three books

Chapter 165: Martin Seligman on overcoming overthinking and opting for optimism 

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Happy full moon, everybody!

It is the harvest moon and our leaves are falling here in Toronto.

Time for change! Unavoidable, right? Sure, but maybe ... we can control how we react to it.

My guest today has spent nearly six decades (!) studying ​learned optimism​, ​authentic happiness​, ​human flourishing​, and (his latest pursuit!) ​agency​ and his work is cited by thousands and taught in psychology courses worldwide.

I am thrilled to come to 3 Books the co-founder of positive psychology Dr. Martin Seligman!

In 1998, Marty was elected President of the ​American Psychological Association​ by the largest vote in its history. He launched positive psychology—he created it!—with ​Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi​, the psychologist who gave us '​Flow​,' and his work helped shape and influence so much of what we think about our minds and including past 3 Books guests ​Sonja Lyubomirsky​ and ​Shawn Achor​.

Working at the University of Pennsylvania and ​founding the Positive Psychology Center​, where he's the Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology, Martin's lab has run everything from the Penn Resilience Program, which has trained teachers and students around the world, to large-scale resilience programs for the U.S. Army, to more recent work on human progress and agency.

Which brings us to his new book!

'​Agency: The Psychological History of Human Progress​' just came out a few weeks ago and it's an ambitious project analyzing millennia of history—from Periclean Athens and the Hebrew Torah through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Civil Rights Movement—with Martin arguing that the hidden engine of human progress isn't geography or money or war ... but agency itself.

Tune in as we discuss what agency is, how humans have progressed over centuries, techniques to overcome overthinking, how to use AI to positively impact our lives, whether AI is a new species, positive psychology tips to building strong marriages, abundant living, sexual desire, the definition of a good leader, and of course ... Martin Seligman's 3 most formative books.

Let's flip the page to Chapter 165 now ...

Chapter 165: Martin Seligman on overcoming overthinking and opting for optimism 

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Martin

Martin'’S 3 Books

  • First Book (20:54)

  • Second Book (45:39)

  • Third Book (1:09:20)

wORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “When you deprive people of the belief that they have agency, they’re passive. They don’t do well. They fail. And when you instill the belief, they succeed.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I’m an optimist about the future, and in fact there’sbeen a development in the last decade which is I think the mostimportant technological development of my lifetime, and that’sartificial intelligence.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The question was what could I do to be more visible with my grandsons? So I went to Claude, Anthropic’s AI, and I said, ‘Claude will you help me become a storyteller, about Max and Denny and Stone Harbour?’ And I went to ChatGPT, and I said, ‘Hey will you help me illustrate these stories with cartoons and oil paintings?” And now we’re on book six, chapter 20. Max and Denny tour the solar system, and now I’m visible to my grandkids. They can’t wait to see me before they go to bed at night. They get the latest installment. So the first way in which AI has helped an 84-year-old grandfather is to increase more love in my life.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The theory I had was that in 1000 B.C.E, in all five of these languages—Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese—they didn’t have the words for human agency. They didn’t have the words like ‘ability’, ‘capacity’ for humans. But by 500 B.C.E, they invent the words. And it’s the words themselves that drive agency.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “In my life, in spite of the doomsayers, my agency has increased enormously. And it’s not just that Claude organizes my files—Claude is a discoverer.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The notion of agency depends on their being real human progress.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Bertrand Russell said, “The mark of a civilized human being is the capacity to read a column of numbers and weep.” And I thought another mark of human civilization is the ability to read a column of numbers and cheer.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “There’s a psychological state that we’re capable of having, the belief that I can achieve my goals—that had been the driver of human progress. And in its absence, when you think that God does it or fate does it or it’s all random, that’s when we stagnate.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Agency is malleable. We can increase it ... but we can also destroy it. It’s fragile, and importantly there are ideologies that destroy it. So if you’re a pessimist for example, you probably don’t believe in human progress.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “As we think about the human future, if we want more political freedom, better quality of life, more technology, better literature, and advances unflawed, it’s incumbent on us to increase and to teach our young people and to have ideologies of human agency.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think optimism is too important to be left to the optimists.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Even at age 84, which I turned yesterday, I’m still learning.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Misery loves company, company does not like misery.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Positivity doesn’t come naturally. What comes naturally is negativity. And what has to be learned is agency and positivity.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “What we think goes on to change historical events.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If we can increase people’s agency, increase people’s optimism, that’s going to produce a more agentic human future.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I’m very attentive to dreams, dreams are serious stuff. No one knows why we have them, a lot of speculation, but I think we should attend to our dreaming, and I think psychology should regard REM sleep as more than an electric phenomenon. I think it can change our lives.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think the past and the present do not have a deterministic relationship to what we do in the future, but rather we metabolize the past and the present, picking out the thoughts and the images and the lessons that will help us in the future, and discarding the rest. The whole notion of choice is essential to notions of human agency.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think while leadership is heterogeneous, followership is not.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “For me, the judgment of leadership is not inwhat leaders have in common, but the fact that the goodleaders increase well-being.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I don’t have that many more years in me, and I am gonna spend my remaining time hanging out with Claude and ChatGPT. They’re the best colleagues I’ve ever had.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think there really is a deskilling that can happen if you use AI too early in writing. I think it’s best to become a good writer first, and then use it as a supplement.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I don’t know why we’re here, but I think human progress and human agency is the purpose of life.” - Martin Seligman | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 164: Nick Epley invites introverts into improved interpersonal interactions

