Today is book club. Two recommendations draw from ancient wisdom to prescribe an RX for our daily lives, and the third is an alchemy of money, history, and psychology to reveal what never changes in a changing world.
Meds for our time.
Mediations for Mortals
This isn’t the sit still and breathe kind of meditation, and self-help skeptic and Brit Oliver Burkeman isn’t some out-there Yogi. Meditations for Mortals follows his NYT best seller Four Thousand Weeks and continues its theme of reframing the misguided ways we approach our daily lives.
I love this book for so many reasons. It doesn’t waste words. Burkeman, a former journalist for The Guardian writes in a calm, down-to-earth, humble and unpretentious manner, and he’s done the work. He draws from philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology to diagnose what ails us and how to treat it.
Meditations for Mortals is a four week daily regimen of microdoses of wisdom inviting us to reframe our notion of time and that pesky feeling that we’re not doing enough, not doing whatever we’re doing right or fast enough, and that we’re not “getting there” — that point in the future where everything’s going to fall into place. He draws from a wide variety of sages, impelling us to stop trying so hard, do less in order to do more, expect less to feel more satisfied, and accept that “there” is here. Might as well settle in and enjoy it.
Just like you wouldn’t go to the gym just once and declare victory, these daily meds are best repeated over and over again.
The Let Them Theory
Mel Robbins rivals Joe Rogan in podcast popularity, and hit it big with her #1 NYT best seller The Let Them Theory. She’s a shout to Burkeman’s calm voice, sandpaper to his smooth, understated style, a pop culture marketing machine (“I am absolutely the single best female speaker in the world,” Robbins was quoted as saying in a recent WSJ article), and succinct, she’s not. But she’s stumbled on something that is making a big difference for people.
Her “simple mindset hack” dates back to stoicism and buddhism and is beautifully described by Viktor Frankl in his 1946 Man’s Search For Meaning: ”Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Robbins explains, “When you ‘Let Them’ do whatever it is that they want to do, it creates more control and emotional peace for you and a better relationship with the people in your life.” In other words, when we get triggered by something someone has said or done, or that we have experienced, we simply say “Let Them.” Not in a snarky hands-on-hips kind of way, but in a rise above it, don’t let it get to you kind of way. And the next step, “Let me,” is the positive action you take instead.
Say, for example, you’ve stopped to get your morning latte on the way to work only to find the line long and the service extra slow. Instead of getting agitated, you simply say “let them” and “let me” listen to some music, a podcast, or talk to someone in line.
Her cult-like following goes far beyond The Let Them Theory. You can sample it and her other antidotes through her podcast and videos.
Same as Ever
Morgan Housel is a fun, engaging storyteller who writes at the intersection of money, history, and psychology, revealing surprising truths. His first book, The Psychology of Money is the best book I’ve ever read on the subject. Everyone should read it no matter what stage of life. So when he released Same as Ever, I couldn’t wait.
The introduction starts with a story of a man having lunch with Warren Buffet in late 2009 during the throes of the Great Recession lamenting, “It’s so bad right now. How does the economy ever bounce back from this?” Buffet asked the man what the best-selling candy bar was in 1962. It was Snickers. He then asked what the best-selling candy bar was in 2009. Snickers. And what’s the best-selling candy bar today in 2025? Snickers.
Same as Ever is delivered in 23 short chapters showing that no matter where you sit in the world, there are “timeless lessons from human behavior that are some of the most important things you can ever learn . . . and once you grasp it, you’ll be able to to make better sense of your own life, understand why the world is the way it is, and become more at ease with what the future has in store”
It’s worth noting that the book was published in 2023, before our current moment could have been conceived of.
It’s strangely comforting to realize that the “world breaks on average every 10 years,” and that good news tends to compound slowly, such as our advances in treating cancer and heart disease, while bad news often comes in the form of big surprises that happen overnight. Collectively, his stories provide perspective and prescribe preparation — concretely and psychologically.
A decade ago, Housel said he began to read more history than forecasts. More books than newspapers and magazines. “And the irony is that the more history I read, the more comfortable I became with the future.”
Same for me.
There’s nothing new in any of these books. The authors themselves say so. Housel ends his last chapter with:
Same as it’s ever been
Same as it will always be
Same as it ever was
Enjoy!
Sunday Morning: 182