3 Books With Neil Pasricha

Oh, this life, this world. As Mitch says, once you find purpose, and once you find style… what’s left? Beauty. What’s left is finding and putting out beauty into the world. There are not many writers who have genuinely figured this out … but one of them is Mitch Albom. Mitch is the bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie, the bestselling memoir of all time, as well as The Five People You Meet in Heaven and his new book, The Next Person You Meet In Heaven, which just debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list this week. His books have sold over 40 million copies. Mitch just doesn’t turn off. He’s like a Tasmanian Devil. He’s hosting a radio show, he’s on TV, he’s writing columns in the Detroit Free Press, he’s a musician, he’s even running an orphanage in Haiti. Mitch is full of energy and life and moves quickly and talks quickly … and so we talked about that. We go deep into why he moves through life so fast. We unpack his relationship with Morrie and talk about how I actually misinterpreted parts

“On the one hand, information wants to be expensive because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time.” Recognize that quote? It’s from a conversation between Steve Wozniak and Stewart Brand at the very first Hacker’s Conference in 1984. We’ve heard it so many times. Information wants to be free. And in many ways, it already is. We live in The Information Age, a time when you can find the answer to just about any question with the push of a button. But if that is the case, then why is the paid speaking industry expanding? Why pay five or six figures to bring a big name athlete or author to your conference when you could just watch the video for free online? We have all this free content everywhere, yet the value of live is going up. Well, maybe when we have more online content, we miss out on other things. We have less … attention. We have less …

Do you remember the first person who introduced you to the love of reading? Was it a teacher? A parent? A friend? For me, it was my third-grade teacher. I remember on the first day of class we all gathered on this old, dusty green carpet and Mrs. Dorsman asked us all where we went that summer. “I went to Japan,” she began, with her eyes bugged open, “… and to Australia … and the waterfalls of South America … and to the Moon… and to Mars!” And then she looked around the room and dropped the final bomb. “Through … books!!!” Mrs. Dorsman lit a fire inside me that day. But what if you don’t have an incredibly soulful teacher who loves books? Who flicks the lighter to ignite that burning passion within you, within any of us? Well, these days, we have BookTube. According to The New York Times the BookTube community has gotten over 200 million views and engagement is up 40 percent versus last year.   And one of the most popular BookTubers in the world is Ariel Bissett. With hundreds of thousands of subs

What was the first TED Talk you ever watched? Was it Do schools kill creativity? by Ken Robinson? Was it The power of vulnerability by Brené Brown? Whatever it is I bet you felt a bit like you stumbled onto an oasis. The Internet is junky! The whole thing feels like a pack of cougars just ran through a dollar store. Pop-up everything, ads screaming at you, and everything feels like a fish-hooks tugging at your eyeballs. TED is the opposite. TED doesn't beg for personal info, force you to open an account, quick-pick your wallet for your credit card, or do anything other than help spread ideas to shape, grow, and inspire your thoughts.   It is beauty in the scat-filled dollar store.  So, who's Ted? Who runs TED? Who's the 18-minute-or-less Emperor?  It's Chris Anderson. The Pakistani-born, Oxford-educated, New York Times bestselling... Chris Anderson.  In this Chapter, I fly down to New York City and sit with Chris in his office. We uncover his three most formative books and discuss developing willpower, tackli

Our world is so full. Our world is so busy. Our world is so cluttered. Newspaper boxes. Pop-up ads. TVs in elevators. There are so many things trying to grab our attention. So many reaching out with their little fish lures to poke and grab us into signing up for their newsletters. Don't you ever feel like it’s just too loud? I say what we need in this world of constant stimulation are ... editors. Not the people who correct your spelling and grammar. I’m talking about those among us who can be bastions of clear thinking. Pinnacles of clear communication! Who can strip away the noise and give us clear ideas in the simplest ways. Our next guest is the very first editor to be interviewed on 3 Books. Kerri Kolen is the super editor behind mega-hits #Girlboss, A Stolen Life, Lion, and even my very own The Happiness Equation ... I was delighted to visit Kerri in her home in Washington DC to chat about her three most formative books. We discuss escaping into armoires, preserving imagination, fighting for feminism, a

