Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected: Luna, Tania, Renninger PhD, LeeAnn: 9780399169823: Amazon.com: Books

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Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected Hardcover – April 7, 2015

by Tania Luna (Author), LeeAnn Renninger PhD (Author)

4.5 89 ratings

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Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected is a fascinating look at how we can handle and harness surprise in our work, relationships, and everyday lives.

Pop Quiz!

Do you prefer when:
A) Things go according to plan?
B) When the unexpected happens?

Most of us pick control and predictability. Yet research reveals a counterintuitive truth: surprise is the key that unlocks growth, innovation, and connection. It is also the secret ingredient in our best memories.

Through colorful narratives and compelling scientific findings, authors Tania Luna and Dr. LeeAnn Renninger shine a light on the world's least understood and most intriguing emotion. They reveal how shifting our perception of surprise lets us thrive in the face of uncertainty. And they show us how surprise acts as a shortcut that turns a typical product into a meaningful experience, a good idea into a viral one, awkward small talk into engaging conversation, and daily life into an adventure.

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Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

TarcherPerigee
Publication date

April 7, 2015
Dimensions

5.8 x 0.87 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0399169822
ISBN-13

978-0399169823
See all details

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Surprise:

"This book isn't about what you think it is."
--Seth Godin, author of What To Do When It's Your Turn

“An important how-to on making surprise into a habit to spark the best possible kind of change and progress in our work, relationships and ideas.”
--Kelly Stoetzel, Content director at TED

“I’ve always loved the element of surprise, but it wasn’t until reading this charming book that I fully understood why—and how to bring more of it into my life and the world.”
--Adam Grant, Wharton professor, magician, and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take

“Surprise! This delightful book will turn your understanding of predictability upside down. Take it from someone who loves routine and order: the unexpected lessons of this book can improve your life.”
--Chris Guillebeau, NYT bestselling author of The Happiness of Pursuit and The $100 Startup

"A vibrant, readable foray into the potential and the proper place for surprise in our lives....In a world that often seems keen on eliminating the unexpected with predictive technologies...this entertaining, smartly packaged book leaves readers with a full set of practical tools geared toward making everyone surprise-seekers in their own lives."
--Publishers Weekly

"Filled with both cutting-edge psychological science and delightfully-handy practical tips, Surprise will teach you how you can make the most of this curious human emotion."
--Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology Yale University and Director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory at Yale

About the Author

Tania Luna leads the culture department at LifeLabs New York, a company that helps people, teams, and organizations master life's most useful skills (from how to ask better questions to how to think more strategically). She is also the co-founder of Surprise Industries, the world's only company specializing in surprise. Tania writes for Psychology Today and conducts research on surprise.

LeeAnn Renninger, PhD is the CEO and founder of LifeLabs New York. She received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Vienna where she studied the differences between good and great communicators. At LifeLabs New York she helps managers around the globe catalyze better (and more surprising) thinking in themselves and others.

Tania and LeeAnn have spoken at a wide range of corporate events and to TED, TEDx, Yahoo Ignite, and YPO audiences. The authors provide training, organizational consulting, and team building for some of the world’s most inspiring organizations including: Etsy, Whole Foods Market, Google, National Geographic, LinkedIn, Victoria’s Secret, Warby Parker, Squarespace, Columbia University, and Yale University. Both authors live, work, and play in New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

PART ONE Understand SURPRISE

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON

Let’s begin with a surprise quiz. Don’t worry; you’ve had your whole life to prepare.

1. What is surprise?
A. An emotion
B. A mental state

2. Where do you feel surprise in your body?
A. Stomach
B. Chest
C. Face

3. How do you look when you are surprised?
A. Bulging eyes
B. Gaping mouth
C. A & B
D. None of these

4. How often do you feel surprise?
A. Rarely
B. Occasionally
C. Often
D. Every day

Turn this book upside down to get the right answers.

Just kidding. There are no right answers. When we ask these questions in our workshops and during our keynotes, the answers are so varied you’d think we were all a different species. Scientists still debate over what surprise is, where it happens in the body, and even how the facial expression of surprise really looks.

Given that surprise exists in every culture, you’d think we’d have it figured out by now. But surprise remains elusive and widely misunderstood. Some psychologists call it an emotion. Others argue that it’s a cognitive state. Among the biggest misconceptions about surprise is that it happens rarely. The truth is, we humans are surprised all the time. And you are about to get really good at spotting when it happens in your brain and in your world.

Chapter Two

Surprise in the World

Donna Marie looks like a soccer mom, talks like a soccer mom, and even kind of smells like a soccer mom. Only she isn’t a soccer mom. She’s a professional psychic. She works out of a café a block away from her apartment and has a client waiting list that’s two months long. Her rate is $150 an hour—a typical price for a U.S. psychic. She fishes out a worn deck of tarot cards from her bag and says, “It’s a good time to be clairvoyant.”

