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  • Emotional Agility

  • Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
  • Written by: Susan David
  • Narrated by: Susan David
  • Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (139 ratings)

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Emotional Agility

Written by: Susan David
Narrated by: Susan David
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Publisher's Summary

#1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller

Winner of the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award

Amazon Best Book of the Year

Forbes Recommended Books for Leaders

TED Talk sensation—over 12 million views!

The counterintuitive approach to achieving your true potential, heralded by the Harvard Business Review as a groundbreaking idea of the year.

The path to personal and professional fulfillment is rarely straight. Ask anyone who has achieved his or her biggest goals or whose relationships thrive and you’ll hear stories of many unexpected detours along the way. What separates those who master these challenges and those who get derailed? The answer is agility—emotional agility.

Emotional agility is a revolutionary, science-based approach that allows us to navigate life’s twists and turns with self-acceptance, clear-sightedness, and an open mind. Renowned psychologist Susan David developed this concept after studying emotions, happiness, and achievement for more than twenty years. She found that no matter how intelligent or creative people are, or what type of personality they have, it is how they navigate their inner world—their thoughts, feelings, and self-talk—that ultimately determines how successful they will become.

The way we respond to these internal experiences drives our actions, careers, relationships, happiness, health—everything that matters in our lives. As humans, we are all prone to common hooks—things like self-doubt, shame, sadness, fear, or anger—that can too easily steer us in the wrong direction. Emotionally agile people are not immune to stresses and setbacks. The key difference is that they know how to adapt, aligning their actions with their values and making small but powerful changes that lead to a lifetime of growth. Emotional agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts; it’s about holding them loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to bring the best of yourself forward.

Drawing on her deep research, decades of international consulting, and her own experience overcoming adversity after losing her father at a young age, David shows how anyone can thrive in an uncertain world by becoming more emotionally agile. To guide us, she shares four key concepts that allow us to acknowledge uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them, thereby allowing us to embrace our core values and adjust our actions so they can move us where we truly want to go.

Written with authority, wit, and empathy, Emotional Agility serves as a road map for real behavioral change—a new way of acting that will help you reach your full potential, whoever you are and whatever you face.

©2016 Susan David (P)2016 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

Strategy + Business - Best Leadership Books of 2017

Winner of the 2017 Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award

Winner of the 2016 Books for a Better Life Award in Psychology

Axiom Business Book Awards Medalist

800-CEOREAD Editors' Choice

Forbes.com Recommended Books for Creative Leaders

Facebook #ReadtoLead Selection

LinkedIn's 12 Books on Leadership to Read in 2017

Selection  

LinkedIn's 12 Books on Leadership to Read

“I’ve got a flagged, dog-eared, Post-it-ed [version of] Susan David’s incredible book.”—Brené Brown

“Susan David teaches us to understand—and to communicate in—the unspoken language of emotion to better align how we feel with what we do. Essential reading.”—Susan Cain, New York Times-bestselling author of Quiet and Bittersweet

“It’s one thing to feel an emotion—it’s another to gain control over it. Susan David acknowledges the benefits of sadness, anger, guilt, and fear, and then shows us how to make sure they don’t take over our lives. This is a self-help book that might actually help.”—Adam Grant, New York Times-bestselling author of Originals, Give and Take, and Think Again

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What listeners say about Emotional Agility

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

interesting studies, but get the book version!

The author gives copious examples of scientific studies to corroborates her points which gives this book a solid credible basis, However, chapters are very long, and the author pauses after every 3-4 words using odd voice inflections to narrate her book, regardless of punctuation. This is annoying and it makes me lose track of the general topics or points she wants to make in every section or chapter. Without any summaries at the end of each of those, I forget what I have learned. If the topic interests you, maybe you would want to try the printed format, which would be better suited for later reference.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very good book

Helpful & inspiring. I will listen to it again in a few weeks, as there is so much information and it really triggers my reflexion and learning. I was a little annoyed personally by the voice and accent of the narrator (which is the author), but it may just be me...

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great book. Hard to listen.

This book is great, it touches many topics.

But I had trouble keeping my focus with the unsteady narration.

Which is weird since I’ve actually watched her speaking during an online training on LinkedIn and she was great.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A must read

Loved it
Great book
Great reader
Highly recommend
A+ +

Well phrased
Highyly suggested read
You should pick this book up

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • MC
  • 2023-12-10

Too much dieting talk

I has been excited to read this after listening to an interview with the author, but ended up rage-returning this title mid-listen. For a book about “emotional” agility, there were sure a lot of examples about physically dieting, coupled with the acting out of fatphobic self-talk. While there were lots of good basic points overall, the old-fashioned lens on body positivity was jarring to listen to in a mental wellness context.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Can’t listen to the Narrator

I wish that they used a different narrator. It was like listening to nails on a chalkboard.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not good for an audiobook

Her book is good but I really couldn’t stand her narration - best to read instead!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Not a good narrator

The prinicples she teaches are good. But, the book and her narration are not enjoyable. You can learn her principles in a quick Ted Talk

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Essential

Some unique ideas here, but I also found it to be an overview of some of the most essential personal development skills and strategies I have been exposed to through other authors and thinkers. It has really helped me to integrate these concepts in a meaningful way. Beautiful!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

really enjoyable

excellent for learning and excellent just for listening and enjoying. great stuff. would read more by this author

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