Book Reviews – Edge for Scholars at Vanderbilt

Predicting Whether a Collaboration Will Work

Book Reviews / Networking & Collaboration August 6, 2025

We know collaborating on common goals with outside groups is a good thing, but how can you know going in that a collaboration will be successful? Despite all the best intentions, cultural and historical factors don’t always align to support a good collaboration. It’d be nice to know that before committing on a time-consuming venture of establishing a new scientific or business relationship.

Researchers Paul Mattessich and Kirsten Johnson of the Wilder Research group have reviewed dozens of published case studies to identify factors that enhance compatibility. They distilled their research into an inventory of questions called the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory, contained in Chapter 6 of Collaboration: What Makes It Work. This exposition focuses on any group collaborations, not just individuals, and not just for science.

Mattessich is an experienced sociology researcher who consults on projects in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. There, he has dealt with latent cultural forces, often beyond a business’ control, that sometimes scuttle projects. Those perspectives clearly lie behind his and Johnson’s approach in this inventory.

For groups already engaged in collaboration, this book doesn’t offer much more than an academic exploration of social factors involved in working together successfully. It spells out 22 broad factors related to the environment, membership, process, communication, purpose, and resources. Although these categories were gleaned from case studies on collaboration, the text, unfortunately, does not provide much detail to ground these abstractions. However, for groups where resistance to cooperating might exist, this book offers a formal framework to test whether the time and circumstances are right.

Their inventory provides a comprehensive diagnostic battery gleaned from other collaboration’s shortcomings. Based on the 22 factors, it offers 44 statements to test a collaboration’s readiness. These questions should be asked before a collaboration begins. Questions include:
• Question 9: The people involved in our collaboration represent a cross section of those who have a stake in what we are trying to accomplish.
• Question 31: The people who lead this collaborative group communicate well with its members.
• Question 43: The people in leadership positions for this collaboration have good skills for working with other people and organizations.
They are meant to engage your mind with practicalities to get ready for success.

Fraught social circumstances can kill even the most well-supported collaboration. Sometimes, those circumstances are beyond any collaborative party’s control, too. Asking the not-so-obvious questions ahead of time can provide a good foundation for an effort’s dynamics.

In academe, foreseeing rough patches with other labs, foundation groups, or industry partners can lead to more successful outcomes. Diplomatic care isn’t just for a nation’s foreign policy; it can help figure out whether to make a deep dive in a new partnership or save effort. Tools like the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory can help a group predict whether such collaborations are worthwhile ahead of time.

Collaboration: What Makes It Work
By Paul W. Mattessich & Kirsten M. Johnson
3rd Edition
Copyright © 2018
Fieldstone Alliance
ISBN13 9781683367918
Page Count: 108

Getting an Edge through Mentorship

Book Reviews / Mentoring January 27, 2025

Traditional mentorship programs tend to be organized via a hierarchy, with mentees being assigned a mentor to advance mentees’ careers. Under imprecise rubrics like “peer mentoring” or “lateral mentoring,” recent attention has focused on how key mentorships happen outside of institutional programs. Deborah Heiser started an organization called The Mentor Project to promote relationships with mentees that grow out of an accomplished veteran’s innate desire to give back. In The Mentorship Edge, she proposes that organizations best enable mentoring relationships by facilitating connections rather than by focusing on career advancement.

Like other books about mentoring, this book is filled with stories about unique ways this group’s mentees and mentors have connected. Mentorship books seem to collect stories of mentors going the extra mile to help a mentee. That’s the fun part because these noteworthy aspects seem to be the norm in healthy mentoring relationships. We all want to go the extra mile to help someone taste success.

Two sections stood out to me in this book. First, as a researcher centered in psychology, she grounds mentorship in Erik Erikson’s leading theory of adult development in her introduction. There’s a lot to his theory, but his description of a later life phase of “generativity” overlaps with mentorship. Wanting to give back through socially meaningful activities is a completely normal part of being an adult. We all do it, and we don’t need to don a superhero cape to mentor. Heiser captures this generative impulse that we all possess to describe what mentorship should be about. I appreciate the philosophical grounding of mentorship as a universal human need.

Second, the chapter on Mentoring in the Workplace caught my interest. Individual stories of healthy relationships certainly move me, but I’m interested in learning how mentorship scales in different industries. Through true-to-life narratives, she breaks down how mentoring can work in industries as different as healthcare, the military, and the law. She demonstrates how a lateral generativity can help even in the most vertical of environments.

