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#402: Books I've Loved — Seth Godin and Esther Perel

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Dec 16, 2019

Seth Godin, bestselling author and marketing guru, joins renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel to discuss the transformative power of books. They explore influential titles that inspire personal growth and enhance understanding of relationships. Themes of communication, compassion, and introspection are woven throughout their conversation. Godin also highlights how literature can challenge conventional thinking, while Perel delves into the emotional significance of connection and the importance of shared humanity through texts. Prepare for a thought-provoking literary journey!

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insights

INSIGHT

The Gift

Human connection is built upon shared creations and gifts, not solely on trade or debt.
Sharing creations opens doors for others, fostering a sense of community.

volunteer_activism

ADVICE

Pursuit of Wow

Put energy and passion into your work to make a difference.
Don't settle for "business as usual"; strive for excellence.

insights

INSIGHT

The Long Tail

In the age of abundant choices, gatekeepers hold less power.
Aggregating choices, like social media platforms do, significantly impacts culture.

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The Power of Connection Through Poetry and Philanthropy

11:08 • 2min

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Transformative Books and Relational Intelligence

13:30 • 9min

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Exploring Autonomy and Delicious Plant-Based Snacks

In 'The Pursuit of Wow!', Tom Peters offers a collection of over 200 thought-provoking elements to help businesses thrive in chaotic times. The book emphasizes the power of innovation, empowerment, and human attention in achieving success. Peters challenges traditional business wisdom, advocating for bold actions and continuous leaps towards excellence.

Fighting for Your Marriage

Fourth Edition

Dr. Galena Rhoades

Fighting for Your Marriage offers insights and tools for building and maintaining strong relationships. It emphasizes the importance of intentional effort, effective communication, and navigating conflict constructively. The book provides practical strategies for couples to improve their connection and create a thriving partnership. It addresses common relationship challenges and offers evidence-based advice to help couples strengthen their bond and overcome obstacles. The book is particularly relevant for military couples facing unique stressors.

Can Love Last?

Stephen Mitchell

In 'Can Love Last? ', Stephen A. Mitchell challenges the common wisdom that love is fragile by suggesting that romance doesn't diminish in long-term relationships—it becomes more dangerous. He argues that love can endure if individuals become aware of their self-destructive efforts to manage its risks. The book offers a nuanced view of love, emphasizing the importance of embracing uncertainty and risk for lasting romance.

Liquid Life

Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman's "Liquid Life" explores the fluidity and uncertainty of modern life, characterized by constant change and mobility. Bauman examines the impact of globalization and postmodernity on social structures and individual identities. He analyzes the rise of consumerism and the erosion of traditional communities, highlighting the challenges of navigating a world without stable anchors. Bauman's work is both insightful and critical, offering a nuanced understanding of the complexities of contemporary society. It's a valuable resource for anyone seeking to understand the social and psychological implications of globalization and the changing nature of human relationships.

Sarah Kay

Nonviolent Communication

A Language of Life

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a framework created by Marshall Rosenberg that aims to enhance communication by promoting compassion and empathy. The book outlines a four-step process for effective communication: observing what is happening without judgment, identifying and expressing feelings, recognizing and articulating needs, and making clear requests. Rosenberg emphasizes the importance of separating observations from evaluations to avoid defensiveness and promote genuine human connections. The book includes practical exercises, role-plays, and real-life examples to illustrate how NVC can be applied in various relationships and situations, including personal, professional, and conflict resolution contexts. It also discusses how NVC can help in developing self-compassion and resolving conflicts by focusing on the underlying needs rather than the actions that trigger emotions.

Thinking in bets

Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Annie Duke

In this book, Annie Duke teaches readers how to make better decisions by treating them as 'bets' on uncertain outcomes. She emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between the quality of a decision and its outcome, acknowledging the role of luck, and avoiding biases such as 'resulting' and hindsight bias. Duke draws on her experiences as a professional poker player and combines these with insights from cognitive psychology and other fields to provide tools for making more objective and thoughtful decisions. The book encourages readers to get comfortable with uncertainty, seek truth through diverse opinions, and learn from outcomes to improve future decision-making.

The blue sweater

Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz's "The Blue Sweater" is a captivating memoir that chronicles her journey from a young banker to a leading social entrepreneur. The book interweaves personal narratives with insightful reflections on the challenges and rewards of working to alleviate poverty. Novogratz shares her experiences building microfinance institutions in Africa and founding Acumen, a global non-profit that invests in entrepreneurs tackling poverty. The book offers a compelling blend of personal storytelling and practical insights into the world of social impact investing.

