Philosopher's Notes

I love Phil Stutz. If you’ve been following along, you know he’s my Yoda, my spiritual father, and one of the people who has most profoundly shaped my life and work over the last decade. This is the fourth Note I’ve created on one of his books, and like Lessons for Living, reading it felt like sitting in a coaching session with him. In True and False Magic, Phil gives us a practical workbook on how to access our infinite potential by leaving the Safety Zone, becoming a conduit for higher forces, and doing the hard thing even when every part of us wants to avoid it. The message is pure Phil: your potential exists outside your comfort zone, action drives creativity, and the only way to build a life of real power is to keep the promises you make to yourself. Big Ideas we explore include Your Infinite Potential, Higher Forces, The Safety Zone, Action Drives Creativity, and You Must… Keep promises to yourself.

Adam Grant is one of THE most respected and popular thinkers/authors/writers in the world. In Hidden Potential, he challenges the common belief that greatness is mostly born rather than made and shows how we can all rise to achieve greater things. Instead of obsessing over natural talent, Grant focuses on the often overlooked skills of character that help us get better at getting better. Along the way, he shows why imperfectionists often outperform perfectionists, how deliberate play can transform the daily grind of practice, why progress sometimes requires backing up before moving forward, and how we can redefine success around growth and character rather than status and accolades. Big Ideas we explore include Skills of Character, The Imperfectionists, Deliberate Play, Backing Up to Move Forward, and Redefine Success.

This is the fourth book in Ryan Holiday’s Stoic Virtue Series, following Courage Is Calling, Discipline Is Destiny, and Right Thing Right Now, and it delivers what the title promises: wisdom is not something you possess once and for all, it is a practice of learning, applying, and repeating over the course of a life. Ryan brings together stories of readers, writers, philosophers, athletes, generals, and statesmen to show that wisdom requires study, reflection, physical discipline, humility, and the willingness to make mistakes without being broken by them. He reminds us that we can talk to the dead through books, build a second brain by capturing what we learn, strengthen the mind through the body, and become wiser not by pretending to know everything but by staying teachable and doing the work. Big Ideas we explore include Talk to the Dead, Create a Second Brain, A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body, Make Mistakes, and Exemplary Leadership.

As I mentioned in my Note on Rise Above, I’m a very big fan of Scott Barry Kaufman, and Transcend shows exactly why. In this book, Scott answers Abraham Maslow’s late-life hope that someone would carry his work forward, and he does it with love, rigor, and a modern scientific lens that feels like Maslow 2.0. The centerpiece is a brilliant upgrade to the famous hierarchy of needs: ditch the pyramid and picture a sailboat, with a secure hull (Safety, Connection, Self-Esteem) and open sails (Exploration, Love, Purpose), dynamically integrated as you move through life’s oceans. Scott then tests Maslow’s theory, distills the most evidence-backed characteristics of self-actualization, and takes us beyond self-actualization to what he calls healthy transcendence: integrating your whole self in service of cultivating the good society. Big Ideas we explore include A New Metaphor (Pyramid to Sailboat), Self-Actualization (10 characteristics), Exploration (adversity as fuel), Purpose (live it wisely), and Transcendence (a Heroic north star).

Bronnie Ware spent years caring for people in the final weeks of their lives and had the courage to ask them what mattered most. The answer became The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. The most common regret was not living a life true to oneself, followed by working too hard, not expressing feelings, losing touch with friends, and not allowing more happiness. This memoir weaves her own Hero’s Journey with bedside wisdom that forces us to confront death, clarify our values, and choose differently while we still can. Big Ideas we explore include On Regret, On Death, The #1 Regret, Purpose, and Happiness, each inviting you to live with courage, presence, and far fewer regrets.

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the very best storytellers in the world when it comes to translating science into practical tools. This is the third Note I’ve created on one of his great books, and Supercommunicators might be his most important yet because it’s all about how to unlock the secret language of connection. Charles shows us that in every moment we’re actually having one of three conversations, practical (What’s this really about?), emotional (How do we feel?), or social (Who are we?), and the best communicators know how to match what the other person truly needs, to be helped, hugged, or heard. Big Ideas we explore include the three conversations, the four rules for meaningful connection, looping to understand as the #1 technique, how to approach tough conversations, and the ultimate rule beneath it all: LOVE.

Hal Hershfield’s Your Future Self explores the science of “future self-continuity” and shows that many of our worst decisions happen when we treat our future selves like strangers. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and behavioral research, he demonstrates that when we strengthen the connection between who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow, we save more, procrastinate less, make healthier choices, and live with greater intention. The core idea is simple but profound: how you imagine your future changes how you behave in the present. Big Ideas we explore include Current You & Future You, Caterpillars, Conquering Procrastination, Pre-Commitments, and Time Traveling.

I can’t quite believe I made it this far without reading Will Durant. I knew the famous line about excellence being a habit was his poetic paraphrase, not Aristotle’s, but I had never actually sat with his work until that 101 books in 101 days stretch. Heroes of History made me fall in love with the man. Written in his mid-nineties after more than sixty years mastering his craft, this book is Durant the philosopher writing history, inviting us into what he calls a “Country of the Mind” where the great souls of civilization still live and teach. We meet Confucius and his call to reform the world by cultivating the self, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens with both its brilliance and its shadows, Jesus as the greatest spiritual revolutionist, and Michelangelo as a testament to disciplined creative labor. Big Ideas we explore include Meet Your Heroic Guide, Confucius, Pericles, Jesus, and Michelangelo, each reminding us that history is philosophy teaching by example, and that leadership begins with the mastery of your own character.

Will Durant is one of the great philosopher-historians of the twentieth century, and in this short but powerful book he tackles the ultimate question: What gives life meaning? After being confronted by a man who said he would end his life unless Durant could give him a reason to keep living, Durant realized he wasn’t satisfied with his own answer. So he wrote to one hundred of the most respected thinkers of his era, asking them what gives their lives purpose, energy, and fulfillment. The result is a fascinating collection of reflections from figures like H.L. Mencken, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and Mohandas Gandhi, followed by Durant’s own deeply personal response. The answers vary, but they converge around work, service, love, and the pursuit of something larger than ourselves as the foundations of a life worth living. Big Ideas we explore include The Letter, H.L. Mencken on laying eggs, Stefansson on carnivore, Gandhi on battling evil, and Durant answers his own questions.

I read this book the day after I read Admiral William H. McRaven’s Conquering Crisis. Admiral McRaven and General Stanley McChrystal are two of my favorite leaders and authors, and they both share the same rare combination of real world gravitas and practical wisdom you can apply immediately. This is the second Note I’ve created on one of General McChrystal’s books, and On Character is exactly what the subtitle promises, a collection of sharp, thoughtful essays on the choices that define a life, organized into three parts: Conviction, Discipline, and Character. McChrystal gives us a simple equation that is as elegant as it is demanding, Character = Convictions x Discipline, meaning if you lack either deeply held beliefs or the discipline to live up to them, the product is zero. Big Ideas we explore include character as convictions multiplied by discipline, your life take two, obsession as the price of the exceptional, what a hero really is, and closing the gap with the final roll call.