By way of critique, I dislike her use of the term “lateral mentoring.” First, she puts a trademark sign every time she uses it. This unconventional branding distracts from the main message of the book. Most technical terms do not use a trademark, especially in a scientific environment. It speaks of capitalism, not scientific collegiality. Second, she tries to distinguish it from “peer mentoring” by claiming that peer mentoring is more emotional. In the field of biomedical research, this claim is untrue. Peer mentoring in the literature refers to what she refers to as lateral mentoring. Instead of acknowledging different uses, she tries to steer us to her trademarked term. This use raises my cynicism.

Nonetheless, this book paints a picture of how mentoring relationships can abound around us, and how naturally they can form (or something related to the “generativity” idea). While this book contains limited quantitative data, abundant qualitative stories illustrate her key observation that mentoring relationships stem from the mentor’s human need for generativity. I appreciate that her vision for mentorship is not limited to a fixed, hierarchical program but a culture of human relationships where we all help one another. In my experience, the best mentoring relationships are unplanned but grounded in human care.

Rekindling the Fire: A Review of The Joy of Science

Book Reviews / Doing Research / Faculty Life April 12, 2024

For most of us, science begins with a rush of “Wow! This is super cool!” But the emotional fire can subside after years of hard work. Negativity in popular culture can make us forget the depths of our why. To rekindle our passion to see the universe’s beauty, physicist Roel Snieder and policy expert Jen Scheider remind us of the human heart of science and lay out a spiritual center to our enterprise.

By highlighting our personal role in discovery, they provide a template for scientists seeking to both live a fulfilling life and do first-rate science. This template offers seven principles that can enrich our lives under the hypothesis that happy people produce better work. These principles are harmony, courage, vision, curiosity, listening, compassion, and integrity.

Each chapter doesn’t merely provide a “rah rah” pick-me-up; it cites the literature and analyzes the subject in a manner appropriate for scientists. The authors study scientists’ spirits, how each of us feel as we work, and present these feelings as noble expressions of human spirit. Playful, hand-drawn illustrations excite the imagination as the authors practice what they preach – and bring readers along for the ride. Sections also provide practical exercises for readers to integrate these abstract concepts into their day-to-day lives.

One of my takeaways: Modern conversation often puts spirituality and science at odds with each other. Religions, the traditional home of spirituality, sometimes tread on science’s turf, and scientists sometimes fear the untested authority of religion. In my own life, I’ve found that science and religion have a lot to learn from each other, and both can benefit from more listening, a core principle in this book. This text does not address religion directly, but the authors do describe what human spirituality in scientific endeavors looks like from two scientists’ perspectives. They speak of science not as a chore to complete nor as a grade to earn but as a “love” to explore. In academe, it’s easy to neglect such intrinsic emotional engagement with our work.

By giving us examples of how personal attitudes interact with scientific endeavors, the authors explain these seven principles’ impact in concrete terms. For instance, they help us relate our science to our students and even our children. They also extrapolate what inner courage resembles in a scientific career. Elsewhere, they dwell on staving off a sense of professional loneliness and having compassion for students who can also be lonely in their work. To them, finding joy in your work translates into bringing joy to the rest of the world through your work.

Snieder and Scheider contend that honing personal qualities can reduce the chore of getting work done while encouraging us to skip to work each day. As with most things, increased happiness requires attentive effort but is ultimately realizable. Paying attention to our innate human spirituality can bring personal meaning to ourselves and help us convey nature’s wonder better to others. This book shows us how. It reminds us that life’s beauty isn’t found just in exotic natural oases; with the right attitudes, it’s found at our lab benches as we investigate, in our scientific journals as we read, and on our fingertips as we type.

The Joy of Science

A Dynamic Daily Devotional of Mentoring

Book Reviews / Mentoring December 28, 2023

I love books whose contents far surpass their titles, and this one fits that bill to a tee. At first glance, it seems to have a gimmicky organization. I’m not a big personal fan of reading lists, and the thought of trudging through 75 short recommendations on mentoring frankly reminds me of having teeth pulled. However, upon second glance, I discovered that the book is in a third edition, so someone must have liked the first two enough for a publisher to invest in a third. After being recommended the book and pondering further, I took the bait and got it. Almost 250 pages later, I’m glad I had the chance to read it.