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Happy full moon, everybody!

Humans are the most social species on the planet.

So ... why don't we act like it? Why is loneliness rising? Why are we increasingly entombed in echo chambers? What is preventing us from connecting?

Enter Nick Epley, Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and one of the world's leading researchers on the psychology of social interaction.

Nick grew up in rural Iowa, lives in Chicago with his family, and has spent his career asking a deceptively simple question: Why do the most social creatures on Earth often choose to be less social than they could be?

Nick is the author of ‘Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want’, and his newest book, ‘A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection’.

His research spans social cognition, perspective-taking, loneliness, anthropomorphism, and why our judgments about people are so often inaccurate. Nick has been featured in The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. His course at Booth, ‘Designing a Good Life’, is an ethics course exploring how to build lives that are ethical, successful, and genuinely fulfilling, and it's among the school's most sought-after classes.

Pull up a chair and let's talk about the differences between introversion and extroversion, the ethics of a good life, parenting five children (yes, five!), how technology is affecting the ways we socialize, the uncertainty effect, finding wisdom, and of course… Nick Epley's 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 164 now...

Chapter 164: Nick Epley invites introverts into improved interpersonal interactions

View full transcript here

CONNECT with NICK

NICK’S 3 Books

  • First Book (19:41)

  • Second Book (45:42)

  • Third Book (59:51)

wORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “Reaching out and lifting other people up benefits your own well-being.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The golden rule, ‘Do onto others as you would have them do onto you’, is sort of the moral foundation for every ethical system on the planet.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We’re increasingly isolating ourselves from others and this is not something, as far as I know, that’s happening to any other mammal on the planet except for us.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Technology: making the world more and more efficient, making us more and more independent is also making us less and less social than we used to be.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The bias that we’ve been studying for decades now is that we tend to be overly pessimistic about how other people will respond to us when you reach out and connect to them—particularly strangers.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Reciprocity is the dominant social norm for our species.Conversations tend to end the same place they begin. So, if it begins positively with the positive outreach, it tends to end pretty favorably too.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The only thing that we hate worse than the worst possible outcome is the uncertainty that we might experience the worst possible outcome.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Uncertainty itself is negative for most people and it’s aversive on its own.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Our work focuses primarily on well-being and happiness—trying to understand why people avoid social interaction when often it turns out well and tends to be one of the things that’s most enjoyable and meaningful in our lives.That’s an interesting paradox in my mind.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The thing that really seems to differentiate introverts and extroverts is not actually their experience in social interaction. So it is not true, for instance, that extroverts get theirenergy from other people and introverts get their energy from being alone. There’s just no data at all to support that.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “What differentiates extroverts and introverts are their beliefs about themselves. These are really labels we put on ourselves that may or may not bear that much relation to our actual choices or our experience.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Because we only see other people’s extroversion, but we see our introversion, we tend to think that we are uniquely introverted, which isn’t quiet right.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It’s that gap between our beliefs about the way the world works and the reality of the world, that’s where wisdom sits.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We can’t anticipate very well how we’re going to feel in situations we haven’t been in.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

