I grew up talking about triangulation at the dinner table. When I discovered Donella Meadows' Thinking in Systems, I realized that same framework applies to chaotic mornings, broken business processes, and why your best solutions keep backfiring. Here's why systems thinking might be the most useful lens you've never heard of.

I used to lose my wallet and keys multiple times a day. My ADHD brain viewed "habits" as a personal attack. Then I read Atomic Habits by James Clear and discovered the one-word swap that changed everything: systems over habits.

Clear doesn't just preach willpower. He teaches you to design environments where good choices become inevitable. From the British cycling team's "aggregation of marginal gains" to my NFC-tagged supplement bottle that timestamps my calendar, this book isn't about discipline. It's about design.

You're not broken. Your system is. And systems, unlike habits, can be rebuilt.

Most business owners look at their bank balance and think they know what they can afford. They don't. That $50,000 sitting there? It's already spoken for—taxes, payroll, planned expenses. Profit First fixes this with a brilliantly simple five-account system that makes profitability structural, not aspirational. And it actually works with how humans behave.

Alex Karp says specialize early. Skip college. Go deep, not broad. But here's the irony: Karp himself took the most generalist path imaginable—liberal arts, law school, philosophy PhD, money management, then tech CEO. David Epstein's "Range" reveals why the advice successful polymaths give rarely matches the path they actually took. In complex, unpredictable environments (which describes most of modern work), generalists consistently outperform early specialists. The evidence is compelling, the implications are profound, and the permission it offers—to explore, to pivot, to be a late bloomer—might be exactly what you need to hear.

The Hike is aggressively weird. Not quirky weird or whimsical weird, but the kind of weird that makes you stop reading and ask "what is happening?" multiple times per chapter. It's The Odyssey for suburban dads, if Odysseus did psychedelics. Drew Magary's frenetic novel follows Ben, an ordinary guy who goes for a hike before a dinner meeting and gets trapped in a nightmare world where the only rule is "stay on the path, or you will die." It's unsettling, relentlessly strange, and somehow one of the most emotionally honest stories about love and persistence you'll ever read.

I grew up in a family that talked about faith, theology, philosophy, and tech—but never money. Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money is the book I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago. It doesn't pretend there's secret wisdom only financial gurus possess. Instead, it gets into the real, behavioral nuts and bolts of how we manage our funds. This is practical wisdom about why we make the financial decisions we do, and how small, sustainable habits compound into life-changing results. If you've ever felt like you missed some crucial money conversation growing up, this review is for you.

When I picked up "Unreasonable Hospitality" after Jacob Wayman's recommendation, I was deeply skeptical. Another book about being nice to customers? But Will Guidara's approach revealed something far more profound: how systematic excellence creates the foundation for genuine human connection. From healthcare leadership to fine dining, this book transformed how I think about creating exceptional experiences. It's not just about being friendly, and it's not just about being efficient—it's about building systems that enable both to flourish in remarkable ways.

As someone who spent over a decade in pastoral ministry, I've sat through more faith-based productivity talks than I care to count, each promising that if you could just 'keep the main thing the main thing,' somehow everything would fall into place. However, Jordan Raynor's 'Redeeming Your Time' surprised me.

As someone who grew up in eastern Kentucky in the 1990s, I approached Barbara Kingsolver's 'Demon Copperhead' with deep skepticism. Stories set in Appalachia often miss the mark—they either romanticize a past that I'm pretty sure never existed or dismiss and belittle the communities and people I grew up in. However, upon reading it, I found much of this book feels like home.