The American Federation of Certified Psychics and Mediums agrees. According to their survey, 69 percent of women and 39 percent of men admit to having contacted a psychic. What’s going on here? In an interview with CNN, consumer behaviorist Gita Johar said, “The biggest reason people are going to see psychics is probably that they want to feel in control.” Donna Marie puts it another way, “People are sick of surprises. Things are too unpredictable these days.”

On the other side of town we meet Christina (aka Ms. C), a New York City high school teacher, who tells us: “Every time I see a kid fall asleep in class, my heart breaks all over again.” When we ask her why she thinks kids are napping in their chairs, Ms. C rolls her eyes and says, “Why wouldn’t they be? I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s the same standardized test prep every day. Reading comprehension exercises about things like the history of Bethlehem Hospital. Who cares? There are no surprises. . . . We’re torturing our kids.”

If we hold Donna Marie and Ms. C’s sentiments side by side, we seem to have a contradiction. How can Donna Marie’s clients pay her to eliminate surprise when Ms. C’s students suffer from a lack of surprise? This question extends beyond fortune-tellers and high school teachers and into the state of our entire society. Change is happening at such a rapid pace that we’ve all got a case of psychological whiplash. At the same time we’re crying out for more and more stimulation: entertainment, relationships, spiritual transcendence, pictures of adorable puppies. Particularly in wealthy countries, people are embroiled in an unhealthy relationship with surprise. We want less of it. Then we want more. We’re anxious with it. We’re unfulfilled without it. The more surprising our world becomes, the less we’re able to maintain a balance atop the Surprise Seesaw.

On one side of the seesaw sits the sensation of too much surprise—brought on by change, uncertainty, and ambiguity. This state triggers anxiety: a vague mixture of fear and dread. It is the sensation of our brains working overtime to predict the future. Anxiety is the Find Phase of the Surprise Sequence gone unchecked—a neurological manhunt for information with no end in sight. If you always knew what to expect, there would be no more surprises, and you would never be anxious again. That is the selling proposition of Donna Marie, along with every sports, weather, health, political, and financial forecaster selling us a peek into the future. In the days before Surprise Industries, Tania spent all of her time on this side of the seesaw—worrying, planning, and trying to prevent the unexpected.

On the other side of the seesaw sits the problem of too little surprise. It is brought on by routine, structure, and comfort. A lack of surprise triggers hypostress, the near opposite of anxiety. Hypostress is the stress of understimulation. To use LeeAnn’s most dreaded word: it’s boredom. Boredom may seem like no biggie—just lazy Sunday restlessness or the run-on-meeting blahs, but the consequences of boredom are nothing to yawn at. As we’ll discuss in more detail shortly, boredom is correlated with depression, drug abuse, gambling, aggression, relationship dissatisfaction, and (as Ms. C points out to us with bitterness in her voice) academic failure.

Instead of striking a balance between too much and too little surprise, most of us are strapped into a Surprise Seesaw that sways from one extreme to the next like two burly kids battling for dominance on the playground. We’re either biting our nails because we don’t know what to expect or we’re twiddling our thumbs because we know exactly what will happen next. What’s with all the seeing and sawing? Is it a new phenomenon in response to a fundamentally new world, or has the world remained pretty much consistent while our perception of it changed? Is our future becoming more or less surprising?

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ TarcherPerigee; Illustrated edition (April 7, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0399169822
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0399169823
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.02 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 0.87 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,346,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,514 in Popular Applied Psychology
- #2,987 in Emotional Mental Health
- #3,090 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions

Customer Reviews:
4.5 89 ratings

About the author

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Tania Luna

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TANIA LUNA is a psychology researcher, writer, and educator. She has built multiple companies, including LifeLabs Learning — a leadership development resource that serves thousands of the world’s most influential companies, and Scarlet Spark — a nonprofit that accelerates the speed-to-mission of organizations that help animals.

She is also a TED speaker, co-author of The Leader Lab: How to Become a Great Manager, Faster and Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable & Engineer the Unexpected, and co-host of the podcast Talk Psych to Me. She lives with rescued pigs, goats, roosters, dogs, cats, and the love of her life.

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Customer reviews

89 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Customers say

Customers find the book enlightening, insightful, and brilliant. They say it gives fun, easy, and practical strategies to ramp up your work life, romantic life, and personal life. Readers describe the writing style as engaging, simple, and easy to understand. They also appreciate the humor and practicality.

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Enlightenedness Writing style Humor

7 customers mention "Enlightenedness"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book enlightening, insightful, and brilliant. They say it gives fun, easy, and practical strategies to ramp-up your work life. Readers also mention the concepts are very generalizable.

