Books like You Learn by Living — picked by fans

I’ve spent my career exploring how people think, learn, and respond to challenges. I was raised as a Humanist, but my journey into behavioral psychology began in college while training dolphins in Hawaii. I learned firsthand how behavior is shaped through reinforcement and response. It’s easy to see how my humanism combined with behavioral psychology has fed a lifelong passion for understanding how to master our minds so we can navigate life with clarity and purpose. As an author, speaker, and behavioral science expert, I teach people how to manage change, deal with difficult people, and lead with integrity. I’m excited to share these books to help you live life fully.

I’ve spent my career exploring how people think, learn, and respond to challenges. I was raised as a Humanist, but my journey into behavioral psychology began in college while training dolphins in Hawaii. I learned firsthand how behavior is shaped through reinforcement and response. It’s easy to see how my humanism combined with behavioral psychology has fed a lifelong passion for understanding how to master our minds so we can navigate life with clarity and purpose. As an author, speaker, and behavioral science expert, I teach people how to manage change, deal with difficult people, and lead with integrity. I’m excited to share these books to help you live life fully.

I’ve spent my career exploring how people think, learn, and respond to challenges. I was raised as a Humanist, but my journey into behavioral psychology began in college while training dolphins in Hawaii. I learned firsthand how behavior is shaped through reinforcement and response. It’s easy to see how my humanism combined with behavioral psychology has fed a lifelong passion for understanding how to master our minds so we can navigate life with clarity and purpose. As an author, speaker, and behavioral science expert, I teach people how to manage change, deal with difficult people, and lead with integrity. I’m excited to share these books to help you live life fully.

I’ve spent my career exploring how people think, learn, and respond to challenges. I was raised as a Humanist, but my journey into behavioral psychology began in college while training dolphins in Hawaii. I learned firsthand how behavior is shaped through reinforcement and response. It’s easy to see how my humanism combined with behavioral psychology has fed a lifelong passion for understanding how to master our minds so we can navigate life with clarity and purpose. As an author, speaker, and behavioral science expert, I teach people how to manage change, deal with difficult people, and lead with integrity. I’m excited to share these books to help you live life fully.

I spent my first decade in business assuming the game was chess: play well, win. It took an embarrassingly long time to notice most rooms run on rules nobody wrote down. Power, persuasion, what breaks teams, who you measure yourself against. Each book here named a rule I was losing to without knowing it existed. And the deepest unwritten rule of all was the ladder itself: do the junior work, get trained, move up. Nobody questioned it because it had always held. I build AI tools for a living, and I can see it coming apart. Which is probably why I wrote a book about what replaces it.

After 30 years in marketing, I am a professor at Rutgers University, where I teach public relations and marketing courses. In each course, I consistently share an inspirational message with my students, which is the title of my new book – Pursue Your Passions! Dream Big! Anything Is Possible! I have taught approximately 4,000 students and have witnessed their journey from the classroom to career. Each of their unique career journeys is inspirational. My former students regularly return to my classroom and inspire my current students to pursue their dreams and goals. My purpose and passion today is to inspire my students and other job seekers to pursue and achieve their professional dreams and goals. 

I learned about Stoicism through its connection to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, whose founder, Albert Ellis, was influenced by Stoic philosophy. Since I had an interest in philosophy, I decided to look more into Stoicism, and—to my surprise—I learned that philosophy could be practical (who knew?!), and that others were trying to put Stoicism into practice today! This led me to try to find other Stoics by founding the New York City Stoics in 2013, followed by co-founding a non-profit—The Stoic Fellowship—to help other people do the same in 2016. I’ve now given talks on Stoicism worldwide in addition to co-writing a book on Stoic practice.

Eleanor Roosevelt loved to teach history and she must have been really good at it. As a historian with a specialty in U.S. women’s history, I love exploring the life and impact of Eleanor Roosevelt. It's a rewarding way to experience the early decades of the 20th century, to gain familiarity with the culture, issues, and politics of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and, while so doing, to meet up with an astonishingly talented group of writers and scholars who have made their own inquiries into Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and works. Studies of ER now constitute a thriving subfield in scholarship and publishing; it's a privilege to be part of it.

A dozen years ago or so, I started teaching climate change instead of consumer culture. That’s because the very same Marxist critique of capitalism helped explain both the problems of unsustainable consumption and climate catastrophe. I did this work for my students, and I did it for me – and it "woke me from my dogmatic slumber," a term Kant used when he was shocked out of complacency by Hume.  Because once I really understood the seriousness of climate change, I realized that nothing about the way we live – and think – will remain the same as before. So I addressed it in a 2019 book and in the new one.

The central theme connecting the books on my list is the idea that our personal growth comes from creativity, straight talk, and honest reflection. All of these books are first-person accounts, which gives them credibility and authority, and they are quite inspiring. They encourage bravery, curiosity, resilience, and healing. 

I wrote Morning Leaves as a way of processing the loss of my younger sister. I leaned into creativity and writing as a way of clarifying my thoughts, prioritizing, and ultimately healing from the grief. This collection of books taught me to trust my instincts, nurture my creative impulses, and find a path to joy.