The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness


Eric Jorgenson - 2020
    These aspirations may seem out of reach, but building wealth and being happy are skills we can learn.So what are these skills, and how do we learn them? What are the principles that should guide our efforts? What does progress really look like?Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, philosopher, and investor who has captivated the world with his principles for building wealth and creating long-term happiness. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a collection of Naval's wisdom and experience from the last ten years, shared as a curation of his most insightful interviews and poignant reflections. This isn't a how-to book, or a step-by-step gimmick. Instead, through Naval's own words, you will learn how to walk your own unique path toward a happier, wealthier life.

Mindfulness


Ellen J. Langer - 1989
    Ellen J. Langer and her team of researchers at Harvard introduced a unique concept of mindfulness, adapted to contemporary life in the West. Langer's theory has been applied to a wide number of fields, including health, business, aging, social justice, and learning. There is now a new psychological assessment based on her work (called the Langer Mindfulness Scale). In her introduction to this 25th anniversary edition, Dr. Langer (now known as "the Mother of Mindfulness") outlines some of these exciting applications and suggests those still to come.

Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed by Life


Eugene O'Kelly - 2005
    He enjoyed a successful career and drew happiness from his wife, children, family and close friends. Then in May 2005, Gene was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer. This is his account of his final journey.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle


Emily Nagoski - 2019
    Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body” when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self”? How do you “lean in” at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn• what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation• how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration• how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it• why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnoutWith the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.” Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work


Teresa Amabile - 2011
    The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly.As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day.The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality.Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams


Matthew Walker - 2017
    Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night's sleep every night.

Black Box Thinking: Why Some People Never Learn from Their Mistakes - But Some Do


Matthew Syed - 2015
    Every aircraft is equipped with an almost indestructible black box. When there is an accident, the box is opened, the data is analyzed, and the reason for the accident excavated. This ensures that procedures are adapted so that the same mistake doesn’t happen again. With this method, the industry has created an astonishing safety record.For pilots working in a safety-critical industry, getting it wrong can have deadly consequences. But most of us have a relationship with failure that impedes progress, halts innovation, and damages our lives. We don’t acknowledge it or learn from it —though we often think we do.Moving from anthropology to psychology and from history to complexity theory, Matthew Syed explains why even when we think we have 20/20 hindsight, our vision’s still fuzzy. He offers a radical new idea: that the most important determinant of success in any field, whether sports, business, or life, is an acknowledgment of failure and a willingness to engage with it. This is how we learn, progress and excel. This approach explains everything from biological evolution and the efficiency of markets to the success of the Mercedes F1 team and the mindset of David Beckham.Using a cornucopia of interviews, gripping stories, and sharp-edged science, Syed explores the intimate relationship between failure and success, and shows why we need to transport black box thinking into our own lives. If we wish to unleash our potential, we must diagnose and break free of our failures. Part manifesto for change, part intellectual adventure, this groundbreaking book reveals how to do both.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future


Daniel H. Pink - 2004
    A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.

Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder


Reshma Saujani - 2019
    If you didn't care how your life looked on Instagram, or worry about what total strangers thought of you. Imagine if you could let go of the guilt, and stop beating yourself up for tiny mistakes. What if, in every decision you faced, you took the bolder path?Too many of us feel crushed under the weight of our own expectations. We run ourselves ragged trying to please everyone, all the time. We lose sleep ruminating about whether we may have offended someone, pass up opportunities that take us out of our comfort zones, and avoid rejection at all costs.There's a reason we act this way, Reshma says. As girls, we were taught to play it safe. Well-meaning parents and teachers praised us for being quiet and polite, urged us to be careful so we didn't get hurt, and steered us to activities at which we could shine.The problem is that perfect girls grow up to be women who are afraid to fail. It's time to stop letting our fears drown out our dreams and narrow our world, along with our chance at happiness.By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. Perfection may set us on a path that feels safe, but bravery leads us to the one we're authentically meant to follow.In Brave, Not Perfect, Reshma shares powerful insights and practices to help us override our perfect girl training and make bravery a lifelong habit. By being brave, not perfect, we can all become the authors of our biggest, boldest, and most joyful life.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times


Katherine May - 2020
    These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

