Stuffocation is a movement manifesto for “experiential” living, a call to arms to stop accumulating stuff and start accumulating experiences, and a road map for a new way forward with the potential to transform our lives. Reject materialism. Embrace experientialism. Live more with less. Stuffocation is one of the most pressing problems of the twenty-first century. We have more stuff than we could ever need, and it isn’t making us happier. It’s bad for the planet. It’s cluttering up our homes. It’s making us stressed—and it might even be killing us. A rising number of us are already turning our backs on all-you-can-get consumption. We are choosing access over ownership, and taking our business to companies like Zipcar, Spotify, and Netflix. Fed up with materialism, we are ready for a new way forward. Trend forecaster James Wallman traces our obsession with stuff back to the original Mad Men, who first created desire through advertising. He interviews anthropologists studying the clutter crisis, economists searching for new ways of measuring progress, and psychologists who link stuffocation to declining well-being. And he introduces us to the innovators who are already living more consciously and with more meaning by choosing experience over stuff. Experientialism does not mean giving up all of our possessions. It is a solution that is less extreme but equally fundamental. It’s about transforming what we value. Stuffocation is a paradigm-shifting look at our habits and an inspiring call for living more with less. It’s the one important book you won’t be able to live without. Praise for Stuffocation “The revelations come fast and furious as he asserts that acquiring ‘stuff’ is often just an easy way to ignore the tougher questions of life, dodging ‘why am I here?’ and ‘how should I live?’ for ‘will that go with the top I bought last week?’ Tart and often funny . . . [Stuffocation] will be an eye-opener for those long ago persuaded that more is better. A scintillating read that will provoke conversation (or at least closet cleaning).”—Booklist “James Wallman deftly hits upon a major insight for our times: that acquiring ‘stuff’ and ‘things’ is not nearly as meaningful as collecting experiences. Some of the happiest days of my life were when I had nothing and lived on a houseboat. Without stuff to tie me down, I felt completely free.”—Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS and author of the New York Times bestseller Start Something That Matters “A must-read . . . We think that more stuff will make us happier, but as the book nicely shows, we’re just plain wrong. A great mix of stories and science, Stuffocation reveals the downside of more, and what we can do about it.”—Jonah Berger, author of the New York Times bestseller Contagious “Wallman offers a deeply important message by weaving contemporary social science into very engaging stories. Reading the book is such a pleasure that you hardly recognize you’re being told that you should change how you live your life.”—Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice “With a sociologist’s eye and a storyteller’s ear, Wallman takes us on a tour of today’s experience economy from the perspective not of businesses, nor even of consumers per se, but of everyday people.”—B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy

A Financial Times Book of the Year 'Genius ... I couldn't put it down, I read it from cover to cover' CHRIS EVANS If the most precious thing we have is time, the most highly prized expertise should be knowing how to spend it well. Yet, busier than ever, do we really understand which experiences bring us joy and success, and which don’t? After all, we’ve learned how to spot the difference between junk foods and superfoods. When you discover the equivalent rules for time, it’ll change how you live your life. In his first book since the era-defining Stuffocation, cultural commentator and bestselling author James Wallman investigates the persistent problem of wasted, unfulfilling time, and finds a powerful answer — a revolutionary approach to life based on the latest scientific discoveries. At its heart is the inspiring revelation that, when you play by the new rules, you can actively choose better experiences. Bursting with original stories, fresh takes on tales you thought you knew, and insights from psychology, economics, and culture, Time and How to Spend It reveals a seven-point checklist that’ll help you avoid empty experiences, and fill your free hours with exciting and enriching ones instead. This life-enhancing book will show you how to be the hero or heroine of your own story. You’ll learn how to avoid WMDs (weapons of mass distraction), and discover the roads that lead to flow. You’ll get more out of every minute and every day; your weekends will fizz and your holidays will be deeply nourishing. You’ll not only be living the good life, but building a truly great life.

We simply have too much stuff in our lives. Burdened by our heavy consumerist culture to continually own and consume without purpose, we lose ourselves to debt, dissatisfaction, and despair. If having more, doing more, and being more does not allow us to live abundantly, what can? Minimalism can make all the difference. A minimalist life removes non-essentials and clutter—whether it’s physical clutter in your home or a cluttered mental state that holds you back from your goals— and makes space for only the most important things that truly add value and joy. Make Space offers you the tools to achieve this transformative mindset shift by marrying minimalist philosophy and principles with practical tips, activities, and action points that will unlock truly simple living. Among others, learn how to: •Avoid “Stuffocation” by reducing unnecessary possessions •Declutter your home to create an ideal living space •Design and efficiently maximize minimalist budgets •Clear the mind of negative distractions and be intentional •Avoid emotional drains to be empowered The art of minimalism requires intentionally purging, building, crafting, and curating the type of life you’ve always wished you lived. And when you’ve finally removed all forms of clutter, you’ll invite all things good and extraordinary into your most intimate spaces.

