Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Stop Counter-Productive Habits and Get the Results You Want

Peter Bregman, author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller 18 Minutes, offers strategies to replace energy-wasting, counter-productive habits that commonly derail us with truly effective ones.

The things we want most—peace of mind, fulfilling relationships, to do well at work—are surprisingly straightforward to realize. But too often our best efforts to attain them are built on destructive habits that sabotage us. In Four Seconds, Peter Bregman shows us how to replace negative patterns with energy boosting and productive behaviors. To thrive in our fast-paced world all it takes is to pause for as few as four seconds—the length of a deep breath—allowing us to make intentional and tactical choices that lead to better outcomes. Four Seconds reveals:

• Why listening—not arguing—is the best strategy for changing someone’s mind
• Why setting goals can actually harm performance
• How to use strategic disengagement to recover focus and willpower
• How taking responsibility for someone else’s failure can actually help your team

Practical and insightful, Four Seconds provides simple solutions to create the results you want without the stress.

Peter Bregman is the CEO of Bregman Partners, a firm that advises, coaches, and trains leaders at all levels to take powerful and ambitious actions to achieve the things that are most important to them and their organizations. He is the author of 18 Minutes (a Wall Street Journal bestseller) and Point B: A Short Guide to Leading a Big Change, and the contributor to five other books. He is a regular contributor to HBR.org, NPR, Psychology Today, Forbes, Fast Company, and other media outlets, and he is a weekly commentator on FOX Business News. He lives in New York City.