The 25th Hour: How to Thrive (and Gain Ridiculous Amounts of Time) by Getting Out of Your Own Way

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The 25th Hour is both a revelation and a challenge. Schore redefines mediocrity not as incompetence but as cowardice—the idea you didn’t share, the tough conversation you sidestepped, the decision you let drift. The result is a bracing guide to reclaiming your time by confronting the emotional habits that quietly give it away.” —Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive and The Power of Regret

Are you craving not just extra time but the wisdom and self-awareness to use it joyfully and effectively? An elite executive coach brings us his proprietary approach to finding at least another hour in our day to do anything we want—all by learning to manage our fears and other emotions better.

We often equate saving time with working smarter. If only we could cut unnecessary meetings, streamline emails, and collaborate more strategically, we could claw back all the stolen hours in our day. While these tactical adjustments help, they only skim the surface. The real problem isn’t external, but internal. In The 25th Hour, Neal Schore reveals how our emotional reactions quietly eat away not just at our time but also our energy. It’s the unproductive worrying, the anxiety that blooms and spirals, the decisions we make based on fear, the obsession over other people’s actions and behaviors—all those complicated emotional dynamics that we so rarely address at work. More than anything else, we get in our own way.

In three parts, The 25th Hour offers a simple, practical, paradigm-shifting approach to professional development, moving the focus beyond strategies for greater efficiency to what really costs us so much time and energy: our uncontrolled emotional responses.

Part I starts us off with some simple tools that can help you handle yourself better in any professional exchange, including the one question you should always ask yourself.

Part II introduces a series of strategies for maneuvering when life isn’t going as you’d hoped, including a failsafe way for resetting after a distracting or tough experience leaves you in a miasma of self-doubt.

Part III helps you reach new levels of achievement and efficiency by firing your fears, breaking with your automatic responses, and fighting back against impostor’s syndrome, with creative tools that will make you smile as you put them to work.

Drawing on Schore’s personal experiences and his successful work with some of today’s most consequential business leaders, The 25th Hour will show you how to manage yourself in order to manage your professional life. With proven guidance and tools for becoming more self-aware, reigning in unruly feelings, and preventing needless drama, this book will equip everyone from CEOs to students with the skills to focus in on what matters to work more productively and efficiently while also having more fun along the way. The counterintuitive surprise? Your colleagues will love that you don’t waste their time either!

Neal Schore serves as chairman and advisor to several notable business leaders, boards, and companies across the United States. He also advises multiple private equity and investment firms on executive leadership and strategic initiatives. He currently serves as cofounder and CEO of The 25th Hour Group, an executive coaching and leadership events firm that showcases his proven leadership toolbox and practice. Previously, Schore served as founder, president, and CEO of Triton Digital, a global technology, data, and services leader in the digital audio and podcast industry. Schore received a Bachelor of Arts in business administration, with emphasis on management, marketing, and finance, from Michigan State University. He is currently active in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program. Schore is a member of the Los Angeles Gold Southland Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and the recipient of E&Y’s 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year award for greater Los Angeles.