Books
The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.
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36 summaries, page 1 of 2
10x Is Easier Than 2x
A coach and a psychologist argue that a tenfold goal is simpler than doubling, because it forces you to drop the 80 percent of your work that cannot come along.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
A clinical psychologist's twelve blunt, oddly named rules for carrying responsibility, telling the truth and finding meaning in a life that will include suffering.
A World Without Email
Cal Newport argues that the inbox has become a broken way of organising work, and lays out four principles for doing knowledge work without the constant chatter.
Atomic Habits
James Clear's case that tiny daily habits, backed by good systems and a new sense of identity, compound into remarkable change.
Bargaining with the Devil
Harvard negotiation professor Robert Mnookin uses Churchill, Mandela, IBM and bitter family fights to show when to make a deal with an enemy and when to refuse.
Blue Ocean Strategy
INSEAD professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne argue that the smartest companies stop fighting rivals in crowded markets and create new, uncontested ones instead.
Deep Work
Cal Newport argues that undistracted concentration on hard problems is becoming rare and valuable, and gives four rules for building a working life around it.
Die With Zero
Bill Perkins argues that money is only worth the experiences it buys, so the goal is to spend it, and give it, while you are alive and able to enjoy it.
Do the Work
The Holistic Psychologist's guide to why willpower fails, how childhood wires our automatic patterns, and the daily mind-and-body practices that let you choose who you become.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Greg McKeown's method for finding the few things that truly matter, cutting the rest, and making the vital work almost effortless.
Ikigai
What the centenarians of an Okinawan village can teach the rest of us about purpose, calm, food, friends and a reason to get up in the morning.
Lying
Sam Harris argues that even kind white lies cost more than they save, and that simply telling the truth makes life simpler and relationships deeper.
Mastery
Robert Greene argues that greatness is a path anyone can walk: find your calling, serve a long apprenticeship, learn from mentors, read people well, and let deep immersion ripen into intuition.
My Big TOE
A NASA physicist's theory of everything: consciousness is the foundation of reality, the physical world is a virtual training ground, and the point of it all is to grow from fear toward love.
Never Split the Difference
The FBI's former top kidnapping negotiator shows how listening, labeling emotions and asking the right questions win better deals than compromise.
Sacred Economics
Charles Eisenstein argues that our debt-and-interest money system manufactures scarcity and separation, and sketches a gift-based, ecological economy to replace it.
Start With Why
Simon Sinek argues that the leaders and companies who earn real loyalty all communicate the same way: purpose first, product last.
The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months
Stop planning by the calendar year: treat every twelve weeks as a year of its own and let a near deadline, a weekly plan and an honest score do the work.
The 33 Strategies of War
Robert Greene turns three thousand years of military thinking into 33 strategies for everyday conflict, starting with the war inside your own head.
The 4-Hour Chef
Tim Ferriss uses cooking as a training ground for meta-learning, a system for picking up any skill far faster than the conventional route allows.
The 5AM Club
Robin Sharma's fable of a burned-out entrepreneur, a stuck artist and an eccentric billionaire makes the case that owning your first hour can transform your whole life.
The Alter Ego Effect
Performance coach Todd Herman shows how a deliberately built 'secret identity' can bring your best self out in the moments that matter most.
The Coder's Path to Wealth and Independence
A farmyard revolution promises equality for every animal, then slides, one small rewritten rule at a time, into the tyranny it set out to end.
The Data Warehouse Toolkit
The founding guide to dimensional modeling, teaching how to shape business data into fact and dimension tables people can actually query, one real-world case study at a time.