Do you make your own luck? Do you really control what happens? Or do you simply dump everything you can in the system, press the big green button, and then hang on for the hairy-scary ride? Elan Mastai is the award-winning screenwriter and novelist behind one of my favorite books of last year – the incredibly fast-paced, head-twisting, and emotionally moving sci-fi epic All Our Wrong Todays. I was crying hot salty tears when I reached its final pages and was delighted when Elan accepted my invite to share his three most formative books on our show. And! Just to tease the very first story he shares. Elan received a $1,250,000 advance for his first book. You read that right. A seven-figure book advance for All Our Wrong Todays. His first book! How did that happen? Well, I ask him, and you’re going to love the story he shares. And then we get deeper into ambition versus contentment, how hard you push versus what you get, and whether or not we control the inputs and the outputs… or whether we all have to really l

Do you remember the comedy dry zone? I’m talking about the barren, hardscrabble times when getting a free laugh from the comfort of your toilet wasn’t easy. Before Internet memes, before parody Twitter themes, before viral SNL skits, before ShowerThoughts subreddits, before LOLCats and even before giant email chats… … there was one man. The inimitable, indomitable, indefatigable Dave Barry. Beginning in 1983 and running for over twenty years, Dave Barry sent his syndicated humor column out to over 500 newspapers from his home base at The Miami Herald. Every single week his columns offered guaranteed laughs and a fresh, head-tilting way of seeing the world. Dave Barry poured perspective on political conventions, kicked socialites off soapboxes, cajoled critics into colonoscopies, and even popularized International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Together with MAD Magazines and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, Dave Barry columns gave me and millions of others a drink … in the dry zone. I was beyond nervous to fly down to M

  It’s getting tougher to grow up these days. We’re surrounded by endlessly reflecting images of everyone else having fun without us.  There are incredible pressures to achieve, to be ourselves and be different, to stand up and stand out, to follow big footsteps… and follow our hearts at the same time.  A friend said to me the other day “When I was in high school and I’d stay at home on a Saturday night I assumed my friends did, too. Now my daughter sees all her friends out partying without her on social media. Right after they told her they were busy.” It broke my heart.  But it’s happening right alongside rising anxiety, loneliness, and depression rates around the world. So what does coming-of-age look like these days? How do we keep our children safe, raise our families, tap back into our best selves, and stay focused on what matters most?   These days I don’t think anybody is addressing those big questions better than Sarah Andersen, author of Sarah’s Scribbles. Every one of her cartoons taps into the fee

In this Chapter of 3 Books, I jump into the backseat of Vishwas Aggrawal's Uber and take a trip you won't soon forget.  This is a story about setting your own standards in a world constantly hammering us into "human resources."  This is a story about setting your own winning lines in a world that wants us to be widgets. This is a story about raising the bar for yourself and deeply valuing the human connection and love that has the potential to exist between every single one of us.  Uber has no formal leaderboard, reward mechanism, or pay-for-performance tied to driver rating. So why would Vish care? Why would he care about giving thousands of rides and pouring in day after day of high-end customer services to establish an incredible 4.99 rating? Why would he clean his mats between every trip, only eat raw vegetables in his car, and develop masterful scripts that help riders feel deeply valued in the middle of their busy days? Why bother? Join me in the backseat of Vish's Uber as we slowly circle closer and cl

Did you grow up with Judy Blume? My mom says I “found my voice” reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to my sister in the bathtub when I was a little kid. Well, I grabbed that tattered copy and carried it with me down to Key West, Florida where I had the extreme privilege of sitting down with the one and only Judy Blume (@JudyBlume). Join us as Judy shares her three most formative books, how they inspired her, and we pull out some themes relevant to today. Judy and I met on a hot and sweaty day in her Books & Books bookstore … where she works! I’m not joking. Step off your cruise ship and Judy Blume will ring up a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey if you like. We grabbed a little circle table, set it up in front of the bestseller wall you see behind us, and then talked about her most formative books. (As a special bonus, near the end of the chat we get up out of our seats and Judy gives us a walking tour of her store!) In this chapter, Judy and I discuss censorship, why sexy scenes should be kept in books, h

