Courage is Calling is the first book in Ryan Holiday’s series on the cardinal virtues of ancient philosophy which include four key components: Courage.Temperance. Justice.Wisdom.
Holiday explored the courageous practice of historical and contemporary leaders like Charles de Gaulle to Leonidas, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marcus Aurelius, Sophia Farrar, Frank Serpico, James Stockdale.
The virtues are interrelated and inseparable, yet each is distinct from the others. Doing the right thing almost always takes courage, just as discipline is impossible without the wisdom to know what is worth choosing.
It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life is the story of Armstrong’s journey from inauspicious beginnings through triumph, tragedy, transformation, and transcendence. In 1996, at the prime of his career, Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which later spread to his lungs, abdomen, and brain, and was only given a 40 percent chance of living.
In It’s Not About the Bike, American former professional road racing cyclist, Lance Armstrong reflects on his upbringing, upstart as a triathlete, cycling career, battling and surviving testicular cancer, and coming back to win multiple tour de France competitions.
In Roles: The Secret to Family, Business, and Social Success, author, and public speaker Nicholeen Peck discuss the importance of roles in the family unit, business, and social settings. She writes about the power of roles, Family Dysfunction, and the difference between roles and responsibilities.
Roles are a power. They prepare us to live securely and happily. They also help us to spread happiness and to support and love each other — as well as promote relationship freedom. Too many people today are in emotional and relationship bondage. Understanding roles is a vital secret to breaking away from that bondage and finding the relationship freedom and personal power that awaits us all.
In Confessions of an Advertising Man, founder of Ogilvy & Mather and “Father of Advertising,” David Ogilvy shares his philosophy, pioneering ideas and strategies for becoming a successful advertising man. Other topics covered include people management, corporate ethics, office politics, and insights for building a successful advertising business.
The confessions of an Advertising Man was first published in 1963, and it is considered as essential reading for advertising students and practitioners.
In What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings–and Life, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, describes through real-life anecdotes and scientific research why the early hours of the day are so important and how successful people use mornings to help them accomplish things that are often impossible to take care of later in the day.
In How to Win Client Business When You Don’t Know Where to Start: A Rainmaking Guide for Consulting and Professional Services, author Doug Fletcher provides a guide for selling professional and consulting services.
In Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, industrial psychologist Paul Babiak and criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare, describe the typical psychopaths at work, their personality characteristics, and strategies for dealing with the psychopaths.
Characters
The Case of Dave
The Case of Dave, is broken down into ten segments, written out as scenes in a stage play, so that the reader can not only see and feel the presence of psychopaths but also directly tie their machinations to the content presented in the related text.
The Case of the Pit Bull
The Case of the Pit Bull, to illustrate the entire psychopathic manipulation process as it often plays out in real life.
In The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life, Canadian elite performance and leadership writer Robin Sharma describes the morning routine used by his clients to maximize their productivity, activate their best health and bulletproof their serenity in this age of overwhelming complexity.
In The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel, Hungarian-American journalist Kati Marton chronicles the rise and reign of Germany’s first female chancellor, and how this triple outsider—an East German, a scientist, and a woman transformed Germany into the leader of Europe—not just an economic leader but a moral one too—and into an immigrant nation by accepting one million Middle Eastern refugees.
A pastor’s daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, she spent her twenties working as a research chemist, entering politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet within fifteen years, she had become chancellor of Germany and, before long, the unofficial leader of the West.
InThe Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects, former Uber executive and startup investor at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Andrew Chen writes a definitive guide on the concept of Network Effects. He provides a framework for building Network Effect into product development and scaling an enterprise.
The Cold Start Problem explores how tech’s most successful products and companies solved the dreaded “cold start problem” by using network effects to launch and ultimately scale to billions of users.
The Cold Start Problem provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries—revealing what makes winning networks successful, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect have become vitally important today.
In Revolution, Emmanuel Macron, the youngest president in the history of France, reveals his personal story and his inspirations and discusses his vision of France and its future in a new world that is undergoing a ‘great transformation’ that has not been known since the Renaissance. He chronicles his journey from his rural upbringing to the role of mentors in his life, key moments and seizing the right opportunities. The book is part biographical and part a manifesto of his vision for a more prosperous and vibrant France.
At the age of 39, Macron became the youngest president in French history.
Emmanuel Macron was born in Amiens on 21 December 1977. He studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, a master’s degree in public affairs from Sciences Po ( Paris Institute of Political Studies) and graduated from the École nationale d’administration in 2004.
Macron was elected to a second term in the 2022 presidential election, again defeating Le Pen, thus becoming the first French presidential candidate to win re-election since 2002.
In What to Say When You Talk to Your Self, psychologist Dr. Shad Helmstetter writes about the power of self-talk: what to say to ourselves every day, the power of affirmations, reprogramming our self-limiting beliefs and how to use self-talk for personal transformation.
‘Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result’
Barrack and Michelle Obama are one of my favourite living people and couples alive. I love them both for their confidence, journey, inspiration and consistency. I committed to reading their memoirs back to back: A Promise Land (Barrack) and Becoming (Michelle). Reading the former POTUS and FLOTUS biographies made me humanize them, and connect more to their story, struggles, trials and tribulations. Their stories epitomize what it means to dream bigger than their society.
In Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, former Apple employee and co-creator of the iPhone and iPod Tony Fadell shares lessons learned, mistakes made and advice for navigating the roller coaster of creativity. He writes about starting out in business, Joining Phillips as CTO at age 25, failing with General Magic, Joining Apple as a consultant, co-creating the iPhone and iPod, Starting Nest Labs and his life in building life-changing products. Fadell calls the book “An advice encyclopedia. A mentor in a box.”
“I was incredibly lucky to lead the team that made the first eighteen generations of the iPod. Then we got another incredible opportunity—the iPhone. My team created the hardware—the metal and glass that you held in your hand—and the foundational software to run and manufacture the phone. We wrote the software for the touchscreen, the cellular modem, the cell phone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Then we did it again for the second-generation iPhone. And then again for the third.”
American engineer, designer and entrepreneur Tony Fadell is often referred to as the father of the iPod. He joined Apple in 2001 and served as the Senior Vice President of the iPod and iPhone division. His team was in charge of building the hardware and foundational software for the iPhone and iPod. He left Apple in 2010 to start Nest Labs with Matt Rogers in a garage in Palo Alto.
Career Highlights: Lead software & Hardware Engineer at General Magic, CTO of Phillips at 25, Joined Apple in 2001 as a consultant, his team built the hardware and foundational software for the iPod and iPhone, Started Nest Labs in 2014 with Matt Rogers, Google acquired Nest for 3.2 Billion dollars.
In Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success, self-discipline strategist Rory Vaden writes about the psychology of overcoming procrastination, taking action and developing the self-discipline it takes to become a person of character and a person of success.
“Self-discipline is a habit, a practice, a philosophy, and a way of living. Taking the stairs is a mind-set; but it’s not even about the stairs. You might not physically be able to take the silly stairs—but anyone can start making more disciplined choices.”
Take the Stairs is about self-discipline—the ability to take action regardless of your emotional state, financial state, or physical state. It isn’t about doing things the hardest way possible, but it is about doing the hardest things as soon as possible so that you can get whatever you want in life—as soon as possible.