  • “When in doubt, reach out.” - Nick Epley | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 163: Jon Klassen talks turtles, tackling tension, and turning toward the terrifying

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Happy Buck Moon, everyone!

As we sink into the summer heat, I'm thrilled to welcome Jon Klassen on 3 Books!

Jon is a Canadian born, LA living author and illustrator whose darkly humorous, minimalist storytelling has helped define contemporary children’s literature.

In 2016, Jon concluded his breakout book series ‘The Hat Trilogy’, which features ‘I Want My Hat Back’, ‘This Is Not My Hat’, and ‘We Found a Hat.’

‘This Is Not My Hat’ was the first book to ever win both the American Library Association's Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal.

Jon’s books have now sold over 12 million copies (!) and he might be the most decorated children’s book author alive.

About a month after we recorded this conversation, Jon won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award—a prestigious children’s and young adult book award that he accepted from Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden at a ceremony in Stockholm.

Nobody deserves this award more than Jon.

He is a genius wordsmith, a remarkable illustrator, and a passionate father of two.

In this chapter, we talk about Jon’s writing routine, what makes a good illustration, the value of accepting fear when writing, how to draw a lying turtle, comfort with contradiction, men's fashion tips, what makes a good children’s book, the publishing industry, and of course… Jon’s 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page to chapter 163 now…

Chapter 163: Jon Klassen talks turtles, tackling tension, and turning toward the terrifying

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Jon

Jon’s 3 Books

  • First Book (18:48)

  • Second Book (40:39)

  • Third Book (1:15:04)

wORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • "Toronto goes through weather together. LA doesn't go through weather together. There's nothing that groups us that way." - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • [Talking about success] "I think it's hard to fit that into your brain and I think I've also seen that it can affect the work if you try and swallow all of it, if you try and internalize it, because you think you ought to, because it's very rare, right? And so you should, you should pay the scale tribute somehow and try to hold it. It's very hard because the work depends on quiet and like weird moods. And those things can get affected when you think that it's gone big or that it's gone very well." - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • "I try to try things out." - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • "I think I've become more distrustful of language generally." - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I like turtles because they can’t express themselves physically — it’s just the shell with like sticks out of it. And so you don’t know how the turtle is feeling based on his body language, there’s no way to know, except his eyes.” - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You’re not the writer necessarily that you’d like to be, you’re something else completely.” - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • “My best stuff, or at least the stuff I’m proudest of, is when it really surprises me completely.” - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I’m very nervous as a writer, and I think I’ve learned to count on that as a thing that drives it.” - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • "I do get in trouble sometimes for implying that kids lie or for showing kids people lying ... but kids lie all day. They're fascinated by lying." - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So much of my work is reactive. I don’t like making things from scratch. I like reacting and seeing the best I can do with something that’s given to me.” - Jon Klassen | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 162: Shawn Achor on becoming boundlessly buoyant by building better beliefs

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Happy Strawberry Moon, everyone!

As we ease into summer and the hydrangeas and garden roses begin blooming here in Toronto, I find myself struck by the awe and beauty that quietly surrounds us each day.

There’s so much science behind how we experience the world. My guest on this moon’s chapter of 3 Books has spent his career proving just that.

Join me in welcoming one of the world’s leading experts on happiness and human potential, a Harvard-trained positive psychologist and researcher whose ​TED Talk​ has been watched over 30 million (!) times, and a genuinely warm human I am proud to call a friend ... Mr. Shawn Achor! (pronounced like "acorn" without the n, btw!)

I first met Shawn in Abu Dhabi, years ago, when we were both invited to speak to the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates.