This book reminds me of religious devotional books that I read as a high school student, except this book doesn’t deal with personal character directly but instead one’s ability to develop others’ professional character. Each of the 75 chapters consist of a handful of pages – short but power-packed. I actually had to limit the number of chapters I could read in one sitting because the book left me with so much to think about! It easily can fit with the practice of reading one short chapter per day…if you can limit yourself to only one.

The book’s title takes inspiration from Strunk and White’s famous Elements of Style that, decades after publication, remains the go-to book for good writing in the English language. Spinning off that legacy, these authors want to identify what skills make a good mentor. The authors, both professors of psychology at research universities have reviewed 2,000 publications to identify specific reasons why mentorship is so effective.

Chapters are organized into seven larger sections on topics like skills, style, starting, diversity, and integrity. I’m involved in a handful of professional and personal mentoring relationships, and even though topics explicitly veer towards workplace concerns, readers can easily extract life concerns for personal betterment, too. The best way to develop better mentees, no matter the field, is to become a better mentor.

Mentoring is tough. To the uninitiated observer, mentors seem to receive tons of adulation from adoring mentees. In truth, mentors, like teachers, often are underappreciated, aren’t financially well-rewarded for their mentorship, and give to mentees way more than they receive. Yet almost universally, mentoring yields satisfaction and happiness that aren’t easily quantifiable. Research says that good mentorship leads to more career success among mentees. As the authors put it,

Mentoring becomes a way of life for outstanding mentors for two basic reasons. They delight in seeing their mentees succeed. … They also reap rich internal rewards; they know that few things compare in personal fulfillment as the positive outcomes of their investment in mentees.

This responsibility can elicit some nervousness among mentors. Educating oneself on how to mentor can calm those nerves and identify good practices to cling to. This book is easily the most thought-provoking, concise reference that I’ve read on this topic. It’s suitable for researchers, academics, and leaders who spend their lives developing the next generation’s professional skills.

The Elements of Mentoring: 75 Practices of Master Mentors, 3^rd Edition, by W. Brad Johnson and Charles R. Ridley.

Order from Chaos

Book Reviews / Faculty Life / Productivity November 13, 2023

For the last few years I’ve been juggling more and more balls. I was barely able to keep up with the endless emails and tasks – both at work and at home – and I felt like I was on the verge of losing control. On top of that, my long-term goals remained vague notions and even my short-term goals were stalled. Things came to a head this fall with a series of forgotten meetings, incomplete tasks and a missed major grant deadline that left me in tears. Thanks to a great program in the Department of Medicine at VUMC, I applied for and was provided a career coach. At our first meeting we discussed my struggles at length. She asked something transformative, “Have you heard of Bullet Journaling?”

I hadn’t. If you have, and practice Bullet Journaling (aka Bujo), you are probably jumping up and down right now shouting, “Yes!! Yes!!” If you haven’t, let me tell you a bit about how a single notebook and innovative method developed by Ryder Carroll have changed my life. No exaggeration.

The philosophy of Bullet Journaling is simple – keep everything in one place. Prior to bullet journaling I had a paper to do list (that I often lost), one notebook for meeting/conference notes, one notebook for projects, one notebook for journaling and separate calendars for work and home. Bullet Journaling puts all of that in one place.

The system of Bullet Journaling developed by Ryder Carroll is simple. My favorite aspects are:

The Daily Log. This is the place where you write everything down. Things to do, crazy ideas, notes from meetings, thoughts and feelings about people or events. Literally everything gets written on the daily log. I even take my bullet journal to bed with me to capture those random thoughts that come when I’m trying to fall asleep.
The Monthly Log. This is a combination of a short form of your calendar and a running To Do List that you populate and review daily.
Collections. Each Collection starts as a single page with a heading on a particular topic. For example, I have pages for specific responsibilities (Edge for Scholars), larger tasks (R01 submission), projects (Epithelial Hemoglobin Project), groups (Collaborators), personal items (House Projects) and many more. Any time I have an idea bigger than one task, I make a new collection.
The Index. Pretty self-explanatory. Goes at the beginning.

The practice of Bullet Journaling includes 5 minutes of review and reflection at the beginning and end of each day during which items from the daily log are migrated to their appropriate locations and a moment is spent thinking about what went well (or not) that day.

