Here’s my conversation with journalist Meghan Daum and clinical psychologist Andrew Hartz, Ph.D. on episode 14 of the Open Therapy podcast.
Links for Spotify and Apple Podcast.
From the archives:
Killing A Bad Strategy Before It Kills you
The Only Reading App I Use:
I’ve been using Readwise since April of 2021.
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter/X, you’ll know I regularly share screenshots like this from books or articles I’ve read:
These screenshots come from my Readwise app.
Readwise aggregates your reading highlights from various sources like Kindle, Apple Books, Substack, Twitter, and so on. It stores your highlights in one place, making it easier to stay on top of your reading.
Each morning, it emails me 8 random excerpts from different books I’ve read. Since 2021, that daily message has been a quiet ritual for me: fragments from books I half‑forgot are resurfaced, like my own past self giving me a tap on the shoulder.
Moreover, when I’m thinking about a particular topic, a quick search pulls up not just my notes but every highlighted Kindle passage I’ve ever saved on the topic.
Exclusive Offer for My Readers
Use this link → https://readwise.io/robkhenderson/ to try Readwise free for 60 days (double the length of the standard free trial).
I suspect, like me, you’ll wonder how you ever read without it.
Links and recommendations:
25 Years after 9/11: An event on Sept 8 in NYC. Register here.
First-World Problems Were Once an Emperor’s Problems by Adam Omary
The End of an Era by Hugh Howey
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings:
1. In almost every society on Earth, men are more likely than women to be murdered. Most of the time, the killer is a man as well. Women kill much less often, but when they do, the victim is usually a husband or a boyfriend. Apparently, both sexes prefer to kill men. (source: A Billion Years of Sex Differences by Steve Stewart-Williams).
2. Happier couples tend to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Rather than assuming “My partner doesn’t care,” they’re more likely to consider that the other is tired, distracted, overwhelmed or simply unaware of the impact of their behavior. (source; h/t Joshua Coleman).
3. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin: “Ideas do have great influence. The Nazis seemed to grasp this fact when they took care at once to eliminate intellectual leaders in conquered countries, as likely to be among the most dangerous figures in their path; to this degree they had analysed history correctly.” (source: Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin).
The paperback version of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class is now available.
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Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)
re: #2 (the Gottman piece), we call this "Generous Explanations" and it goes a long, long way in preserving harmony at home.