“Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” by Adam Grant

This is a Malcolm Gladwellesque book. It is light reading, breezy, but highly informative: giving you new facts followed by anecdotes to prove the point. I had not known that people who do not use the default browsers to access the internet (Explorer or Safari) tend to be happier at work and stay at their jobs longer. Grant gives tips like procrastinate strategically (Martin Luther King did not begin writing his “I have a dream” speech until 10pm the night before) and balance your risk portfolio (Phil Knight and Paul Allen kept their day jobs while founding their companies). His most interesting section is on raising original children: set values not rules, complement character not specific behavior, find role models outside of parents (even fictional ones), and explain reasons, do not dictate. The advice often seems obvious, after the fact, but still hard to implement consistently in actual daily life.