Episodes

Different people have different ideas about the world we live in, but few will deny that our world is very prosperous. What led to this prosperity? According to the author of The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley, the answer is “exchange.” Human beings promote economic evolution because of exchange, and the world realizes prosperity because of exchange. But how did exchange drive economic evolution and help create global prosperity? You’ll find out in this bookey!

How can we increase opportunities for businesses to succeed in the market and build a company that continuously makes profit? This book will reveal that a business model without customer validation is only a series of hypotheses that have not been tested. Successful startup owners are good at combining smart projects and customer development. They seek to establish, test, and find business models in a continuous process. As a result, they can make the transition from the “unknown” to the “known”...

A Beautiful Mind recounts the life of Nobel Laureate economist John Forbes Nash. The movie, adapted from the eponymous book, achieved massive popularity, taking home Best Picture in the 74th Academy Awards. Up until the age of thirty, Nash was hailed as a genius, a dazzling mathematician. However, mental illness turned his life upside down and tore apart his happy family. This book tells of Nash's life and the experiences of the people who were close to him. Undoubtedly, all of them shared his b...

For decades, the definitions and treatments of mental illness exported by the United States have become international standards, and the result is a gradual flattening and homogenizing of the landscape of the human psyche around the world. The book points out that each mental illness varies with its culture and beliefs, and that the existence of such differences should not be ignored. The author expresses his concerns about the adoption of standardized criteria for the diagnosis and treatment of...

This book takes us on a freediving journey down the ocean. You won't drown, because the so-called "master switch of life” will turn on, enabling you to push, while recognizing the limits of your body. You will swim with sharks, whales and dolphins, and learn about their incredible electroreception and echolocation abilities. Then you dive deeper and make acquaintance with the wondrous creatures of the deep ocean. The ocean is a magnificent place, and the deeper you go, the more clearly you see y...

Usually, the gut isn't well-liked, but the author points out that it is a super organ often neglected due to its “geographical location.” It is both proud and temperamental; it can both sustain and take lives; it can boost the brain's capacity and productivity but also make people manic-depressive. It is no exaggeration to say that a slight movement in the gut may affect the whole body. The book we’ll discuss today was the best-selling book in Germany in 2014 and was named the New York Times bes...

Toddlers. The behavior of these 1-3 years old’s is often hard to understand. They cry, scream, throw things about, and strike out at the people around them. Are children at this age evil? Of course not! Children at this age are instinctive, and they are testing boundaries as they struggle to become more autonomous. To guide this exploration and ensure safety, parents need to set boundaries while ensuring their child’s freedom. But how do parents set limits? If children don’t want to comply, how ...

We have entered an era of unprecedented entrepreneurial renaissance, but the success rate of today’s startups is very low due to the absence of effective management. How to improve a startup’s chances of success has become an inevitable question for every entrepreneur. This book proposes the idea of ‘lean startup’. By developing minimum viable products and failing fast, a business could validate whether its product meets the customers’ needs or not at the minimum cost and in the shortest time. D...

When people bring up Steve Jobs in conversation, we all know that he was the founder of Apple and a business wizard who is revered as a genius. In addition, Jobs was also a masterful public speaker. This book thoroughly analyzes Job's speaking skills to provide you with a series of practical tips about giving a speech. This analysis not only allows us to gain a deeper understanding of Job's public speaking skills, but also shares the power of his words and how they captivated and persuaded his a...

Most of us are probably a little scared when we hear the word “virus”. After all, viruses are responsible for the loss of countless lives throughout human history. But did you know that there is also a good side to these viruses. They play an essential role in biological evolution. It can even be said that the evolution of all animals and plants is not possible without viruses. Unfortunately most people still don't know much about viruses. This book, A Planet of Viruses, will unveil the mystery ...

This book is a comprehensive first-hand research conducted on America’s millionaires. The authors explain simple spending and saving habits to attain financial independence. They debunk the myths about the millionaire lifestyle, showing us that most times we are misinformed about what actually means to be rich. The key to this book shows that the millionaire next door is usually frugal, saves regularly and invests wisely.

Manchester United, the top team of the English Premier League, has been thriving for decades and shown a high level of competitiveness. What has Manchester United done to achieve such success? When answering this question, it is impossible not to mention Alex Ferguson, the manager of this team, for he is the main creator of Manchester United's illustrious achievements. In this book, he sums up the key lessons he learnt from managing Manchester United, explaining how he built, led, and managed th...

