These are the books and research mentioned in Thrive and Adapt. If you wold like to discuss how to apply any of these in your life, business or relationships, fill in the contact form at the bottom of the page.
Crash Risk on the Phone (p5)
Research about the risks of using a phone while driving. You can download it here. It's incredible how much the risk goes up and yet some sources claim that up to 80% use the phone while driving.
Thrive and Adapt Zone Example (p8)
QF 32. Capt. Richard DeCrespigny writes a compelling account of the QF32 incident. The fact that he and the crew got this plane and passengers safely back on the ground is testament to extreme adaptability under pressure. He also talks candidly about Post Traumatic Stress and adapting through that. It's well written and engaging reading for anyone, and especially if you are an aero nerd like me.
Fight - Flight - Freeze (FFF)(p23)
"Deep Survival", Laurence Gonzales and "Extreme Fear", Jeff Wise are both great books about survival and survival mechanisms. They combine great research, real life examples and excellent story telling to create very readable books. Both describe FFF in some detail, however Extreme Fear is a book about nothing but FFF. A very comprehensive work and includes many every day examples alongside the more extreme ones.
Believe Better (p33)
Unbroken. A biography of Louis Zamperini who survived many days at sea following the crash of his WWII bomber in the Pacific. He subsequently survived Japanese POW camps and through it all maintained an adaptors mind. Louis is a great example of the power of believing better on personal psychology and resilience.
A Reason (p37)
John Kotter is a leading thinker on Change and organisational Transformation. His paper published in HBR is a widely referenced piece of work and provides significant insights into change, leadership, and project management. His first priority for successful change is there must be a compelling "Why". Download it here.
Simon Sinek's book, Start With Why talks in depth about how having a clear idea of the why for anything immediately inspires people to action. A good How and What are not enough to stand out form the crowd. If you wan to get a quick understanding of his work, there are some great short video's of Simon talking about Why. By the way, my why is to make the world a more resilient place.
Filters (p39)
Intuition is becoming better understood from a scientific point of view. If you want a detailed explanation of intution, how it works, it's powers and limitations, Malcolm Gladwell's BLINK is a great place to start.
Bend the Rules (p54)
Dr Al Seibert dedicated his life to understanding the personality of survivors. He researched POW's, Soldiers, natural disasters, life threatening illness and many other areas where humans find their back to the wall. There's some major insights in his research about the mindset of people who survive against the odds. One is their willingness to step outside the rule book where needed.
The Human Illusion (p61)
"The Fifth Discipline", Peter Senge covers many issues about perception and how it affects human endeavour, success and performance. If you like this, you may also enjoy "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" which discusses practical applications.
Mark Victor Hansen's One Minute Millionaire has some great info on inner voices. He also lays out some practical strategies for reprogramming self talk.
Negativity Bias and the Positivity Ratio (p78)
Fredrickson and Losada's research on this has received quite a bit of criticism, but still makes interesting reading. While the ratio itself is questionable it goes someway towards explaining why we give greater weight to negative experiences. Probably for the diehard fan of psychology and research , rather than the everyday reader download it here. The criticism are easy to find by googling Positivity Ratios. Fredrickson responded to some of it here.
Add Gratitude (p81)
Martin Seligman, Et al "Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions" was research done in 2005 exploring a number of interventions and their impact on wellbeing, happiness, and depression. The intervention with by far the greatest impact was a daily practice of identifying three things you are grateful for and why. It increased happiness and wellbeing, it reduced depression and the impacts lasted for six months following the study. It's also one of the most powerful ways I know of creating a sense of progress. The paper is fairly dry, but if you are keen you can download it here.
News Skews (p84)
Our perception of our environment can get massively bent out of shape by influences such as the news. Daniel Gardner's excellent book on the science of fear is a great exploration of how our perception of threat and likelihood of future problems can be influenced. It's one of the best reads I've come across to assist in balancing views of what is happening in the world (and locally).
Get Outside (p91)
In 2010, Beyond Blue did an extensive research piece on the mental and physical health benefits of time in nature. They reviewed research and literature from around the world. Bottom line is that the green stuff is good. If you want more detail you can access the summary and full reports here.
Switch Off (p105)
There's a growing body of research about the impact of long hours and the many ways they back fire. There's cost by almost any measure - $$$, productivity, health, mental wellbeing, quality of work, resilience, mental agility, and many more. A sample of the research is explored in this HBR article.
The Cost of Rudeness (p108)
Christine Porath and her colleagues have been researching incivility and rudeness at work for a couple of decades. Rudeness is on of those workplace loops that can build on itself, especially when teams are under pressure. We Aussies have to be careful of it too - some of our banter can sail close to the line between building and harming teams. The cost of rudeness is huge, on almost any measure you chose. You can check out articles about Porath's research here and here.