"...the Unexpected" is a well balanced book that offers the right combination of insight, humor, practicality and caring for both the subject..." Read more

"...I am. It gives fun/easy/practical strategies to ramp-up your work life, romantic life, and your inner life and backs all of it up with the very..." Read more

"...have penned a lovely little book that will enlighten, delight and vitalize readers for years to come. A must-have." Read more

"...What I love was that the concepts were very generalizable; by this I mean that I could apply them at home, at work, in all aspects of my life...." Read more

5 customers mention "Writing style"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style engaging, simple, and easy to understand. They appreciate the quick summary at the end of each chapter. Readers also mention the book is accessible and pleasing.

"...science of surprise. There's a quick summary at the end of each chapter--like little cheat sheets for a fast review when needed...." Read more

"...Written in an engaging and simple (though never simplistic) style, the book invites its reader to explore one of the most overlooked yet essential..." Read more

"Great and very accessible book on the psychology of surprise...." Read more

"Really well written, easy to understand, funny and I learned a lot." Read more

4 customers mention "Humor"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book humorous. They say it has insight, practicality, and caring for both.

"...is a well balanced book that offers the right combination of insight, humor, practicality and caring for both the subject matter and the audience...." Read more

"...science and research, but still totally accessible and actually, really funny...." Read more

"...across as both fresh, personal (no business jargon) and with frequent dashes of humor. Great read." Read more

"Really well written, easy to understand, funny and I learned a lot." Read more

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Steven R. Nelson

An enlightening and entertaining look at, and guide to, surprise

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

"Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected" is a well balanced book that offers the right combination of insight, humor, practicality and caring for both the subject matter and the audience. You can tell how much the authors are committed to the concept that surprise can be a rich and meaningful part of the human experience. We can benefit from focusing our attention on this experience rather than just letting it happen to us as yet another random factor in our lives. The words "embrace" and "engineer" in the title speak to this. By intentionally understanding and opening up to surprise, we can use it to our advantage, without it losing the spontaneity and serendipity that makes it special. That's a balancing act: how to engineer surprise and still maintain its very nature. This book shows you how you can do that, and along the way be both entertained and enlightened.

3 people found this helpful

Get. This. Book. (seriously!)

Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

I've just finished reading it, and tomorrow I'm going to start all over and read the whole thing again. I am. It gives fun/easy/practical strategies to ramp-up your work life, romantic life, and your inner life and backs all of it up with the very simple (but super fascinating!) science of surprise. There's a quick summary at the end of each chapter--like little cheat sheets for a fast review when needed. Overall an easy and INTERESTING read! It's what Malcolm Gladwell books SHOULD be like (and almost are). Perfect Christmas gift, and yes I know it's only April, but thinking that I might as well buy a stack now and be done with it.

4 people found this helpful

delight and vitalize readers for years to come

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Many books purport to change the way you see and interact with the world; few actually deliver. "Surprise" is one of those rare gems that actually accomplishes not only transforming the way you think about the world, but changing the way you live in it. Written in an engaging and simple (though never simplistic) style, the book invites its reader to explore one of the most overlooked yet essential qualities of being human - a capacity for creative surprise. Tania Luna and Leeann Renninger have penned a lovely little book that will enlighten, delight and vitalize readers for years to come. A must-have.

9 people found this helpful

I love this kind of stuff and this book is one ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

I love this kind of stuff and this book is one of the best ones I've read. Got it for my birthday last week--and I tore threw it. It wasn't fluffy at all--obviously based in real science and research, but still totally accessible and actually, really funny.
Plus, finding out that my brain grows a tiny bit bigger every time I get surprised makes me feel like I might embrace the unexpected hiccups in my life a little more warmly.

I mean, maybe not...but I like the idea.

One person found this helpful

I was quite surprised with this book! Their research ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

I was quite surprised with this book! Their research into the phenomenon of surprise is interesting. I did feel that the insights could have been captured by and presented through an even smaller book.

2 people found this helpful

T. Wedell-Wedellsborg

Useful, entertaining and - yes, surprising

Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Great and very accessible book on the psychology of surprise. The authors share a core framework for how surprise works, including examples of how to leverage the positive power of surprise in both the personal domain and in business.

Besides the content, I really liked the style which comes across as both fresh, personal (no business jargon) and with frequent dashes of humor. Great read.

4 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

What a surprise to find out that I live a ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

What a surprise to find out that I live a surprised life. I often find myself looking for witty ways to view life and share it with others. A quick read that I will review a number of times to make sure that I absorb most of the information.

2 people found this helpful

Brilliant And Life-Changing (Really)

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

I ripped through this book and found it incredibly stimulating. There are ideas in here that are so well organized and useful, but that's just the beginning. What I love was that the concepts were very generalizable; by this I mean that I could apply them at home, at work, in all aspects of my life. There is nothing like a powerful idea beautifully synthesized. This is one of those rare manifestations.

5 people found this helpful

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