Matthew Syed

Find your way to awesome with this brilliant toolkit of goals, plans and challenges! Boys and girls everywhere have been discovering that they can be awesome thanks to bestselling author Matthew Syed. Now he's created an interactive journal full of life hacks, challenges and activities to give kids the confidence to come up with their own plan of action to be the best they can be. Because, with the right mindset, you really CAN do (almost) anything, whether you want to supercharge your maths, try out for the team or be the first person to walk on Mars. Whether setting out their goals, planning the best practice ever, keeping calm with breathing exercises or making paper aeroplanes to understand marginal gains, readers will love the brilliant activities in The You Are Awesome Journal. This is the perfect toolkit for anyone who dreams big - and who wants to make those dreams come true. Praise for YOU ARE AWESOME: 'Great book for young children about determination, resilience, self-confidence.' - Phil Neville, former England footballer and head coach of England Women'I have lost track of the number of people recommending YOU ARE AWESOME by Matthew Syed. An accessible, practical approach to helping kids develop a growth mindset.' - The Bookseller'An awesome book about becoming awesome. How inspiring it is to know that there's a path to awesomeness and that anyone - absolutely anyone - can go down that path. This book shows you how.' - Professor Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University'Grab yourselves a copy folks, this is wonderful and insightful.' - Author Giles Paley-Phillips'I read YOU ARE AWESOME in one go, and then read it again! It answered so many questions I had about how to get better at some of the things I struggle with. It has stories of how others have been successful and makes you feel that you can do it too. After reading YOU ARE AWESOME I've changed how I approach difficult things. I've told all my friends to read it!' - Freddie, age 10'I loved this book. YOU ARE AWESOME really builds your confidence and shows you how the right mindset can help you achieve your dreams. It shows that you have to be brave, prepare for failure and have self-belief. I will definitely be using some of the principles in this book to tackle some everyday challenges and other bigger ones too. A definite must read for anyone who wants to achieve more with their lives and build their confidence.' - Ella, age 13

CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER"A very funny and inspiring read! Brilliantly practical with a wide variety of examples that make it relevant for both boys and girls (and adults)!" - online customer review"A truly inspiring book for the younger generation!" - online customer review"Genuinely funny and engaging. There are messages in this book for both adults and children. It's a must read." - online customer review"An awesome book about becoming awesome. How inspiring it is to know that there's a path to awesomeness and that anyone - absolutely anyone - can go down that path. This book shows you how." - Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology, Stanford UniversityThis positive and empowering guide, by bestselling mindset author Matthew Syed, will help boys and girls build resilience, fulfil their potential and become successful, happy, awesome adults. I'm no good at sport ... I can't do maths ... I really struggle with exams ... Sound familiar? If you believe you can't do something, the chances are you won't try. But what if you really could get better at maths, or sport or exams? In fact, what if you could excel at anything you put your mind to? You Are Awesome can help you do just that, inspiring and empowering young readers to find the confidence to realise their potential. The first children's book from Times journalist, two-time Olympian and best-selling mindset author Matthew Syed, it uses examples of successful people from Mozart to Serena Williams to demonstrate that success really is earned rather than given, and that talent can be acquired. With hard work and determination, practice and self-belief, and, most importantly, a Growth Mindset, there's no reason why anyone can't achieve anything. Practical, insightful and positive, this is the book to help children build resilience, embrace their mistakes and grow into successful, happy adults. Also available: The You Are Awesome Journal. Whether setting out your goals, planning the best practice ever, keeping calm with breathing exercises or making paper aeroplanes to understand marginal gains, you'll love the brilliant activities in The You Are Awesome Journal - it's the perfect companion to You Are Awesome!

What can Roger Federer teach us about the secret of longevity? What do the All Blacks have in common with improvised jazz musicians? What can cognitive neuroscientists tell us about what happens to the brains of sportspeople when they perform? And why did Johan Cruyff believe that beauty was more important than winning? Matthew Syed, 'Sports Journalist of the Year 2016', answers these questions and more in a fascinating, wide-ranging and provocative book about the mental game of sport. How do we become the best that we can be, as individuals, teams and as organisations? Sport, with its innate sense of drama, its competitive edge, its psychological pressures, its sense of morality and its illusive quest for perfection, provides the answers.