I arrived a few days early, for dress rehearsals, long dinners, and meet-and-greets with various extended family members, and then Shawn showed up.

He flew in, crushed it onstage, dropped research studies like he’d memorized all of Google Scholar, and immediately flew out.

I was left thinking: Who was that masked man?

Well, over the years we became friends, and he was kind enough to blurb ‘​The Happiness Equation​’ after selling a million copies of his own wonderful book, ‘​The Happiness Advantage​’.

And then ... where did he go?

Shawn just sort of ... disappeared.

I found out why in his new book, ‘​The Power of Beliefs​’.

After his daughter Zoë was born three months early, spending 50 days in the NICU, Shawn decided to take a break—six years of no media, no international talks, no new books.

Six years!

But Shawn is still Shawn. An amiable son of an English teacher and a neuroscience professor, with multiple Harvard degrees, and a witty, research-centric writing style that is precise and uniquely compassionate.

Tune in as we discuss Shawn’s new book, his seven core beliefs (and their seven scars), the power of the placebo effect, what six years of "disappearing" taught him about parenting and living a more meaningful life, the psychology of awe, the cost of measuring your worth through comparison, and of course ... the brilliant Shawn Achor’s 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 162 now...

Chapter 162: Shawn Achor on becoming boundlessly buoyant by building better beliefs

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Shawn

Shawn’s 3 Books

  • First Book (25:49)

  • Second Book (45:24)

  • Third Book (54:26)

Word OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “If you look at this world, especially with AI and with advances in biotechnology, it feels like the role of human belief is on the decline.” – Shawn Achor | 3 Books Podcast

  • “There’s this hunger for people to find meaning and belief that they don’t know what to do with.” – Shawn Achor | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you take the same world but change a belief, same world but a different belief, you get a different outcome.” – Shawn Achor | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We’re comparing ourselves to people who have more when there’s so many people who have so much less.” – Shawn Achor | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Moments of awe … I feel like are fleeting in adult life, because we feel like we’ve seen everything, and I feel like we’ve lost it.” – Shawn Achor | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 161: Yann Martel on rural revelations and reliable writing routines

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Happy blue moon, everyone!

Yes, it is indeed the second full moon of the month which brings us a second May chapter of 3 Books.

This one features an author I’ve been hoping to have on our show for years.

Join me in welcoming the Booker Prize–winning novelist, deeply philosophical storyteller, and one of Canada’s most distinctive literary voices ... Mr. Yann Martel!

Yann is best known for ‘​Life of Pi​’​, the global phenomenon that won ​The Booker Prize in 2002​, sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and was later adapted into an ​Academy Award–winning film​.

Born in Salamanca, Spain in 1963, Yann spent his childhood in Spain, Portugal, Alaska, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada.

Yann’s work is deeply shaped by a pulsing curiosity, philosophy, and research. He journeyed through India while developing ‘Life of Pi’​, visited Holocaust memorial sites while writing ‘​Beatrice and Virgil​’​, and even launched a "guerilla book club" called ‘​101 Letters to a Prime Minister​’​, where he mailed books to former Prime Minister ​Stephen Harper​ every two weeks for four years.

Yann's newest novel, ‘​Son of Nobody​’​, is a (new!) ancient retelling of the Trojan War told through the modern lens of a Canadian researcher who discovers this poem while exploring themes of homesickness, regret, ambition, love, and grief.

Tune in as we discuss Yann’s writing routines, the importance of stories, AI in the world of publishing, racism in Australia, art as a co-creation between writer and reader, the beauty of the prairies, and of course, Yann Martel's most formative books...

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 161 now...

