[11/20/22: Thanks for the feedback! The current version is in this Google doc, so please comment there moving forward] [11/9/22: This is a rough draft of what I hope will be the first chapter of the book I am writing. A lot of this material will be familiar to long-time blog readers, and I’ve linked […]
Lost Connections, by Johann Hari
Amazon link Johann Hari was diagnosed with depression as a teenager, and was prescribed the antidepressant Paxil, because his doctor told him that depression was a disease of the brain, so his brain chemistry needed to be fixed. He stayed on antidepressants for 13 years, dealing with side effects like weight gain and sexual dysfunction, […]
Radical Friendship, by Kate Johnson
Amazon link Radical Friendship book site I learned of this book from listening to this podcast episode where Layla Saad, author of Me and White Supremacy (which I found valuable and challenging), interviewed the author Kate Johnson about her new book. Johnson, a multiracial Buddhist practitioner and teacher, based the book around the Mitta Sutta, […]
Together, by Vivek Murthy
Amazon link In response to my newsletter talking about Radical Friendship, a friend suggested I read this book, subtitled “The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World”. Dr. Murthy became the Surgeon General of the United States in 2014, and was initially focused on all the usual health problems of heart disease, […]
The New Psychology of Leadership, by Haslam, Reicher and Platow
Amazon link Reading this book articulated concepts that changed how I view and talk about leadership. The authors start the book by debunking several conventional theories of leadership (e.g. the “Great Man” theory where it’s about the leader’s innate qualities, or a transactional or power approach where people follow leaders in exchange for something) and […]
What to do now?
[n.b. I can’t continue with my usual personal development content without acknowledging the seismic shifts taking place in the country where I live. While I don’t think this post will make a difference, I refuse to stay silent. But if you don’t want to read about US politics, skip this one.] We knew it was […]
Leading Systems, by Barry Oshry
Amazon link In 1969, Barry Oshry decided to run a simulation on institutional racism called “the Society of New Hope” so that people could take on different roles in society and see how that unfolded. To his surprise, it quickly spun out of his control, as the “Have Not”s disabled the cars in the parking […]
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
Amazon link This book is an excellent primer on its full title: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference, and Why It Matters. As somebody who generally had an intuitive feel for strategy throughout my career, and has had difficulty trying to explain how to see what I see, I appreciated Rumelt’s systematic explanation, and will […]
You don’t have the answer
One of my pet peeves is when people tell me what I should do. Normally, this is because they did something that worked for them, and they want to tell me I should also do it. I generally don’t want such advice for a variety of reasons: I don’t want the same thing that they […]
How to retrain your brain
I was talking to a friend about how to change our view of the world, and found myself coming up with a theory of how mystical woo woo advice like “be the change you want to see” or “manifest what you desire” actually might be scientifically explainable. Disclaimer: I am not a neuroscientist, and have […]
