MIND Books Roundup: Unearthing Inner Resources

Three books help us nurture our strengths and achieve our dreams

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Sitting through an entire lecture or even a movie without furtively glancing at a cell phone can be surprisingly difficult for some of us. In Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (HarperCollins, 2013), psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman explores the significance of attention, revealing the deleterious effects of distractions on work and relationships. Investing more fully in the moment can spur creativity when wrestling with a problem or even spark a new romantic connection. Attention, Goleman suggests, is like a muscle, and learning to strengthen it through simple exercises, such as 10 minutes of deep breathing every morning, can help the brain gain focus.

Enhancing attention is not the only thing that can improve our prospects. In Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential (Penguin Group/Hudson Street Press, 2013), communications consultants John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut illuminate what makes certain people particularly likable and magnetic. Neffinger and Kohut home in on two especially important characteristics: strength and warmth. They argue that strength reflects a person's competence and that warmth indicates someone's capacity for empathy. The authors also offer tips on how to increase these qualities.

Despite a desire to aim high, insecurity often holds us back. In The 5 Essentials: Using Your Inborn Resources to Create a Fulfilling Life (Penguin Group/Hudson Street Press, 2013), cognitive neuroscientist Bob Deutsch, with writer Lou Aronica, contends that we can overcome this impediment by developing certain innate abilities, such as curiosity and openness. Deutsch provides inspiration by describing the personal trials of artists and scientists who have overcome self-doubt or other setbacks to ultimately achieve success.

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American