TALI SHAROT
Tali Sharot is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT. She is the founder and director of the Affective Brain Lab. She has written for outlets including The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, has been a repeated guest on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, a presenter on the BBC, and served as an advisor for global companies and government projects. Her work has won her prestigious fellowships and prizes from the Wellcome Trust, American Psychological Society, British Psychological Society and others. Her popular TED talks have accumulated more than a dozen million views. Before becoming a neuroscientist, Sharot worked in the financial industry. She is the author of award-winning books: The Optimism Bias and The Influential Mind. She lives in Boston and London with her husband and children.
Her new book, Look Again, The Power of Noticing, and How to Harness it in Life, Work, and Everything Else, written with Cass Sunstein, will be published by One Signal in February 2024.
Look Again
For fans of Thinking Fast and Slow and The Power of Habit, a groundbreaking new study of how disrupting our well-worn routines, both good and bad, can rejuvenate our days and reset our brains to allow us to live happier and more fulfilling lives.
Have you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before.
But what if we could find a way to see everything anew? What if you could regain sensitivity, not only to the great things in your life, but also to the terrible things you stopped noticing and so don’t try to change?
Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to “dishabituate” at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth. This groundbreaking work, based on decades of research in the psychological and biological sciences, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption—to seeing, feeling, and noticing again—is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with—or even just stepping back and imagining change—you regain sensitivity, allowing you to more clearly identify the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.
Praise
"This enthralls." — Publishers Weekly starred review.
"A look at how conscious change is the way to break out of stale thinking to recover joy and passion. With intelligence and humor, Sharot and Sunstein provide guidance on how to refresh the spirit and see the world anew. If your world is starting to look grey and dull, this book might be your roadmap out of the comfort zone." — Kirkus
“One trait of history’s most creative thinkers — from Leonardo da Vinci to Albert Einstein — is that they are able to look anew and marvel at everyday things that most people have quit noticing: the alluring blueness of the sky, the passage of time, the way a light beam creates a spot of luster on a leaf. This book can help us all look in a fresh way at things around us. It’s a smart and fun and useful way to revitalize your life.” — Bestselling author Walter Isaacson
"Two of my favorite thinkers explain why we are wired to habituate, and how we can dishabituate if and when we choose. At once a marvelous summary of scientific research and a practical guide to a more psychologically rich life." — Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE INFLUENTIAL MIND
Named a Best Political Book of 2017 by Times UK
"This is a book full of tricks and stratagems to extend the reach of what good minds should do—namely lead other minds toward doing good—and sometimes the author works against received wisdom in offering them. . . . Good, readable pop psychology." — Kirkus
"[The Influential Mind] not only demonstrates the failings of the human mind to learn from our mistakes – for instance, resorting to fear-mongering – but carries a practical series of lessons in overcoming those habits. " — WIRED (UK)
"Covers the topic more fully and more authoritatively in a book whose title gives appropriately equal billing to thought, behavior and neurons." — The New York Times Book Review
"Take it from a leading neuroscientist: every day, we all miss opportunities to influence others. This timely, intriguing book explains why it's so difficult to shift the attitudes and actions of others-- and what we can do about it."
— Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE
"Sharot, a professor of cognitive neuroscience with a background in psychology and economics, has written a fascinating, accessible primer on what current research teaches us about the art of persuasion. . . . She has a gift for providing engaging vignettes that are apt and illustrative for nonacademics. The writing exhibits model clarity and brisk pacing. Readers will find themselves jotting notes to apply Sharot’s findings to a wide range of areas, including workplace politics, parenting, and Facebook arguments."
— Publishers Weekly
"The Influential Mind will make you gasp with surprise—and laugh with recognition. Many of our most cherished beliefs about how to influence others turn out to be wrong; Sharot sets them right. Packed with practical insights, this profound book will change your life. An instant classic."
— Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University; former Administrator, White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; and bestselling coauthor of NUDGE
