Angela Duckworth I learned of the book through Duckworth’s appearance on Modern Wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX1S_GIfXgs. Conceptually, there weren’t many new ideas, but the importance of an environment that enables growth was important to highlight. It’s still the case that grit is necessary for high achievement, but it needs to be complemented with a situation. I was

By Adam Grant Perhaps I’m just experiencing self-help book fatigue, but this didn’t do much for me. It addresses an area that I’m interested in. I’m working on creating connections with people, but I didn’t find much to hold onto with this one. I appreciated the breakdown of allies, pals, and companions. AI summary:Adam Grant’s

By Zach Weinersmith Light, fun reading. I appreciated Weinersmith’s choice to write a main character who didn’t seek adventure and didn’t learn valuable lessons. It was just silly.

By Tony Robbins and Christopher Zook The holy grail seems to be cranking out branded self help material. Fortunately, this was a 2x listen of a library ebook and not a purchase. I found it to be mostly hollow. The holy grail was taken from Ray Dalio: “8-12 non-correlated assets.” The book starts by describing

By J.K. Rowling Finalmente completé leer Harry Potter y El Caliz de Fuego. Necesitaba mucho tiempo para leer este libro. Tiene las mas paginas de un libro en la serie ante ahora. Es mas serio que los libros antes. Aun me gusta la historia pero creo que espere a leer el proximo libro. Great job!

By Yuval Noah Harari I had higher hopes for it before I read it. It was fine, but only fine. Certain perspectives were interesting to me. The author argued that democracy’s advantage is a better self-correction mechanism. Although dictatorial systems can work in a given context, they are weaker in self-correction. It’s unclear whether the

By Daniel Pink This was a re-read for the book club. It really altered my perspective when I first read it during my first tour through the management corpus. I think we also read it as a management book club selection at my previous job. I think that makes this my third read of it.

By Robert Sapolsky I forgot to write notes on this when I finished it. It covered a lot of familiar material that is addressed in his other books. This one talked A LOT about glucocorticoids. It was a fine book, although I don’t know that I had any major new revelations. Many members of the

By Paul Conti It was brief. It was light. I didn’t get much from it. I thought from the title that it would be more slanted to positive psychology or gratitude. Perhaps it would turn away from the standard self-help of fixing problems and lean into strengths. It felt much more standard than that. But

By Michael Booth I enjoyed this. It’s the kind of infotainment I appreciate. Booth covered the realities of the Nordic/Scandinavian people with a sense of humor. They received credit for the things they are doing well, but also criticism for the less fun parts of their culture and geography. I picked up the book because

By Malcolm Gladwell This one was ok. I thought the same about the original. I loved Outliers and Talking to Strangers, but tipping point talk is only so-so for me. In this one I learned: I was less interested in the medicare fraud of Florida or the difference in surgical practice between Buffalo and Boulder.

By JK Rowling He completado el tercer libro de la serie de Harry Potter. Aún entiendo la mayoría de la historia, aunque hay muchas palabras que no conozco. Las cosas todavía no se han puesto muy oscuras para Harry. No recuerdo en cuál libro su vida empieza a ponerse muy difícil. No practico escribir lo

By Brene Brown I enjoyed listening to the book. It’s good to be reminded what good behavior looks like, especially for the parts that don’t come naturally. Having read most of her other books and listened to many of the podcasts, there wasn’t a lot of information that felt fresh and new. It felt more

By Gabor Mate Heather selected this one for our book club. I listened to it again in preparation for that discussion. With an audiobook, it’s harder to grab specific quotations that stand out. I appreciate the acknowledgement of “little t trauma” and challenges that would apply to people who would describe their childhood as good.

By Robert Putnam This was my nomination for the personal development book club. It is not really a personal development book. I chose it partly because of that. Other writers/thinkers have more harshly criticized the whole genre of self-help. Putnam only mentions it briefly in a couple points but it is to highlight the swing

By Cal Newport I was familiar with Newport already through multiple reads of Digital Minimalism. I also listened to a recent podcast where he was a guest. I listed to this audiobook pretty quickly. I agreed with the premise and most of the ideas before I got into the book. It’s one of those where

By Mel Robbins This was another one that leans really hard into branding. The messaging wasn’t bad. It also wasn’t new such that it constitutes a new “theory.” Robbins adds a new label to ACT and stoicism. Don’t fight your emotions, accept them. Don’t fight other people, accept them. I would have enjoyed it more

By W. David Marx I read this one after having breakfast with Brad and learning that it was next on his reading list. As someone who has been mostly checked-out from popular culture for my entire adult life, it was a little weird to read history of times I lived but have the information still

by bell hooks This was identified as one of my coworker’s top reads in 2025. I listened to the audiobook in one day. I was underwhelmed. I appreciate a feminist author acknowledging where other feminists had presented an adversarial position between men and women. Instead, hooks describes patriarchal systems and thinking and causing harm to

By Patt Flynn Not much in this one. When people make fun of self help books for being money making schemes light on actual help, they describe books like this. A large portion of the book involves the author patting himself on the back for his many successes. Hooray. There is some common sense good