Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected

by Tania Luna, LeeAnn Renninger, PhD

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399169823
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/07/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,011,389
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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.

Read an Excerpt

PART ONE Understand SURPRISE
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Surprise"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Tania Luna.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Advance 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
 

 

Editorial Reviews

01/12/2015
This is a vibrant, readable foray into the potential and the proper place for surprise in our lives. Authors Renninger and Luna, founder and head of the culture department at LifeLabs New York respectively, prove both knowledgeable and personable guides. Through their animated narrative, we learn to see the world with fresh eyes, learning, for instance, of surprise’s possible evolutionary basis in the “fight or flight” instinct. Perhaps the book’s most appealing aspect is its lively presentation, which sprinkles the pages with inventive terms, from the Struggle Sandwich to the Surprise Seesaw, and visual components that clearly illustrate verbal concepts. Chapters are also punctuated by helpful “cheat sheets” that give synopses of the surprises therein. In a world that often seems keen on eliminating the unexpected with predictive technologies, this book suggests that an element of surprise might prove all the more necessary. As such, this entertaining, smartly packaged book leaves readers with a full set of practical tools geared toward making everyone surprise-seekers in their own lives. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

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

From the Publisher

12/01/2014
The aim of Luna and Renninger's book is to assist readers to learn how to see the unexpected as an invigorating element of life. The authors, both psychologists, researchers, and entrepreneurs, make their case by demonstrating how surprise first elicits a spike in brain waves to hijack attention, then causes the mind to generate questions and draw hypotheses. The element of surprise forces a person to revise their scheme of thinking and as a result share this finding with others. Essentially, astonishment moves us out of our comfort zones and sharpens our skills for handling the unexpected, thus developing "surprise skills" can be very handy. VERDICT A delightful, sophisticated read for everyone who desires a spark in their lives.

Library Journal