As someone who works to help people figure out their best career path, this book was a fantastic read. One of the biggest things that the author focuses on is finding out what makes someone uniquely talented. What is it that you bring to the world? And once you can identify that, you can use those gifts to guide your career path.
I also really appreciated the way the author included a significant amount of scientific research to back up her ideas and discussions. Sometimes when things get a little "woo-woo" it can cause others to tune out. By providing a scientific basis to underline the reasoning, the author makes sure that there is proof it can work. The questions at the end of each chapter also helped to reinforce the points and make sure they stuck with me. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to others who need help figuring out their own paths.

Sometimes a book is slightly before it’s time. The Genius Habit addresses a lot of what we saw with The Great Resignation.

While this book has a lot of great strategies, it’s problematic in its notion that work will love you back-and that’s often just not the case. While citing some amazing authors about work like Adam Grant and Daniel Pink, this book also sites MBTI-a debunked, racist, pop science assessment.

The book did a great job of encouraging personal inventorying through questions but little on how to put it all together or action that inventory.

Overall, a good read that didn't feel too overly "preachy". I liked the anecdotes sprinkled in to break up the information, but I felt that the information wasn't an entirely new concept. Some cool ideas that I can apply to my life right as I put down the book though.

Some excellent advice that will definitely improve my work practice and productivity. I would recommend this book to the audience at Women at Work as a practical guide with lots of easily applied tools.

I liked the idea of figuring out habits that will help job performance on the day to day level, but this book in the end is like all the other self-help books I've read in the past, which is basically like taking a personality test for your work-self and using that to determine what to do on the job. It is well written and some points are thought provoking, but for the most part this feels like every other self-help job book. I think the "Genius" in the title is a bit of a misnomer.

A very easy read and well-organized, it's a good mix of good advice and anecdotes (both from her own experience and her clients'), and the reflection exercises in each section seem very practical.

Not really an original idea - the “zone” has been a thing for a long time. Nevertheless there were some good points in this book, made me reassess some things about work.

Appreciated Laura’s view on this and the examples that she shared. Overall, a very helpful book and something that I can see myself using in my every day - both personally and at work. Will definitely share with others.

This is a helpful way at looking at yourself and working out where your talents are best deployed. It allows you to embrace being a genius - but perhaps over uses this word! Has helped me to coach others... now to try it on myself!

The Genius Habit: How One Habit Can Radically Change Your Work and Your Life. The title alone had my attention. I wanted to read this book and make sure it lived up to its title!

Pleasantly surprised, I found myself reading this wonderful collection of words. It was so astounding that I actually shared what I had read on my social media lives! All this amazing information needs to be shared!

Author Laura Garnett talks about finding your Zone of Genius in your environment. This would be with your family, at work, and in any activities you participate in. It’s about figuring out what you’re good at and thriving there. It’s about know the areas you need to work on and grow in. This idea helped me realize in my own life why I wasn’t very happy in my work life. It helped me see where I can enjoy my work and ways in which I can improve.

She tells readers about the difference between passion and purpose; ideas I’ve struggled with for years. And about how happiness shouldn’t rest in your achievements. There are so many great nuggets wishing the covers of this book!

This book was provided complimentary in exchange for an honest review. I give it 5 out of 5 tiaras and highly recommend it for anyone who’s looking to improve their outlook in life.

In The Genius Habit, Laura Garnett discusses how to cultivate practices that grows one's distinctive way of thinking and solving problems. She aims to help readers improve their self-awareness by providing a performance framework that will enable them to label their strengths and weaknesses. dubbed the performance tracker. With the help of numerous personal stories, client testimonies and references, Garnett refrains the importance of self-awareness and the need for constant personal assessment. Unfortunately, there was not any new or unique concept in the book that would make it stand out. Her message is important and I would recommend that readers try out this book in audio format because of her conversational tone throughout the book.

I had mix thoughts about this self help book. On one hand, the excerices and questions to ask yourself were super helpful! On the otherhand, the terminology in this book seems to go whichever way the author was feeling while writing. She calls this book The Genius Habit, but then refers to The Zone of Genius throughout the rest of the book. Perhaps I just missed something, but even going back and rereading I couldn't quite make sense of it. I'd still read more from this author though!

This was a really informative, informational read. It has really good advice, great case studies, and the author has a great voice

Laura Garnett did a fabulous job of walking the reader through her methods as a coach to help people discover their zone of genius. I loved her balance of real-life stories with well-researched facts and a healthy dose of humor. She has a very comfortable speaking style and I liked her right from the start. Her Performance Tracker tool is a great daily practice for those people who don't want to use a bullet journal but want some way to measure their progress and improve.
My favorite part is her inspiration and passion. Forget IQ: this book is about discovering what you do have and how to maximize it to impact your daily life.

This is a wonderful book; using a series of homework examples that have you explore what parts of your personality fit what your "genius" is. We've believed for too long that people can learn to do any job; but the truth of the matter is that we all naturally excel at different things. And this book helps you find your own are in which you will find it easier to excel.
This would definitely be best as a physical book. Something you can fill out and look back on.

Four stars
This book came out February 5
ARC kindly provided by publisher and NetGalley
All opinions are my own

I finished this in under 24 hours (thanks to my e-ARC expiring). It was a quick read, but a solid read.

I've read so many books on this topic, as I teach a lot of material like this to my students, so I'm always looking for books to use in class. This may make the cut.

