Books that change the way you think 🧐

👋🏼 Hello Novel Community,

Yes, my last post shared how the world is reading less and watching more. That said, reading is still important for many reasons I don't need to list here. Because I had a friend recently ask for a list of book recommendations, I thought I would pull together five of my recent favorites. Each book below has a common theme: they challenge a common belief.

Enjoy,

Joe

TL;DR

• Creativity, Inc - Ed Catmull - how to foster creativity in any environment

• Factfulness - Hans Rosling - why our common views don't match reality

• Life 3.0 - Max Tegmark - accurate implications of AI/Machine Learning

• Super Founders - Ali Tamaseb - what separates $1B founders from the rest

• Range - David Epstein - is it better to be a specialist or generalist

⬇️ Read on to learn my take on each of these mind altering books.

1.🧑🏼‍🎨 Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Summary: Written from the perspective of Pixar Co-founder Ed Catmull, this book gives an incredibly unique look into the creative process behind the best animated films of all time. Some include Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles.. ever heard of them?

Mind-shift: Fostering an environment that fuels creative ideas is difficult, but strategic processes can be formed to ensure higher likelihood of creative output. Ed call's the process at Pixar the "Braintrust": a group session built to create a safe place for creative ideation and execution. Treat creativity like a baby that must be protected.

2.🌎 Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Summary: Well established TED speaker and International Health Professor Hans Rosling sheds light on the main reasons there's such a massive gap between the way we 'see' the state of the world (economically, environmentally, etc..), and the way it objectively is.

Mind-shift: A majority of people today take a pessimistic view of where things are headed from the macro-perspective, that things are regressing. When analyzing data and facts, this is unequivocally false with a few exceptions. Life expectancy, intelligence test results, disease eradication, infant mortality rates, the number of 3rd world countries, technological progression - are all moving in a positive direction.

3.🤖Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Summary: Max Tegmark, an MIT grad and Professor renowned as an expert in machine learning dives deep into what Artificial Intelligence actually is, how it works, and what its exponential progression means for the future state of the world.

Mind-shift: Instead of looking at The Singularity Event (where technological growth is outside of human control) as an inevitable doomsday, Max lays out a handful of "most likely" scenarios and some of them resemble a type of "heaven on earth" outcome.

4. 💰Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups

Summary: Amassing what many consider to be the largest dataset ever collected on startups, Ali Tamaseb answers the question many of us have around founders: what are the commonalities amongst the unicorn ($1B in value created) founders that separate them from the rest?

Mind-shift: While there is much to explore in this book regarding the above question, the most common trait billion dollar founders have that others don't is that they've founded at least one other company that was sold for at least $10MM.

5.🥇Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Summary: As an investigative reporter, David Epstein is naturally curious. In this book, his curiosity takes him on a journey to discover what makes the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, and scientists the best at what they do.

Mind-shift: Instead of specializing (deepening knowledge in one area), David finds that being a generalist (growing knowledge in many areas) leads to greater success long-term. Did you know Rafael Nadal played multiple sports (almost going pro in soccer) before he even picked up a racket? In every new skill and challenge you approach, you bring with you an arsenal of past knowledge that provides you with an advantaged starting point.

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Stay reading,

Joe