If we want to be kind and moral people, it seems obvious that we should practice empathy—learning to understand what other people are feeling and thinking. Most of us probably believe that empathy should be a core component of our relationships. But what if this conventional understanding of empathy gets it wrong?

In Against Empathy, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom argues that empathy can motivate us to behave in ways that are unjust, irrational, and even cruel. He suggests that instead of practicing empathy, we should cultivate a rational form of compassion instead, and use this more measured and distanced approach to make decisions that are better for everyone involved.

In this guide, we’ll examine Bloom’s argument against empathy, explore the flaws that he finds in this emotion, and look at the methods that he recommends for making better, more moral decisions. We’ll also compare Bloom’s ideas to those of other psychologists and philosophers who’ve examined the role that empathy plays in life and relationships.

In Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott argues that to achieve happiness and success in life, you must constantly have courageous conversations—honest and sometimes uncomfortable discussions about your thoughts, feelings, desires, and issues. These aspects are constantly changing, and if left unaddressed, Scott warns that you may grow out of touch with reality and become misaligned with your goals. Further, failing to have courageous conversations risks perpetuating issues and damaging relationships. Scott provides a model for courageous conversations that will effectively solve critical issues, enable learning, and improve relationships so you can achieve happiness and success in all aspects of your life.

This guide re-organizes Scott’s discussion into a step-by-step outline for having courageous conversations. First, we’ll explain how to uncover the most critical thoughts, feelings, issues, and desires that must be addressed. Next, we’ll discuss how to structure a courageous conversation. Finally, we’ll provide a few techniques to ensure effective dialogue. Our commentary will supplement Scott’s advice with recommendations from other communication guides such as Crucial Accountability and Difficult Conversations.

Do you often feel distracted, tired, or bored—or do you know someone who does? If so, you or that person may be struggling with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In ADHD 2.0, psychiatrist Edward Hallowell and professor of psychiatry John Ratey explain what causes this condition and what it’s like to live with it. They argue that people can succeed and thrive because of—not in spite of—having ADHD.

In this guide, we’ll begin by describing ADHD’s biological causes and its most prominent symptoms. From there, we’ll explore ways to minimize ADHD’s downsides and maximize its benefits, such as finding the right kind of challenge to stay engaged and building a strong support network. Our commentary will provide further insight into what causes ADHD as well as what it’s like to live with the condition.

Can a commitment to love really reshape our society for the better? In All About Love, bell hooks explores the power of love from a feminist perspective using personal stories and cultural analysis to develop her argument. Delving into the complexities of love within the context of broader social forces like race, gender, and class, hooks challenges conventional notions of what love is and provides a roadmap for rooting your life in love. Centering love as a core value, she argues, won't only transform your relationship with yourself, but also with your friends, family, and the world around you.

In this guide, we’ll explain hooks’s definition of love, why it’s so important, and how we, as individuals and a society, can transform our lives by using love as a guiding force.

To the outsider, the world of investing can seem daunting to enter—if not outright impossible. But according to investment professional Howard Marks, anyone can learn the basics needed to invest successfully.

In his 2011 book The Most Important Thing, Marks outlines the key tenets of his approach to investing. He argues that the best approach for investors is value investing, which involves determining securities’ intrinsic value and purchasing below it. To practice it successfully, you must learn the nature of market cycles to find opportunities for purchasing mispriced securities, while also learning how to mitigate the risk entailed by investing.

In this guide, we’ll outline the fundamentals of value investing, discuss market cycles and how they’re useful to the value investor, and analyze the common mistakes that often leave investors exposed to unnecessary risk. Throughout the guide, we’ll also examine recommendations from other investors that supplement—and occasionally challenge—Marks’s investing wisdom.

The Master Guide series is an original Shortform exclusive. We integrate the advice from every major book on a topic into a single, authoritative guide.

In our daily lives, we all negotiate with others for things we want, whether the context is business or personal. For instance, at work you may negotiate a contract with a supplier or a pay raise with a supervisor, while in your personal life you might negotiate with your friends about which movie you’re going to see. In any situation where you’re looking to get something from someone else, you’re engaged in a negotiation.

In Shortform’s Master Guide to negotiation, we’ve synthesized the ideas and recommendations from some of the world’s leading experts on negotiation to help give you a competitive edge the next time you sit down to bargain. We’ll explore the two main approaches to negotiation (the emotional approach and the rational approach); show you how to prepare for your negotiation; and walk you through some specific moves and countermoves to get the best deal for yourself when you’re sitting face-to-face with your counterpart.

In Playing to Win, former CEO A.G. Lafley and consultant Roger Martin explain the steps for developing a successful business strategy. When the two worked together at Procter & Gamble, they used this approach to double the company's sales and market capitalization.

Their strategy involves answering five questions, each leading to the next like a cascading waterfall:

1. What is your company’s ideal future?
2. What are your target markets?
3. How will you succeed in those markets?
4. What capabilities does your company need in order to "win"?
5. How should you manage your company in order to "win"?

In this guide, we’ll examine each step of Lafley and Martin’s waterfall strategy, then discuss how to create a business plan that will help you dominate your chosen market. We’ll further enrich—and occasionally contrast—Lafley and Martin’s ideas with connections to other popular business guides such as Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game.

Do you dream of owning your own business but aren’t sure how to get funding to start it? In The Minimalist Entrepreneur, Sahil Lavingia says you don’t need any. In this book, the successful business owner gives detailed advice for starting your own profitable "minimalist" business without using venture capital or spending a penny on advertising.

In this guide, we’ll explain Lavingia’s business model, from identifying a business you’ll love to run by finding inspiration in your own communities, to setting up, testing, marketing, and launching your business. We’ll also discuss how to run your business sustainably, with the ultimate goal of achieving "time affluence" for yourself, and making a positive contribution to the world.

Throughout, we’ll compare and supplement Lavinagia’s advice on starting a business with that from other books like The Lean Startup, The $100 Startup, and Blue Ocean Strategy.

Many people dream of quitting a job and becoming their own boss by starting a business. A million new businesses are started each year, but 40 percent fail within the first year and 80 percent fail within five years. Underlying the high failure rate are persistent romantic notions about how businesses are born and what it takes to succeed.

In The E-Myth Revisited, Michael E. Gerber explains how focusing solely on the product undermines new businesses and just trying to work harder undermines new businesses. The right approach is to view your business like a franchise—to systematize operations so that it no longer relies on you. This thirty-year-old classic is a part-practical and part-philosophical guide to conceptualizing and starting a business.

Do you want to start a startup, but you’re afraid of failing? Or are you running a project today that’s just not making progress, no matter how hard you try?

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is considered a bible in the tech entrepreneurship community. It popularized the critical startup concepts of the Minimum Viable Product, cohort metrics, A/B testing, virality, and startup pivots. Its concepts will help you avoid startup failure.

What is The Lean Startup, in a nutshell? It’s a methodology for creating businesses that focuses you on finding out what customers want as quickly as possible. It uses concepts of scientific experimentation to prove that you’re making progress. It encourages you to launch as early and cheaply as possible so you don’t waste time and money.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this Lean Startup summary:

• How to figure out what your customers really want, so you don’t build a product no one wants
• Why you’re almost certainly launching your product too late, and wasting money in the process
• How focusing on the wrong metrics will deceive you about how your startup is failing
• How to decide whether you should keep trying or pivot your startup in a new direction
• The common fears that are holding you back and putting you in denial about your startup’s status