Goal Setting

This is the classic text on the psychology of persuasion. Robert Cialdini is a professor of both psychology and marketing at Arizona State University. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of persuasion. The book is simultaneously kind of a consumer protection guide (how not to be duped) AND a manual for marketers (how to sell your stuff!). Cialdini has identified six core psychological principles of persuasion. We take a quick look at each, how they can be used for good or ill and how to apply the wisdom to our lives today.

Abraham Maslow tells us, "What one can be, one must be!"  He was a 20th century humanistic psychologist who came up with the hierarchy of needs and studied the most exceptional people of his era. In this book, you will learn how we can be all that we're destined to be and look at some of the characteristics of those self-actualizing human beings who're rockin' it.

Want a swift kick in the butt?! This is the book for you. It truly is "a take-no-prisoners guide to overcoming obstacles and achieving performance" delivered with enthusiasm by Joe De Sena--the renowned endurance/adventure racer who created Spartan Race. We'll look at what's impossible vs. just really hard, how to pass the cookie test as we develop grit and learn how to get to the next telephone pole in the race of life.

Martin Seligman is one of the founding fathers of the Positive Psychology movement . In this book, explore his shift from Authentic Happiness Theory to Well-Being Theory as we wrap our brains around PERMA, his model of well-being that consists of Positive emotions + Engagement + Relationships + Meaning + Achievement. Good times.

David Goggins is a former Navy SEAL (and Army Ranger) who used to hold a Guinness World Record for completing 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. These days he’s setting records as an ultra-endurance athlete. But he wasn’t always Mr. Superhero. In this great autobiographical self-help book, David walks us through his transformation from being a 297-pound exterminator to a “Who IS this guy?!” superhero. If you’re into SUPER (!!!) intense demonstrations of how to conquer ourselves to do the seemingly impossible then I think you’ll love this book as much as I did. Look out for: The Accountability Mirror, bringing your best, hero callouses, the process, and bursting from the inside out.

James Clear's website has millions of people visit it every month and hundreds of thousands subscribe to his email newsletter. After reading this book, you'll understand  why. He’s a great writer and distills the essence of habit formation into, well, its fundamental components—the “atomic” structure if you will—while showing us how those TINY little incremental improvements add up to MIGHTY results. This one is a MUST READ NOW category of mine.  Look for the math behind 1% gains compounding over a year, navigating the Plateau of Latent Potential, the importance of our Identity, The 4 Laws of Behavior Change, and the Sorites Paradox.

Colin Powell is a retired four-star general in the United States Army and has earned numerous military, civilian, and foreign honors. He served four presidential administrations in a variety of roles, most recently as Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. In this great book, he shares the wisdom he gained that, as per the title, worked for him in life and leadership. It's fantastic. I was fascinated by his Thirteen Rules, the power of perpetual optimism,  starting with "It can be done", entering the Zone of Calm, the fact that good leaders know that good plans are revised immediately, and how to deal with fear and failure.

After studying presidential history and leadership for five decades since she first became a professor at Harvard DKG  has won a Pulitzer Prize and her bestseller Team of Rivals was the basis for Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award–winning film Lincoln. In this book, she walks us through four case studies in leadership: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson. If you enjoy studying leadership like I do, I think you’ll love this book as much as I did. Read this to learn about the one quality all of our very different leaders possessed, Lincoln's commitment to growth, the importance of a growth mindset, acquiring virtue Teddy Roosevelt style and the importance of finding ways to relieve stress.

Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He’s also an extraordinary, best-selling author of a number of books. Short story: Want to get things right? Use a checklist. Sounds too silly to work but… It does. Period. Takeaways are the two reasons we err (ignorance + ineptitude), what to do about it, how to reduce your Masterpiece Day mortality rate by at least 47%, why Van Halen doesn’t like brown M&M’s, and your Big 3 Keystone Initiative.

Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor-Philosopher of the Roman Empire and one of the most enlightened leaders ever. Meditations is a collection of journal entries he wrote to himself and in this Note, we'll explore some Big Ideas of his Stoic philosophy—from the importance of never confusing ourselves with visions of a lifetime all at once, to not worrying about what others think of us and living a life of purpose and service.

This book combines two of my favorite things: Stoicism + Ryan Holiday’s wisdom. Stoicism was one of the most influential philosophy of the Roman world and has continued to influence many of history’s greatest minds. As Ryan says: It’s time to bring it back as a powerful tool “in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom.” This is one of the my favorite books ever. Big Ideas we explore: the #1 thing to know about Stoicism, how to create tranquility, a good answer to “What’s the latest and greatest?!,” the 2 essential tasks in life and the art of acquiescence (aka amor fati).

Energy, Nutrition, Modern Classic Michael Pollan is the author of a number of New York Times best-selling books on nutrition. In 2010, Time magazine named him one of the one hundred most influential people in the world. If you’re looking for a SUPER compact, witty look at the primary rules on how to eat well, this is it. It’s a fun, witty, concise guide to eating well featuring 64 food rules structured around Pollan’s seven words of wisdom: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Highlights include the 2 Facts of nutrition everyone can agree on, Rule #1, why low-fat made us fat, and the final rule (#64).

TMichael Pollan is one of the world’s leading thinkers on nutrition. Time magazine voted him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He’s also a Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. One of the things I most love about him and his work is that, as a journalist, he takes a much wider, more objective view of the nutritional landscape—which can often be dominated by (and muddled by) individuals with *very* strong, dogmatic, inflexible ideologies. Important ideas: Nutritionism (vs. food), the big experiment (that failed), the Aborigine in all of us, the 5 fundamental transformations of industrializing food and Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puff and Trix cereals as health foods as per the American Heart Association.

Gary Taubes is an award-winning science journalist. He’s a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. In this book, we take up the case against sugar as the primary suspect for ALL of the chronic diseases that are killing us. As the back cover says, Taubes “makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick.” Look out for: the prime suspect (= sugar), drug or food?, two theories (energy balance vs. metabolic theory), sugar as a chronic toxin (vs. acute), sugar as candy for cancer cells, and the big question: how little is too much?

Gabriel Oettingen is one of the world’s leading researchers in “The New Science of Motivation.” The basic idea of the book is captured in a clever image on the cover: Rose colored glasses with one lens cracked. Oettingen walks us thru the compelling research that demonstrates the power of seeing both the positive AND the challenges. When we contrast our wishes with the obstacles to their attainment we, almost magically, catalyze an extraordinarily higher level of performance.

Breath. It’s the missing pillar in health. I talked about this for many years after I read Patrick McKeown’s The Oxygen Advantage. I love the way James captures the importance of breathing in this book. The first words on the inside flap of the book deliver the point with a sledgehammer: “No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or strong you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.” Look out for how to breathe optimally and why it's so important, the #1 tip, oral posture and the perfect breath.

I had this book on my shelf for a long time before reading it and wished I had read it much sooner.. I had no idea Marie was SO awesome! She is heroically brilliant and grounded and HILARIOUS. This is one of my ABSOLUTE (!) favorites of all time. I HIGHLY (!!!) recommend it. It’s in the same league as some of my other favorites like Deep Work Atomic Habits and The 5 Second Rule.