📚 4 New Books, Reading advice from a librarian, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• This is super cool: I was featured in my first Inc. Magazine article!

• Shoutout to all the people who have 50+ unread books in their home.

• Great article on how to make people read again from the chief librarian at the New York Public Library.

This week’s newsletter was made possible by:

Bad news is good business. We never bought in.

Every morning, financial news follows the same script. Headlines panic, coverage catastrophises, and somewhere inside the noise is the story that actually matters — the one that tells you where the opportunity sits, not just where the fear is pointing.

Most sources have stopped looking. The alarm is easier to sell.

The Daily Upside was created by Wall Street insiders for readers who crave real insight over recycled anxiety. Five minutes of global business and finance, before the noise sets the agenda — just the facts, context, and analysis your decisions need.

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📚 Book Summaries:

A few of my author friends have published new books recently, so I wanted to share them here.

Please read the short summaries of each and then vote on which one you’d like me to summarize in-depth below!

📖

1) “Superteams” by Ron Friedman

What do the best teams do differently?

To find out, award-winning social psychologist Ron Friedman surveyed thousands of teams and pinpointed the precise habits that separate the best from the rest. It turns out that the most successful teams aren't the ones that collaborate most, get along best, or put in the longest hours. What really sets them apart is the way they manage their energy and attention, bring out the best in one another, and keep improving over time.

📖

2) “How To Not Know” by Simone Stolzoff

From our careers to our politics to our personal lives, the future is unknown.

Through gripping stories of people grappling with big problems without easy answers, from an economist trying to predict the next market crash to an island nation reckoning with the existential impact of climate change, acclaimed journalist Simone Stolzoff shows how to develop comfort with ambiguity and build tolerance for the unknown.

📖

3) “The Mental Strength Playbook” by Amy Morin

Improve your performance with 50 practical, science-backed tools that build emotional resilience and neutralize negative thoughts.

Learning how to manage your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors will help you recover from setbacks faster and optimize your mental game to excel in high-stakes situations. Morin’s workplace-specific strategies are organized to make solving your specific issue quick and easy.

📖

4) “Inside The Box” by David Epstein

Total freedom can be paralyzing, and unlimited resources don’t necessarily lead to the biggest breakthroughs.

David Epstein argues that all of us—individuals, businesses, institutions, even societies—can benefit from narrowing our options. He dives into the science and practice of constraints, exploring exactly when and how guardrails can be beneficial, whether we’re working with limited resources or using self-imposed boundaries to tap unexpected wells of focus and innovation.

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Thank you for your support,

Alex W.