Chapter 161: Yann Martel on rural revelations and reliable writing routines

View full transcript here

CONNECT with YANN

YANN’s 3 Books

  • First Book  (19:40)

  • Second Book (49:25)

  • Third Book (1:00:58)

  • Bonus Book (1:01:19)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “One thing I’m certain is there’s always going to be a hunger for stories.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Art is manufactured meaning.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I don’t need AI to help me write cause it would be like having AI have sex for you or eat for you. I’d rather do it myself.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “There’s something about the written word that uniquely speaks to the human psyche.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I’d rather look upon the extraordinary than dwell on the ordinary.”  – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Necessarily, footnotes refer to something above it … they don’t exist on their own, they’re necessarily like us, they’re social animals.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I’d rather have less good poetry by a human than excellent poetry by a robot.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Metaphorically, the tallest thing here in the prairies is the human being.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “To me, everything in life is about connection and chemistry. Everything meaningful.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

  • “For writers, I would say turn your back on the world. The world will always tell you it doesn’t need another book, another poem, another play—it’s not true.” – Yann Martel | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 160: Nita Prose on mastering manuscripts and making Molly the Maid

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Happy ​Flower Moon​, everyone!

Up in Toronto we're experiencing a wonderful blooming, a beautiful ​bird migration​, and lots of slowly-getting-warmer days as we inch towards summer.

With this warm spring breeze I’m thrilled to welcome our latest 3 Books guest: a luminous force in publishing, a powerhouse editor-turned-author, and a wonderful storyteller ... the one and only ​Nita​​ Prose​!

Today Nita is best known for her ​Molly the Maid​ mystery series which features three main titles and a holiday edition—‘​The Maid​,’ ‘​The​​ ​​Mystery Guest​,’ ‘​The Mistletoe Mystery​,’ and ‘​The Maid's Secret​’—which have collectively sold over 2 million copies.

Raised in Ontario’s Simcoe County, Nita began her career by contributing to literary magazines, became a production editor with HarperCollins, and then became a Senior Editor at Doubleday.

She then held the lofty publishing position of Vice President and Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster Canada and oversaw titles by authors like Rupi Kaur (​@rupikaur_​), Kate Morton (​@katemortonauthor​), Iain Reid (​@tidydissolve​), and... me!

Nita was the editor of my book on resilience ‘​You Are Awesome: How To Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life​’ which came out in 2019 and my book on gratitude and community ‘​Our Book Of Awesome​,’ which came out in 2022.

Nita has since left publishing to write full-time and today her phenomenal career and perspectives offer a true publishing and writing masterclass.

Tune in as we discuss: What does an editor actually do? How do you get a job in publishing? What writing routines structure Nita’s stories? Why might you keep the novel you're writing a secret from your long-term partner? How do you write an allegory? And (of course!) which 3 books most shaped her life?

We talk about creating characters grounded in emotional truths, measuring success within the labyrinth-like writing industry, the importance of reading across genres, and much, much more.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 160 now...

Chapter 160: Nita Prose on mastering manuscripts and making Molly the Maid

View full transcript here

CONNECT with NITA

NITA’s 3 Books

  • First Book  (27:10)

  • Second Book (40:44)

  • Third Book (1:03:24)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “Sometimes through the metaphor of story there can be greater truth than in fact.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The proximity to books is the biggest gift and you make the sacrifice of monetary gain for that." – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I measure success by writing a story that moves me . . .  and hopefully moves some other people.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  •  “Rule number one for my world I created is emotional truth. Then rule number two is what can I get away with believably where the reader can step into my experience and complete the picture.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think libraries are so hugely important, and I hope that books stay at the heart of libraries—although they also are acting and need to be acting as community hubs.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Not everything that a novelist writes is meant to be a hard cold fact. Almost every novel in some way or another is allegorical.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “There's a part of me that becomes very plastic and malleable, fragile and flexible in that creative state and I want to be the only person manipulating in that state.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I don’t give advice, all I can do is give story.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • "The thing about a career in the arts is that it is always, always a wild wild ride so you gotta buckle up. The lows are low, the highs are high (as so many of my friends in publishing say) and I think that's so very true. But I wouldn't have it any other way.” – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

  • "If you want to be a writer you need to read. What I mean is don't only read for pleasure, don't only read what you like, but read to dissect." – Nita Prose | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 159: Eve Harlow on bolstering bibliophilia and boosting bookish brains

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We welcome global galavant and raging bibliophile Eve Harlow on 3 Books!

