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Leigh Marz & Justin Zorn
Authors of GOLDEN: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise
- Neuroscience
- Business
- Spirituality
- 📍Berkeley, CA
- 📍Santa Fe, NM
Justin has served as both a meditation teacher and a senior policymaker in the US Congress. He is a Harvard-and-Oxford trained specialist in the economics and psychology of wellbeing, who has written for The Atlantic, Washington Post, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Wired, Time, CNN and others.
Leigh is a leadership and collaboration consultant with organizations including Harvard, Google, and IKEA. She has led a multi-year program teaching experimental mindsets to multigenerational teams at NASA. Leigh is also a longtime student of pioneering researchers and practitioners of the ritualized use of psychedelic medicines in the West.
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BOOK NOW FOR your podcast
Leigh Marz & Justin Zorn
Authors of GOLDEN: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise
- 📍Berkeley, CA
- 📍Santa Fe, NM
- Neuroscience
- Business
- Spirituality
Justin has served as both a meditation teacher and a senior policymaker in the US Congress. He is a Harvard-and-Oxford trained specialist in the economics and psychology of wellbeing, who has written for The Atlantic, Washington Post, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Wired, Time, CNN and others.
Leigh is a leadership and collaboration consultant with organizations including Harvard, Google, and IKEA. She has led a multi-year program teaching experimental mindsets to multigenerational teams at NASA. Leigh is also a longtime student of pioneering researchers and practitioners of the ritualized use of psychedelic medicines in the West.
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As seen on
“There was part of me that didn’t want to read ‘Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise,’ didn’t want to hear what disservice I was doing myself by insulating myself in a semi-permanent cocoon of sound. But pushing through that type of resistance and discomfort is what this column, devoted to self-help books, is for. So I settled in, tried to move my skepticism to the side, and started to read. Spoiler: I loved it.”
“Noise, notifications, anxiety. Internally and externally, life has never been more distracting—which is why finding moments of silence has never been more important.
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Kunal Modi chats with former policy maker Justin Zorn and consultant Leigh Marz about their new book, Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise.“
“Across our society today, norms of noisiness run deep. Demands like constant connectivity and maintaining a competitive advantage still prevail in most office cultures. Few organizations prize or prioritize pristine human attention. But there are simple strategies we can employ in order to find our own personal sanctuaries and to shift broader cultures. By reclaiming silence in the workplace, we can create the conditions for reducing burnout and enhancing creative problem solving.”
“If there’s such a thing as a perennial grumble, noisiness might be it.
We know; it’s cliché to muse about the loudness of life. We imagine that people have always expressed the same exasperation. And yet something right now is different from any time in known history. These days, it’s not just loud. There’s an unprecedented mass proliferation of mental stimulation.”
“Over the course of dozens of interviews with leaders in business, politics, science, and the arts for our book Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, we’ve heard about the importance of creating these quiet sanctuaries for health, cognition, and creativity. We’ve discovered a range of strategies for finding time and space for quiet in the midst of a busy schedule.”
“Is noise bad for us? The authors of ‘Golden’ on why silence is good for your brain.
While Justin Talbot Zorn and Leigh Marz’s fascinating new book, ‘Golden: The Power of Silence In a World of Noise’, does explore the physical and emotional toll of living in our noisy modern world, it understands that moving to a nice, quiet cave is not really an option for most of us. Instead, they explore the value of learning first to turn down the volume inside our own heads.”
“What’s the healthiest way to engage with the news in times like these? The scale and intensity of today’s headlines is leaving many people depressed and depleted in a perpetual doom-scrolling abyss. It’s driving many others to simply unplug and withdraw. It’s hard to be simultaneously informed and centered right now.”
“For years, the concern has been that excessive noise can cause hearing loss—a grave issue that can also lead to social isolation and loneliness. But a broad set of peer-reviewed papers over the past few decades have shown risks that include cardiovascular disease, stroke, and depression, as well as the diverse complications that happen downstream of any of these.”
Next Big Idea Club
Each quarter, Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink choose two groundbreaking, new nonfiction books for the Next Big Idea book club community. You then get their selections delivered to your door, via eBook, or as original video e-courses through the Next Big Idea App.
Justin and Leigh share 5 key insights from their new book. Listen to the audio version—read by Justin and Leigh themselves—in the Next Big Idea App.
Endorsements
“Golden is a guide to getting out of the shallows and into the depths. It’s a synthesis of many disciplines to chart a path toward a deeper, livelier, more aware, and more peaceful way of being in the world.”
—Rebecca Solnit, bestselling author of more than twenty books, including Hope in the Dark
“Marz and Zorn make a convincing link between humanity’s modern obsession with the pursuit of dopamine and our addiction to noise. Through extensive research and engaging storytelling, they point the way to more clarity, expansiveness, and calm.”
—Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Unwinding Anxiety
“Through the heartfelt stories of teachers like Jarvis Jay Masters, this book shows how to practice patience and compassion in times of fear and distraction. Golden explores why equanimity matters not just for our own resilience and joy but also for the social and ecological sustainability of this world that we love.”
—Pema Chodrön, Buddhist teacher and bestselling author of When Things Fall Apart
“Golden weaves a gorgeous thread from neuroscience to politics, from spirituality to business, showing us the way to peace and renewal. I’m grateful for this profound yet practical exploration of silence and how to find it.”
—Arianna Huffington, New York Times bestselling author of Thrive
“Golden is an ode to the silence that can heal trauma and awaken creativity. In a plugged-in world of overwhelming noise and distractions, it’s all too easy to dehumanize each other, losing our sense of connectedness to other people and nature. This book offers a much-needed antidote.”
—Rick Doblin, executive director at Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
“Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz offer us a powerful vision and valuable roadmap for how to repair our society: find more silence. We can do this not only as individuals but also as families, organizations, and even whole nations.”
—U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, member of Congress from Ohio and author of A Mindful Nation
Ask us
| Why did you—as two people who’ve spent your careers working on climate, pollution, mental health, domestic violence—decide to write a book about silence? |
| Why do you see silence as a solution to so many complex challenges we face today? |
| You talk about how silence can help us “move beyond a point and counterpoint culture,” what do you mean by this? |
| Can’t silence be a pretty bad thing, too? I’m reminded of when silence is complacency in the face of injustice. We even hear sometimes that “silence is violence”? |
| You ask this one question—“What’s the deepest silence you’ve ever known?”—to an extraordinarily diverse range of people including luminaries in arts, politics, science, business, and other fields–what surprised you most about what people told you? |
| In the book, you describe the economics of why the world has gotten so noisy today—can you tell us more about that? |
| Is it really noisier now than in other times in history? What’s so special about this moment? |
| What does the science say about the importance of quiet for our health and mental clarity? |
| How can individuals, teams, and organizations better manage the noise and find pristine attention? |
