Synopses & Reviews
Esquire editor and Entrepreneur etiquette columnist Ross McCammon delivers a funny and authoritative guide that provides the advice you really need to be confident and authentic at work, even when you have no idea whatand#8217;s going on. and#160;
Ten years ago, before he got a job at Esquire magazine and way before he became the etiquette columnist at Entrepreneur magazine, Ross McCammon, editor at an in-flight magazine, was staring out a second-floor window at a parking lot in suburban Dallas wondering if it was five oand#8217;clock yet. Everything changed with one phone call from Esquire. Three weeks later, he was working in New York and wondering what the hell had just happened.
and#160;
This is McCammonand#8217;s honest, funny, and entertaining journey from impostor to authority, a story that begins with periods of debilitating workplace anxiety but leads to rich insights and practical advice from a guy who and#147;made itand#8221; but who still remembers what itand#8217;s like to feel entirely ill-equipped for professional success. And for life in general, if weand#8217;re being completely honest. McCammon points out the workplace for what it is: an often absurd landscape of ego and fear guided by social rules that no one ever talks about. He offers a mix of enlightening and often self-deprecating personal stories about his experience and clear, practical advice on getting the small things rightand#151;crucial skills that often go unacknowledgedand#151;from shaking a hand to conducting a business meeting in a bar to navigating a work party.and#160;
Here is an inspirational new way of looking at your job, your career, and success itself; an accessible guide for those of us who are smart, talented, and ambitious but who arenand#8217;t well-and#147;leveragedand#8221; and donand#8217;t quite feel prepared for success . . . or know what to do once weand#8217;ve made it.and#160;
Review
"Every chapter is a welcome reminder that you are not so smart-yet you're never made to feel dumb. You Are Not So Smart is a dose of psychology research served in tasty anecdotes that will make you better understand both yourself and the rest of us. It turns out we're much more irrational than most of us think, so give yourself every advantage you can and read this book."
-Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit.com
"You Are Not So Smart is the go-to blog for understanding why we all do silly things."
-Lifehacker.com
"You'd think from the title that it might be curmudgeonly; in fact, You Are Not So Smart is quite big-hearted."
-Jason Kottke, Kottke.org
"In an Idiocracy dominated by cable TV bobbleheads, government propagandists, and corporate spinmeisters, many of us know that mass ignorance is a huge problem. Now, thanks to David McRaney's mind-blowing book, we can finally see the scientific roots of that problem. Anybody still self-aware enough to wonder why society now worships willful stupidity should read this book."
-David Sirota, author of Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
Review
"Every chapter is a welcome reminder that you are not so smart-yet you're never made to feel dumb. You Are Not So Smart is a dose of psychology research served in tasty anecdotes that will make you better understand both yourself and the rest of us. It turns out we're much more irrational than most of us think, so give yourself every advantage you can and read this book."
Review
"You Are Not So Smart is the go-to blog for understanding why we all do silly things."
Review
"You'd think from the title that it might be curmudgeonly; in fact, You Are Not So Smart is quite big-hearted."
Review
"In an Idiocracy dominated by cable TV bobbleheads, government propagandists, and corporate spinmeisters, many of us know that mass ignorance is a huge problem. Now, thanks to David McRaney's mind-blowing book, we can finally see the scientific roots of that problem. Anybody still self-aware enough to wonder why society now worships willful stupidity should read this book." -David Sirota, author of Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
Review
We're smarter after reading McRaney's book.
Review
Even seasoned psych lovers will learn something new.
Review
"McRaney argues, with amusing exasperation..."
—The Wall Street Journal
Review
"We're smarter after reading McRaney's book."
—The Charlotte Observer
Review
"Even seasoned psych lovers will learn something new."
—Psychology Today
Review
“You Are Not So Smart is positively one of the smartest books to come by this year — no illusion there.”
Review
“Simply wonderful. An engaging and useful guide to how our brilliant brains can go badly wrong.”
Review
“McRaney’s sweeping overview is like taking a Psych 101 class with a witty professor and zero homework.”
Review
“Want to get smarter quickly? Read this book”
Review
“A much-needed field guide to the limits of our so-called consciousness. McRaney presents a witty case for just how witless we all are.”
Review
“Fascinating… After reading this book, you’ll never trust your brain again.”
Review
“Deflating to a certain audience that wants to believe in exceptions, You Are Not So Smart is a tonic to the noxious sweetness of overachievement, an acknowledgment of ordinariness that glories in the quirks of being human without forcing them into a triumphant pyramid. That which cannot be overcome is a part as vital to the human experience as that impulse to try even harder to overcome nature. And if that fails, the flip side to a population crediting itself with falsely inflated powers of observation is that no one might notice if you, too, are not so smart.”
Review
“[The] fusion of wry prose and enlightening minilessons is what makes this book so special- page after page, readers will be laughing, learning, and looking at themselves in new ways. McRaney is a fine stylist, easily balancing anecdote, analysis, and witty asides… this book is seriously informative.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“A lively look at our myriad self-delusions and how we can beat or exploit them.”
—Parade
Synopsis
An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise.
You believe you are a rational, logical being who sees the world as it really is, but journalist David McRaney is here to tell you that you're as deluded as the rest of us. But that's OK- delusions keep us sane. You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of self-delusion. It's like a psychology class, with all the boring parts taken out, and with no homework.
Based on the popular blog of the same name, You Are Not So Smart collects more than 46 of the lies we tell ourselves everyday, including:
Synopsis
An entertaining illumination of the stupid beliefs that make us feel wise, based on the popular blog of the same name. Whether you’re deciding which smartphone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic. But here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us—but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human.
Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them. But often these stories aren’t true. Each short chapter—covering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency—is like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out.
Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.
Synopsis
The author of the bestselling You Are Not So Smart gives readers a fighting chance at outsmarting their not-so-smart brains.
A mix of popular psychology and trivia, You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality--except were not. But thats okay, because our delusions keep us sane.
Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of seventeen ways we fool ourselves every day, including:
- Enclothed Cognition (the clothes you wear change your behavior and influence your mental abilities)
- The Benjamin Franklin Effect (how you grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate the people you harm).
- Deindividuation (Despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality)
- The Misattribution of Arousal (Environmental factors have a greater effect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us)
- Sunk Cost Fallacy (We will engage in something we dont enjoy just to make the time or money already invested worth it”)
McRaney also reveals the true price of happiness, and how to avoid falling for our own lies.
About the Author
Ross McCammon has been a senior editor at
Esquire magazine since 2005, where heand#8217;s responsible for the magazineand#8217;s coverage of pop culture, drinking, cars, and etiquette. He has edited
Esquireand#8217;s and#147;Dubious Achievement Awardsand#8221; and the long-running annual feature and#147;The Best Bars in America,and#8221; writes the monthly feature and#147;The Rules,and#8221; and is a frequent contributor to the magazineand#8217;s back-page humor section and#147;This Way Out.and#8221; For three years he has been the business etiquette columnist at
Entrepreneur magazine. His humor has been collected in
Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeneyand#8217;s Humor Category, edited by Dave Eggers. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and son.