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Top Dog Paperback – Illustrated, February 18, 2014
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Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's work changes the national dialogue. Beyond their bestselling books, you know them from commentary and features in the New York Times, CNN, NPR, Time, Newsweek, Wired, New York, and more. E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter accounts are filled with demands to read their reporting (such as "How Not to Talk to Your Kids," "Creativity Crisis," and "Losing Is Good for You").
In Top Dog, Bronson and Merryman again use their astonishing blend of science and storytelling to reveal what's truly in the heart of a champion. The joy of victory and the character-building agony of defeat. Testosterone and the neuroscience of mistakes. Why rivals motivate. How home field advantage gets you a raise. What teamwork really requires. It's baseball, the SAT, sales contests, and Linux. How before da Vinci and FedEx were innovators, first, they were great competitors.
Olympians carry Top Dog in their gym bags. It's in briefcases of Wall Street traders and Madison Avenue madmen. Risk takers from Silicon Valley to Vegas race to implement its ideas, as educators debate it in halls of academia. Now see for yourself what this game-changing talk is all about.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateFebruary 18, 2014
- Dimensions5.25 x 0.88 x 8 inches
- ISBN-109781455515141
- ISBN-13978-1455515141
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A terrifically useful book about the science of competition (which you should read right now)."―Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code
"Cutting-edge science behind life's triumphs and failures . . . insight from politics, finance, science, sports and economics to tip the odds in your favor."―NPR.com
"Remarkable . . . this book will help you rise to the occasion . . . wildly counterintuitive."―San Francisco Chronicle (Literary Pick)
"Fiction may lay claim to imagination, but works such as TOP DOG are what push the envelope of our reality . . . stunning . . . Prepare to delve into the external factors and personal dynamos that make you who you are."―Coffin Factory
"I tell my staff, I tell my friends-you must read TOP DOG. I was a good poker player before I read it. Now, I'm even better."―Phil Gordon, World Poker Tour Champion, author, and CEO of Jawfish Games
"Accessible for fans of pop science, yet substantial enough to have practical applications . . . will have folks rethinking the impulse to win at work and play."―Publishers Weekly
"An easy, highly satisfying read . . . surprising . . . fascinating. Grade: A."―AVClub.com
"There is intense competition in just about every aspect of life . . . There's not an app for that, yet, but there is a book: TOP DOG . . . a good primer on the behaviors that can sink or lift us in a competitive world."―Seattle Times
"Illuminating and entertaining . . . surprising insights."―Kirkus
"Intriguing . . . the authors persuasively argue that technical skill is only one part-in many cases, the least important part-of what it takes to come out on top."―Booklist
"TOP DOG should be mandatory reading for every serious athlete, coach, and managers-both on and off the field. Amazing science, terrific storytelling, and insight to burn."
―Pat Williams, cofounder/SVP, Orlando Magic and Basketball Hall of Famer
"Such a provocative text . . . If you read NurtureShock, you already know about the power of their prose . . . game-changing steps to assure success in winner-take-all showdowns, for everyone from adults in offices to students in classrooms."―Tavis Smiley, The Tavis Smiley Show
"A great read for those paralyzed by the fear of failure as well as those who hunger for success."―Huffington Post
"In TOP DOG, Bronson and Merryman turn their attention from the science of child development to competition: why men are overconfident and women are better at gauging risk; the advantage of playing on home field; why younger sibs are more competitive than first-born. And much more."―Toronto Star
"I cannot recommend it more highly . . . An essential book-if you care about competition, winning, losing, or humanity, you must buy this book . . . Fantastic."―Jack Abramoff, The Jack Abramoff Show
"As the beta-dog head of a trophy-challenged family, I was surprisingly inspired by Bronson and Merryman's compulsively readable and rigorously researched book. TOP DOG will turn everything you believe about competition (good, bad, and ugly) upside down. Awesome!"―Sandra Tsing Loh, host, The Loh Down on Science
"The authors provide an exhaustive culling of medical literature as well as reader-friendly anecdotes drawn from business, sports, the arts, and the military."―Inc. Magazine
"An exciting look at the genetic, psychological, and situational factors that impact how people perform when competing . . . abundant research . . . snappy writing."―Audiofile
"Highly recommend to anyone wanting to dig deeper into how we humans really function and why."―Myrtle Beach Sun News
"[The authors] once again poked conventional wisdom in the eye . . . fine and fascinating volume . . . highly readable prose, with great stories . . . I would give this book a lot of stars."―Utah Daily Herald
"[The authors'] breezy, accessible style is backed up with impeccable references to peer-reviewed journals and authoritative books."―Winnipeg Free Press
"Turning common sense on its head . . . an untangling of winners, losers, biology and psychology and how each plays its role in the rise and fall of competitors . . . imploring you to turn up your competitive fire, and, quite possibly, become the next top dog."―Express Milwaukee
"I highly recommend it to anyone who is a coach, business leader, entrepreneur or parent."―Honolulu Star-Advertiser's "Career Changers"
"Groundbreaking book on the science of competition . . . based on cutting-edge science . . . told through easy-to-grasp stories."―Free Lance-Star (VA)
"From every perspective-attorney, administrator, educator, and parent-TOP DOG won me over. I was captivated by the thought-provoking ideas, first-rate prose, and unforgettable science."―William M. Treanor, executive vice president and dean, Georgetown University Law Center
