books

These are my notes from books I read. Each page’s title is also a link to the corresponding GoodReads entry. You can see my GoodReads lists here.

Killing sacred cows: overcoming the financial myths that are destroying your prosperity

This book made me cringe pretty often. I’ll leave exclamation points (!) on particularly cringe-worthy ideas, just so you can see how based I am. This book functions on the idea that if we accept a new set of words: poverty mindset, abundance mindset, etc, we’ll become wealthy. Zero-sum mindset: any critique of “success”, including environmental devastation Scarcity/poverty mindset: saving your way to wealth, judging or being jealous of those who have things, being too safe or too risky with your money, avoiding the risk of seeking your dreams, any ideas that make you make bad decisions If more people live with an abundance mindset, we will all experience less hardship.
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Raising an emotionally intelligent child: the heart of parenting

Really fantastic book. Here is a quote that was extremely key for me: Understand your base of power as a parent. By base of power, I mean the element in the parent-child relationship that makes it possible for parents to set limits on children’s misbehavior, something all kids want and need. For some parents, the base of power is threats, humiliation, or spanking. Others, who are overly permissive, may feel they have no base of power at all. For emotion coaching parents, the base of power is the emotional bond between parent and child. When you are emotionally connected to your child, limit-setting comes out of your genuine reactions to your child’s misbehavior. Your child responds to your anger, disappointment, and worries, so you don’t have to resort to negative consequences such as spanking and time-outs to amplify your feelings. The respect and affection you and your child have for each other become your primary vehicle for limit-setting.
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Why we sleep: unlocking the power of sleep and dreams

There is controversy around some of the claims made in this book, so I don’t take any single point of evidence extremely seriously. But the person who critiqued the book also has some weird ideas about sleep,For instance, he believes that we evolved in a sleep-deprived environment so sleep deprivation must be healthier for us. so in the end I think I probably side with the sleep scientist for most issues except when he seems extreme. Isn’t epistemology fun?
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Winners take all: the elite charade of changing the world

This book was a good one for quotable critique of modern capitalism. Here are some good ones: These elites believe and promote the idea that social change should be pursued principally through the free market and voluntary action, not public life and the law and the reform of the systems that people share in common; that it should be supervised by the winners of capitalism and their allies, and not be antagonistic to their needs; and that the biggest beneficiaries of the status quo should play a leading role in the status quo’s reform.
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Think again: the power of knowing what you don't know

The book is divided into 3 parts, covering the value of rethinking, how to help others rethink, and how to help communities rethink. the value of rethinking permalink Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe. When people change their answers on a test, they’re far more likely to change to the right answer than a wrong answer. Rethinking is effective! helping others rethink permalink Good families allow for healthy conflict, rather than avoiding it. Orville and Wilbur Wright fought a lot but it wasn’t relational conflict, it was task conflict. Having a good relationship with colleagues is important because it’s what keeps task conflict from bleeding into relational conflict. You need a network of people who will disagree with you. Silence disrespects the value of your views, and our ability to have civil disagreement.
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