Name: The psychology of self-esteem
ISBN: 9780787945268

What Hacker News says

IsaacLDec 2019

Thanks for sharing your story.

My own story has some similarities to yours -- I joined an elite startup accelerator straight out of university, thought I had a bunch of pretty damned good business ideas to work on (and looking back, I did -- I had a pretty good understanding of business strategy, engineering, product design, etc) -- but then ended up bouncing between jobs and quickly-aborted startup attempts, before crashing pretty hard around age 26-27. Meanwhile plenty of my peers steadily moved forwards while a few others shot off into the stratosphere.

I actually knew Leo Widrich, author of the article, back in university! Two guys had set up the "Internet Entreprneur Society" at our university in the British midlands, I was helping them run it as they were about to graduate. Leo was an Austrian business student with lots of passion and just starting to learn about tech startups. He ended up working with one of the two guys I mentioned (Joel Gascgoine) on some tweet scheduling app which is now apparently worth about $80m :) Small world!

As for myself, after several setbacks in my late 20s, I realised I had a whole bunch of psychological/emotional issues stemming from an unstable childhood. What's surprising is that with time and effort all these problems were, in fact, fixable... and through lots of reading and self-work I've managed to fix 80-90% of these issues. Like you, my desire to build a startup business empire has diminished greatly, and, nowadays, after learning all the things I've learned, I've rethought my career plans, and figured out a new direction to go down which ties together the various things I'm interested in, and which I'm very confident I can succeed at. (I'd rather not go into details in a public forum, but's it essentially a path that combines intellectual and technological projects).

(For those in a similar situation, the best books I read were: "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents", "Running on Empty: Overcoming your Childhood Emotional Neglect", "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving" and "Psychology of Self-esteem". I also recommend the post "What is a central purpose in life?" (plus comments) [1] for a discussion of how to integrate one's career values).

[1] http://aristotleadventure.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-is-centr...

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SpinningCodeSep 2017

Psychology of Self-esteem by the same author is brilliant

https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Self-Esteem-Revolutionary-...

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lionheartedSep 2009

I've been trying to get through a book a week recently, and not quite succeeding. Here's the three I'm going through right now (no affiliate links):

Arabian Nights, Hussain Haddawy's translation. Hilarious and many life lessons, strongly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/Arabian-Nights-New-Deluxe/dp/039333166...

Healthy at 100, John Robbins. Just started, looks promising. http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-100-Scientifically-Healthiest-...

The Psychology of Self Esteem, Nathaniel Branden. Gosh, Branden's so smart, I just wish he'd use smaller words and sentences so I could get his general ideas faster. http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Self-Esteem-Revolutionary-A...

I just gave up on "Execution" by Larry Bossidy, it seems good but I wasn't connecting with it right now.

I read "Katsuno's Revenge and Other Tales of the Samurai" recently, which was a good, short book. It's like 120 pages, with six stories or so. A few of them were interesting, a few didn't speak to me, but overall worth a read. You'll learn some underpinnings of Japanese culture from it. (Also, it's only $9 on Amazon right now, can just add to cart for next order) - http://www.amazon.com/Katsunos-Revenge-Other-Tales-Samurai/d...

Finished "The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan" recently - very interesting, it's a look at the more political machinations and presents a dirtier, less ethical picture of the great strategists in the Sengoku era. http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Banner-Classics-Japanese-Liter...

Don't start with it if you're not familiar with the era, though, you'll get the general sense wrong. I'd recommend start with Eiji Yoshikawa if you like Japanese history and want to learn more - of course, start with "Musashi", which is fantastic. If you really like it, "Taiko" is good too.

Musashi (my favorite book, huge for people who have lots of potential and are having a hard time dealing with people close to them because of it) - http://www.amazon.com/Musashi-Eiji-Yoshikawa/dp/4770019572/r...

Taiko (start with Musashi, if you like it a lot, pick up Taiko) - http://www.amazon.com/Taiko-Eiji-Yoshikawa/dp/4770026099/ref...

Also, finished The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing which is the best business book I've read in a long time. Short, simple, to the point. Highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-Violate/dp...

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