Dopamine Nation By Anna Lembke, MD

 

Credit: Dopamine Nation

 

Overview

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. Read more here. Credit: Dopamine Nation; Anna Lembke, MD.

Curiosity Redefines the Limits

Credit: Curiosity Redefines the Limits

Overview 

In Curiosity Redefines the Limits, business leader and innovator Rod Adkins delivers a compelling roadmap for turning life’s questions into fuel for growth, leadership, and impact. From his early days as a precocious child in Miami to the executive ranks of IBM and influential roles on global boards, Rod’s journey proves that curiosity isn’t just a trait—it’s a strategy. This insightful book combines personal storytelling with actionable insights to help readers harness curiosity in every chapter of life. Whether you’re facing career decisions, navigating adversity, or redefining what success means to you, Curiosity Redefines the Limits will inspire you to ask better questions, stay open to learning, and lead with purpose. Credit: Amazon; Rodney Adkins.

The Burden of Bad Ideas By Heather Mac Donald

 

Credit: The Burden of Bad Ideas

Overview

Critics have attacked the foolishness of some of today's elite thought from many angles, but few have examined the real-world consequences of those ideas. In The Burden of Bad Ideas, Heather Mac Donald reports on their disastrous effects throughout our society. At a Brooklyn high school, students perfect their graffiti skills for academic credit. An Ivy League law professor urges blacks to steal from their employers. Washington bureaucrats regard theft by drug addicts as evidence of disability, thereby justifying benefits. Public health officials argue that racism and sexism cause women to get AIDS. America's premier monument to knowledge, the Smithsonian Institution, portrays science as white man's religion. Such absurdities, Ms. Mac Donald argues, grow out of a powerful set of ideas that have governed our public policy for decades, the product of university faculties and a professional elite who are convinced that America is a deeply unjust society. And while these beliefs have damaged the nation as a whole, she observes, they have hit the poor especially hard. Read more at The Burden of Bad Ideas. Credit: Manhattan Institute.

Suicidal Empathy By Gad Saad

Credit: Suicidal Empathy; Gad Saad

Overview

What happens when a society elevates victimhood to a virtue and decides that punishment is cruel? You get the disease Dr. Gad Saad calls suicidal empathy. And the West may be terminally infected. In his new book, Suicidal Empathy, Saad unleashes a blistering critique of maladaptively irrational altruism that has gripped our culture. This mind parasite hijacked the empathy module of our progressive elite, leading to a catastrophic miscalibration of moral priorities. The results are everywhere: from coddling violent criminals to protecting rapists to branding self-defense as toxic behavior. We are witnessing a civilization in rapid decline. Lunatic policies are instituted because we prioritize the feelings of ostensibly marginalized groups over The Truth, criminals over victims, and squatters over homeowners. This is not humane; it’s an active dismantling of the pillars that keep us safe and free. Credit: Suicidal Empathy; Gad Saad.

P.S. Perfect timing for this book's arrival! This aligns with the few Sasha Talks topics addressed in the recent years. #foodforthought  #growth  #society  #realitycheck

Slow Productivity By Cal Newport

Credit: Slow Productivity

 

Overview

  

Our current definition of “productivity” is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We’re overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices? Read more here. Credit: Cal Newport.

Twice By Mitch Albom

Credit: Twice

Overview 

 

What if you got to do everything in your life —twice? The heart of Mitch Albom’s newest novel is a stunning love story that dares to explore how our unchecked desires might mean losing what we’ve had all along.

When he is eight years old, Alfie Logan discovers the magical ability to get a second chance at everything. He can undo any moment and live it again. The one he must accept the consequences of his second try—for better or worse. He grows up correcting his mistakes and saving himself from adolescent embarrassments. He even takes foolishly dangerous risks, just to see what it’s like to come close to death, before tapping back to safety.

Eventually, Alfie turns his gift to his love life, studying his crushes and going back to make himself more appealing. In time, he falls deeply in love with Gianna, the woman he believes is the one. He seems to find contentment. But as the years pass, Alfie’s eye begins to wander. Which is when he learns a lone caveat to his once he undoes a love, that person can never fall in love with him again. Knowing if he gives into to temptation, he will risk losing what he has with Gianna, Alfie makes a choice that changes his life forever. Read more here @ Twice By Mitch Albom.

 

The Flight Attendant By Chris Bohjalian

Credit: The Flight Attendant By Chris Bohjalian

 Overview

Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She’s a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets.  