What if the door is open and we can leave any time we like? We will each spend an average of 87,000 hours at work before we die. We will spend another 5,000 getting to and from work. And we will spend countless more preparing for, worrying about and recovering after work. Most of us hate our jobs, so why do we insist on grinding away only to be rewarded with stress, debt, isolation and general unhappiness? Where does our commitment to these traps come from? In I’m Out: How to Make an Exit, Robert Wringham examines these questions and more, showing us how, if we are daring enough to make the attempt, we can take control of our fate and say goodbye to a lifetime of meaningless drudgery.

What Doesn't Kill Us, a New York Times bestseller, traces our evolutionary journey back to a time when survival depended on how well we adapted to the environment around us. Our ancestors crossed deserts, mountains, and oceans without even a whisper of what anyone today might consider modern technology. Those feats of endurance now seem impossible in an age where we take comfort for granted. But what if we could regain some of our lost evolutionary strength by simulating the environmental conditions of our ancestors? Investigative journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney takes up the challenge to find out: Can we hack our bodies and use the environment to stimulate our inner biology? Helping him in his search for the answers is Dutch fitness guru Wim Hof, whose ability to control his body temperature in extreme cold has sparked a whirlwind of scientific study. Carney also enlists input from an Army scientist, a world-famous surfer, the founders of an obstacle course race movement, and ordinary people who have documented how they have cured autoimmune diseases, lost weight, and reversed diabetes. In the process, he chronicles his own transformational journey as he pushes his body and mind to the edge of endurance, a quest that culminates in a record-bending, 28-hour climb to the snowy peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts and sneakers. An ambitious blend of investigative reporting and participatory journalism, What Doesn’t Kill Us explores the true connection between the mind and the body and reveals the science that allows us to push past our perceived limitations.

"Rest is such a valuable book. If work is our national religion, Pang is the philosopher reintegrating our bifurcated selves."---Arianna Huffington, New York Times Book Review Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done—but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers—from Darwin to Stephen King—to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.

Self-help: To millions of Americans it seems like a godsend. To many others it seems like a joke. But as investigative reporter Steve Salerno reveals in this groundbreaking book, it’s neither—in fact it’s much worse than a joke. Going deep inside the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (fittingly, the words form the acronym SHAM), Salerno offers the first serious exposé of this multibillion-dollar industry and the real damage it is doing—not just to its paying customers, but to all of American society. Based on the author’s extensive reporting—and the inside look at the industry he got while working at a leading “lifestyle” publisher—SHAM shows how thinly credentialed “experts” now dispense advice on everything from mental health to relationships to diet to personal finance to business strategy. Americans spend upward of $8 billion every year on self-help programs and products. And those staggering financial costs are actually the least of our worries. SHAM demonstrates how the self-help movement’s core philosophies have infected virtually every aspect of American life—the home, the workplace, the schools, and more. And Salerno exposes the downside of being uplifted, showing how the “empowering” message that dominates self-help today proves just as damaging as the blame-shifting rhetoric of self-help’s “Recovery” movement. SHAM also reveals: • How self-help gurus conduct extensive market research to reach the same customers over and over—without ever helping them • The inside story on the most notorious gurus—from Dr. Phil to Dr. Laura, from Tony Robbins to John Gray • How your company might be wasting money on motivational speakers, “executive coaches,” and other quick fixes that often hurt quality, productivity, and morale • How the Recovery movement has eradicated notions of personal responsibility by labeling just about anything—from drug abuse to “sex addiction” to shoplifting—a dysfunction or disease • How Americans blindly accept that twelve-step programs offer the only hope of treating addiction, when in fact these programs can do more harm than good • How the self-help movement inspired the disastrous emphasis on self-esteem in our schools • How self-help rhetoric has pushed people away from proven medical treatments by persuading them that they can cure themselves through sheer application of will As Salerno shows, to describe self-help as a waste of time and money vastly understates its collateral damage. And with SHAM, the self-help industry has finally been called to account for the damage it has done. Also available as an eBook