Education

Articles & Newsletters

“Pessimists sound smart, optimists make money” – We are hard-wired psychologically to focus on the extraordinary (and negative) to the exclusion of the unremarkable (and positive).

Why do “pessimists sound smart…”?

“Mild vs Wild”

Books

All the books below we have read and enjoyed in the last few years. When reviewing the list of fiction books, it is clear that we have a dystopian literature bias. Hopefully this enables us to plan better for future eventualities.

All links lead to the Amazon webpage. We have no affiliation with Amazon or any of the books.

• Anthropology
• Behaviour Change
• Behaviour Finance
• Business
• Fiction
• Finance
• Leadership
• Marketing
• Politics
• Self-Improvement
• Other

Anthropology

21 Lessons for the 21^st Century. Yuval Noah Harari – In 21 bite-sized lessons, Yuval Noah Harari explores what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment.

A History of the World in 100 Objects. Neil MacGregor – In 2010, the BBC and the British Museum embarked on an ambitious project: to tell the story of 2,000,000 years of human history using 100 objects selected from the museum’s vast and renowned collection.

Collapse. Jarred Diamond – Uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder – and what this means for our future.

Guns, Germs and Steel. Jarred Diamond – A ground-breaking and humane work of popular science that can provide expert insight into our modern world.

Homo Deus. Yuval Noah Harari – It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?

Sapiens. Yuval Noah Harari – What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?

The World Until Yesterday. Jarred Diamon –Diamond reveals how traditional societies around the world offer an extraordinary window onto how our ancestors lived for the majority of human history – until virtually yesterday, in evolutionary terms – and provide unique, often overlooked insights into human nature.

Behaviour Change

Atomic Habits. James Clear – Real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.

Nudge. Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein – Nudge has transformed the way individuals, companies and governments look at the world – and in the process has become one of the most important books of the twenty-first century.

Behavioural Finance

Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Robert Kiyosaki – The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.

The Psychology of Money. Morgan Housel – Doing well with money isn’t necessarily about what you know. It’s about how you behave. And behaviour is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

Thinking Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman – Reveals how our minds are tripped up by error, bias and prejudice and gives practical techniques that enable us all to improve our decision-making.

Business

Freakonomics. Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner – Assume nothing, question everything.

Let my People Go Surfing. Yvon Chouinard – The story of a man who brought doing good and having grand adventures into the heart of his business life.

Losing My Virginity. Richard Branson – A definitive business guide that reveals his unique philosophy of commerce, success and life.

Onward. Howard Schultz – How Starbucks achieved profitability and sustainability without sacrificing humanity.

The 4 Hour Work Week. Tim Ferris – Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, this book is the blueprint.

The Lean Startup. Eric Ries – Essential reading for any ambitious entrepreneur, The Lean Startup will teach you to identify what your customers really want. You’ll learn how to test your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late.

The Passion Economy. Adam Davidson – Offers unprecedented opportunities for curious, ambitious individuals to combine the things they love with their careers.

The Ride of a Lifetime. Robert Iger – Shares the ideas and values he embraced to reinvent Disney and inspire the people who bring the magic to life.

The Tipping Point. Malcolm Gladwell – Explains and analyses the ‘tipping point’, that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviour cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire.

Shoe Dog. Phil Knight – This book is studded with lessons about building something from scratch, overcoming adversity, and ultimately leaving your mark on the world.

Steve Jobs. Walter Isaacson – Walter Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries.

Fiction

A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess –A virtuoso performance from an electrifying prose stylist and a serious exploration of the morality of free will.

Brave New World. Aldous Huxley –Paints a vivid and unsettling picture of a society that has sacrificed freedom and authenticity for comfort and conformity.

Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell – Six interlocking lives – one amazing adventure. Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity’s will to power, and where it will lead us.

Nineteen Eighty-Four. Georg Orwell – Portrays a dystopian society where Winston Smith rebels against the oppressive Party.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ken Kessey – Pitching an extraordinary battle between cruel authority and a rebellious free spirit, a novel that epitomises the spirit of the sixties.

The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho – The mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure.

The Beach. Alex Garland – Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. What Richard finds when he gets there is breathtaking.

The Catcher in the Rye. J. D. Salinger – The novel details two days in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield after he has been expelled from prep school.

The Life of Pye. Yann Martel – After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra, a female orangutan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

The Road. Cormac McCarthy – A post-apocalyptic classic set in a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast.

The Salt Path. Raynor Winn – An honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee – Explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

Utopia. Thomas More – Explores the theories underlying war, political disputes, social conflicts, and wealth distribution through dialogue and correspondence between the main character Raphael Hythloday and his friends and contemporaries.

Finance

A Random Walk Down Wallstreet. Burton Malkiel – Shares authoritative insights spanning the full range of investment opportunities to help you chart a calm course through the turbulent waters of today’s financial markets.

