During his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant’s unrelenting drive and commitment made him one of the best basketball players in NBA history. From a young age, Kobe wanted to be a great basketball player, and, in order to achieve that, he was willing to work harder than everyone else and make sacrifices that others were unwilling to make. That, in essence, was the Mamba Mentality.

This book pairs Kobe’s reflections and commentaries with iconic photos from the Los Angeles Lakers’ official photographer Andrew D. Bernstein to offer a view inside Kobe’s mind and career. In this summary, you’ll learn:

• How reading the referee’s handbook helped Kobe’s game
• Why Kobe took up tap dancing during one off-season
• How Kobe played dominated the best players in the league

How do exceptional people achieve exceptional things? What's the secret to their extraordinary success? We often think it's luck, talent, or skill, but sports psychologist Bob Rotella argues that people achieve excellence because of their mindset. In How Champions Think, Rotella explains that champions share similar ways of thinking that set them apart: They nurture a positive self-image, break down ambitious dreams into realistic goals, and learn to grow from setbacks. By adopting the mental habits of a champion, you can unlock your full potential and achieve excellence in whatever you pursue.

In this guide, we’ll discuss ways to develop a positive self-image, train and master your skills, and perform under pressure. We’ll also explore methods for overcoming and learning from setbacks and challenges. Along the way, we’ll present other experts’ tips for high performance and provide additional actionable advice to help you apply Rotella’s principles to your goals.

For decades, Timothy Gallwey has been teaching tennis in a way that can change his pupils’ games on the court and lives off of it. His method revolves around the concept of the "Inner Game" that players play with themselves. He introduces the idea of "Self 1," which governs our ego-mind—the part of our brain that is chastising ourselves for mistakes and praising us for successes—and "Self 2," which relies on base instincts to do everything from continuing to breathe to hitting a tennis ball. Gallwey presents specific strategies to quiet Self 1 and allow Self 2 to come to the forefront of our decision-making.

Through the Inner Game strategies, the reader will learn to concentrate intently, quiet the mind, and figure out what winning means.

In his bestselling book The Sports Gene, David Epstein uses science to support the claim that our genes play a determining role in our success in sports. He opens by refuting the idea that enough practice is a virtual guarantee of success. He then spends the rest of the book citing research on genes and performance, taking the reader around the world and over evolutionary time, all to explain why the book’s title is an impossibility. There is no single "sports gene," just as there is no "perfect athlete." There are, however, fortuitous pairings of the right genes and the right circumstances in the right sports that together create the remarkable and diverse feats of athleticism that we see on the elite stage.

Our guide reorganizes the wealth of content in The Sports Gene by theme to help clarify Epstein’s major arguments. To provide more grounding, our commentary includes supplemental research as well as explanations of scientific concepts in the fields of genetics and evolution.

Becoming a manager for the first time can be challenging. In The First-Time Manager, organizational risk expert Jim McCormick argues that to succeed in your new management role, you must shift your focus from tasks to people and build a strong team of empowered employees capable of achieving exceptional results. Whether you’re freshly promoted or looking to brush up on your management skills, McCormick provides the ultimate guide to successfully navigating the role and responsibilities of a manager, including tips for winning the trust of your team, managing performance, and delegating tasks.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to transition into your new managerial role, win the trust of your employees, and build an empowered team that takes initiative and produces great results. We’ll also explore ways to handle your responsibilities as a manager effectively and prepare yourself for future opportunities. Along the way, we’ll provide insights from other business and management experts and supplement McCormick’s methods with actionable tips that can help you navigate your new role with competence and confidence.

When people think of conspiracy theories, they often imagine shady networks that secretly control governments and other organizations. However, the study of networks reveals that such scenarios are unlikely—networks operating outside of established hierarchies often lead to chaos, not order. In The Square and the Tower, best-selling author and Stanford University historian Niall Ferguson applies network theory to the study of world history to reveal, among other truths, why conspiracy theories are often wrong, whether government hierarchies are truly necessary, and why social media networks stir up more conflict than harmony.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the key principles that Ferguson extracts from his study of history and what these principles imply for life in the age of global commerce and digital connections. Along the way, we’ll bring in additional insights from books like Never Eat Alone and The Anatomy of Peace, and we’ll analyze new developments that are relevant to Ferguson’s view of the future.

In Beating the Street, famed mutual fund manager Peter Lynch explores how ordinary investors can outperform the market—and the pricey Wall Street fund managers who assemble stock portfolios—through hard work, diligence, and persistence in picking the right stocks to build a winning portfolio.

In this guide, we’ll explore Lynch’s strategy by which non-professional, individual investors can beat the pros, looking at:

• Why bonds, despite their reputation as a low-risk investment, offer poorer returns than stocks over the long haul
• Why it’s crucial to do your homework and understand everything about the companies you’re investing in
• The importance of being patient, persistent, and willing to endure the inevitable short-term losses that come from investing in the stock market

Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement Lynch’s insights with investment advice and perspectives from other investors and financial experts. We’ll also provide some historical context for Lynch’s ideas and explore how the investment world has changed since the book’s publication in 1993—and how those changes might affect today’s investment strategies.

Every part of our bodies, from toenails to hair and everything in between, is built based on the instructions coded into our genes. Therefore, understanding what genes are and how they work is crucial to understanding our bodies, our health, and even our identities. Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote The Gene to give the average reader a basic grounding in the history and the science of genetics.

Mukherjee is an immunologist and geneticist known for his work in cancer research, a field closely linked to genetics. The Gene explores scientists’ efforts to learn about people by studying the genes that create us: The book traces the history of genetics from Darwin’s Origin of Species to modern gene sequencing technology, as well as taking a brief look at what genetic engineering might mean for humanity’s future. Our commentary will provide background information and explanations to help readers understand the science behind The Gene. We’ll also examine advancements in genetics since The Gene’s publication in 2016.

As we try to lead healthier lives, one thing we rarely consider is being mindful of how we breathe. Science journalist James Nestor argues that while the power of the breath is central to many Eastern traditions, it’s been largely ignored in the Western world. Modern medicine treats chronic congestion, sinus infections, and lung disease but puts little emphasis on teaching people how to breathe correctly. However, Nestor asserts that by learning how to breathe well, we’ll improve our well-being, balance our emotions, and find more energy to live the lives we want.

This guide will explain what Nestor says about how we’re breathing wrong, how we can do it better, and what amazing impact the power of breath can have over the body. We’ll also explore the underlying science of breath, hear what medical research says about Nestor’s claims, and delve into specific breathing techniques that the author recommends.

According to Giulia Enders, the gut is a system of organs as complex and intricate as the brain. As you go about your day, your gut is hard at work breaking down food, delivering nutrients to your body, and even training your immune system to fight infection.

In Gut, Enders explains how your digestive system works and why it’s important to keep it healthy. In this guide, we’ll cover Enders's ideas on topics like where the food you eat goes, what your appendix actually does, and how tiny organisms in your intestines influence your immune system (and possibly your mood). We’ll fact-check Enders’s claims about the gut and elaborate further on the organs in this system. We’ll also discuss studies that have updated our scientific knowledge of the gut since the book’s publication.