Many people feel intimidated by economics. They don’t have to. This book abandons the sophisticated equations, graphs, and jargons, but instead explains the most fundamental economic concepts in plain language. Economics analyzes the cause-and-effect relationship of economic activities, and aims to figure out how to best allocate scarce resources that have alternative uses. With economic thinking, we can make better decisions at each critical moment in life.

Have you ever been tempted by a wildly boastful advertisement to buy a product, only to find that it is not as good as you were promised? Do you often feel irritated and blame another party or person because of media reports, only to find that the reports were distorted? The information from the outside world is abundant and complicated, and it is often hard to distinguish truth from falsehood. If you merely listen to one-sided stories from outside sources, you will be taken advantage of. Theref...

In the eyes of the world, Audrey Hepburn's beauty and grace made her truly worthy of being seen as one of Hollywood's brightest stars. But in the eyes of her son Sean, she was best known for her role as his mother. Written from the perspective of Hepburn's son, Sean, this memoir records a side of Hepburn which was rarely seen by the rest of world: her childhood, her regrets, her love for her family, and her care for the world’s most disadvantaged children.

When living with children, many parents may unconsciously make the following common mistake, they have difficulty telling the difference between their responsibili-ties and their child's responsibilities. Over time, they may find that their children haven't learned to take responsibility for their actions. And it is the task of parents to help their children develop a sense of responsibility, self-control, and autonomy. This book will show you what children are responsible for and how parents ca...

You want to make more money but don’t know where to start. You want to save a relationship but don’t know what to do. You made a weight loss plan, but it ended in failure. Why is it so hard to make a change? And why is it also hard to maintain changes? The book Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success reveals the key elements that influence human behaviors through research on more than 5,000 “Changers”, people who have succeeded in changing their behaviors and have maintained the cha...

When you relish design’s convenience in your life, do you ever stop to question the meaning of design? When a beautifully designed object activates all your five senses, do you ever consider if design has any limits? In this book, Kenya Hara, an outstanding master of contemporary Japanese design, re-evaluates design’s origins and evolution. He explains the aesthetics of Japanese design, including his personal design philosophy. Whether you are a designer, an enthusiast, or just curious, this boo...

The protagonist of this book, Tara Westover, didn’t attend school until the age of seventeen. When she was finally given the chance, she pursued learning with an unusual determination. She went to college at Brigham Young University and later got a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, forever changing her fate. In this book, Westover recounts how she broke free from her family’s restrictions and changed her destiny one step at a time. This book became a New York Times bestseller soon after it...

If you want your enterprise to go farther, you should not be satisfied with being “good” but should make continuous efforts to achieve “greatness”, so that your company can be more dynamic, more competitive, and last for a really long time. So, how can enterprises break through the bottleneck of being just good? And how do we build an excellent management team? This book puts forward a set of ideas that, if implemented carefully, will enable most companies to improve their operations significant...

Invariably, life presents us with many choices, ranging from what do we have for dinner to where to invest our savings. Each alternative has the potential to bring about significant change. But people often make wrong decisions because of prejudice and irrationality. We need to learn a little behavioral economics to help us make better choices. This book will empower you to understand how a government uses behavioral economics to optimize its policies and encourage people to make wise, healthy, ...

This book is a “novel-style biography” written by American financial journalist Edwin LeFevre. It’s based on the first-person account of the life story of Jesse Livermore, once known as "The Boy Plunger.” Livermore was in his final years when he was interviewed for the book, and he shared his trading stories and insights with extreme candor and no reservation. The book has influenced generations of investors, including legends like Buffett, Peter Lynch, Soros and others. It has become one of the...

Among all countries, Japan has the highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants, making it a mecca for diners worldwide. Its numerous small independent restaurants are places of constant innovation. Ingredients underpin Japanese food culture; these aren't luxuries. Instead, the most common items, such as rice, noodles, and fish, are the soul of Japanese cuisine. Seduced by Japanese cuisine's international reputation, America’s bestselling writer, gastronome Matt Goulding embarks on an explorat...

Certain skills are very important for a child. Namely, how to deal with difficult feelings, get along with other people, and concentrate. After ten or perhaps twenty years, the knowledge they acquired at a young age may be outdated as science progresses, but these skills will accompany them throughout their lives. So how are we supposed to improve a child's concentration and ability to handle difficult emotions? The answer that this book gives is: by teaching them to practice mindfulness. This w...