Be Here Now


Ram Dass - 1971
    Illustrated.The book is divided into four sections:Journey: The Transformation: Dr Richard Alpert, PhD into Baba Ram DassFrom Bindu to Ojas: The Core BookCookbook for a Sacred Life: A Manual for Conscious BeingPainted Cakes (Do Not Satisfy Hunger): Books

Tapping In: A Step-by-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation


Laurel Parnell - 2007
    With step-by-step instruction in bilateral stimulation (a core component of EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Tapping In teaches you a clinically recognized system for tapping both sides of the body to overcome trauma, boost confidence, calm the body on a deep, physiological level, and to respond better to stress. Join world-renowned EMDR expert Dr. Laurel Parnell as she shares a series of easy-to-learn exercises to access your "latent positive resources"—your neurological foundation for internal resilience and stability.

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life


Parker J. Palmer - 2004
    Here he speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives--lives that are congruent with our inner truth--in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation. Mapping an inner journey that we take in solitude and in the company of others, Palmer describes a form of community that fits the limits of our active lives. Defining a "circle of trust" as "a space between us that honors the soul," he shows how people in settings ranging from friendship to organizational life can support each other on the journey toward living "divided no more."This paperback edition includes two new and useful features. Circles of Trust is a DVD containing interviews with Parker J. Palmer and footage from retreats he facilitated for the Center for Courage & Renewal (www.CourageRenewal.org). Bringing the Book to Life, by Caryl Hurtig Casbon and Sally Z. Hare, is a reader's and leader's guide to exploring the themes in A Hidden Wholeness. The DVD illuminates and illustrates the principles and practices behind circles of trust. The guide includes questions that connect the DVD to the book, offering "a conversation with the author" as well as an engagement with the text. Together, these features give readers new ways to internalize the themes of A Hidden Wholeness and share with others this approach to sustaining identity and integrity in all the venues of our lives.Inspired by Palmer's writing and speaking--and challenged by the conditions of twenty-first century life--people across the country, from many walks of life, have been coming together in circles of trust to reclaim their integrity and help foster wholeness in their workplaces and their world.For over a decade, the principles and practices in this book have been proven on the ground--by parents and educators, clergy and politicians, community organizers and corporate executives, physicians and attorneys, and many others who seek to rejoin soul and role in their private and public lives.A Hidden Wholeness weaves together four themes that its author has pursued for forty years: the shape of an integral life, the meaning of community, teaching and learning for transformation, and nonviolent social change. The hundreds of thousands of people who know Parker Palmer's books will be glad to find the journey continued

The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times


David Berceli - 2008
    The result is that many of us are hurting, and often we are unaware of how deep our pain runs. These experiences aren't simply over and done with once they have passed. They each leave their mark, etched deep into both the psyche and the body. This affects how well we function from this point onwards. The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process shows what stress, anxiety, and trauma do to our mental wellbeing and physical health. Despite the uffering we experience in life, Dr. Berceli argues that even the most damaging events can become a pathay to a more fulfilling and meaningful life. The magic of The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process is that it can be utilized by anyone, any place on the planet. The process can reestablish a person's equilibrium, stabilize their life, and turn them to an emotionally healthy place.

Born to Build: How to Build a Thriving Startup, a Winning Team, New Customers and Your Best Life Imaginable


Jim Clifton - 2018
     Written for anyone trying to figure out how to make the most of their lives, Born to Build seeks to inspire entrepreneurs and ambitious, self-motivated people to build something that will change the world. A builder’s venture could be a small business that grows into a mammoth enterprise, a thriving new division in an existing company, a nonprofit, a social enterprise, a church, a school — anything that creates economic growth and makes a lasting impact on society. Born to Build is written by Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton and Sangeeta Badal, Ph.D., Principal Scientist for Gallup’s Entrepreneurship and Job Creation initiative, and is grounded in years of research. This book goes beyond the conventional economics-based business training and instead offers a uniquely psychological approach to venture building. It gives readers the tools and techniques they need to understand who they are, what motivates them and what they can build — and how. By following the practical steps in Born to Build, readers will have the tools to build a sustainable and profitable venture of any size from scratch. Central to the book is a code that allows readers to take Gallup’s Builder Profile 10 (BP10) assessment, which identifies their innate talents and motivations and shows them how to make the most of their talents to build a successful enterprise.