Afraid to call the police—she’s a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home—Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it’s too late to come clean-or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did? Set amid the captivating world of those whose lives unfold at forty thousand feet, The Flight Attendant unveils a spellbinding story of memory, of the giddy pleasures of alcohol and the devastating consequences of addiction, and of murder far from home. Credit: The Flight Attendant; Chris Bohjalian.

This is Marketing By Seth Godin

 

Credit: This is Marketing By Seth Godin

Overview

Seth Godin has taught and inspired millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, leaders, and fans from all walks of life, via his blog, online courses, lectures, and bestselling books. He is the inventor of countless ideas that have made their way into mainstream business language, from Permission Marketing to Purple Cow to Tribes to The Dip. Now, for the first time, Godin offers the core of his marketing wisdom in one compact, accessible, timeless package. This is Marketing shows you how to do work you're proud of, whether you're a tech startup founder, a small business owner, or part of a large corporation.

Great marketers don't use consumers to solve their company's problem; they use marketing to solve other people's problems. Their tactics rely on empathy, connection, and emotional labor instead of attention-stealing ads and spammy email funnels. Credit: This is Marketing.

Lean Thinking

 

Credit: Lean Thinking

 Overview

Expanded, updated, and more relevant than ever, this bestselling business classic by two internationally renowned management analysts describes a business system for the twenty-first century that supersedes the mass production system of Ford, the financial control system of Sloan, and the strategic system of Welch and GE. It is based on the Toyota (lean) model, which combines operational excellence with value-based strategies to produce steady growth through a wide range of economic conditions.
In contrast with the crash-and-burn performance of companies trumpeted by business gurus in the 1990s, the firms profiled in Lean Thinking -- from tiny Lantech to midsized Wiremold to niche producer Porsche to gigantic Pratt & Whitney -- have kept on keeping on, largely unnoticed, along a steady upward path through the market turbulence and crushed dreams of the early twenty-first century. Meanwhile, the leader in lean thinking -- Toyota -- has set its sights on leadership of the global motor vehicle industry in this decade. Instead of constantly reinventing business models, lean thinkers go back to basics by asking what the customer really perceives as value. (It's often not at all what existing organizations and assets would suggest.) The next step is to line up value-creating activities for a specific product along a value stream while eliminating activities (usually the majority) that don't add value. Then the lean thinker creates a flow condition in which the design and the product advance smoothly and rapidly at the pull of the customer (rather than the push of the producer). Finally, as flow and pull are implemented, the lean thinker speeds up the cycle of improvement in pursuit of perfection. The first part of this book describes each of these concepts and makes them come alive with striking examples. Credit: Lean Thinking.

The First 90 Days By Michael D. Watkins

 

 

 

Credit: The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins

 

 

The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded: 

Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

 

Overview

Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.

In this updated and expanded version of the international bestseller The First 90 Days, Michael D. Watkins offers proven strategies for conquering the challenges of transitions--no matter where you are in your career. Watkins, a noted expert on leadership transitions and adviser to senior leaders in all types of organizations, also addresses today's increasingly demanding professional landscape, where managers face not only more frequent transitions but also steeper expectations once they step into their new jobs. Read more here. Credit: HBR.

"The Road Not Taken" By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Salt Sugar Fat By Michael Moss

Credit: Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss

Thirty-eight million Americans have diabetes. One in three adults and one in five kids is clinically obese. Why? Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese and seventy pounds of sugar. Every day, we ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt, double the recommended amount, almost none of which comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food, an industry that hauls in $2 trillion in annual sales. In Salt Sugar Fat, Michael Moss shows how we ended up here. Featuring examples from Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Frito-Lay, Nestlé, Oreos, Capri Sun, and many more, Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, eye-opening research. He takes us into labs where scientists calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure, unearths marketing techniques taken straight from tobacco company playbooks, and talks to concerned insiders who make startling confessions. Credit: Salt Sugar Fat; Michael Moss (Moss Books).

Without Conscience By Robert D. Hare

Credit: Without Conscience

Overview

Most people are both repelled and intrigued by the images of cold-blooded, conscienceless murderers that increasingly populate our movies, television programs, and newspaper headlines. With their flagrant criminal violation of society's rules, serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are among the most dramatic examples of the psychopath. Individuals with this personality disorder are fully aware of the consequences of their actions and know the difference between right and wrong, yet they are terrifyingly self-centered, remorseless, and unable to care about the feelings of others. Perhaps most frightening, they often seem completely normal to unsuspecting targets--and they do not always ply their trade by killing. Presenting a compelling portrait of these dangerous men and women based on 25 years of distinguished scientific research, Dr. Robert D. Hare vividly describes a world of con artists, hustlers, rapists, and other predators who charm, lie, and manipulate their way through life. Are psychopaths mad, or simply bad? How can they be recognized? And how can we protect ourselves? This book provides solid information and surprising insights for anyone seeking to understand this devastating condition. Credit: Hare.org; Without Conscience.

