3 Books With Neil Pasricha

I sat down with Dr. Andrea Sereda at the Sherbourne Health Centre on the east side of downtown Toronto, an area of the city sometimes known for its challenges with drug abuse.

Who is Dr. Andrea Sereda?


She is a family physician who practices street outreach medicine and provides care through the London InterCommunity Health Centre in London, Ontario. She works with the emergency safer supply substitution program, prescribing hydromorphone, an opioid used by injection drug users to reduce the risk of contaminated street drugs.

Wait! What?

Yes, on the face of it, Dr. Andrea Sereda gives drugs to drug users but there is a lot more to the story. We are going right to the front lines of the opioid epidemic which, even before the end of this conversation, will take 10 lives in North America alone. (To illustrate the issue more deeply, 8,048 Americans died of opioid related drug overdoses in 1999. What about now? Well, the number was approximately 70,000 drug overdose deaths last year.)

It will take ingenuity, creativity, and passion to address this issue. As you'll hear, Dr. Andrea Sereda offers all three in spades. Her views are often provocative, sometimes controversial, and she will argue that drugs should be decriminalized and why we should indeed give drugs to drug users. What about the challenges to these ideas? The critics? The controversies? We get into that, too. And we are fortunate enough to use Andrea's three most formative books as a launchpad into this conversation.

I am so grateful to Dr. Andrea Sereda for sharing so much of her life, her journey, and her practice with all of us.

I find her and her work incredibly challenging, intriguing, and inspiring.

I hope you do, too.

Happy Strawberry Moon, everyone!
As we ease into summer and the hydrangeas and garden roses begin blooming here in Toronto, I find myself struck by the awe and beauty that quietly surrounds us each day.
There's so much science behind how we experience the world. My guest on this moon's chapter of 3 Books has spent his career proving just that.
Join me in welcoming one of the world's leading experts on happiness and human potential, a Harvard-trained positive psychologist and researcher whose ​TED Talk​ has been watched over 30 million (!) times, and a genuinely warm human I am proud to call a friend ... Mr. Shawn Achor! (pronounced like "acorn" without the n, btw!)
I first met Shawn in Abu Dhabi, years ago, when we were both invited to speak to the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates.
I arrived a few days early, for dress rehearsals, long dinners, and meet-and-greets with various extended family members, and then Shawn showed up.
He flew in, crushed it onstage, dropped research studies like he'd memorized all of Google Scholar, and immediately flew out.
I was left thinking: Who was that masked man?
Well, over the years we became friends, and he was kind enough to blurb '​The Happiness Equation​' after selling a million copies of his own wonderful book, '​The Happiness Advantage​'.
And then ... where did he go?
Shawn just sort of ... disappeared.
I found out why in his new book, '​The Power of Beliefs​'.
After his daughter Zoë was born three months early, spending 50 days in the NICU, Shawn decided to take a break—six years of no media, no international talks, no new books.
Six years!
But Shawn is still Shawn. An amiable son of an English teacher and a neuroscience professor, with multiple Harvard degrees, and a witty, research-centric writing style that is precise and uniquely compassionate.
Tune in as we discuss Shawn's new book, his seven core beliefs (and their seven scars), the power of the placebo effect, what six years of "disappearing" taught him about parenting and living a more meaningful life, the psychology of awe, the cost of measuring your worth through comparison, and of course ... the brilliant Shawn Achor's 3 most formative books.
Let's flip the page to Chapter 162 now...

On a pair of folding lawn chairs on his front porch in Toronto's Roncesvalles neighborhood, I sat down with my friend Michael Bungay Stanier.

Michael's mind is like a box that you open and a whole bunch of springs suddenly fly out in all directions.

Here's a bit of his biography to give you a taste of this guy: "I've never quite fit the traditional mold, and honestly, I think that's been the advantage that has shaped my life. Smart and successful don't have to look one way. But making space for that – for different voices, different ambitions, different ways of moving through the world – takes real work. That's my work. That's the mark I want to make on the world: helping people figure out what matters most to them and how to get more of that."

