Dropping the Mask

Even though we’re all human, most of us don’t understand what drives people (including ourselves) to feel and behave the way we do. In The Laws of Human Nature, author Robert Greene looks at several laws that explain, among other things, why we self-sabotage, behave differently in groups, and want the wrong things.

Armed with the knowledge of these fundamentals of human nature, you can manage toxic people, become more empathetic, make people like you, and control your own nature.

In The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene asserts that whether you like it or not, you’re part of a never-ending game of power. You’re either striving for and wielding power, or you’re a pawn being played by someone more powerful than you. You choose your role.

This book is for those who prefer to be players rather than pawns. To turn you from an amateur into a master player, Greene has codified 48 laws of power based on historical examples of people who’ve excelled or failed at wielding power, with glorious or bloody results (or both). Some key principles you’ll learn: use your enemies, keep others dependent on you, say as little as possible, take credit for others’ work, and don’t get your hands dirty. You can choose to apply or dismiss these rules - but you can’t escape them.

In The Daily Laws, Robert Greene argues that we lead our lives guided by false beliefs: We believe that chasing money will make us happy, that others always have our best interests at heart, and that our flaws are smaller than other peoples’, among other things. However, because these beliefs aren’t based in reality, they leave us unhappy and unfulfilled. To stop being led astray and made miserable by these false beliefs, Greene writes that we must become more attuned to reality—to the ways the world actually works and how people actually behave. He provides a lesson for each day of the year on how to reconnect with reality and thus become happier and more fulfilled.

The Daily Laws is a compilation of core maxims from five of his other books, including The 48 Laws of Power and The Laws of Human Nature. Throughout the guide, we’ll compare Greene’s insights with those found in other books, such as Scott Young’s Ultralearning and Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and provide actionable suggestions on how you can apply his lessons to your life.

Fun Home is a graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel. It follows Alison through the early years of her life as she navigates her relationship with her closeted father, discovers her own sexuality, and grapples with her father’s supposed suicide. Told in a non-linear fashion, the book touches on the themes of gender identity, sexual orientation, dysfunctional households, suicide, and literature as a way of connecting to life.

A New York Times best-seller, Fun Home has been acclaimed for its discussion about the topic of intergenerational homosexuality and its innovative approach to the genres of both comics and memoirs.

In The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga argue that every problem you have in life has a single cause: You care too much about what other people think of you. In turn, this causes you to live what other people want, rather than what you care about; resent other people's success since they take away from your luster; and think you're incompetent when you don't get someone else's approval, even if that approval is impossible to get.

The book made waves in Asia before becoming a bestseller in the West. Kishimi is a licensed counselor and expert in Adlerian psychology. Koga, a professional business writer, proclaims himself the Plato to Kishimi’s Socrates, transcribing and transforming Kishimi’s insights into a more accessible form for the general public.

In this guide, we’ll outline Kishimi and Koga’s radical view of life—care less what other people think, and help others out of genuine personal enjoyment. We'll explain how you can use that to tap into the freedom and joy inherent in human existence. Along the way, we’ll provide additional information about Adlerian psychology and compare Kishimi and Koga’s advice to that in other popular self-help books.

More than 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement and more than 14 years after electing its first Black president, why is the United States still divided along racial lines? That’s the central question of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, which argues that contrary to common wisdom, racism doesn’t begin with prejudice and hatred—it begins with self-serving policies whose proponents justify their actions by inventing racist ideas. Kendi, an African American Studies scholar, develops this claim by analyzing the history of racist ideas in the United States and offering readers a better understanding of how to combat contemporary racism.

In this guide, we’ll explore such insights as how enslavers convinced themselves that slavery benefited slaves and why most antiracist reformers harbored racist thoughts. Along the way, we’ll make connections between this book and Kendi’s later writings, and we’ll expand upon, and sometimes challenge, Kendi’s ideas by referring to other prominent writers on race such as Robin DiAngelo and Jennifer Eberhardt.

The desire to feel accepted by others is one of the most powerful human motivators—it often dictates how we speak and act to feel like we belong to a group. But according to researcher Brené Brown, striving for social acceptance instead of being true to ourselves breeds isolation and division by fueling the fear that we’re one misstep away from exclusion.

True belonging, she says, is the ability to express ourselves honestly. True belonging doesn’t mean finding people who accept you; rather, it means embracing the idea that being true to yourself supersedes what anyone else thinks. In this guide to Braving the Wilderness, we’ll dive deeper into what true belonging means, explain why simply being yourself can feel like venturing into uncharted wilderness, and describe Brown’s advice for achieving true belonging. We’ll also include advice from other experts on key actions related to true belonging: connecting with others and resolving conflicts productively.

Many people don’t want to discuss shame or vulnerability. In fact, today, people are lonelier, more obese, and more addicted than ever before because they opt to distract or numb themselves rather than address their insecurities or shame.

In her lecture series, The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown breaks down the various aspects of shame, addresses the importance of vulnerability, and offers 10 practices that you can use to embrace vulnerability and start living a wholehearted life.