I’ve been Bullet Journaling for about two months now and the results are truly remarkable. I have cleared much of my task back log, had time to plan and make progress on both short and long term goals, and I haven’t missed a single meeting or deadline! It has been so beneficial that I am motivated to keep it up and even grow my bullet journaling methods. There’s a lot more to Bujo which you can learn about in an excellent book (The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future: Carroll, Ryder: 9780525533337: Amazon.com: Books, I was able to read it in less than a day), a website (https://bulletjournal.com), and a growing community of bullet journal practitioners.

If you are struggling with organization and productivity like I was, it just might be the solution for you too.

Unpacking Mental Health: A Book Review

Book Reviews August 25, 2023

The words “mental health” and “mental illness” are frequently thrown around these days in both society and academe. However, their true nature is rarely defined or understood. Much of our culture simply doesn’t know how to talk about these topics constructively, allowing their personal and societal effects to linger. Still, institutions large and small continue to underfund resources and research related to mental health as if these problems will fix themselves. In Unpacking Mental Health, Zoë Ayers attempts to address these issues while centering specifically on PhD graduate programs. Instead of providing a list of personal pathologies and remedies, she attempts to show what mental health in graduate schools can look like individually and systemically.

Historically, many of those in power in academe did not grow up with modern psychology as a major part of the work environment. It’s understandable that they do not feel completely competent in using these concepts to train and manage researchers. Nonetheless, a need to address these issues persists as demonstrated by Ayers’ copious statistics. Graduate school is about increasing independence, but better mental health practices open opportunities for better products. This book can serve as a manual to make academics more aware of potential changes.

For example, she examines university cultures of overwork. Many professors simply train students in research with the same practices that they learned years ago. Though involved in experimenting in their field, they refuse to innovate with their educational practices. Extra projects are often piled on, leading to burnout and decreased creativity. Yet student experiences have changed, and human knowledge of educational practices has increased. Instead of piling on, Ayers suggests that academics better focus on priorities and so prevent hard work from becoming ineffective overwork.

In part two, she addresses efforts an individual can make through adjusting their personal mindset and suggests that most institutions do not adequately address graduate students’ well-being. Most university wellness programs are geared towards undergraduates, not graduate students. She suggests needs that such programs can meet. This especially includes “imposter syndrome” (she prefers “imposter phenomenon”) – an almost ubiquitous experience that can be countered by deliberate changes in mindset.

In the final part, she looks at systemic and environmental issues needing attention. Many feel disempowered to bring about these changes, which seem to span the entire academic enterprise. She explores all the discouraging “-isms” along with supervisor relationships and pressure to publish. Students can easily feel imprisoned by the system; Ayers instead cajoles readers to find constructive methods to address problems in small but practical ways. By looking at the big picture, she moves us from myopically looking at personal problems to progressively bettering the entire system. By itself, that can help students not feel alone in this conundrum but a part of a larger system learning to confront bad practices.

Finally, by identifying an expansive list of functions required for graduate education, she implicitly makes the case for team mentoring. No one professor could possibly fulfill all the needs of upcoming researchers. To address these, the academy needs to look past individual excellence towards an approach akin to team science. Ayers makes a strong case that academia as a whole needs to learn to track and reward functions beyond only producing papers. Not only will such rewards help those from underserved groups who disproportionately fill these needs, but it will also multiply the effectiveness of the next generation of researchers, a key product.

This book is obviously geared towards those in graduate school or considering further graduate education. Yet its impact might be more acutely realized through an audience of graduate advisors. These concepts and this vocabulary need to be introduced into academic culture to enhance the next generation of knowledge workers, both inside and outside the ivory tower. Psychology and neuroscience are at the frontiers of today’s advances in research, and those most skilled in their insights will prosper most in the future. While this book doesn’t offer one comprehensive, top-down answer to all persistent questions of mental health, it does identify where to focus effort. Ultimately, cultural change will likely take final shape in a generational paradigm shift, but Ayers’ book suggests ways to hasten those changes today.

More Resources

Staying Mentally Well in Academia Is a Balancing Act

Suicide Prevention in University Settings

The Key to Handling Stress Is Massive Egotism

Fierce Conversations

Book Reviews / Communication / Faculty Life February 25, 2022

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time

Although the title may bring to mind some vivid images, author Susan Scott doesn’t suggest that we talk in threatening overconfidence with unrelenting passion, but rather that our conversations be focused on genuine, eager, and truthful investigations into reality. It sounds like a lot, but the book provides many examples from the kitchen to the c-suite where these tactics are worth the effort.

