The Curiosity Muscle

Author: Diana Kander
Publisher: Truefolio
ISBN: 9780692135945
Category : Diffusion of innovations
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
Toys 'R' Us. Kodak. Blockbuster. Why is it that some companies evolve while others get left in the dust? How do they lose their relevance with customers? The scary truth is that the only thing harder than getting to the top is staying there. It may sound counterintuitive, but in many cases, it is the success of a company that eventually leads to its downfall. So what does it take to stay competitive and relevant when what customers went wild for yesterday is the boring, banal, bare minimum they'll accept today? Through the story of the rise and plateau of a gym franchise recounted as a novel, The Curiosity Muscle shows exactly why most companies reaching the peak of their potential lose their curiosity and crash into irrelevance. From how we develop blind spots about our business to the pitfalls of feeling like an expert, this thought-provoking, engaging tale reveals the smokescreens obscuring imminent threats to long-term viability and walks you through specific ways to boost innovation, uncover customer needs, solve problems, create new value for customers, and increase employee engagement. Most importantly, The Curiosity Muscle demonstrates why curiosity is your greatest asset, driving constant innovation and improvement and helps you ask the essential questions that will take your business from stagnant to soaring. By continuing to work your curiously muscle over time, you can help your company thrive and become competitive on more than price alone--ultimately, future-proofing your business.

Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head

Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062270834
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Edgar Award nominee for Best Juvenile Mystery The book is about, among other things: the strongest boy in the world, a talking cockatoo, a faulty mind reader, a beautiful bearded lady and a nervous magician, an old museum, and a shrunken head. Blessed with extraordinary abilities, orphans Philippa, Sam, and Thomas have grown up happily in Dumfrey’s Dime Museum of Freaks, Oddities, and Wonders. But when a fourth child, Max, a knife-thrower, joins the group, it sets off an unforgettable chain of events. When the museum’s Amazonian shrunken head is stolen, the four are determined to get it back. But their search leads them to a series of murders and an explosive secret about their pasts. This sensational new series—a 2016 Edgar nominee for Best Juvenile book and New York Times bestseller—combines the unparalleled storytelling gifts of Lauren Oliver with the rich knowledge of the notorious relics collector H. C. Chester. What you will find in this book: A rather attractive bearded lady Several scandalous murders A deliciously disgusting Amazonian shrunken head Four extraordinary children with equally extraordinary abilities A quite loquacious talking bird What you will NOT find in this book: An accountant named Seymour A never-ending line at the post office Brussel sprouts (shudder) A lecture on finishing all your homework on time A sweet, gooey story for nice little girls and boys Learn more about the series online at www.thecuriosityhouse.com

The Chain Of Curiosity

Author: Sandi Toksvig
Publisher: Sphere
ISBN: 1405527234
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
From the author of BETWEEN THE STOPS and TOKSVIG'S ALMANAC Sandi Toksvig - broadcaster, writer, actor and seeker of all things whimsical - has turned her probing mind to many of the most intriguing questions of our times in the pages of the Sunday Telegraph for many years. Now, for the very first time, these musings have been collected in one hilarious collection. In The Chain of Curiosity, Sandi takes the reader on a side-splitting journey through life's peculiarities in a book packed with wit, wisdom and wonderment. From pondering the joys of World Pencil Day to examining the intricacies of applause etiquette, and from tip-toeing around the delicate art of school report vocabulary to researching the oddest way to meet a sticky end, the tickling tidbits and intriguing revelations contained within the book will delight Sandi's fans, both old and new.

Why?

Author: Mario Livio
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476792127
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio investigates perhaps the most human of all our characteristics—curiosity—in this “lively, expert, and definitely not dumbed-down account” (Kirkus Reviews) as he explores our innate desire to know why. Experiments demonstrate that people are more distracted when they overhear a phone conversation—where they can know only one side of the dialogue—than when they overhear two people talking and know both sides. Why does half a conversation make us more curious than a whole conversation? “Have you ever wondered why we wonder why? Mario Livio has, and he takes you on a fascinating quest to understand the origin and mechanisms of our curiosity. I thoroughly recommend it.” (Adam Riess, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, 2011). Curiosity is not only at the heart of mystery and suspense novels, it is also essential to other creative endeavors, from painting to sculpture to music. It is the principal driver of basic scientific research. Even so, there is still no definitive scientific consensus about why we humans are so curious, or about the mechanisms in our brain that are responsible for curiosity. In the ever-fascinating Why? Livio interviewed scientists in several fields to explore the nature of curiosity. He examined the lives of two of history’s most curious geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman. He also talked to people with boundless curiosity: a superstar rock guitarist who is also an astrophysicist; an astronaut with degrees in computer science, biology, literature, and medicine. What drives these people to be curious about so many subjects? An astrophysicist who has written about mathematics, biology, and now psychology and neuroscience, Livio has firsthand knowledge of his subject which he explores in a lucid, entertaining way that will captivate anyone who is curious about curiosity.

