Waiting until things feel safe before making your next move? You might be waiting a while. In Worth the Risk: The Seven Myths That Keep Us from Taking the Chances We Need to Take, economist Allison Schrager challenges the idea that uncertainty is our biggest problem—and asks what we lose by avoiding it. Then, in her 2021 book Choose Possibility: Take Risks and Thrive (Even When You Fail), technology executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy takes on the pressure to make one perfect, life-changing leap. Together, they explore how to get moving without treating every decision like a bet on your entire future.⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Building a startup is often framed as a race to scale. But what happens after growth—and how early should you plan for the ending? In the 2022 book Exit Path: How to Win the Startup End Game, Touraj Parang explains why founders should start with the end in mind, preserve their options, and build momentum toward a successful exit. Then, in the 2021 book Masters of Scale: Surprising Truths from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs, June Cohen and Reid Hoffman share lessons about embracing imperfection, learning from rejection, and knowing when to pivot.

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Why do workplace hierarchies so often fail the people inside them? In Level Up: Why Hierarchies Are Broken and How to Fix Them, Stanford organizational psychologist Nir Halevy examines how rank and power distort organizations—and what people at every level can do about it. Then, in the 2023 book Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work, McKinsey leaders Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock, and Emily Field argue that middle managers aren’t dead weight. They’re the crucial link between strategy and the people doing the work. Together, the books make a case for rebuilding hierarchy around responsibility, coaching, and useful authority—not bureaucracy.

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What if feeling better isn’t about finding the next new thing, but remembering what we’ve stopped doing? In The Great Remembering: Powerful Ancient Practices—And the New Science Bringing Them Back, TED Talks co-creator June Cohen explores how movement, shared rituals, and time in nature can help us navigate hard times. Then, cultural historian Tiffany Jenkins considers another resource worth reclaiming: a private life. Her 2025 book, Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life, asks what happens when we share everything with strangers but struggle to connect with the people closest to us. Two perspectives on making modern life feel a little more human.⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Success is often told as a solo story: one talented person works hard, then makes it. But who noticed their potential, challenged their thinking, or opened a door? In Lift: The Three Hidden Forces That Launch Remarkable Lives, Jeff Cunningham explores the people and circles that help us rise. Then Carnegie Mellon researcher Rosalind Chow’s The Doors You Can Open: A New Way to Network, Build Trust, and Use Your Influence to Create a More Inclusive Workplace asks how we can do that for others—not just by offering advice, but by using our influence to make their strengths visible. Together, the books show how to be lifted—and how to lift someone else.

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AI can help you finish the work faster. But what happens when you stop practicing those skills? In The Collision: What AI Does to Us, MIT professor Eric So explores how tools that boost today’s productivity can quietly weaken tomorrow’s judgment—and how to use them without outsourcing your thinking. Then, in his 2024 book Irreplaceable: The Art of Standing Out in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, AI expert Pascal Bornet considers the other side of that challenge: developing the creativity, critical thinking, and authentic connections that make your contribution distinctive. How do we get more from AI without becoming less capable ourselves?⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Space looks spectacular in photographs. But what would you actually see if you were standing on another world? Astronomer Philip Plait takes us beyond the telescope in Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe, imagining the view from worlds with twin suns, Saturn’s rings, and places where space and time get very strange. Then theoretical physicist Chandra Prescod-Weinstein widens the lens in The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, exploring both the universe’s unseen ingredients and the human choices that shape who gets to study it. A journey through the cosmos—and a reminder that the night sky belongs to all of us.⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Why does the next new thing always seem like the thing that will finally make life better? In Saying No to New: Why New Things Are Stealing Your Time, Money, and Happiness—And How to Take Back Your Life, New York Times editor Eric Athas explores our appetite for novelty and the tactics businesses use to keep it fed. Katy Kelleher takes that question beneath the surface in The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption, uncovering the tangled human and environmental histories behind objects we covet, from perfume to gemstones. Two perspectives on what drives our desires—and whether enjoying something beautiful has to mean owning it.⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Why do bad feelings have such staying power? In The Opposite of Happiness: How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us, behavioral economist George Loewenstein explores how evolution shaped our emotional lives—and why sadness, anxiety, and regret so often crowd out pleasure. Psychotherapist Whitney Goodman takes on our response to those feelings in Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy, examining when well-meant encouragement becomes pressure to pretend we’re fine. Together, they invite us to understand difficult emotions rather than rush to erase them—and reconsider what it really means to support someone who’s struggling.⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Smart people can make terrible decisions—or brilliant ones. What makes the difference? In Goodthink: The New Science of Collective Intelligence, Damon Centola, a University of Pennsylvania professor who directs the Network Dynamics Group, shares two decades of research showing that a group's structure matters more than its talent. Put doctors in the right kind of network, and their diagnostic accuracy doubles; put them in the wrong one, and error explodes. Then we revisit Damon's book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen for the flip side: how ideas actually spread through social networks, and why ordinary people—not influencers—are often the ones who tip the balance. If you've ever left a meeting wondering how everyone agreed on the wrong answer, this one's for you.

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Same product. Same store. A different price—just for you? Lindsay Owens, author of Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—and What That Means for Your Wallet, explores how companies use algorithms and personal data to figure out what we’ll tolerate paying. But a tilted marketplace isn’t one consumers have to accept. Marta Tellado, president and CEO of Consumer Reports and author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace, makes the case that privacy, safety, and fair treatment aren’t perks—they’re rights. Together, their ideas raise a timely question: What would it take to make the marketplace work for us again?⁠⁠⁠⁠

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