"Brilliant, phenomenal, inspiring. I love this book. Through TOP DOG, I finally have a science-based understanding of competition-and I know how to use that science to bring out my absolute best. Whether I'm preparing for a race or thinking about how to grow my business, TOP DOG's my training manual for excellence."―Roisin McGettigan-Dumas, track and field Olympic finalist, CEO/Entrepreneur, BelieveIAm.com
"If you wake up in the middle of the night worried that you might not have the right stuff, TOP DOG is for you. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman use lessons from virtuosos in every conceivable discipline-skydivers, ballroom dancers, NASA managers, Renaissance artists-to deconstruct and distill what we need to do to compete successfully in our hyper-competitive age. TOP DOG is that rare thing-intelligent, illuminating and filled with practical advice."―Anne Kreamer, author of It's Always Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace and Going Gray
"Amazing . . . mind-boggling . . . Every page, you go, 'Oh, whoa.' Really wonderful . . . just fascinating reading."―Leo Laporte, TWiT.TV
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 1455515140
- Publisher : Twelve; Reprint edition (February 18, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781455515141
- ISBN-13 : 978-1455515141
- Item Weight : 11.7 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 0.88 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,199,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,695 in Popular Social Psychology & Interactions
- #4,865 in Motivational Management & Leadership
- #13,732 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's NurtureShock was on the New York Times bestseller list for six months. One of the most influential books about children ever published, NurtureShock landed on more than 35 "Year's Best" lists and has been translated into 16 languages. The authors have won nine national awards for their reporting, including the PEN USA Award for Literary Journalism and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Outstanding Journalism.
Prior to their collaboration, Bronson authored five books, including What Should I Do with My Life?, a #1 New York Times bestseller with more than ten months on the list. He has been on Oprah, on every national morning show, and on the cover of five magazines, including Wired and Fast Company. His first novel, Bombardiers, was a #1 bestseller in the United Kingdom. His books have been translated into 20 languages. Po speaks regularly at colleges and community "town hall" events. He is a founder of The San Francisco Writer's Grotto, a cooperative workspace for writers and filmmakers. He also serves as volunteer president of the San Francisco Vikings Youth Soccer League. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.
Ashley Merryman's insights change the national dialogue. With Po Bronson, she's written two New York Times bestselling books – Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing and NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children. Together, they've won nine national awards for reporting. Merryman's been on countless radio and television shows, while email, Facebook, and Twitter are filled with demands to read her essays, such as "Losing is Good for You," "How Not to Talk to Your Kids," and "Creativity Crisis."
Merryman and Bronson's new book, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing, was an instant New York Times bestseller. Among the critical raves – Top Dog was a "Best Book of the Month" by both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, while Salary.com said it was the #1 book that every entrepreneur must read.
Top Dog is an astonishing blend of science and storytelling that reveals what's really in the heart of a champion. It's about the thrill of victory and the character-building agony of defeat. Testosterone and the neuroscience of mistakes. Why rivals motivate. How home field advantage gets you a raise. What teamwork really requires. It's baseball, Wall Street financial analysts, the SAT, sales contests, and Linux software. How before da Vinci and FedEx were innovators, first, they were great competitors. Olympians, professional athletes, and their coaches are already carrying Top Dog around in gym bags. It's in the briefcases of Wall Street traders and Madison Ave. madmen. Professional risk takers – from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to Vegas gamblers – are racing to master its ideas, while educators and philosophers are debating it the halls of academia.
Merryman and Bronson's previous book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, is also a New York Times bestseller, translated into sixteen languages to date. But beyond that, it has become one of the most influential books about children ever been published. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, Merryman and Bronson demonstrate that many of modern society’s strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring—because key twists in the science have been overlooked.
Merryman has written for Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York, the Guardian, and many more. A frequent commentator on radio and television, Merryman has appeared on shows such as: Fox & Friends; CNN's AC 360 and CNN Newsroom; The Charlie Rose Show; The Tavis Smiley Show; @KatieCouric; Canada AM; BBC World News; NPR's Tell Me More and On Point; and many others around the world.
Honors for Merryman and Bronson include: the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Journalism; the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Award for Science Journalism; an “Audie” from the Audio Publishers Association; and two Clarion Awards. And their work is considered so substantial that scientists themselves rely on their reporting. Their work has been cited as a research authority in 80 academic journals and 260 books, and it is being used as text in universities around the world. You'll find references to their work in publications by the White House to speeches by politicians around the globe.
Merryman lives in Los Angeles, where she has directed a small all-volunteer tutoring program for inner-city kids for 15 years; in that time, her program has helped over 800 children. For her civic involvement, she received commendations from both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. An attorney, Merryman previously served as a speechwriter in the Clinton Administration.
