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Focus

Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence
By: Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D., E. Tory Higgins Ph.D.
Narrated by: Karen Saltus
Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
Categories: Health & Personal Development, General
3.5 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

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Summary

We all want to experience pleasure and avoid pain. But there are really two kinds of pleasure and pain that motivate everything we do. If you are promotion-focused, you want to advance and avoid missed opportunities. If you are prevention-focused, you want to minimize losses and keep things working. And as Tory Higgins has found in his groundbreaking research, if you understand how people focus, you have the power to motivate yourself and everyone around you.

Showing how promotion/prevention focus applies across a wide range of situations from selling products to managing employees to raising children to getting a second date, Halvorson and Higgins show us how to identify focus, how to change focus, and how to use focus exactly the right way to get results. Short, punchy, and prescriptive, Focus will help you see not just what’s going on around you - but what’s underneath.
©2013 Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D., E. Tory Higgins Ph.D. (P)2013 Gildan Media LLC

Critic reviews

“Most people think that motivation gets them energized to act. Focus lifts up the hood on the motivational system and shows how competing motivations to achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative ones influence work, love, and parenting in unexpected ways. The audiobook is filled with practical examples that make it a must for anyone who wants to understand why they behave as they do.” (Art Markman, Ph.D. author of Smart Thinking)

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Profile Image for Mr T S GARSIDE

worst book I have had off audiblr

title of the book was a bit miss leading and i didn't like the narration

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  • David
  • 13-02-17

Pain / Pleasure

What would have made Focus better?

The Promotion Prevention framework is based on Pain / Pleasure motivators. That helps understand lizards, but mammals have a lot more going on. Primates have even more, and humans have a lot more. Also, the authors said that people can be high in both Promotion and Prevention, and then during most of the book they speak about people as being one or the other. Also, the categorization of Promotion People vs. Prevention People data is based on self-assessments, and I challenge the validity of that method. If we separate the delivery (narration) from the content (narrative), the authors could choose more powerful stories to illustrate points, and they need to tell those stories in more powerful ways. This is a skill, and like all skills needs practice. I suggest the authors practice the skill of telling stories in riveting ways.

Would you ever listen to anything by Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D. and E. Tory Higgins Ph.D. again?

No.

1 person found this helpful

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  • Michael
  • 07-01-20

Very useful and practical

This is a very useful and practical guide for better success in all aspects of life. There are many powerful tools for businesses as well as personal relationships. I would recommend this book to anyone.

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  • David
  • 26-01-16

Great Narration. Useful and Thought-provoking

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely. The author did a fantastic job narrating the book and the content of the book very much gives you and insight into why I (and other people) do what they do.

What did you like best about this story?

The breakdown of prevention/promotion is different areas of my life, from relationships to why I buy certain things.