Inspiration

A list of personal recommendations

Top reads

The dangers of decision fatigue

Decision fatigue can erode judgment and productivity—learn how to recognize and mitigate its effects.

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Why you want a midlife crisis

What if your midlife crisis is actually the breakthrough you need?

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Is scale a problem?

More isn’t always better. Here’s why scaling a business can backfire—and what to do instead.

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Book recommendation

The psychology of decision-making

  1. Descartes‘ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
    (Anthony Damasio)
  2. Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious
    (Timothy D. Wilson)
  3. Stumbling on Happiness
    (Daniel Gilbert)
  4. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
    (Roy F. Baumeister)
  5. Blink
    (Malcolm Gladwell)
  6. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
    (Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein)
  7. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
    (Robert B. Cialdini)
  8. Thinking, Fast and Slow
    (Daniel Kahneman)
  9. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
    (John Coates)
  10. Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
    (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

Personal growth

  1. The Road Less Traveled
    (Scott M. Peck)
  2. Mindsight: Transform Your Brain with the New Science of Kindness
    (Daniel Siegel)
  3. I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
    (Terrence Real)
  4. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
    (Angela Duckworth)
  5. Far from the tree
    (Andrew Solomon)
  6. The silent language
    (Edward T. Hall)
  7. How can I get through to you?
    (Terrence Real)
  8. The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Program to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence, and Happiness
    (Steve Peters)
  9. The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
    (Daniel Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson)
  10. Yoga Nidra (spoken meditation by Rachel Hanrahan) – this is not a book but a sound track available on most music streaming services and my personal favorite amongst a large number of recorded guided yoga nidra meditations

Bonus recommendation for German-speakers (sadly no English translation available):
Grundformen der Angst (Fritz Riemann)

Inspiring a better world

  1. The Sane Society
    (Erich Fromm)
  2. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
    (Jonathan Haidt)
  3. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
    (Philip Zimbardo)
  4. The Wisdom of Psychopaths
    (Kevin Dutton)
  5. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
    (Yuval Noah Harari)
  6. Peak Human: What We Can Learn From History’s Greatest Civilizations
    (Johan Norberg)
  7. Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness
    (Frederic Laloux and Ken Wilber)