Born in Russia, raised in Israel, living in Canada and the U.S., Eve Harlow is an talented actress best known for roles in The 100, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Night Agent, and her current star turn as Dr. Ingrid Derian in Watson, the medical-mystery thriller inspired by stories of Sherlock Holmes.

Somehow between her busy acting schedule, Eve finds time to read a book a week. She's a library junkie, a reading phenom, and posts stacks of her latest reads @eveharlow between red carpet shots and behind-the-scenes clips from her shows. 

This is a conversation for all of us who aspire to grow our love of reading books amidst the digital deluge. We live in worlds designed to tease our brains into shallow skimming. So how does Eve do it? What systems does she use? How does she think about her reading life? And (of course!) which 3 books shaped her more than any others? 

We talk about reading habits, magic realism, identity in a politically robust and privacy-eroded world, deliberate daydreaming, building resilience, and much, much more. 

Pull up a chair and join us in this bookish conversation.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 159 now...

Chapter 159: Eve Harlow on bolstering bibliophilia and boosting bookish brains 

View full transcript here

CONNECT with EVE

EVe’s 3 Books

  • First Book (13:09)

  • Second Book (27:47)

  • Third Book (51:16)

WORD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “I do love reading. It's always been a part of me.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We take our day-to-day life for granted and we get so used to habits and patterns.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think that people are inherently good. And we all at the very core want the same thing, which is safety and love for ourselves and the people that we love.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Reading is exercise for my brain. And if I don’t do it, I find that I get kind of depressed.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Books are a way to escape and ground myself at the same time.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think now we live in this time where everybody feels like they have the right to everyone's personal information. And I don't think that that's necessarily healthy. And I think that it kind of stifles imagination.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The only way that we will get through anything is like empathy, is communication, is listening, and we're losing all of that.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Reading feeds your brain and feeds your soul in a way that nothing else does.” – Eve Harlow | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 158: Sonja Lyubomirsky helps harness happiness by honing hearty habits 

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​Sonja Lyubomirsky​ is one of the most influential happiness researchers of our time.

Sonja moved to the United States from Moscow at age 9 in the 70s. She went to Harvard and Stanford in the 80s and began studying happiness in 1989 ... longer than almost anyone else alive! Positive psychology wasn't "founded" by ​Martin Seligman​ and ​Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi​ for another decade.

Sonja has published hundreds of papers including her ​Most Cited 2005 paper​ which defined the field by flipping a long-held assumption on its head: That happiness doesn’t follow success but causes it.

Sonja is now following up her bestsellers '​The How of Happiness​' and '​The Myths Of Happiness​' with a new book called '​How to Feel Loved​', a joint effort co-written with relationship expert ​Dr. Harry Reis​, which is a culmination of 30 years of research that all point to one central truth: that feeling loved (not just being loved!) is a crucial ingredient of happiness.

In this conversation we talk about the four horsemen that can ruin a marriage, what MDMA does to our brains, why small talk doesn’t build connection, the best advice for dating, how our brains respond to love, the single best way to feel happier today, and, of course, the eminent Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky's 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 158 now...

Chapter 158: Sonja Lyubomirsky helps harness happiness by honing hearty habits 

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Sonja

Sonja’s 3 Books

  • First book (14:22)

  • Second book (35:54)

