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.

Decades of research on achievement suggests people at the top of their game tend to reach their goals because of what they do-not because of who they are. In this short, provocative, and useful HBR Single, motivational psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson translates the psychological secrets of these winning human beings for your use. Halvorson expands on her immensely popular blog post to give more detail on each of her nine suggested actions-from getting specific about goals and aggressively monitoring your achievements to understanding the importance of having “grit.”
By emphasizing what successful people do consistently and effectively, Halvorson provides the path to help you accomplish your goals, once and for all.

Have you ever felt you’re not getting through to the person you’re talking to, or not coming across the way you intend? You’re not alone.
Most of us assume that other people see us as we see ourselves, and that they see us as we truly are. But neither is true. Our everyday interactions are colored by subtle biases that distort how others see us-and also shape our perceptions of them.
You can learn to clarify the message you’re sending once you understand the lenses that shape perception:
– Trust. Are you friend or foe?
– Power. How much influence do you have over me?
– Ego. Do you make me feel insecure?
Based on decades of research in psychology and social science, Heidi Grant Halvorson explains how these lenses affect our interactions-and how to manage them. Once you understand the science of perception, you’ll communicate more clearly, send the messages you intend to send, and improve your personal relationships. You’ll also become a fairer and more accurate judge of others. Halvorson even offers an evidence-based action plan for repairing a damaged reputation.

Whether it’s wanting to impress our bosses, find a loving relationship, straighten out our finances, or take better care of ourselves, we all feel that there is at least one part of our lives that is in real need of improvement. We want to do better, but somehow we fall short and end up feeling like we don’t have what it takes to reach our goals. And we could not be more wrong.

Most of us have no idea why we fail to reach our goals. Now eminent social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson shows us how we can finally win by revealing how goals really work–and by showing us how to avoid what typically goes wrong.

Dr. Grant Halvorson offers insights–many surprising–that listeners can use immediately, including how to:

– Set a goal so that you will persist even in the face of adversity; – Build willpower, which can be strengthened like a muscle; – Avoid the kind of positive thinking that makes people fail.

The strategies outlined in this book will not only help everyone reach their own goals but will also prove invaluable to parents, teachers, coaches, and employers. Dr. Grant Halvorson shows listeners a new approach to problem solving that will change the way they approach their entire lives.