October 3, 2023

Finding the right book at the right time can transform your life or your organization. We help you discover your next great read by showcasing four recently released titles each week.

The books are chosen by Porchlight's Managing Director, Sally Haldorson, and the marketing team: Dylan Schleicher, Gabbi Cisneros, and Jasmine Gonzalez. (Book descriptions are provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted.)

This week, our choices are:

Dylan’s pick: Building a Non-Anxious Life by Dr. John Delony, Ramsey Press 

No one needs to be told that our lives are filled with more anxiety than ever before. We know it. Our bodies can feel it. The questions we really need to answer "Why?" and "Is there anything we can do about it?" 

Dr. John Delony decided to get to the root of the issue by mapping out a plan to understand where our anxiety is coming from and the actions we can take to change it (because he's been there too). Over the past twenty years, he's learned through research, personal experience, and walking alongside countless others that there are six daily choices people have to make to create a non-anxious life:  

• Choosing Reality 
• Choosing Connection 
• Choosing Freedom 
• Choosing Health and Healing 
• Choosing Mindfulness 
• Choosing Belief 

In this no-nonsense, straightforward approach to mental health, John will break down exactly what each choice means and how to start making it on a daily basis.  

Now, here's the truth: Those choices aren't easy, and anxiety isn't going to magically disappear. But if you commit to building a non-anxious life, you'll be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you. You'll grow from hard challenges. You'll learn to find peace during chaos.  

And you will learn to be well. 

Gabbi’s pick: A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life by Farnoosh Torabi, Atria Books 

Farnoosh Torabi is familiar with fear. Growing up in the 1980s as the daughter of Iranian immigrants, she was warned to proceed with caution and play it safe. She spent her childhood immersed in fear—of rejection, loneliness, missed opportunities, and falling short of her potential. Of course, now her mother says, “It all worked out, didn’t it?” Funnily enough, it did. Farnoosh came to the realization that fear never limited her. Instead, it has become a friend, opening her world and equipping her with the tools and street smarts to navigate life’s trials and thrive on her own terms. 

Now, Farnoosh pairs stories from her immigrant upbringing with hard-won industry knowledge and data to show how leaning into your fears can help you take control of your financial future. With clear-eyed advice and an engaging, heartfelt voice, she lays out the nine most common fears that hold us back—both personally and in our financial decisions—and shows how these fears can be pivoted into strengths and mined for wisdom to help us achieve richer, more meaningful lives: 

1. The Fear of Rejection and how it leads to self-discovery and where we are loved. 
2. The Fear of Loneliness and how it promotes strength, resilience, and empathy. 
3. The Fear of Missing Out and how it begs for self-reflection and promotes individuality and boundaries. 
4. The Fear of Being Exposed and how it heightens awareness and draws comedy and connection. 
5. The Fear of Uncertainty and how it accelerates our goals and finds order in the disorder. 
6. The Fear of Money and how it encourages landing on your (true) money story and pursuing financial freedom. 
7. The Fear of Failure and how it helps us to embrace red flags and the next right thing. 
8. The Fear of Endings and how it sparks action, deepens an appreciation for what endures and unveils the beauty in regret. 
9. The Fear of Losing Your Freedom and how it fuels self-advocacy and inspires a legacy. 

Discover how to become more self-reliant and financially resilient, how to invite more calm and control into your daily routine, and how to stop hiding from fear and instead invite it into your living room, where it can serve you in building your best life. 

Jasmine’s pick: If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins, PublicAffairs 

From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. If We Burn is a stirring work of history built around a single, vital question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for? 
 
From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon. 

Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future. 

Sally’s pick: The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories that Inform, Influence, and Inspire by Karen Eber, Harper Horizon 

What makes a story perfect? How do you tell the perfect story for any occasion? 

We live in a story world. Stories are a memorable and engaging way to differentiate yourself, build connection and trust, create new thinking, bring meaning to data, and even influence decision-making. But how do you turn a good story into a great story that informs, influences, and inspires? 

In The Perfect Story, Karen Eber—leadership consultant, professional keynote storyteller, and TED speaker—shares the science of storytelling to teach you to: 

• Leverage the Five Factory Settings of the Brain to hack the art of storytelling 
• Build a toolkit of endless story ideas 
• Define the audience for your story 
• Apply a memorable story structure 
• Engage senses and emotions 
• Tell stories with data 
• Avoid common storytelling mistakes 
• Use your body to tell dynamic stories 
• Ensure your story doesn't manipulate
• Navigate and embrace the vulnerability of storytelling 

Without relying on complicated models or one-size-fits-all prescriptions, this book makes storytelling accessible with practical and impactful steps for anyone to tell the perfect story for any occasion. 

Through interview vignettes, The Perfect Story also shares approaches from different storytellers, including the Sundance Institute cofounder, an executive producer of The Moth, the former creative director at Pixar, the TED Radio Hour podcast host, and many more. 

Whether you are leading a team, giving a presentation, hosting a podcast, selling a product or service, interviewing for a job, or giving a toast at a wedding, The Perfect Story will help you take your stories and make them perfect.

WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING AT HOME

"I'm reading How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann. It fuses the wistfulness and nostalgia of children’s fairy tales with the drama and humor of recognizing and healing from trauma as an adult."

—Gabbi Cisneros, Creative Director