Ian Leslie

This book is about the extraordinary capacity to take pleasure in discovering, learning and understanding. It demonstrates how the practice of deep curiosity, persistent, self-reflective seeking of knowledge and insight - is key to the success of our careers, the happiness of our children, the strength of our relationships, and the progress of societies. It also argues that curiosity is a fragile quality, which wanes and waxes over time, and that we take it for granted at our peril: and shows you seven practical steps you can take to stay curious. Ranging from Leonardo da Vinci doodling ideas in his notebook to Google co-founder Larry Page's thoughts on the perfect search engine, through to the invention of the microwave oven, the advantages of your local bookseller over Amazon's algorithms and a reassessment of Donald Rumsfeld's defense strategy, this book is a rich, textured, exciting take on the most absorbing human trait of all.

The Desire to Know & why Your Future Depends on it

Curious

Drawing on advice from the world's leading experts on conflict and communication--from relationship scientists to hostage negotiators to diplomats--Ian Leslie, a columnist for the New Statesman, shows us how to transform the heat of conflict, disagreement and argument into the light of insight, creativity and connection, in a book with vital lessons for the home, workplace, and public arena. For most people, conflict triggers a fight or flight response. Disagreeing productively is a hard skill for which neither evolution or society has equipped us. It's a skill we urgently need to acquire; otherwise, our increasingly vociferous disagreements are destined to tear us apart. Productive disagreement is a way of thinking, perhaps the best one we have. It makes us smarter and more creative, and it can even bring us closer together. It's critical to the success of any shared enterprise, from a marriage, to a business, to a democracy. Isn't it time we gave more thought to how to do it well? In an increasingly polarized world, our only chance for coming together and moving forward is to learn from those who have mastered the art and science of disagreement. In this book, we'll learn from experts who are highly skilled at getting the most out of highly charged encounters: interrogators, cops, divorce mediators, therapists, diplomats, psychologists. These professionals know how to get something valuable - information, insight, ideas--from the toughest, most antagonistic conversations. They are brilliant communicators: masters at shaping the conversation beneath the conversation. They know how to turn the heat of conflict into the light of creativity, connection, and insight. In this much-need book, Ian Leslie explores what happens to us when we argue, why disagreement makes us stressed, and why we get angry. He explains why we urgently need to transform the way we think about conflict and how having better disagreements can make us more successful. By drawing together the lessons he learns from different experts, he proposes a series of clear principles that we can all use to make our most difficult dialogues more productive--and our increasingly acrimonious world a better place.

How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes

Conflicted

A Love Story In Songs

John & Paul

“I have no special talents,” said Albert Einstein. “I am only passionately curious.” Everyone is born curious. But only some retain the habits of exploring, learning, and discovering as they grow older. Those who do so tend to be smarter, more creative, and more successful. So why are many of us allowing our curiosity to wane? In Curious, Ian Leslie makes a passionate case for the cultivation of our “desire to know.” Just when the rewards of curiosity have never been higher, it is misunderstood, undervalued, and increasingly monopolized by a cognitive elite. A “curiosity divide” is opening up. This divide is being exacerbated by the way we use the Internet. Thanks to smartphones and tools such as Google and Wikipedia, we can answer almost any question instantly. But does this easy access to information guarantee the growth of curiosity? No—quite the opposite. Leslie argues that true curiosity the sustained quest for understanding that begets insight and innovation—is in fact at risk in a wired world. Drawing on fascinating research from psychology, economics, education, and business, Curious looks at what feeds curiosity and what starves it, and finds surprising answers. Curiosity isn’t, as we’re encouraged to think, a gift that keeps on giving. It is a mental muscle that atrophies without regular exercise and a habit that parents, schools, and workplaces need to nurture. Filled with inspiring stories, case studies, and practical advice, Curious will change the way you think about your own mental habits, and those of your family, friends, and colleagues.

The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'One of my favourite writers . . . Beautifully argued, desperately needed.' MALCOLM GLADWELL 'Invaluable. The world will be a better place if everyone reads this book.' PHILPPA PERRY 'A cool bath of sanity in a world of frenzied hot takes.' HELEN LEWIS 'Perspective-shifting in important ways.' OLIVER BURKEMAN What is the secret of happy relationships? How do companies build collaborative cultures? What lies behind some of the greatest scientific and creative breakthroughs? The surprising answer is: conflict. Whether it's at work, at home or in public, confronting our differences is the only way to make the most out of them. How to Disagree is about how to do that successfully. Drawing on essential lessons from world-class experts on how to disagree well and combining them with inspiring stories of productive disagreements from science, technology and the arts, Ian Leslie reveals how we can reap the benefits of diverse viewpoints in an era that feels more divided than ever. 'I nodded and underlined my way through the book's nearly 300 pages of eloquent, thoughtful advice . . . If you want to argue better, Leslie's manual will be invaluable.' THE TIMES 'Leslie has a way of bringing fresh perspectives and telling anecdotes to obdurate subjects. Here he talks to everyone from hostage negotiators to divorce lawyers to show how conflict has driven successful companies and technological advances, and to offer ways to harness it in daily life.' NEW STATESMAN *** How to Disagree was previously published in 2021 under the title Conflicted.