Merryman holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, a J.D. from the Georgetown University’s Law Center, and a Certificate in Irish Studies from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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- one's dopamine level (genetically determined) can determine whether someone thrives or has a meltdown during a standardized test;
- how women are better able to calculate risk than men and because of that, they often shy away from high risk competitions;
- how women do better when surrounded by people who are much better at a given task but men become disillusioned and become reclusive;
- how youngest children are more apt to thrive under competition and take more risks than older children or only childs;
- how entrepreneurs often have longer fourth finger in relation to the index finger (determined by fetal testosterone and the testosterone in the mother's bloodstream during gestation);
- how an environment can influence someone to perform better under pressure (focusing on winning instead of focusing on not losing....
This book is so enjoyable to read and so full of information. I hope they write another book after this.
First, the basics of how stress and our reaction to it work. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that produces adrenaline, the body's way of contfronting on stressful situations. COMT is an enzyme that degrades dopamine. People's bodies produce varying levels of dopamine, low dopamine levels leading to an overall competition-avoiding personality, etc. These two 'work together' to determine how a person will react to stress and competition. If your body produces a lot of dopamine naturally, but also produces a high level of COMT (to degrade the dopamine), you may handle stress and competition quite well. If you produce the same high level of dopamine but have a low level of COMT (meaning less dopamine is degraded), you may end up being the type who gets stressed very easily, "overreacting" to mildly stressful situations. Low dopamine levels and high COMT may produce someone who doesn't react strongly enough in stressful or competitive situations. Etc.
But the book also talks about the differences in how men and women generally compete. Conventional wisdom tends to say that women aren't very competitive naturally (and those who are have simply learned to get on in a man's competitive world. But like much common wisdom, there is only a grain of truth to this. Pouring over studies of behavior and neuroscience, the authors make a case that women are as competitive as men, but simply are more judicious about when they enter competition.... generally when they believe they have a realistic chance of winning. Women, in other words, look at the odds of whether they have a chance to win, and if they think they do, they compete every bit as hard as men. Men, on the other hand, tend to place more emphasis on what they would gain if they did win (than what their chances are of winning). The authors do refrain from suggesting that one strategy is better than the other; in fact, both strategies may have evolved because they have survival value in different contexts. But they do give some surprising stats showing, for instance, that women investors and money managers have a better track record with their somewhat more conservative strategy than men, who frequently make riskier investment choices.
There are some other great challenges to the conventional wisdom here. Foremost is a reassessment of what testosterone and oxytocin are and do. For a long time, scientists told us that testosterone was simply the "aggression drug" and that oxytocin is the "care/empathy drug." It turns out that things are quite a bit more complicated than this. Studies are showing that testosterone can not only increase one's aggression, but increase allegiance with a group when that group is in competition with another group. (Soccor players with high levels of testosterone seem more likely to do things like pass the ball and assist so that team mates can score.) Similarly, oxytocin does not just increase care and empathy, but care and empathy toward those in one's in-group (it also increases aggression against those in the out-group).
Lastly, I think an overall message we should take from the book is that competition is not necessarily the bad, intrinsic-motivation-killing, thing (especially when kids are concerned) that we have been told it is by the "self-esteem movement." Yes, some people do not thrive, but wither, when they are faced with competitive situations. But most actually do better when they compete either against themselves or others. Kids who compete often learn to care more about the activity they are doing (sport, music, etc) than those who do not compete at those same activities. Competition also helps people learn to deal with being in stressful situations, both at how to be successful in them AND cope with lack of success. (Of course, they are also careful to acknowledge that healthy competition has necessary conditions, like competitors being mindful of sticking to rules of fair play, and the competition being designed so that competitors believe it to be a fair fight.)
Overall, this book was very interesting to read. While written in a easy-going style, there is much information here, and those wanting to look at the more scholarly literature will find a large section of citations pointing them to articles they can pursue further. Teacher, parents, company executives, and just the generally interested lay public should all be able to find something in this book that can help them understand why and how we (should) compete.
In a time when human beings are taking less and less responsibility for their actions and choices (please read into this the hottest of political topics!) by relegating all of them to the fate of genetics, Mr. Bronson and Mrs. Merryman show that the complex interplay of our choices along with our genetic make-up is hardly immutable.
(On a side note...Would like to see less and less of the evolutionary speculation in books like this. Some credibility is lost and an unnecessary worldview is presented for a book of this nature.)
Still, this book is an invaluable resource for those interested in the nature of motivation and the product of our choices.
Top reviews from other countries
Son défaut : il manque de ligne directrice et d'une structure claire. Il fourmille d'idées et d'exemples mais il est difficile à suivre et à mémoriser dans son ensemble.
Ses qualités :
- il s'appuie sur de multiples travaux scientifiques qui rendent les démonstrations captivantes, surprenantes et convaincantes.
- il (re)met en lumière les vertus de la valeur "compétition", qui est souvent aujourd'hui décriée au profit de la coopération. Or les deux sont nécessaires au développement de la société (lire aussi sur ce point le beaucoup plus ardu : "Civilization: The West and the Rest").
- il éclaire véritablement d'un jour nouveau les différences hommes-femmes face aux situations compétitives (recrutement, promotion, politique etc.), bien au-delà des généralités habituelles.
C'est vraiment un excellent bouquin.