2026 Books

I really enjoyed the ideas in this book more than I expected. It was pitched to me as a leadership book, but I found the concepts potentially more interesting even just applied to my every day life. Some of my logical, rationalization tendencies seemed to make more sense.

Favorite Thoughts

• Understanding emotional motivations is key to success. What and How can drive logistics and actions, but if they aren’t properly motivated, they aren’t as convincing.
• In life we often chase a why, but feel the need to justify those why decisions with what and how lists. It’s okay to realize that most things in life are driven by our own internal why.
• Apple sells a lifestyle, not a product. That’s their focus.

A dive into Adlerian psychology, structured as a conversation between a teacher and a student. The adversarial tone between the two helped drive the narrative, however sometimes it did feel a little contrived and unrealistic in terms of how the two interacted with each other.

Favorite Thoughts

• Talked about the main guiding star “The key to happiness is contributing to others”, or the idea that you feel joy when you feel you are contributing to the life of someone else. It doesn’t even have to be true, it can be totally subjective.
• Separation of Tasks” – the idea of only focusing on the things you can control, in all relationships. Even when it comes to parent/child relationships, a parent shouldn’t try to influence the child’s tasks (doing homework, chores, etc). Instead you should trust them to take responsibility for their own tasks.
  • Also talks about having peer relationships instead of hierarchical relationships. In the child example, it said showing gratitude is important and condescension is harmful. I’m not sure how much I follow or understand this.
  • This idea of equal relationships avoids instilling the “desire/pursuit of recognition” in others.
• Freedom is being disliked. When you don’t care what others think of you, you are free. If someone dislikes you because you chose to live according to your own principles or goals, then you are free. If you always try to make others happy, you are not free. Seeking praise or acceptance is the opposite of freedom.
  • It comes back to the separation of tasks – what someone thinks of you is their task not yours.

Really enjoyed the expansion of the Red Rising universe. Entertaining and more broad in it’s venues than the first.

I enjoyed the overall perspective on letting other adults do their own thing.

Favorite Thoughts

• When you pressure someone else to do something, it makes them resist.

With AI being the favorite discussion point of everyone, everywhere, I was excited to get insights from someone who has been deeply involved in the industry for several decades, including working with some of the biggest AI companies from their genesis. The tone of the book was very cautious, and while I appreciated this, the recommendations seemed to be quite sweeping and, at least to me, felt virtually impossible.

Favorite Thoughts

• We don’t really know how this will change our futures, but it certainly will.
• The combination of AI and biology, along with growing consumer availablility may introduce new challenges and saftey concerns, however the extent that those things should be regulated/controlled seemed to be potentially overstated. But that’s just my opinion.