Peas & Queues

Author: Sandi Toksvig
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847658660
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
How do you get rid of unwanted guests? What do you do if there's a racket in the quiet carriage? How should you eat peas, and behave in queues? How to behave, like how to punctuate, is an aspect of life that many are no longer taught - and getting it wrong is the stuff of comedy at best and humiliation at worst. Thankfully, Sandi Toksvig has come to the rescue with her entertaining guide to modern manners,with tips on what to do whether you're talking to a bore, or forgot their name in the first place. (Just call them 'darling'.) The award-winning Radio 4 broadcaster and writer offers guidance on the social pitfalls of every phase of life, from christenings to condolence letters. With characteristic wit and perceptiveness, and revealing the trickiest of her encounters along the way, she highlights decency rather than convention and provides an essential guide to twenty-first century behaviour. Now this down-to-earth, hilarious guide is available in perfect pocket-sized paperback size.

Love Is Free. Guac Is Extra.

Author: Monty Moran
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781544540931
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Imagine you're one of 75,000 people working in a huge company, and the CEO wants to talk to you, one-on-one, to get to know and understand you. That's what Monty Moran did 20,000 times as he built the extraordinary culture that took Chipotle Mexican Grill from a regional burrito chain to a Fortune 500 superstar. In Love Is Free, Guac Is Extra, Monty shows how he used curiosity, vulnerability, love, and a unique understanding of the true meaning of empowerment to build a distinctive and wildly effective culture. From his teenage days befriending homeless people at a Colorado Dairy Queen to his nuanced navigation of a complex co-CEO relationship, Monty demonstrates a relentless humility and desire to understand the person across from him. This is not your average leadership book. This is a book about business leadership executed in a way you've never encountered before, by becoming the best version of yourself.

Hitler's Canary

Author: Sandi Toksvig
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
ISBN: 1429969318
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Book Description
"My brother stood up so quickly he almost knocked Mama over. 'Why aren't you doing something? Do you know what the British are calling us? Hitler's canary! I've heard it on the radio, on the BBC. They say he has us in a cage and we just sit and sing any tune he wants.'" Bamse's family are theater people. They don't get involved in politics. "it had nothing to do with us," Bamse tells us. Yet now he must decide: should he take his father's advice and not stir up trouble? Or should he follow his brother into the Resistance and take part in the most demanding role of his life?

How to Be a Friend

Author: Laurie Krasny Brown
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780316111539
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Book Description
Fun dinosaur characters teach young children all about friendship--the value of friends, how to make friends, and how to be a good friend. With playful full-color illustrations, Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown help kids cope with everyday social situations and learn: Who can be your friend. How to show someone you would like to be friends. How to handle bosses and bullies. The best ways to be a friend and ways not to be a friend. Ways to settle an argument with a friend.

The Cambridge Handbook of Motivation and Learning

Author: K. Ann Renninger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316832473
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1172

Book Description
Written by leading researchers in educational and social psychology, learning science, and neuroscience, this edited volume is suitable for a wide-academic readership. It gives definitions of key terms related to motivation and learning alongside developed explanations of significant findings in the field. It also presents cohesive descriptions concerning how motivation relates to learning, and produces a novel and insightful combination of issues and findings from studies of motivation and/or learning across the authors' collective range of scientific fields. The authors provide a variety of perspectives on motivational constructs and their measurement, which can be used by multiple and distinct scientific communities, both basic and applied.

August

Author: Callan Wink
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812983904
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
A boy coming of age in a part of the country that’s being left behind is at the heart of this dazzling novel—the first by an award-winning author of short stories that evoke the American West. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “August reads like early Hemingway, retooled for the present.”—William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days Callan Wink has been compared to masters like Jim Harrison and Thomas McGuane. His short stories have been published in The New Yorker and have won numerous accolades. Now his enormous talents are showcased in a debut novel that follows a boy growing up in the middle of the country through those difficult years between childhood and adulthood. August is an average twelve-year-old. He likes dogs and fishing and doesn’t mind early-morning chores on his family’s Michigan dairy farm. But following his parents’ messy divorce, his mother decides that she and August need to start over in a new town. There, he tries to be an average teen—playing football and doing homework—but when his role in a shocking act of violence throws him off course once more, he flees to a ranch in rural Montana, where he learns that even the smallest communities have dark secrets. Covering August's adolescence, from age twelve to nineteen, this gorgeously written novel bears witness to the joys and traumas that irrevocably shape us all. Filled with unforgettable characters and stunning natural landscapes, this book is a moving and provocative look at growing up in the American heartland.