 2. Gives smart people permission to make family and home life top priority
06:00 HBS class reunions full of extremely successful, very unhappy people
06:55 3. Helps students use theories to predict the trajectory of their lives
07:30 Bottom line: he helps people choose happiness and joy over everything else
07:50 2nd book: Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
08:10 Authors teach popular design course at Stanford University
08:15 Apply design principles and processes to help people design their own lives
08:45 1. Visual dashboards: how you’re spending time; “Odyssey Planning 101” (5-year plans)
09:30 2. Emphasizes the positive (look back at “peak experiences"; focus on offers, not jobs)
10:00 3. Being, Doing, and Becoming cycle emphasizes growth
10:55 3rd book: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
11:05 Good news for non-geniuses working hard: grit can be learned!
11:15 Duckworth supports ideas with research
11:25 1. Found grittiest adults in their late 6os, and the least gritty in their 20s
12:15 2. Finding your true passion takes time, sometimes years
12:40 3. How to grow grit from the inside out
12:50 “Grit Grid” charts commitment to outside activities and attached recognition
13:45 Follow-through & commitment to extra-curricular requires selection and cultivation
14:35 Discover your own level of grit using Duckworth's 10-Question Grit Scale.
14:50 Intro to N4L’s first-ever Recommendation
14:55 Janet’s mother, Mrs. Tanner, just turned 98 years old and has dementia
15:10 Story of her forgetting how many children she has
15:30 Janet chooses to laugh; takes comfort knowing part of her brain works really well
15:45 Mom knows all the lyrics to hundreds of songs
16:10 Other older people suffering from memory loss can also be amazing, but changed
16:20 Teddy from the UK got Alzheimer’s and became aggressive and ill-tempered
16:30 His son Simon wanted to remember his father’s better side and his strong tenor voice
16:45 Simon takes Teddy for drives, plays music familiar to his father
16:50 Simon records father-son duets of Teddy’s signature songs; posts on YouTube
17:00 Teddy named “The Songaminute Man”
17:10 Videos go viral
17:15 Janet recommends "The Songaminute Man" YouTube video "Cuando, Cuando, Cuando"
17:25 Simon crowdsources to fund professional recordings; proceeds help Alzheimer’s research
BUY How Will You Measure Your Life?
BUY Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
BUY Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
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