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Books podcasts were talking about in September 2020
In September 2020, various podcasts explored topics ranging from practical life skills and entrepreneurship to creative philosophy and demographic futures. On Timcast IRL, the host referenced Matthew Yglesias's work regarding population growth and national strategy, alongside an invocation of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart to discuss social entropy. Entrepreneurship and personal enterprise took center stage on The Jordan Harbinger Show, where Guy Raz discussed his book How I Built This, detailing the realities of building businesses from the ground up. Modern Wisdom featured multiple discussions on personal organization and psychological development. The host spoke with Erin Zammett Ruddy about her book The Little Book of Life Skills, which compiles essential adulting lessons, and touched upon Rachel Hoffman's tidying movement and book Unf*ck Your Habitat. Later on Modern Wisdom, the host and guests examined human behavior and self-improvement, referencing Robert Plomin's book The Blueprint and Michael Malice's experiences documented in Ego and Hubris. On the Lex Fridman Podcast, Joe Rogan recommended Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art, emphasizing the importance of respecting the creative muse and doing the hard work required to bring ideas to life. The unifying theme across these September conversations was the pursuit of mastery, self-reliance, and structured personal growth, whether managing daily habits, building business enterprises, understanding genetic blueprints, or overcoming creative resistance to achieve professional and personal fulfillment.
Timcast IRL
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One Billion Americans
Discussed“you know matthew iglesias for vox wrote this article i guess i think it was him called like the case for one billion americans”
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Things Fall Apart
Discussed“things fall apart entropy”
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In Defense of Looting
Discussed“it's really interesting in that uh a book I don't know if you guys saw it the uh in defense of looting Have you seen that one”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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How I Built this
Discussed“you know you do i do a lot of you know my whole new book is about this”
Modern Wisdom
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The Little Book of Life Skills
Discussed“life doesn't come with an instruction manual and upon reading your little book of life skills i've realized how much of the stuff you realize kind of just emergently”
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Unf*ck Your Habitat
Discussed“and this is rachel hoffman again from unfuck your habitat and she says then leave the room and then come back in and look at it”
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The Blueprint
Discussed“Have you read robert plowman's blueprint”
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Hubris
Discussed“i have a friend michael mallis and he had a book written about him that's called ego and hubris”
Lex Fridman Podcast
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The Art and Reflections of Stephen Epstein
Discussed“i always felt like that with bits like when i come up with a bit that's why i'm i'm always telling people about the stephen pressfield book the war of art because he talks about uh respecting the muse and the idea that your ideas come”
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Lost in Math
Discussed“so there's uh uh Sabine Hassen Felder I don't know if you're familiar with her she uh she wrote this book uh that I need to read”
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Introduction To Algorithms
Discussed“the first thing that popped into my crazy mind which is the introduction to algorithms book also called clrs for the first letters of the last name of its four authors”
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Einstein
Discussed“There's a great book that I recommend people read called proving einstein right by jim gates that talks about like the hard work that people try to do years after to try to experimentally validate the predictions that einstein made with uh with his theories”
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The Worm at the Core
Discussed“uh his whole idea is that ernest becker i think i i find this idea really compelling is uh that everything human beings have created like our whole motivation in life is to uh create like escape death is to try to uh construct an illusion of um that we're somehow immortal It's like everything around us this room your”
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Run River
Discussed“and i was reading this you know the the book the year of magical thinking by joan didion about her losing and blue knights about her losing her husband her daughter and the way to cope for her was to write those books”
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Be Your Own Shaman
Discussed“and then there were some other books like i don't know uh mostly just self-help books around how to be the best conversationalist or um how to make people like you or some other stuff like dale carnegie or whatever uh and then there was this one book the most human human by brian christensen that really was important for”
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Surfaces and Essences
Discussed“my choice is um so the one book that really influenced me a lot when i was building starting out this company maybe 10 years ago uh was gb go to leicester block and um i like everything about it”
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On Becoming a Person
Discussed“so that's one that um probably the most important book for replica was carl rogers on becoming a person um and that's really and so i think when i think about our company it's all about there's so many there's so many little magical things that happened over the course of working on it”
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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Discussed“It was um the ludwig whitney constant quote the limits of my language the limits of my world what was the quote the limits of my language are the limits of my world um and i love the truck tattoos i think it's just it's just a beautiful it's a book by wickedthat”
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In Search of the Miraculous
Discussed“so yeah my life's been i've been incredibly lucky and things just miracles happen all the time with this company with people i know with everything around me And so i didn't mention that book but maybe in search of miraculous or in search for miraculous or whatever the english translation for that is good russian book too for everyone”
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
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The Trump Tapes
Discussed“you probably saw the book that came out with the tapes of trump saying that you know he was trying to play it down sax as a lifelong republican what were your thoughts when the republican presidential candidate the republican president said uh hey i'm trying to play this down”
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The House of Morgan
Discussed“but then um i started reading ron chernow's um biography of uh oh yes rockefeller yeah and so i don't know if anyone's made it through that 727 page two i got about 500 pages in It is detailed”
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The Fish That Ate the Whale
Discussed“uh i'll just give my closing the fish that ate the whale a book about sam zumari who was the banana king”
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I Love Capitalism!
Discussed“another uh interesting book you might like i love capitalism by ken langone who um you know built uh he built uh home depot and it's a pretty great story about both stories of capitalism”
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
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Strengths-Based Nursing Care
Discussed“laurie gottlieb is a psychotherapist and new york times best-selling author of maybe you should talk to someone which is being adapted as a television series with eva longoria”
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Everything Is Figureoutable
Discussed“and the reason why i wanted to reach out to marie to do this is her new book is out on september 10th it's called everything is figure outable”
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How I Defied the Odds
Discussed“and today we're going to dive into his new book which is called can't hurt me about mastering your mind and defying the odds his name is david goggins”
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Phantoms in the Brain
Discussed“if you've read yes ramachandran ... just that if people haven't read him he is extraordinary”
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Legacy and the Double
Discussed“and anyone who's out there right now i've got the copy of the book right here legacy and the queen you can go grab it”
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Crushing It!
Discussed“and i don't think many people knew this when i first came in and interviewed for crushing it which was so much fun”
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#AskGaryVee
Discussed“q a i started a show called the askgaryvee show i wrote a book called askgaryvee”
The Realignment
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The war on normal people
Discussed“You wrote your book before you ran for your candidacy, but how many years before that did you kind of see the Fourth Industrial Revolution kind of happening before your eyes?”
