Wisdom 2.0: The New Movement Toward Purposeful Engagement in Business and in Life [Paperback]

Soren Gordhamer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 5, 2013

Technology is not the answer. It is also not the problem. What matters instead? Awareness, Engagement, and Wisdom.

Wisdom 2.0 addresses the challenge of our age:to not only live connected to one another through technology,but to do so in ways that are beneficial, effective, and useful.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wonderful, and unbelievably important." -- Jon Kabat-Zinn --Direct

This is good stuff for the busy modern life: practical, simple and wise. (Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart)

This may well be the first book of its kind. A book of rapid development and the rewriting of long conditioned programs. This is liberation by wrapped attention to the mind-screen and the comings and goines there-on.” (Stephen Levine, author of Turning Toward the Mystery)

This is the instruction manual that should come with our iPhones and Blackberries... teaching us how to put them down. (Chris Sacca, Former Google Head of Special Initiatives)

Wisdom 2.0 is a pragmatic, creative, and fun guide to applying ancient insights to our everyday technology-rich lives. This book reveals how to utilize ordinary circumstance for real transformation. (Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of HappinessSharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of HappinessSharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of HappinessSharon Salzberg, a)

Utterly buried in the world of Twitter, blogging, email, online social networks, cell phones, text messages? Wisdom 2.0 offer readers a ray of light, a breath of fresh air and tranquility for the constantly connected and eternally wired. (Mark Grimes, founder of Ned.com and Better World Media Network)

Soren Gordhamer’s brave and smart book on how to stay connected (ie,mindful) while being electronically connected is a must for thosewhose lives tend to be on the virtual side. He’s advocating an inward step to a newrelationship with technology that is creative and liberating. (Joan Halifax, abbot, Upaya Zen Center)

Author, Web entrepreneur and stress-reduction consultant Gordhamer ‘s presentation is succinct and cannily geared toward those proud to be plugged-in, but seeking to restore balance to their lives. (Publishers Weekly)

“Soren is a connector extraordinaire. In this book, he connects wisdom to business, thereby exploring the next wave of engagement, creativity, and mindfulness in business and life. Read this book, and Soren may connect you to your inner wisdom.” (Chade-Meng Tan, New York Times Bestselling author of Search Inside Yourself)

“This is a wonderful and important read for everyone in business who wants to acquire deeper insight and practice living a balanced life. Soren brings a wealth of experience to the reader in an accessible and compelling way.” (Stuart Crabb, Head of Learning & Development, Facebook)

“With the pace of our work and our lives increasing at lightning speed, we are not only losing our effectiveness, but ourselves. Wisdom 2.0 guides us gently back to our path--the one that prioritizes our well-being, and in turn, those few things that are truly important.” (Melissa Daimler, Head of Organizational Effectiveness & Learning, Twitter)

“Our relationship to technology, and to life, is what we make of it. In a world where information constantly flows at us from every direction Soren has provided us with a wonderful guide that through observation and practice will help us stay connected to our intentions and our loved ones.” (Arturo Bejar, Director of Engineering, Facebook)

About the Author

Soren Gordhamer is the founder and host of the Wisdom 2.0Conference, the premier gathering of those interested in mindfulness andwisdom in modern life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (February 5, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061651516
• ISBN-13: 978-0061651519
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 6.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

SOREN GORDHAMER works with individuals and groups on ways to live with less stress and greater creativity, particularly in relationship to technology. His most recent book is Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Teachings for the Creative and Constantly Connected (HarperOne, 2009), which offers tools for living with greater focus and ease in our increasingly connected world.

He blogs for the Huffington Post, where he writes on current events and mindfulness, and for the Social Media blog, Mashable, where he explores the potential of social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Soren has spoken on or taught mindfulness everywhere from youth in New York City juvenile halls, to trauma workers in Rwanda, teachers in Nigeria, and to staff at the Google's corporate headquarters.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless wisdom for modern life April 14, 2009

By D. Schoeberlein

Format:Paperback

Like a good friend, this book offers welcome input to help you live more fully and realize your potential. Wisdom 2.0 shows how to find balance while moving at the fast pace of modern life. Gordhamer writes about real-life challenges with insight, humor and humility. Skilled with cutting edge technology and grounded in ancient wisdom traditions, the author provides practical strategies for developing the inner focus, clarity and creativity essential for success.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Litte Too Basic For Me; Great For Beginners August 11, 2010

By Joodie

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Length: 2:21 Mins

This book is easy to read and organized very well. As someone who has already done a lot of reading and practicing of buddhism and mindfulness most of the tips were fairly common sense to me. However it consolidated everything into a short, straightforward read for those of you who are short on time.

If you are overwhelmed with your daily dosing of technology and don't know how to deal with it I'd suggest this book. For more advanced mindfulness practitioners you will probably already use a lot of this advice in your daily life anyway.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Concise counsel for the constantly connected March 7, 2012

By Tom Cummings

Format:Paperback

Perhaps no form of addiction is more commonplace in contemporary society than our collective craving to be online all the time - reading our email, scanning blogs, updating our Facebook status, scrolling through Twitter feeds, texting our friends. And, as with any form of addiction, the craving is never really satisfied, and so it just keeps manifesting.

In the case of online technology addiction, there is always another email, another tweet, another text, another post - a constant stream of information displays and communication requests. Even as we complain about the stress of this unending crush of data, more often than not we find ourselves complying with the implicit demand to keep clicking and keystroking, to stay connected for every possible minute, out of fear that we might miss something.

Right at the beginning of this highly useful book, the author outs himself as a recovering technology addict, someone who knows firsthand of what he is writing about. In his own words - "I discovered that when I was online ... I felt connected to other people. There was a sense ... of not being alone. It was the same with my cell phone. By knowing I was reachable, I felt linked to other people." What he came to see, and now wants to share with his readers, is that this sense of being connected through our devices and our social media activities is merely an illusion, and a harmful one at that. Individuals addicted to being online are what he terms "disconnectedly connected ... connected to technology but largely disconnected from ourselves."

After this opening confession, he then proceeds to offer us a series of short, thoughtful essays on various aspects of being present and mindful - the "ancient secrets" of his subtitle - designed to help us connect more strongly to our own consciousness and creativity. He argues convincingly that the more we learn to disconnect from the alluring attractions of the online environment, the more we'll be able to use that very environment to connect with others in an authentic, more meaningful way.

Written in an engaging conversational style, each chapter is brief enough to read and reflect on during a morning coffee break - a deliberate nod on the author's part to the time-pressured technology-driven professionals who are his target audience. While readers more experienced with mindfulness practice may find this style a bit too facile, the breadth of topics covered more than compensates for the brevity. Within these pages you can find useful treatments of such varied issues as anger management, stress reduction, effective transitioning, dealing with stuckness, coming to terms with the past, practicing non-attachment, and working with the need to be right all the time. Quite an impressive range - and even more helpful, each section of the book concludes with a suggested practice for developing the mindfulness skills addressed in that section's chapters.

For those just beginning their acquaintance with mindfulness practice, this book will serve as a thorough and accessible introduction. For those already acquainted with the benefits of mindfulness, it will serve as a refresher course for honing skills already acquired, and as a source of inspiration for expanding one's practice to the next level.