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Person/Audience: Their prejudices, foreknowledge, expectations, interests, and needs. Context: Time: How much time I have and when it happens. Space: Online, room, props. Bigger Picture: How this performance fits into the larger context. Goal/Outcome: NOT what I will talk about, but the explicit and implicit goals (internal, external, open, and hidden), including the minimum, optimal, and maximum outcomes (pessimistic, medium, and optimistic). Content: What I am saying/asking and in what order, and the key points.

Of course, this isn’t a complete list. 1. Classical & Stoic Wisdom Marcus Aurelius – Meditations Seneca – On Anger Miyamoto Musashi – The Book of Five Rings Jonas Salzgeber – The Little Book of Stoicism Donald J. Robertson – How to Think Like a Roman Emperor Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning 2. Psychology, Habits & Decision-Making Dale Carnegie – How to Win Friends and Influence People James Clear – Atomic Habits Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga – The Courage to Be Disliked Daniel Kahneman – Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony & Cass Sunstein – Noise Morgan Housel – The Psychology of Money Spencer Johnson – Who Moved My Cheese? Mark Manson – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson – Everything Is F*cked 3. Modern Productivity, Purpose & Minimalism Tiago Forte – Building a Second Brain Cal Newport – Digital Minimalism Simon Sinek – Start with Why Simon Sinek – Find Your Why Simon Sinek – Leaders Eat Last Simon Sinek – The Infinite Game 4. Risk, Uncertainty & Complex Systems Nassim Nicholas Taleb – The Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Antifragile Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Skin in the Game George S. Clason – The Richest Man in Babylon Robert Greene – The 48 Laws of Power Robert Greene – The 33 Strategies of War Robert Greene & 50 Cent – The 50th Law Sun Tzu – The Art of War 5. Society, History & Economics Yuval Noah Harari – 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs, and Steel Mary Beard – SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Peter L. Berger – The Capitalist Revolution Srdja Popovic & Matthew Miller – Blueprint for Revolution Henry Hazlitt – Economics in One Lesson Frédéric Bastiat – The Law 6. Science & Technology Bill Bryson – A Short History of Nearly Everything Carlo Rovelli – The Order of Time Hannah Fry – Hello World Max Tegmark – Life 3.0 Hans Rosling et al. – Factfulness Vaclav Smil – Numbers Don’t Lie Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense Aurélien Géron – Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow Hadley Wickham & Garrett Grolemund – R for Data Science 7. Memoirs, Biographies & Personal Stories David Goggins – Can’t Hurt Me Edward Snowden – Permanent Record Mihajlo Pupin – From Immigrant to Inventor Dean Nicholson – Nala’s World Fredrik Backman – Anxious People Marc-Uwe Kling – Qualityland Phil Knight – Shoe Dog

Whenever I install a new operating system, these are the programs I always set up first: Program Anaconda Bitwarden BleachBit Brave Calibre Chrome Jamovi Lunatask Mullvad VPN Obsidian Okular OnlyOffice Python qBittorrent R RStudio Signal Spotify Steam VLC VSCodium Zenbrowser

When I first embarked on my journey into the field of sociology, I was driven by a single burning question: Why do some societies thrive and prosper while others, like Serbia, struggle? The answer seemed straightforward: prosperity was linked to the presence of individual freedom. Societies with citizens free to make their own choices tended to flourish, while those burdened by government control and restrictions on personal liberties often suffered. After realizing that sociology wasn’t fun anymore, I decided to change my career to something more meaningful. Changing one’s career might seem like a daring move, but the beauty of life is that you can always make changes and pursue what you love. ...

Once, a student asked Margaret Mead (a well-known anthropologist) where civilization began. The student expected answers like the wheel, clay pottery shards, fish hooks, or other ancient tools. But Mead’s answer was surprising: “In a cave where a healed and mended femur was found,” she replied with a smile. To the question: Why? She explained: Because in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You can’t hunt, you can’t escape from predators — you simply can’t survive. But a healed femur means someone stayed. Someone helped. Someone cared enough to protect you, feed you, and wait with you. Someone was patient. The first sign of civilization is not an invention, my dear ones, she told them — it is compassion and patience. The heart. ...