Shut Up and Listen!

 

Credit: Shut Up and Listen!

Overview

Tilman Fertitta, also known as the Billion Dollar Buyer, started his hospitality empire thirty years ago with just one restaurant. Over the years, he’s stayed true to the principles that helped him build the largest single-shareholder company in America, with over $4 billion in revenue, including hundreds of restaurants (Landry’s Seafood, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, Morton’s Steakhouse, Mastro’s, Rainforest Café, and over forty more restaurant concepts) and five Golden Nugget Casinos. He’s also sole owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Credit: Tilman Fertitta; Amazon.

How to Walk into a Room By Emily P. Freeman

Credit: How to Walk into a Room

 

Overview 

 If life were a house, then every room holds a story. What do we do when a room we’re in is no longer a room where we belong?

What do you do when you start to feel a shift and must decide if it’s time to make a change? When it comes to navigating big decisions about when to stay and go, how can we know for sure when the time is right? Though we enter and exit many rooms over the course of our life—jobs, relationships,communities, life stages—knowing how and when it’s time to leave is a decision that rarely has a clear answer. Podcast host, spiritual director, and bestselling author of The Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman offers guidance to help us recognize when it’s time to move on from situations that no longer fit, allowing us to find new spaces where we can flourish and grow. Read more here. Credit: Emily P. Freeman.

"Mind Wiping" - Eliminate Destructive Emotions

Credit: Mind Wiping | www.mindwiping.com

 

Overview

What erases with Mind Wiping? 

"All negative, destructive emotions. We've yet to find a negative emotions that refuses to be erased using Mind Wiping. Many do not realize that they made a decision an instant before feeling a negative emotion. An emotion is always attached to a painful experience. First we decide, then we feel. Mind Wiping erases only the emotion. The decision will stay in the subconscious mind until it is erased. Later we'll go back and erase any negative decisions, but it takes another technique(s) to do that. Which is why we keep track of the emotions we erase."  Credit: Mind Wiping; Learn more about the authors Sarah and Jessica Meredith. 

Explore Mind Wiping and purchase the book here.

Wellness Trilogy Series By Author Josh Allen

Author Josh Allen is a dedicated and experienced nutritionist and health coach committed to empowering individuals to achieve optimal health. With a strong background in nutritional science and holistic health practices, he offers personalized guidance and support to his clients, helping them navigate their unique wellness journeys with confidence. Through evidence-based nutrition strategies and lifestyle modifications, Josh equips his clients with the knowledge and tools they need to make sustainable changes by cultivating a balanced and vibrant life. Passionate about promoting health from the inside out, Josh's holistic approach addresses the sound embodiment of mind, body, and spirit, fostering holistic well being and long lasting results for his audiences. Credit: Josh Allen; JAG Publishing.

Josh has authored and published a trilogy wellness series which provides valuable insights for individuals seeking to enhance their quality of life by adhering to a few feasible wellness routines of choice. The trilogy includes: Fasting for Success, Walking For Success, and Yoga For Success. 

His professional insights and works can be sought here. 

 

Credit: Fasting for Success

 

Credit: Walking for Success

Credit: Yoga for Success

Knowledge and Decisions By Thomas Sowell

 

 

 

 

Credit: Knowledge and Decisions

 

 

 

With a new preface by the author, this reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Annointed, Sowell, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency, but our very freedom because actual knowledge gets replaced by assumptions based on an abstract and elitist social vision f what ought to be. Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a ”landmark work” and selected for this prize ”because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.” In announcing the award, the center acclaimed Sowell, whose ”contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant.” Credit: Book; Thomas Sowell.

Kashing Karma 2.0

 Reference: Kashing Karma 2.0

Strategy Revisited

Sample Playlist

Subtract by Leidy Klotz

Credit: Subtract by Leidy Klotz

Overview

We pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings.” We create incentives for good behavior, but don’t get rid of obstacles to it. We collect new-and-improved ideas, but don’t prune the outdated ones. Every day, across challenges big and small, we neglect a basic way to make things better: we don’t subtract. Leidy Klotz’s pioneering research shows us what is true whether we’re building Lego models, cities, grilled-cheese sandwiches, or strategic plans: Our minds tend to add before taking away, and this is holding us back. But we have a choice―our blind spot need not go on taking its toll. Subtract arms us with the science of less and empowers us to revolutionize our day-to-day lives and shift how we move through the world. More or less. Credit: Subtract & Leidy Klotz.