Should we stop there?

No, I'll keep going. 
 
Michael is an Australian who went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. There, he met a beautiful Canadian woman who he fell in love with and followed back to Canada. He founded a company called Box of Crayons which teaches 10-minute coaching strategies so busy managers can build stronger teams. Most recently, he also founded MBS Works, a digital platform featuring all his books, courses, keynotes, and tools focused on individuals who want to positively change their lives. He has won numerous awards for Coach of the Year and wrote a book called 'The Coaching Habit' which turned into a huge phenomenon with (in only 3+ years) over 700,000 copies sold and over 2000 Amazon reviews. (Sidenote: The book was published by Jesse Finkelstein of Page Two Publishing, our guest in Chapter 23)

Michael is also the author of 'Do More Great Work,' 'How to Begin', 'How to Work with (Almost) Anyone', and 'The Advice Trap.'

I love Michael Bungay Stanier. He's one of the most fascinating minds in my life, and I feel so grateful and honored to call him a friend. I hope you fall in love with him too.

In this chapter, we talk about simplifying complex things, finding curiosity, and of course, his three most formative books.
 
So pull up a lawn chair!
 
And let's flip the page back to Chapter 48 now....

Happy blue moon, everyone!
 
Yes, it is indeed the second full moon of the month which brings us a second May chapter of 3 Books.
 
This one features an author I've been hoping to have on our show for years. 
 
Join me in welcoming the Booker Prize–winning novelist, deeply philosophical storyteller, and one of Canada's most distinctive literary voices ... Mr. Yann Martel! 
 
Yann is best known for 'Life of Pi', the global phenomenon that won The Booker Prize in 2002, sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and was later adapted into an Academy Award–winning film.
 
Born in Salamanca, Spain in 1963, Yann spent his childhood in Spain, Portugal, Alaska, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada. 
 
Yann's work is deeply shaped by a pulsing curiosity, philosophy, and research. He journeyed through India while developing 'Life of Pi', visited Holocaust memorial sites while writing 'Beatrice and Virgil', and even launched a "guerilla book club" called '101 Letters to a Prime Minister', where he mailed books to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper every two weeks for four years. 
 
Yann's newest novel, 'Son of Nobody', is a (new!) ancient retelling of the Trojan War told through the modern lens of a Canadian researcher who discovers this poem while exploring themes of homesickness, regret, ambition, love, and grief.
 
Tune in as we discuss Yann's writing routines, the importance of stories, AI in the world of publishing, racism in Australia, art as a co-creation between writer and reader, the beauty of the prairies, and of course, Yann Martel's most formative books... 
 
Let's flip the page to Chapter 161 now...

Nestled into a beautiful century-old brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I spoke with the amazing Dr. Laura Markham—a preacher of love, letting love in, sending love out, and using that as a way to deepen our connection with ourselves and our children.

Who is Dr. Laura Markham?

She's a Columbia-trained clinical psychologist, founder and editor at PeacefulParentHappyKids.com, author of six parenting books including my favorite, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, a parenting expert, and a life-changer for many, many families—including mine. (You'll hear what my wife Leslie thinks at the beginning of this chapter!) Dr. Laura Markham translates proven science into practical and simple solutions for living an intentional life.
 
So in Chapter 46, let's pause and choose how we respond to help drive a movement toward love and compassion. I deeply resonate with Dr. Laura Markham's work because I feel like the higher place she leads us toward is the same place I want 3 Books to lead us toward.

In this chapter, we chat about the complexities of parenting and how we can be more present as parents. Dr. Laura Markham shares many valuable insights, from communicating through play, navigating our own traumas, mastering the skill of sending love to strangers, and how we need to develop a closer relationship with death.  

And, of course, we talk about Dr. Laura Markham's 3 most formative books.

Let's flip back to Chapter 46 now....