Stemming from the idea that conversations do not make a relationship but rather are a relationship, the author works through communication hurdles–inviting the reader to identify their own biases and preconceived notions when engaging with others and being comfortable in delivering that same feedback. Helpful summary lists, assignments, and strategies are shared throughout the book. These assignments are as much about self-reflection as they are about providing structure to often awkward or challenging conversations that carry weight, particularly to young investigators. Highest yield for me was the “Issue Preparation Form Template” that includes tasks for identifying the issue, describing its significance, what the ideal outcome is, summarizing relevant background information, listing what has been done up to this point, options one is considering, and explaining what help they need to do it. Now summarize this in 60-seconds when talking to your mentor/boss/colleague so that you don’t lose their attention! It sounds like a push, but when asking for help, especially as a young investigator, this structure reflects preparation, thought, and is more likely to get a favorable response.

The introspective approach the author uses to improve outward conversations is core. For example, replacing “but” with “and” when speaking about conflicts or challenges is an important way to display conflicts that are of equal importance without negating the former (i.e., “I know you want more time to complete the project and the deadline is looming. I’d like to help you and I have no easy choices right now. You seem stressed, and yet I need you to deliver this project on time with minimal involvement on my part”). This small change, in addition to the active listening and deliberate silence strategies identified, enrich interactions and help make this book into a helpful resource that can be called on when one does not feel they are being adequately heard or understood. As the author summarizes: “All conversations are with myself, and sometimes they involve other people.”

Fierce Conversations

More Resources

Not that Kind of Year: Tales of Year 1 as a New PI

The Power of Pause: How to be More Effective in a Demanding, 24/7 World

Radical Candor: Can It Work for Academics?

Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed, and the Underconnected

Book Reviews / Networking & Collaboration February 22, 2022

networking-book If you’re like your correspondent, the very word “networking” sends a trickle of terror down your spine. Even the thought of mingling at a conference fills you with dread. But take heart! “Networking” doesn’t have to be a four-letter word. As Devora Zack admits, while it might never be fun, it can become doable if, instead of trying to mold yourself into an extrovert, you approach it like an introvert. In this snarky and entertaining guide, Zack details a method that focuses on traditional introvert strengths like planning, listening, and following up, while giving you permission—indeed, ordering you—to recharge by taking plenty of breaks (alone, please) in order to increase the quality of the connections you make.

Instead of trying to collect an impossibly huge number of brief connections, Zack argues, those for whom that doesn’t come naturally should remain true to themselves and concentrate on deeper interactions with those few they identify as good prospects. That identification often comes from planning. (Example: Reading up online about the research interests of potential mentors or collaborators before approaching them at a conference’s welcome gathering.) Once the contact is made, introverts should harness their good listening skills by asking open-ended questions and paying attention to the response. Then, the next day, follow up with a personalized note referencing that conversation. Now you’re much more than another barely-remembered name from a conference.

Zack has plenty of other tips for making networking events go more smoothly (and even for how to painlessly turn other interactions, like airplane rides, into networking opportunities). Chapter Seven suggests arriving early so the room is less crowded and intimidating, and volunteering where possible, because a structured role gives you a reason to step away from the wall and interact with others with a purpose rather than flailing for topics of conversation. There’s even an entire section on how to make a nametag that makes the best impression.

And guess what? The advice in this book is just as salient for extroverts as it is for introverts. Everyone’s networking can benefit from good planning and good follow up.

Networking for People Who Hate Networking: A Field Guide for Introverts, the Overwhelmed, and the Underconnected
Devora Zack
San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler, 2010

More Resources

To Succeed, Forget Self-Esteem

Not that Kind of Conference: Attending Clinical Conferences as a PhD

Fierce Conversations

Writing Science in Plain English: Clarity Rules

Book Reviews / Writing & Publishing February 9, 2022

As one might expect from the title, Writing Science in Plain English is clear, concise, and very easy to understand. In fact, it’s one of the best books on writing I’ve come across. If you only read one book on science writing, make it this one.

In short, digestible chapters filled with examples and exercises, author Anne E. Greene demonstrates how to tell a clear and engaging story with active voice, strong verbs, and thoughtful word choices. She also spends a lot of time on how to arrange paragraphs and report information in the most understandable ways. Chapter 7 is particularly valuable. When writing, authors can often forget that the data and ideas they’ve been working with for months or years is new to readers. Understanding how humans process written information—we best understand something when old information comes at the beginning of a sentence while new information is placed at the end—has helped me reframe some of my writing to lead readers through the steps to my conclusions. The many examples of good and poor placement of information in a sentence vividly illustrate the point.

