Good morning, friends!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and you’re feeling refreshed and ready to close out this year strong.

I spent my week reading. I just started The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism. It’s an insightful look into the newspaper that has been an iconic institution in American journalism for over a century. As with anything, there is a rise, a fall, and usually, a reinvention. It’s an interesting book so far, and I’ve learned a lot even though I’m still on Chapter 4.

I wanted to resurface a column I wrote in 2021 about the transformational power of books that I hope you find valuable:

The Transformational Power of Books

My great-grandmother was the Stephen King of children’s bedtime stories.

When I was little, she used to tell me stories before I went to sleep. But if you think they were the nice, fluffy Cinderella-type, you, my friend, are wildly mistaken. There were monsters, murderous horses, and all sorts of imaginary things that are definitely not suitable for young children.

The tales may have been terrifying, but they were absolutely captivating. Like Stephen King, she created fictional worlds infused with a sense of right and wrong and good and evil. They were able to transport you to a different dimension and leave you shaking in your pajamas. As King says, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Although my great-grandmother’s stories never became books (though they would absolutely dominate the horror genre), they were instrumental in developing my love for the art of storytelling. When I learned to read, I realized that even though I was a kid living in Bulgaria, I could peer into the lives of people all over the globe.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that books mean different things to different people. Stephen King believes books teach us how to think, Dolly Parton sees them as a ticket out of poverty, and Matt Haig claims that reading books is a form of therapy.

“[Books] are the most vital, intimate, personal, mind-altering, thought-twisting, friend-giving, empathy-strengthening, thrill-riding, emotional, world-shaking technology we will ever have,” Haig says. “And in a world where we are increasingly connected via technology, but disconnected by society, books and stories can be the glue that bonds us.”

Similarly, astronaut Scott Kelly says books provided him with a healthy mental escape through bouts of loneliness in the International Space Station. “The quiet and absorption you can find in a physical book — one that doesn’t ping you with notifications or tempt you to open a new tab — is priceless,” he says.

When he was on death row for a crime he didn’t commit, Anthony Ray Hinton started a book club for fellow inmates to help them experience the power of visualization. Reading helped Hinton transport himself from his prison cell into new, more exciting worlds. While in his cell, he traveled the world, married Halle Berry, had tea with Queen Elizabeth, and won Wimbledon — all in his mind. “I never used my mind for garbage,” he says. “I used it to cope through some lonely days.”

I use books to live different lives. I gravitate toward memoirs and biographies because they immerse me into the mental state of someone whose life unfolded quite differently from mine.

My heart shattered into a million pieces when I read the story of Hinton being arrested and wrongfully charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. His memoir The Sun Does Shine taught me that you can take away someone’s freedom, but their hope, imagination, sense of humor, and spirit can stay intact even after three decades of solitude.

I thought deeply about the fragility of life after reading about Edith Eva Eger’s unimaginable experiences as an aspiring 16-year-old ballerina taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in her memoir The Choice. It helped me understand the nature of trauma, anger, resilience, and the power of choosing how we see ourselves.

I marveled at Tara Westover‘s improbable thirst for knowledge even though she grew up in the mountains of Idaho, isolated from mainstream society. Her memoir Educated made me re-think and alter my own ideas of what we traditionally expect from an in-classroom education.

Books are tools of empathy. The stories inside allow you to live hundreds of different lives, experience a myriad of emotions, and go on an infinite number of adventures. So if you’re looking for something to do on this lovely Sunday afternoon, put down the phone and pick up a book.

As King said: “Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.”

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PROFILES.

— The woman influencing how the world’s wealthiest people invest [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The couples who discovered their babies weren’t a genetic match
— The best CEO you’ve never heard of
— The scientist trying to better treat schizophrenia
— The investor betting big on women’s soccer

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The woman influencing how the world’s wealthiest people invest: Sara Naison-Tarajano developed the Apex group, a small but growing cadre of bankers with outsized influence on how the wealthiest people on Earth invest. Naison-Tarajano has spent her whole 25-year career at Goldman Sachs, and she’s a go-to banker for a growing and increasingly important clientele — family offices. The firm had long ties to family offices but until 2018 had no banking group dedicated to helping the most sophisticated ones invest directly in private markets. Naison-Tarajano formalized that unit, called Apex, to send them deal flow, share expertise, and help them navigate the bank’s divisions. Here’s how she became one of the most influential people in the world of family offices. (Institutional Investor)

“You’re literally covering the most interesting people in the world. You’re literally covering the captains of industry, the entrepreneurs. I don’t think there’s a more exciting client base.”

The couples who discovered their babies weren’t a genetic match: This story gave me full-body goosebumps. It’s about two sets of couples in California who discovered they were raising each other’s genetic children due to an IVF clinic mix-up during the embryo transfer. After the shocking discovery that their genetic child was being raised by different parents 10 minutes away, they faced an unbearable decision: Should they switch their babies? (The New York Times; alternate link) (It reminded me of this profile of two pairs of identical twins who were raised as two pairs of fraternal twins. Also a chilling, fascinating story.)

“It felt like a kidnapping.”

The best CEO you’ve never heard of: Over four and a half years, Carrier CEO Dave Gitlin has delivered total shareholder returns of 49% a year, trouncing Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple. Gitlin, at age 55, arguably stands as not only the most successful CEO you’ve probably never heard of, but also the most successful industrial CEO in America. (FORTUNE)

The scientist trying to better treat schizophrenia: Dr. Edward Scolnick figures he needs five, maybe 10 more years to solve one of the brain’s greatest mysteries. Scolnick, 84 years old, has spent most of the past two decades working to understand and find better ways to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, mental illnesses suffered by tens of millions of people, including his son. Will he long enough to see these drugs come to fruition? (WSJ; alternate link)

“I will not be happy to die. But I will die happy that my life helped.”

The investor betting big on women’s soccer: U.S. Soccer announced businesswoman Michele Kang — majority owner of the Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and London City Lionesses under her global multi-club organization Kynisca — was donating $30 million. The funds are earmarked over the next five years for women’s youth national team camps, talent identification and scouting, and female coach and referee education and mentorship. Meet one of the biggest investors in women’s soccer. (The Athletic)

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t know there was a professional league in this country.”

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