It's well-organized, it's a good mix of good advice and anecdotes (both from her own experience and her clients'), and the reflection exercises in each section seem very practical. This also is geared toward people with "real" jobs. I certainly don't mean that disparagingly, but so many of the books out there that I've read recently are clearly written by Youtubers, wannabe influencers/bloggers and freelancers who are on their own schedules. Those are all legitimate career paths, but books written by those folks, but who then attempt to market to the other 98% of people working 9 to 5 for someone other than themselves, are mostly useless because it's not realistic. This book does seem relevant and helpful for those who are on a more strict career path. That said, some advice may not be feasible, and I don't necessarily agree with her assertion that we value aspects of our careers that are contradictory to how we were raised (i.e, something about how folks who grew up feeling like they lacked support would then want a career where they can support others). But, overall, I found myself nodding along with most of what she had to say.

Thanks, Netgalley, for the copy!

This book does not talk about one habit as hinted at by the title and blurb, but about recognizing what your genius it. Written by a coach, it takes you through the process of tracking your performance, figuring out what you are at good at and what you like to do, and how you should do more of it. There are plenty of anecdotes and examples - unfortunately the writing style was not super engaging for me and the overuse of words like genius (diluting its meaning) made me not enjoy and connect with it as much as I would have otherwise. Try a few pages to see if it works for you.

Knowing your “zone of genius” will help you anchor yourself so you can grow in your career, be happy, and reach your full potential. That is the my main take away from this book.

I would say that this says a lot on how Laura Gartnett helped her clients achieve their full potential and progress in their careers. Given the setting where the ideas of the book is coming from, this book is very practical and provides the readers with the tools to operate on the concepts of Zone of Genius.

Since the ideas are practical and can have immediate impact once implemented, this is apt for busy working professionals who would like to know the steps on how to start being successful.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me access to this book in exchange for my honest views.

A very proactive approach to seek for a better professional fulfillment . The author adds some personal anecdotes and humor. Also, Laura is able to provide the techniques and examples to better understand the "Genius Habit". This book is a must for any person looking for a dream job or a professional fulfillment.

#TheGeniusHabit #NetGalley

One of the recommendations throughout all leadership, management and career self-help books is to get to know yourself better. Really be open-minded to hearing feedback and paying attention to what you do best, what you enjoy most and what kind of impact you have on those around you as a means of measuring your effectiveness.

Along that same line, author and career coach Laura Garnett has provided a very positive, peppy and supportive book to help other people better understand their strengths and what they are most comfortable doing. The book is a strange mix of primary experience and observations with some very thoughtfully considered processes with probably a bit too much padding from secondary and tertiary sources. In some cases, it feels like she’s chosen the references to build or support her claims.

The strongest parts of the book are where she talks passionately about improving self awareness of one’s strengths and impact by creating a process to measure one’s own subjective experiences using performance tracker she has designed. You can download this with an e-mail sign-up http://www.lauragarnett.com/geniushabittracker

The author offers many groups of questions for self-reflection and for requesting feedback from colleagues to help build a stronger sense of confidence in one’s particular “Genius Zone” skillset.

As with many contemporary folks in the leadership and coaching field, she’s a strong believer in personality typing – but rather than using a system that exists and has been tested, she offers her own list of types which loosely resembles Meyers-Briggs, In these six groupings.

Process Creation—Making Everything Work Better
• Chaos-to-Order Problem-Solver
• Improvement Strategist
• Needle Finder
• Process Architect
• Good-to-Great Strategist

Visionary—Redefining the World
• Barrier-Breaking Visionary
• Opportunity Excavator
• Innovative Idea Strategist
• Possibility Architect
• Vision Strategist
• Strategic Visionary
• Visionary Change Maker

Strategist—Creating the Path

• Analytical Solution Strategist
• Efficiency Strategist
• People Strategist
• Possibility Strategist
• Results Strategist
• Training Results Strategist
• Solutions Excavator

Synthesizing—Bringing People and Ideas Together
• Collaboration Strategist
• Diagnostic Problem-Solver
• Discerning Ideator
• Synthesis Expert

Catalyzing—Igniting Opportunity
• Connection Catalyst
• Holistic Crisis Problem-Solver:
• Social Advocate
• Team Maximizer

Builders—Ideas and Structures
• Creative Results Architect
• Deal Conductor
• Design Strategist
• Experience Producer
• Innovative Rebuilder
• Language and Idea Architect
• New Business Growth Strategist

This could be a much stronger book if she focused much more on how to map the results of the Performance Tracker to the personality/genius types that she’s describing.

The “Genius Habit” is an ambitious term and perhaps a bit confusing – to many. Even in the book, she describes providing clients with examples of their “Genius Zone” to share in job interviews but says “don’t use the term since people aren’t familiar with it.”

While she provides a ton of great examples from clients and her own experience – but she can be quite repetitive throughout the book. The book is written in first person – this makes it very accessible but dilutes the strength of her key offerings when combined with the fluff -- repeated references to her own experience and use of the full names of authors and books throughout. There’s also something about the editorial style – I noticed that there was inconsistency in references to other researchers – for example, there are six mentions of “Carol Dweck” for example but “Carl Jung” is mentioned once and all following references are just “Jung.”

The massive variety of case studies is super interesting but sometimes a bit distracting – it would be great to have greater distinction about why a specific case study is being called out and perhaps moving some case studies to an appendix. The author makes a cursory nod toward meditation, exercise and other things – almost as if leaving those things out would be remiss. I recommend leaving those things out and focusing more on the process of developing greater self-awareness with use of the performance tracker and identifying one’s Genius Zone via her typology (or even another established typology).

“The Genius Habit” is a strong introduction to the way that our author thinks about work and how to help people shape their careers – I look forward to a greater exploration and strengthening of her concepts and tools in her future works.