Lessons on Productive Conflict at Work and Home

How to Disagree

Born Liars: Why We Can't Live Without Deceit

Born Liars Why We Can't Live without Deceit

Our attitudes to lying are confused and contradictory - you might even say, self-deceiving. On the one hand we hate lies, and liars. On the other, we all indulge in fibs, tall tales and fantasies. If lying is wrong, why do we all do it - both to others, and to ourselves? In Born Liars, Ian Leslie argues that, far from being a bug in the human software, lying is central to who we are; that we cannot understand ourselves without first understanding the dynamics of deceit. Using a vivid, panoramic style, he explores the role of deception and self-deception in our childhoods, our careers, and our health, and the part played by lies - both black and white - in art, advertising, sport, politics and war. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Ian McEwan and Marlon Brando, he takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. Born Liars is crammed with colourful stories; we'll meet Benjamin Franklin in Paris as he takes on Franz Mesmer, the man who claimed to heal his patients by touching them with iron rods. We'll hear about a spy who beat a lie detector, a man accused of cheating his way to a million pounds on a TV game show, and we'll peer inside the minds of Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein. Born Liars takes us on a fascinating journey which makes us question not only our own relationship to the truth, but also virtually every daily encounter we have.

Why We Can't Live Without Deceit

Born Liars

Why Everybody's Talking and Nobody's Listening (and What to Do about It)

"I have no special talents,” said Albert Einstein. "I am only passionately curious.” Everyone is born curious. But only some retain the habits of exploring, learning, and discovering as they grow older. Those who do so tend to be smarter, more creative, and more successful. So why are many of us allowing our curiosity to wane? In Curious, Ian Leslie makes a passionate case for the cultivation of our "desire to know.” Just when the rewards of curiosity have never been higher, it is misunderstood, undervalued, and increasingly monopolized by a cognitive elite. A "curiosity divide” is opening up. This divide is being exacerbated by the way we use the Internet. Thanks to smartphones and tools such as Google and Wikipedia, we can answer almost any question instantly. But does this easy access to information guarantee the growth of curiosity? No--quite the opposite. Leslie argues that true curiosity the sustained quest for understanding that begets insight and innovation--is in fact at risk in a wired world. Drawing on fascinating research from psychology, economics, education, and business, Curious looks at what feeds curiosity and what starves it, and finds surprising answers. Curiosity isn’t, as we’re encouraged to think, a gift that keeps on giving. It is a mental muscle that atrophies without regular exercise and a habit that parents, schools, and workplaces need to nurture. Filled with inspiring stories, case studies, and practical advice, Curious will change the way you think about your own mental habits, and those of your family, friends, and colleagues.

The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It

Lying is an intrinsic part of our social fabric, but it is also a deeply problematic and misunderstood aspect of what makes us human. Ian Leslie takes us on a fascinating journey that makes us question not only our own relationship to the truth, but also virtually every daily encounter we have. On the way he dissects the history of the lie detector, how parents affect their children’s attitude to lying (and vice versa), Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the philosophical ambiguity of telling the truth, Bill Clinton’s presentational prowess, Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth, and why we should be wary of anyone with more than 150 Facebook friends. Born Liars is thought-provoking, anecdotally driven narrative nonfiction at its best. Ian Leslie’s intoxicating blend of anthropology, biology, cultural history, philosophy, and popular psychology belies a serious central message: that humans have evolved and thrived in large part because of their ability to deceive.

We all do it - how to be a better liar, spot a charlatan and tell the difference between truth and fiction In Born Liars, Ian Leslie takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, and explores the role played by lies - both black and white - in our childhoods, our careers, and our health, as well as in advertising, politics, sport and war. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Joni Mitchell, the author argues that, far from being a bug in the human software, lying is central to who we are; that we cannot understand ourselves without first understanding the dynamics of deceit. After reading Born Liars you'll never think about lies - or life - in quite the same way again.

Ian Leslie

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