Welcome to the fifth chapter of 3 Books where I chat with Gretchen Rubin (@Gretchen Rubin) in the Penguin Random House studio in downtown Toronto.  I met Gretchen ten years ago before her New York Times bestsellers The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and The Four Tendencies took the world by storm with over three million copies sold. And before her fantastic podcast “Happier by Gretchen Rubin” was launched scoring over 40 million downloads. Back in the day we were just blogger friends who swapped stories and shared meals whenever we were in each other’s hometown. I’ve since watched her become one of the world’s most thought-provoking observers of human nature. Chatting with Oprah, hanging with The Dalai Lama, being the question to Jeopardy answers. You know. That’s just how she rolls now. The point I’m trying to make is I’m lucky she still takes my calls. In this chapter, Gretchen talks about why she rereads certain books so often, why readers are shifting away from self-help books and towards biograph

Welcome to the first chapter of 3 Books recorded live in an open bookstore! Book City is in the heart of Toronto's beautiful Bloor West Village neighborhood and that's where I settled into the children's section to talk blame, beauty, and growth with my favorite bookseller in the world -- the one and only Sarah Ramsey. I love Sarah because she takes the art of bookselling seriously and seemingly reads people’s minds to find the exact book they need to help them grow. As we always say: Humans are the best algorithm. Listen in to hear us touch on themes of beauty, loss, and honoring ones we love... What you'll learn: What makes a great bookseller? Who owns grief after loss?  How do you honor a life through storytelling? What Judy Blume book is the first to appear on 3 Books? What is one of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard involving marital guilt, shame, and Kindles? Why are humans the best algorithms? How can books transcend generations? What memoir helped invent the category -- and have we "over-memoired"

I flew down to New York to uncover and discuss the most formative books of the one and only Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) from his Hastings-On-Hudson studio. Seth is the bestselling author of Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes and many more books and is known as one of the world's biggest thinkers in communities such as TED and the Direct Marketing Association. This year he is being inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame. And did I mention he writes one of the most popular blogs in the world?  In this interview we discuss where Seth sees publishing going and his thoughts on the changes we're seeing in how people read and spend time. Seth shares his opinions on blurbs, acknowledgments, and his unique perspective on work-life balance. He also gives insights into how we can change our own world by changing the narrative inside our heads. And that's just a taste. I sat in Seth's studio transfixed, mesmerized, and hypnotized by one of the world's best brains.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Big thank you to th

From a sunny balcony in San Diego overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Frank Warren of PostSecret and I uncover and discuss his three most formative books and pull out the resonant themes affecting us all. How do we give people a voice? In a flattening world, how do we build trust with new people? And what are the lessons we can take and apply to our own lives from these three life-changing books? Leave us a voicemail! Your message may be included in a future episode: 1-833-READ-A-LOT You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/2 Sign up to receive podcast updates here: https://www.3books.co/email-list/

Welcome! This is an unusual first chapter. In every other chapter I'll have a guest, their three most formative books, and a discussion touching on life's biggest themes. But this one? You'll join me and my wife Leslie in an intimate chat in our basement just after we put our kids to bed. I share my idea of starting 3 Books and talk about the rough vision, goals, and values of the show. She asks some surprising questions and you'll hear me struggling with my desires and the shape of the show.   Leave us a voicemail! Your message may be included in a future episode: 1-833-READ-A-LOT You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/1 Sign up to receive podcast updates here: https://www.3books.co/email-list/

Listen in for a hint of what's to come with five-time NYT Bestselling Author Neil Pasricha's brand new podcast: 3 Books With Neil Pasricha. Click here to visit the http://3books.co/ website. Click here to Subscribe to the new podcast in iTunes. Click here to Subscribe to the new podcast in Stitcher.