Debt, the First 5,000 Years. David Graeber – Shows that before there was money, there was debt.

Fooled by Randomness. Nassim Nicholas Taleb It is all about luck: more precisely, how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences.

Fools Gold. Gillian Tett – The story behind the rise in credit derivatives.

How to Make the World Add Up. Tim Harford – Reveals how we can evaluate the claims that surround us with confidence, curiosity and a healthy level of scepticism.

In the Light of Yesterday. Brady Raanes – A must read for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of today’s global economic landscape, providing insight into the question, “What can be done today, in light of yesterday, to prepare for tomorrow?”

The Price of Money. Rob Dix – A crash-course in how money works, and how to make yours go further.

The Value of Everything. Mariana Mazzucato – In modern capitalism, value-extraction is rewarded more highly than value-creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. Once a central plank of economic thought, this concept of value – what it is, why it matters to us – is simply no longer discussed.

Marketing

Alchemy. Rory Sutherland – Discover the alchemy behind original thinking. Reveals why abandoning logic and casting aside rationality is the best way to solve any problem.

This is Marketing. Seth Godin – Shows you how to do work you’re proud of, whether you’re a tech startup founder, a small business owner, or part of a large corporation.

Leadership

Call Sign Chaos. Jim Mattis Account of Jim Mattis’s storied career, from wide-ranging leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the Middle East.

Man’s Search for Meaning. Bictor Frankl – Uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn’t) with the experience.

Rebel Ideas. Mathew Syed – Examines the power of ‘cognitive diversity’ – the ability to think differently about the world around us.

Start With Why. Simon Sinek – How you lead, inspire, live, it all starts with why.

Talk Like TED. Carmine Gallo – Communications coach Carmine Gallo has broken down the top TED Talks and interviewed the most popular TED presenters to uncover the nine secrets of all successful TED presentations.

Team of Teams. Stanley McCrystal – In this powerful book, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be relevant to any leader.

The Bigger Prize. Margaret Heffernan –Eye-opening look at competition, competition regularly produces just what we don’t want: rising levels of fraud, cheating, stress, inequality and political stalemate. For someone to win, we all have to win.

Turn the Ship Around. L. David Marquet – Learn how to create a workplace where everyone takes responsibility for their actions, people are healthier and happier – and everyone is a leader.

War Games. Leo Murray – War Games is a fascinating insight into how the human mind operates in combat situations.

Politics

Divided. Tim Marshal – Delves into our past and our present to reveal the fault lines that will shape our world for years to come.

Goliath. Seth McFate – We are living in an age of conflict. But while the West has been playing the same old war games, the enemy has a new strategy.

Natives. Akala –Speaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.

Prisoners of Geography. Tim Marshal – Ten Maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics.

Time to Kill. Paul Addison & Angus Calder – This original and powerful book explores the conditions in which the soldiers of many different countries lived and died, as well as their hopes and fears, and their experience of battle.

Self-Improvement

Black Box Thinking. Mathew Syed – A new approach to high performance, a means of finding an edge in a complex and fast-changing world.

Bounce. Mathew Syed – Essential reading for an astounding summer of sport; If you’ve ever wondered what makes a champion, Bounce has the answer.

Ego Is My Enemy. Ryan Holiday – The book explores the nature and dangers of ego to illustrate how you can be humble in your aspirations, gracious in your success and resilient in your failures.

Superhuman. Rowan Hooper – Takes us on a tour of the peaks of human achievement.

The 4 Hour Body. Tim Ferris – Whatever your physical goal, The 4-Hour Body eclipses every other health manual by sharing the best kept secrets in the latest science and research to provide new strategies for redesigning the human body.

The Winning Mindset. Damian Hughes – Reveals the best ways to create a winning mindset in both personal and professional life.

Why We Sleep. Mathew Walker – Explores twenty years of cutting-edge research to solve the mystery of why sleep matters, transforming our appreciation of the extraordinary phenomenon that safeguards our existence.

Wilful Blindness. Margret Heffernan – Examines the phenomenon of wilful blindness, exploring the reasons that individuals and groups are blind to impending personal tragedies, corporate collapses, engineering failures – even crimes against humanity.

Other

Doing Good Better. Will Macaskill – Most of us want to make a difference. But rarely do we know if we’re really helping, and despite our best intentions, our actions can have ineffective – and sometimes downright harmful – outcomes.

Into the Silence. Wade Davis – A monumental work of history, biography and adventure – the First World War, Mallory and Mount Everest.

Outliers. Malcom Gladwell – The Story of Success overturns conventional wisdom about genius to show us what makes an ordinary person an extreme overachiever.

The Precipice. Toby Ord – Explores the existential threats to humanity’s future.

There is no Planet B. Mike Bernes-Lee – This is the big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of our day.