In addition to Greene’s deconstructions of why an impenetrable piece of writing is so difficult to read, I most appreciated the short, to the point explanations for why each piece of advice she dispenses clarifies writing. For example, in Chapter 3, she explains that abstract nouns like “manifestations” acting as subjects in a sentence can cause confusion for the reader because they “tend to nudge the characters in a sentence into supporting roles such as modifiers and objects of prepositions where readers are likely to miss them.” Rather than handing down rules from on high, Greene tells us why the rules matter.

At less than 100 pages, Writing Science in Plain English can be read in a couple of hours, but also deserves a place on any scientist’s bookshelf to reference again and again.

More Resources

The Guiding Principle in Scientific Writing

Using Content-Lexical Ties To Connect Ideas in Writing

A Smorgasbord of Grant Writing Pointers with a Side of Wit

Acting on the Essential

Book Reviews / Productivity July 24, 2020

Prioritizing across roles and responsibilities is a daily task for most of us. This is especially amplified at the intersection of research careers, faculty life, and family.

The dogma for scientific careers – especially those driven by extramural funding – is that giving your science priority over all else is a crucial academic survival strategy. Yet now, we are confronted with valid needs for institutional service, challenging new teaching structures, contributions to professional organization and community groups, and special projects. The need to choose wisely is paramount.

Searching online for guidance about establishing one’s “why” and setting and reaching goals retrieves best sellers and webinars pushing productivity methods for filling every waking minute and working ten times harder than others. Alongside is coaching advice to follow your bliss and simplify work and life to achieve flow and balance. Actionable steps framed by research evidence and consideration of personal values rarely coexist in this genre of career self-help.

Bringing both into focus is why we love Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Greg McKeown’s lucid and practical guidance weaves together a balance of encouragement and probing to identify, own, and control your direction with realistic advice about how to implement changes to stay focused on what is essential to your success. He includes just enough requisite case examples and research findings from fields like neuropsychology to be convincing without breaking pace.

His practical lineup, perhaps even more valid now than when published in 2014, asks:

What is the core mindset of an Essentialist?
How can we discern the trivial from the vital few?
How can we cut out the trivial many?
How can we make doing the vital few things almost effortless?

His main order of business – bringing focus to the cloud of activities that we feel we have to do, need to do, or just find ourselves doing – is made to order for academic faculty in early career and plays just as well to those in mid and later career seeking new energy by sharpening their focus on what is essential, compelling and generative.

He hits the nail on the head so often you come to love the hammer even as you see that what he’s aiming for is a renovation of how we run our lives. CliffsNotes would include these blows:

Core concepts

The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better.
Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done.
We forget our ability to choose and we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices. Regain your choice.

Necessity of un-committing

Sometimes what you don’t do is just as important as what you do.
Many capable people don’t reach the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important.
The reality is that saying yes to any opportunity by definition requires saying no to several others.

Actions to take

Be unavailable at times: we need to escape in order to focus.
Play: it expands our minds in ways that allow us to explore…makes us more inquisitive, more attuned to novelty, more engaged…helps us to see possibilities we would not otherwise have seen.
Recognize that if we under-invest in ourselves – our minds, bodies, and spirits – we damage the very tools we need to make our highest contributions.
Learn that if an opportunity isn’t a clear yes, then it is a clear no.
Practice until saying “no” gracefully doesn’t have to mean using the word no.

Reflect and refine to shape what is essential to you

What do you truly want out of your career in the next five years?
If you could be excellent at only one thing, what would it be?

McKeown’s examples build insights and provide coaching on topics like a repertoire for saying no, how to gauge what is essential, and teaching yourself to uncommit. They provide an actual roadmap, unlike so many books that convey only the theory of success or glimpses of the wins of others.

Before you agree to coordinate a new webinar series, or link together the neighbors who are COVID-homeschooling, or to be on the faculty senate ballot, get this book and dig down to what is essential to you. Then choose to do that.

McKeown Essentialism Videos

Five Minute Appetizer about Essentialism

Greg McKeown’s Big Idea speech at the 2018 VitalSmarts REACH conference.