Put the F**king Phone Down: Life. Can’t. Wait.
May 31, 2019
Most of us can barely muster a fleeting moment of calm before yet another notification buzz demands our attention. As a result, Americans currently spend an average of nearly 7 hours a day glued to their tiny screens, or the equivalent of an unpaid full-time job. This lack of control over attention produces disastrous effects on mental health, such as increased risk of stress, depression, and anxiety, while the impact on our relationships can be catastrophic.
Put the F**king Phone Down is a raw, unapologetic look at the rising tide of screen addiction and how we can all reclaim control of our attention. Although technology has the potential to erode focus, one notification buzz at a time, Put the F**king Phone Down presents a variety of mindfulness-based countermeasures to the Age of Distraction, each designed to develop greater awareness, control, resilience, and an overall appreciation of life as it happens.
After spending 10 years in higher education as a student and another 10 years as a professor, the conclusion I arrived at about academic writing and research-based books was that they all suck. Regardless of how dense, well-founded, or valuable the information presented in these books, they’re all about as engaging as a tax seminar. No offense intended to accountants; the world needs you.
I needed to tell the world about my research into mindful presence and how it intersects with screen addiction, which is being touted as the single most pervasive non-drug addiction facing our world today. That’s when it hit me. What if I wrote my own research-based book, but instead of following in my predecessors’ footsteps, I instead filled it with real-life examples everyone can relate to and laced it all up with gratuitous profanity?
We don’t need to end up glued mindlessly to a tiny screen for the better part of our waking existence.
We can all learn to put the f**king phone down and appreciate life as it happens.
Seeing Again for the First Time: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction, Second Edition
Kendall Hunt, June 2019
Seeing Again for the First Time: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction is designed to create an immersive, interactive, and, intimate experience between the reader and the text. Readers will do more than simply read and reflect as they embark on a journey into the realm of mindful interpersonal communication. 
Seeing Again for the First Time:
- Is designed to grow and develop the reader into a strong communicator and act as a guide for everyday interaction.
- Includes activities in each chapter that will often involve physically interacting with the book.
- Is specifically and methodically designed so that each chapter builds upon the last, and each part fits together like a puzzle.
Messages that Matter: Public Speaking in the Information Age, Second Edition
Hayden-McNeil, July 2019
Messages that Matter: Public Speaking in the Information Age is a student-fo
cused textbook that provides practical and real-world instruction in the art of public speaking, with a focus on how speakers can learn to communicate with diverse audiences to achieve their primary goal of being understood as intended. Using an audience-centered approach, Messages that Matter provides instruction on: audience analysis, overcoming speaker anxiety, research techniques for speakers, how to practice and refine delivery, persuasion techniques, and group presentation fundamentals.
The Dadly Way: 10 Steps to More Active Fatherhood & Equal Parenting
Motivational Press, Sep. 2015
The Dadly Way provides a pathway for fathers to earn their place as parenting equals, committed to being mindfully present for their children and an integral part of tomorrow’s memories.
It is time for fathers to become more mindful in our approach to families, so that we might carve out the best possible future for our children, as well as their children. To do so, we must parent with presence, on purpose, today. From dealing with the harmful effects of the ego, to calling for an end to the parenting wars, from learning how fatherhood has evolved, to knowing where it is heading, and from learning to listen deeply, to becoming more mindful parents, The Dadly Way provides a meaningful look at modern fatherhood.
Josh Misner, PhD 