Niklas Heer

I like the ideas that this book presents. Overall it is well structured and has some memorable stories in it. What I found a little bit too much was the focus on millennials. As far as I know the science is not that clear if the stereotypical differences hold up so I would have preferred less focus on this group. But I might be biased since I belong to that generation.

All things considered I can recommend this book to every leader or to everyone interested in that topic.

This book gave me many insights based on psychology, philosophy, and historical wisdom throughout cultures.
The only critique I could give is that the first half of the book felt a lot shaper and dense with insights than the other half.
I recommend the book to everyone seeking to understand human nature.

In the book “The Righteous Mind”, Jonathan Haidt expands on his elephant and rider analogy from “The Happiness Hypothesis”. The book's main idea is that moral judgments don't arise from rational reflection, but from instinctive feelings buried deep in our subconscious minds. The divisions we see in the world (e.g. political ideologies, religion) are because different people have different internal moral foundations, which come in 6 different flavours.
These flavours are:
- Care/Harm
- Fairness/Cheating
- Loyalty/Betrayal
- Authority/Subversion
- Sanctity/Degradation
- Liberty/Oppression
Further, Haidt's research suggests that while liberals tend to concentrate on the care/harm, fairness/cheating, and liberty oppression foundations, conservatives view all six of these different foundations as essential.

This idea of intrinsic moral foundations has shifted my view on politics and religion.
I can recommend this book to everyone seeking to understand humanity better.

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport is a book about the implications of modern technology and how you should focus on a few carefully selected activities that support the things you value instead of getting sucked into an endless attention-grabbing media feed.
The ideas about high-value leisure are very intriguing for me. It shifted my perspective on how I think about leisure time.
The idea of a thirty-day Digital Declutter is excellent! It reminded me of an idea from the Minimalist movement where you have a packing party, pack up all your stuff in boxes, and for thirty days you get the things back out of the boxes if you need them; everything which is left in the boxes after that you can safely give away.

These are the five big ideas in summary:
1. Digital Minimalism: “A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”
2. Digital Declutter: A practice in which you define your technology rules, take a thirty-day break, and reintroduce technology.
3. Solitude Deprivation: A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your thoughts and free from input from other minds.
4. The Social Media Paradox: Social media makes you feel both connected and lonely, happy and sad.
5. The Bennett Principle: A practice in which you prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption, use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world, and seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions.

Overall, I can highly recommend this book to everyone who feels that they could use a little less of the modern, attention-grabbing technologies like Facebook or YouTube in their lives.

This book is one of the most insightful books I've read so far. I knew that sleep is important, but I didn't know how much sleep humans actually need and what the difference between actual sleep and sleep opportunity is. Everyone needs between 7 and 9 hours of sleep opportunity to fulfil basic human needs. Sleep helps us to be healthy, get less sick, remember things and learn.
It shifted my perspective on sleep. It is not only important; it should be seen as the foundation of everything else.
Sleep should be everyone's number one priority every day.
The book itself is packed with scientific studies and stories. I especially like the recommendation it gives at the end of the book.
I recommend everyone to read this book.