Families and family therapy

Salvador Minuchin

This book presents six chapter-length transcripts of actual family sessions, two of which involve ordinary families meeting their problems with relative success, and four involving families seeking help. Each transcript is accompanied by the author's running interpretation, focusing on the therapist's tactics and maneuvers. The book constructs a model of an effectively functioning family, defines the boundaries around its subsystems, and discusses how families adapt to stress. It also explores methods of diagnosing and mapping problems in troubled families and examines various restructuring operations to change family patterns.

Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey Moore

In 'Crossing the Chasm', Geoffrey A. Moore explores the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, which includes innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. He highlights the significant gap or 'chasm' between early adopters and the early majority, where early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, while the early majority waits for evidence of productivity improvements. The book provides strategies for narrowing this chasm, including choosing a target market, understanding the whole product concept, positioning the product, building a marketing strategy, and selecting the most appropriate distribution channels and pricing. The third edition includes new examples, strategies for digital marketing, and connections to Moore's subsequent works like 'Inside the Tornado'.

The Gift

The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

Marcel Mauss

In 'The Gift', Marcel Mauss explores the concept of gift exchange in various cultures, particularly in societies without monetary exchange or legal structures. He argues that gifts are not freely given but are part of a complex system of social obligations involving giving, receiving, and reciprocating. Mauss examines practices such as the potlatch among North American peoples and the kula in Melanesia, emphasizing the role of gifts in binding people together in a web of reciprocal commitments. The book also discusses the spiritual and economic implications of gift-giving, highlighting its significance in understanding social relations and cultural practices.

The Long Tail

Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More

Chris Anderson

In 'The Long Tail,' Chris Anderson argues that the internet has enabled businesses to profit from selling a large number of unique items, each in small quantities, rather than focusing solely on bestsellers. The book highlights how companies like Amazon, Google, and Netflix capitalize on this strategy by offering a vast array of products that cater to niche markets. Anderson discusses the three forces driving the long tail: democratization of tools of production, democratization of distribution, and connection between supply and demand. He also explores the impact of this phenomenon on various industries, including music, movies, and books, and how it has led to the rise of new tastemakers and consumer-driven markets.

Books I've Loved — Seth Godin and Esther Perel | Brought to you by Hu

Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to sit down with world-class performers of all different types—from startup founders and investors to chess champions to Olympic athletes. This episode, however, is an experiment and part of a shorter series I’m doing called “Books I’ve Loved.” I’ve invited some amazing past guests, close friends, and new faces to share their favorite books — the books that have influenced them, changed them, and transformed them for the better. I hope you pick up one or two new mentors — in the form of books — from this new series and apply the lessons in your own life.

Seth Godin (@thisissethsblog) is the author of 19 bestselling books that have been translated into more than 35 languages. He writes about the way ideas spread, marketing, strategic quitting, leadership, and — most of all — challenging the status quo in all areas. His books include Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, Purple Cow, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See, and What to Do When it’s Your Turn (and it’s Always Your Turn). Seth is also the founder of the altMBA, an intense four-week online leadership and management workshop.

Esther Perel (@estherperel) is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity, which has been translated into 26 languages, and The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. On her podcast Where Should We Begin? Esther brings you into her office to listen to real life couples therapy sessions, and her newest Spotify project, How’s Work?, brings lessons from couples therapy to the corner office.

Enjoy!

You can find all links from this episode in the show notes.

This podcast is brought to you by Hu. Founded by family trio Jason Karp, his wife Jessica, and his brother-in-law Jordan Brown, Hu started as a paleo-inspired restaurant in NYC in 2012, and now they make amazing, plant-based healthy snacks, including their award-winning paleo/vegan dark chocolate. Their Simple Bar, of which I’ve devoured several in one sitting without crashing, has only three ingredients: organic cacao, organic cocoa butter, and organic coconut sugar, without any soy or other junk.

The Hu tagline is “Get Back to Human” because they believe people can feel and perform better when they eat foods with cleaner, simpler, less-processed, and less-industrial ingredients. Hu avoids emulsifiers, palm oil, dairy, soy or sunflower lecithin, and sugar alcohols. And all of Hu’s products are Certified Gluten Free, kosher, and Non-GMO. Get 15 percent off your Hu order by visiting hukitchen.com/tim and using discount code TIM at checkout. Make haste, as their holiday shipping cutoff is December 18!

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

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