#487: BEST OF - Transform Your MINDSET, Transform Your LIFE with Steven Bartlett, Krista Mashore, Amjad Masad, Dileep Thazhmon, Martin Villig, Ankush Grove, Jerrod Blandino, & Colin O’Brady

In The Power of TED* (The Empowerment Dynamic), David Emerald addresses a struggle many people face: feeling helpless and victimized by circumstances beyond their control. However, Emerald argues that this feeling may have more to do with your mindset than your life circumstances. He presents a transformative approach to overcoming life’s challenges and achieving personal growth: shifting from a reactive, problem-focused mindset to a proactive, vision-driven outlook. This practical alternative can empower you to take charge of your life and create positive change.

Emerald, a leadership consultant and executive coach with decades of experience, wrote this book for anyone looking to break free from negative patterns and unlock their full potential. In this guide, you'll learn about how to organize your life around a long-term vision, the importance of the story you tell about yourself, and how, paradoxically, trying to solve life problems can actually make them worse. Our commentary will explore the psychological principles underpinning Emerald’s ideas and compare his advice to that of other motivational experts.

The time between starting a business and success is marked by endless ups and downs. This is normal and necessary for growth, and in The Messy Middle, Scott Belsky argues that you should embrace this often overlooked aspect of entrepreneurship. During the “middle years” of your business, you’ll develop the skills you need to realize your goals. The uphill climb will be uncomfortable, but Belsky insists that it’s worth it.

Belsky is an entrepreneur best known for cofounding Behance, an online platform for creative artists. In this guide, we’ll explore the difficulties he says you’ll encounter once your startup gets going, as well as the skills you’ll need to cultivate. We’ll discuss how to keep your team motivated and how to cope with success if and when it comes. We’ll also cover writings from other business experts who expand on Belsky’s ideas or approach his views from a different perspective.

What if you could sit down with hundreds of the world's most successful people and ask them to teach you their greatest wisdom? One entrepreneur has done just that. In The Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett distills the business and life advice he’s gained from several years of podcast interviews, as well as his own extensive business experience. His tips are for anyone looking to make a difference in the world and live the most fulfilling, productive life possible.

In this guide, you’ll learn the five assets you need to maximize your impact on the world, how to turn stress into something exciting and energizing, and more. In our commentary, we’ll supplement Bartlett’s business advice with tips from books like Built to Last and The Lean Startup, and we’ll add to his life advice by consulting books like Outlive and Atomic Habits.

In 1994, a young programmer named Jeff Bezos took a chance, quit his job, and founded the first online bookstore. Three decades later, his business—Amazon—is valued at over $1 trillion and has revolutionized the online marketplace. Invent and Wander is a compilation of Bezos’s letters to Amazon shareholders, combined with excerpts from interviews and speeches. Its narrative chronicles Amazon’s rise from a niche retailer to a digital superstore while also illustrating Bezos’s values and insights into innovation and success.

In this guide, we’ll explore the history of Amazon as it grew to a thriving online marketplace that also became an invaluable resource for cloud-based computing. We’ll delve into the principles that Bezos says are central to Amazon’s success and compare Bezos’s management decisions with those of his contemporaries. Since Bezos presents an insider’s view of Amazon, we’ll also hear from outside voices who are critical of Bezos’s leadership style and Amazon’s impact on the market.

What if you could sit down with hundreds of the world's most successful people and ask them to teach you their greatest wisdom? One entrepreneur has done just that. In The Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett distills the business and life advice he’s gained from several years of podcast interviews, as well as his own extensive business experience. His tips are for anyone looking to make a difference in the world and live the most fulfilling, productive life possible.

In this guide, you’ll learn the five assets you need to maximize your impact on the world, how to turn stress into something exciting and energizing, and more. In our commentary, we’ll supplement Bartlett’s business advice with tips from books like Built to Last and The Lean Startup, and we’ll add to his life advice by consulting books like Outlive and Atomic Habits.

Every modern business is in the technology game in some way. In Empowered, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones explain how technology and product development are the fundamental drivers of every successful business. Therefore, to thrive in the modern business world, companies must empower their product development teams to use technology to meet customer needs and drive business growth.

Cagan and Jones have a wealth of experience in product leadership, having worked at multiple high-profile technology businesses. In this guide, we’ll discuss the roles of product leaders and their technology teams, as well as how they measure their collective success. We’ll describe how to empower product teams to work with autonomy and enhance innovation. In addition, we’ll explain the authors’ key concepts, show how other writers expand on their ideas, and explore how some experts arrive at similar conclusions using slightly different approaches.

In Trauma Stewardship, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky writes that we can better care for others who have gone through trauma by learning to care for ourselves—a practice she calls trauma stewardship. Trauma, loss, and suffering are everyday realities, damaging not only to those who suffer from these challenges directly, but also to the caregivers who witness and tend to others’ trauma. Lipsky argues that to be fully present and emotionally available to others, we must address the impact of secondary trauma (the harm we experience when exposed to others’ trauma). Lipsky's trauma stewardship framework addresses how to manage secondary trauma, create a better work-life balance, and practice mindful self-care so you can support others to your fullest capacity.

In this guide, we’ll explain Lipsky’s concept of trauma stewardship, discuss the warning signs of secondary trauma, and provide ways you can replenish your energy for healthy caregiving. Along the way, we’ll provide additional psychological insights about trauma exposure and other experts’ advice on self-care and compassion.

Reboot explores the rise and fall of Jodie Fox’s global business, Shoes of Prey—an innovative start-up that allowed customers to design their own shoes. Fox offers an honest look into her successes and failures as an entrepreneur, proving that there’s always value in the process of owning a business, even if your business doesn’t work out. She also provides advice on dealing with many of the situations you’ll encounter should you build a global business.

Throughout this guide, we’ll discuss topics such as how to start your business, how to negotiate cultural differences as an international entrepreneur, and how to manage mental health struggles as a business owner. We’ll also use examples from Fox’s time with Shoes of Prey to illustrate her points. In our commentary, we’ll discuss strategies for developing a business idea, offer advice for identifying and navigating cultural differences in business, and explore additional tips for taking care of your mental health.

For most small business owners, taking a four-week vacation is inconceivable. Overwhelmed with the hands-on work of running their company’s daily operations, many entrepreneurs feel too burned out to achieve work-life balance—let alone take a holiday. However, in Clockwork, entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz claims a four-week vacation is within reach for small business owners. He argues that entrepreneurs can avoid burnout, achieve work-life balance, and revitalize their businesses by committing to a hands-off approach. A hands-off entrepreneur serves as their business’s visionary while their employees handle daily operations.

In this guide, we’ll present Michalowicz’s steps for becoming a hands-off entrepreneur with a healthy work-life balance. You’ll learn how to build a motivating business framework, train your employees to be independent, and fix your company’s big-picture issues. Throughout this guide, we’ll compare the author’s ideas to those of other business experts, such as Gino Wickman, Jocko Willink, and Leif Babin. We’ll also supplement the author’s strategies with additional actionables, such as how to prevent your employees from burning out.