  • Third book (51:49)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “I realized a few years ago that almost all of the interventions that work to make us happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more loved by others, right, and more connected.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Most people will report to have at least one relationship in their life that they would like to feel more loved in.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We can be loved but not feel loved.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you want to feel more loved, the first step is to make the other person feel more loved first. So we can talk about that, but it's really empowering because it's not about changing yourself. It's not about changing the other person. It's about changing the conversation.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Feeling loved is often at the root of relationship problems.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “3 buckets to determine happiness: genetics, life circumstances, what can we do everyday/how we think/behave/act.” (condensed quote) — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Money really does make you happy if it keeps you from being poor ... But it also depends on how you spend it. So it turns out if you spend money on connection, on contribution, helping others on personal growth, learning is going to make you happier than if you spend your money on just like buying more stuff.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you want to feel more loved, you need to change your conversations and approach your conversations differently, or have more of them. So it's not just small talk, conversations in which you really listen, where you show curiosity, where, where you share, you help the other person to share.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The most powerful happiness booster is anything social.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If I were to give you sort of my, like one tip to be happier today, it would be to go out and have a 15 minute conversation with someone.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The best thing that you could give your kids is a good marriage.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We crave to be known, seen and heard.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So like it's sort of money, power, beauty, sort of status, fame. So those are the things that accomplishment and that we chase and we think those are the things that like will make us happy. And by the way, I still kind of chase those things too.Like I think we all, you know, even if we know very well that that's not the chasing that doesn't make it make us happy.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Feeling loved or feeling connected is sort of curiosity, genuine curiosity, listening and sharing.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Give more compliments to each other.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 157: Paul Hawken junks jargon to jolt generations

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Paul Hawken is a brilliant thinker, author, activist, and elder who masterfully distills wisdom about our planetary home.

I remember hearing Paul's 2009 commencement speech called "​You Are Brilliant and The Earth is Hiring​" where he said "You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Paul is the author of nine bestselling books including '​Drawdown​', '​Regeneration​', and his latest book '​Carbon, The Book of Life​'—an incredible book that came out in 2025 and masterfully distills endless planetary wisdom into simple truths we all need to hear. (I included it in '​The Very Best Books I Read in 2025​.')

Grab a seat between us and let's talk about how nature cooperates, why fighting climate change is the wrong metaphor, why the climate crisis is a human crisis, how jargon disconnects, and what decades of activism have taught Paul about being human.

This conversation with a sage of sages stuck with me and I think it'll stick with you.

Let's flip the page into Chapter 157 now ...

Chapter 157: Paul Hawken junks jargon to jolt generations

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Paul

Paul’s 3 Books

  • First book (22:28)

  • Second book (1:04:20)

  • Third book (1:20:55)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “I feel like there's so much rhetoric, which is sort of, it doesn't obfuscate, but it's jargonizing the situation. And jargon is a good way to actually occlude understanding as opposed to generate understanding.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Climate change is a silly term.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The living word is extraordinarily cooperative. Cooperative actually is kind of a small term for what they're doing because exquisitely interactive and symbiotic is probably the better description of the living world.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I would never say I am an environmentalist... I understand what why people use that word, you know, but it's also a word of separation.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Everyone is an environmentalist because they live in the environment.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We need to go tell it on the mountain because we are listening to the wrong voices..” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I always saw the outside as sort of sacred, you know, as a sanctuary, and the inside as a danger zone.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I love to share, but not in sort of a didactic, you know, prose style, you know, where listen up, you know, I got something to tell you.... It's really the opposite, which is, you know, trying to open up areas for the reader that invoke or evoke really a sense of wonder and curiosity.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You could spend 12 lifetimes and you wouldn’t really understand what is outside.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The only remarkable thing about me, I believe, is that I am intensely curious.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The ingredients of a great walk are that you're finding your way.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “All life is flow.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think when you're walking, you know, you're entering into a non static relationship. And most of our relationship with nature is static.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You know, the fact is climate, uh, you can't fight it. You can't combat it. You can't tackle it, you know? And so what you've done, you know, is other climate, you've made a thing that you can do things to fix, you know, it's another male verb, you know? Um, and, uh, and that thinking is the cause of global warming, othering nature, othering people, obviously, othering resources, othering the earth that we live upon, you know? And then, you know, and then it just goes out there to, oh, we're going to fix the climate. We're going to do this to the climate, you know, we're going to combat it, tackle it, you know, there's these sort of heroic imagery of complete nonsense because the biosphere and the climate are absolutely inseparable.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The climate movement has failed, no question about it.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We have a crisis. I couldn't agree more. It's not a climate crisis. It's a human crisis. A relationship, understanding, greed, violence, power. You know, there's a whole list there, you know, that's the crisis. Global warming is the symptom.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And for me, when you read something like that, at least for me, anyway, so far, you know, your brain cells change. In other words, your capacity to understand to speak to parse to discern changes, because it's coming right at you and going into your, you know, your neurons.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And I just suggest that there's another way of looking at time and our passage, and that can be imbued with grace and kindness and patience and understanding as to what other people are experiencing.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So if we're here for our short time, it's a very short time that we are in our body. Uh, who do we want to be during that time?” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I have no advice on being a parent... My kids are really amazing and I don’t take any credit for that.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We're creating ultra-processed children. Because they have to be smarter and better and they have to get ahead of thinking in junior high school, junior high school about what universities and colleges they're going to apply to.) I mean, getting ready and studying those universities and who gets in, who doesn't, and all that sort of stuff. I mean, there goes childhood.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We have too much. There's too much money and that it's kind of like stepping on a fork, you know, a rake really just hits us. We have the money and now we pay and pay and pay not in monetary terms, but in so many other ways in terms of our life and our relationships to whether it's our parents or children or others. And it's very difficult to be wealthy in this culture at this time. And that sounds like a ridiculous term because everybody's trying to be more wealthy. But I think that actually it works against us.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