Nobody wants to fail. But in highly complex organizations, success can happen only when we confront our mistakes, learn from our own version of a black box, and create a climate where it s safe to fail. We all have to endure failure from time to time, whether it s underperforming at a job interview, flunking an exam, or losing a pickup basketball game. But for people working in safety-critical industries, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. Consider the shocking fact that preventable medical error is the third-biggest killer in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths every year. More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. And most of those mistakes are never made public, because of malpractice settlements with nondisclosure clauses. For a dramatically different approach to failure, look at aviation. Every passenger aircraft in the world is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. Whenever there s any sort of mishap, major or minor, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and experts figure out exactly what went wrong. Then the facts are published and procedures are changed, so that the same mistakes won t happen again. By applying this method in recent decades, the industry has created an astonishingly good safety record. Few of us put lives at risk in our daily work as surgeons and pilots do, but we all have a strong interest in avoiding predictable and preventable errors. So why don t we all embrace the aviation approach to failure rather than the health-care approach? As Matthew Syed shows in this eye-opening book, the answer is rooted in human psychology and organizational culture. Syed argues that the most important determinant of success in any field is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. Yet most of us are stuck in a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our careers and personal lives. We rarely acknowledge or learn from failure even though we often claim the opposite. We think we have 20/20 hindsight, but our vision is usually fuzzy. Syed draws on a wide range of sources from anthropology and psychology to history and complexity theory to explore the subtle but predictable patterns of human error and our defensive responses to error. He also shares fascinating stories of individuals and organizations that have successfully embraced a black box approach to improvement, such as David Beckham, the Mercedes F1 team, and Dropbox."

What links the Mercedes Formula One team with Google? What links Team Sky and the aviation industry? What connects James Dyson and David Beckham? They are all Black Box Thinkers. Black Box Thinking is a new approach to high performance, a means of finding an edge in a complex and fast-changing world. It is not just about sport, but has powerful implications for business and politics, as well as for parents and students. In other words, all of us. Drawing on a dizzying array of case studies and real-world examples, together with cutting-edge research on marginal gains, creativity and grit, Matthew Syed tells the inside story of how success really happens - and how we cannot grow unless we are prepared to learn from our mistakes." Full of well-crafted stories and keenly deployed scientific insights, Black Box Thinking will forever change the way you think about screwing up."-DANIEL PINK, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human

Nobody wants to fail. But in highly complex organizations, success can happen only when we confront our mistakes, learn from our own version of a black box, and create a climate where it's safe to fail. We all have to endure failure from time to time, whether it's underperforming at a job interview, flunking an exam, or losing a pickup basketball game. But for people working in safety-critical industries, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. Consider the shocking fact that preventable medical error is the third-biggest killer in the United States, causing more than 400,000 deaths every year. More people die from mistakes made by doctors and hospitals than from traffic accidents. And most of those mistakes are never made public, because of malpractice settlements with nondisclosure clauses. For a dramatically different approach to failure, look at aviation. Every passenger aircraft in the world is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. Whenever there's any sort of mishap, major or minor, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and experts figure out exactly what went wrong. Then the facts are published and procedures are changed, so that the same mistakes won't happen again. By applying this method in recent decades, the industry has created an astonishingly good safety record. Few of us put lives at risk in our daily work as surgeons and pilots do, but we all have a strong interest in avoiding predictable and preventable errors. So why don't we all embrace the aviation approach to failure rather than the health-care approach? As Matthew Syed shows in this eye-opening book, the answer is rooted in human psychology and organizational culture. Syed argues that the most important determinant of success in any field is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. Yet most of us are stuck in a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our careers and personal lives. We rarely acknowledge or learn from failure--even though we often claim the opposite. We think we have 20/20 hindsight, but our vision is usually fuzzy. Syed draws on a wide range of sources--from anthropology and psychology to history and complexity theory--to explore the subtle but predictable patterns of human error and our defensive responses to error. He also shares fascinating stories of individuals and organizations that have successfully embraced a black box approach to improvement, such as David Beckham, the Mercedes F1 team, and Dropbox.

"A cutting edge dissection--and ultimate destruction--of the myth of innate talent in the pursuit of excellence. Syed synthesizes his evidence with the precision of an academic, writes with the fluidity of a journalist, and persuades with the drive of a sportsman. Read this book now--before its too late. There are no excuses " -- Mark Thomas, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics, University College LondonIn the vein of the international bestselling Freakonomics, award-winning journalist Matthew Syed reveals the hidden clues to success--in sports, business, school, and just about anything else that you'd want to be great at. Fans of Predictably Irrational and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point will find many interesting and helpful insights in Bounce.

From the author of You Are Awesome: Find Your Confidence and Dare to be Brilliant at (Almost) Anything Essential reading for an astounding summer of sport; If you've ever wondered what makes a champion, Bounce has the answer.

In the vein of the international bestselling Freakonomics, award-winning journalist Matthew Syed reveals the hidden clues to success--in sports, business, school, and just about anything else that you'd want to be great at. Fans of Predictably Irrational and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point will find many interesting and helpful insights in Bounce.