[This Week's Books] 'What Makes Us Grow' and 5 More Titles

◆What Makes Us Grow?=Personality is known as a unique characteristic that appears in a person's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and is said to remain relatively stable throughout life. However, the author, a professor of personality psychology, argues otherwise. He emphasizes that personality changes with experience, even into old age. Covering a wide range of life cycle events that everyone experiences, from love and separation, employment and unemployment, childbirth and bereavement, to rare lifelong experiences, the author intriguingly analyzes the correlation between personality and experience. The book introduces misconceptions and truths about personality, personality traits related to maturity, and ways to utilize personality analysis to become a better self. (Eva Asselman et al. · Gimm-Young Publishers)

◆It’s the Brain, Not the Mind, That’s Anxious=Having studied brain scans of over 225,000 people from 155 countries for more than 30 years, the author claims that there are distinct brains that are ‘easily happy’ and those ‘vulnerable to unhappiness.’ It is commonly believed that acquiring immense wealth and fame distances one from unhappiness, but reality is different. The author categorizes the human brain into five basic types (Balanced, Impulsive, Persistent, Sensitive, and Cautious brains) and eleven complex types, analyzing each type’s vulnerabilities, traits, and ways to maximize brain health from biological and psychological perspectives. He emphasizes that investing just 10 minutes a day can increase anyone’s happiness by about 30% within a month. (Daniel G. Amen · Wisdom House)

◆Cryptosapiens and the Changing Order of the World=‘Crypto’ refers to ‘encryption,’ the core technology of blockchain. Cryptosapiens is a coined term for a new human species leading economic and social activities using blockchain technology. The author stresses that to discern the wheat from the chaff in the upcoming blockchain era, everyone must develop ‘crypto literacy.’ Experts predict that Web 3.0 and token economies, part of blockchain, will bring upheavals greater than those in the stock market. Germany’s Siemens successfully issued €60 million in corporate bonds as tokens without going through financial institutions, and Korea has taken its first steps toward token securities (STO). The author closely examines global trends, including differing stances of the U.S., China, Europe, and Japan. (Park Jong-baek · Sejong Books)

◆History Asks, Life Sciences Answer=Great changes are occurring due to advances in science and technology. For example, the successful transplantation of a mouse kidney frozen for 100 days into another mouse suggests the possibility of reviving frozen humans, and in 2018, a genetically edited baby was born using CRISPR technology. While these open new possibilities, they also shake existing beliefs and cause anxiety. The author recommends a humanistic perspective to prepare for the shocks biotechnology may bring. Viewing the history of scientific progress through a humanities lens can provide insights from history. The book analyzes cases where scientific phenomena transformed into socio-cultural phenomena through ten keywords: childbirth, genetics, disease, organs, infection, pain, digestion, aging, and experimentation. (Jeon Ju-hong · Jisang Books)

◆MOT The 15-Second Moment of Truth=In bullfighting, the moment a bull is pierced in the heart by the matador’s sword is called the ‘moment of truth.’ In business, the roughly 15 seconds during which a customer forms an impression of a company or product is called the ‘moment of truth.’ The author, who became the youngest CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) in 1981, believed that the company’s success depended on this moment. He restructured the closed pyramid organizational system, boldly invested in service training, and gave frontline employees significant authority and responsibility. As a result, SAS turned from a deficit to a profit in just one year. The book introduces his innovative management philosophy and real-life cases. (Jan Carlson · Hyundai Intelligence)

◆Minsky’s Finance and Capitalism=“See, I told you this would happen!!” Many predict that if economic thinker Hyman Minsky were alive today, he would say this about the global economic situation over the past decade. About 20 years before the global financial crisis, in 1986, Minsky argued in his book Stabilizing an Unstable Economy that capitalism’s endogenous instability causes financial crises. The book contains Minsky’s economic analyses that foresaw financial crises ahead of his time. It closely examines Minsky’s ‘humanistic economy’ argument, which called for shifting policy goals from economic growth to programs aimed at full employment, price stability, and equity enhancement. (Hyman P. Minsky · Chaos Book)

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