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Chapter 156: Salim Amin chronicles courage and compassion in crisis and conflict

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Africa is the world's second largest continent—by land and population!

One and a half billion people spread across fifty-five countries. It's huge! Even a trip there, even many trips there, can only scratch the surface. But we're trying! My mum was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1950, and I recently returned from my first journey to Africa where I met incredible people and heard remarkable stories.

In this third African chapter of 3 Books I sat down with Salim Amin where we discuss what it means to be a great citizen in the world today and how leading with compassion and curiosity can be some of the balm the world needs.

As some background Salim's father Mo Amin lived from 1943 to 1996 and at his peak was the single most well-known photographer ... in the world! His photos of the 1984 Ethiopian famine were the basis of the famous ​Live Aid​ concert and directly responsible for saving millions of lives. Salim is going to share some of the most memorable stories from his dad's remarkable career and legacy ... all of which happened before he tragically died in a hijacked plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Today Salim is the CEO of ​Camerapix​, the legendary (and first-ever!) African media agency, which owns all his dad's photos—of dictators, wildlife, assassinations, and more—and he's become a documentary filmmaker, producer, author, journalist, and TV host in his own right.

Salim's documentary "​Mo & Me​" won over a dozen prestigious awards including the "Grand Jury Prize" at the New York Film Festival and I loved his stunning photo book "​Kenya: Through My Father's Eyes​."

I was thrilled to sit down in-person—in Nairobi!—with Salim, at the Camerapix office, to discuss legacy, identity, fatherhood, purpose, and formative books. There are some absolutely wild stories in this chat you won't soon forget!

Let's flip the page into Chapter 156 now ...

Chapter 156: Salim Amin chronicles courage and compassion in crisis and conflict

View full transcript here

CONNECT with SALIM

Salim’s 3 Books

  • First book (7:58)

  • Second book (1:17:44)

  • Third book (1:18:30)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “That is what journalism is supposed to be objective, unbiased reporting. Unfortunately, that has changed.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Unfortunately I think the journalists have become more important than the story.The personalities have become more important than the actual people that they're reporting on.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Young people today think that what they see on social media is reality.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We are in an age where people want to get everything in 148 characters. And you can’t.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So our job now has changed from being the bearer of the news to providing context and background and reality and giving people a historical look at why this incident happened, what is the context behind it, and then where are we going togo in the future rather than just that one snapshot.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “What's interesting is when the world is in a much worse place than it was in the 1980s—we have so much more technology and resources but yet we cannot do a movement like that (Live Aid) again.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We really do need to mobilize humanity.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I made it clear to people that I will never achieve what my father achieved. I will do my own thing.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Right now when you search AI for things, you come back with a very white, western male-dominated answer.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Want to put together an institute of truth.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “In a world of increasing intolerance, it’s very important to educate people on religions.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Every religion in the world comes from the same place.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Let me make the best of what my situation and circumstances not be envious or jealous of other people and not look down at other people because of what you feel is your privilege in life.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Be good to people. Be kind to people.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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