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Every season, the Next Big Idea Club editorial team reviews dozens of upcoming books to curate a selection of the most exciting, must-read nonfiction titles. We start with a broad pool of nominees from which we identify a small handful of finalists and, ultimately, an official season selection. Today, its our pleasure to share our list of five finalists for Season 29! Without further ado, the new books were most excited about right now are . . . The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World By Brad StulbergPublication Date: January 27, 2026 A practical guide to realizing our potential amid the chaos of modern life and learning how to reconnect to ourselves, our work, and each other by focusing on the pursuit of excellence. View on Amazon Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony By Kate MurphyPublication Date: January 27, 2026 Why do you immediately click with some people while others just as inexplicably turn you off? Do people emit vibes? Is it possible to read a room? Are bad habits contagious? Kate Murphy answers these and other fascinating questions. View on Amazon The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans By Maya ShankarPublication Date: January 13, 2026 A revelatory exploration of the ways we can find meaning in the tumult of change, from a renowned cognitive scientist. View on Amazon A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness By Michael PollanPublication Date: February 24, 2026 A panoptic exploration of consciousnesswhat it is, who has it, and whyand a meditation on the essence of our humanity. View on Amazon How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day By Bill Burnett and Dave EvansPublication Date: February 3, 2026 A groundbreaking guide to transforming your daily routine into one brimming with joy, purpose, and meaning. View on Amazon Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose By Jennifer Breheny WallacePublication Date: January 27, 2026 A landmark book that introduces a transformative new framework to confront the loneliness, burnout, and lack of purpose so many of us face today. View on Amazon Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment By Daniel CoylePublication Date: February 3, 2026 A science-based, practical blueprint for cultivating a lifeat work and at homefull of belonging, joy, and vitality. View on Amazon Intentional: How to Finish What You Start By Chris BaileyPublication Date: January 6, 2026 A productivity expert distills a decade of deep research on productivity to deliver a profound, practical, and counterintuitive road map to getting things done. View on Amazon The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us By Rebecca Newberger GoldsteinPublication Date: January 13, 2026 Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Goldstein argues that this need to matterand the various mattering projects it inspiresis the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts. View on Amazon The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books, Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hoursand you may not have many hours to spare. But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the five key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes? With the Next Big Idea app, weve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create Book Bites, short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors theselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much moreall in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog. I love this app! The Book Bites are brilliant, perfect to have in airports, waiting rooms, anywhere I need to not doomscroll You guys are the best! Missy G. Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to tryand if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors. For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every two months, we select a new nonfiction book as the must-reads of the season. We then send a hardcover copy straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides that take you step-by-step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, its all available through the Next Big Idea app. My biggest Thank You is for the quality of book selections so far. I look on my shelf and see these great titles, and I find myself taking down one or two each month to reread an underlined passage. Full marks to all involved! Tim K. Learn Faster, from the Worlds Leading Thinkers Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, handpicked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the Events tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader. If youre hoping to grow as a person or as a professional, we hope youll join us and tens of thousands of others who enjoy the Next Big Idea. Get started by downloading the app today! Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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If youre in an unfulfilling job or are dissatisfied with your work, its possible to get a fresh start no matter what the season. In fact, there are a few strategies that can help you find meaning and enhance your experience even as you slog forward. A lack of fulfillment in your job can have intense effects. It can derail your motivation, your energy, and even your performance. And these, in turn, get in the way of your happiness at work and can impact your overall happiness outside of work too. For many people, it’s hard to find meaning at work. In fact, half of workers in the U.S. reported that they lacked satisfaction in their work, and 38% said their job was just a way to get by, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, half of people globally say their job fails to give them a sense of meaning, based on a survey by PwC. So how do you create meaning when you lack it? And how do you set up the conditions for fulfillment in your work? Here are a handful of strategies that will make a difference. Stay dedicated One of the key ways to improve your experience at work is to stay dedicated to it. Its tempting to check out, and it can be tough to devote yourself emotionally to a job that isnt satisfying. Still, do your best to perform well, participate in meetings, show up on time, and follow through on your work. Sometimes we wait to feel satisfied with our jobs before we get motivated to perform well, but research published by the Association for Psychological Science shows that employees who approach their work with optimism, dedication, and focus are more productive and more engaged. Their positivity ends up creating an upward spiral. When you repeatedly behave with dedication, it will become a habit, with each action taking less conscious effort. Youll also send yourself a message that your work matters. And even more importantly, that you matter. In addition, behaving with dedication will affect how you perform and how others evaluate your contributions. When these are positive, it will pave the way to your next role and the greater meaning it will bring. Find allies Another surefire way to increase the meaning in your work is to connect with colleagues and build a sense of community. One of the primary symptoms of work that feels unfulfilling is being disconnected from others. If you dont know your coworkers well or dont feel like they know you or your work, it can make the work itself feel empty. Having friendships with colleagues is tremendously helpful for finding satisfaction and happiness at work. A study published in the Journal of Theoretical Educational Science found that friendships are strongly correlated with both happiness and satisfaction, explaining more than a quarter of the differences felt by happy and satisfied people. Additional research from KPMG finds that 84% of people say friends at work are very important to their mental health on the job. In addition, there is a 20% friendship premium in salary to have friends at work: Specifically, 57% of people would choose a role that pays 10% below the market instead of a role that’s 10% over the market for the opportunity to work with close friends. Find people that you can admire and learn from. Invite them to coffee and consider asking them to mentor you or provide advice focused on your future. Also look for colleagues with whom you have things in common. Connect based on your shared interests or the projects youre working together on. Set goals and take action It can also help to reframe your current role as a stepping stone. Identify where you want to go next and how this role helps you get there. It may be teaching you skills that can help you in your next job, and it could even be an opportunity to learn more about what you dont want as you move forward. Both of these are constructive as you expand your self-awareness and your focus on whats next. Consider what else you need to learn, both in terms of more formal education like classes or informal approaches such as learning on the job or from others. The process of taking action is also helpful to your mental health because it reinforces your agency and helps you feel more empowered. Persevere through todays challenges and focus on the future so you can keep moving forward. Focus on the holistic Another way to bring more meaning to your work, surprisingly, is to create the conditions for happiness outside of work. In fact, there is a proven spillover between life and work. In a longitudinal study of almost 162,000 people published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, those who were happiest outside of work perceived greater happiness with their work as well. The bottom line is that you can increase happiness and satisfaction in your work by considering your life as a whole and finding meaning and joy outside of work. Do things you love with your family, enjoy time with friends, volunteer in your community, mentor youth in your area. These kinds of activities will contribute to your overall sense of meaning and positively affect your perceptions of work as well. Ultimately, having a greater sense of meaning at work is one of the most important experiences to be concerned about, given how much time we spend working. We all have an instinct to want to matter, so when you stay dedicated, find allies, persevere, and think holistically, youll improve not only your work but your life as a whole.
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Having a baby isn’t cheap, but sometimes, even the delivery alone can be a crushing burden on families. According to a new survey, even moms who are insured can end up saddled with medical debt that adds to the financial stress of growing a family. What To Expect, a website that provides new and expecting parents with resources, surveyed 3,285 women on their experiences with labor and delivery charges. The research found that one in four moms have gone into debt due to the costs associated with giving birth. The survey found that, on average, moms are leaving the hospital with around $3,000 in debt. And that’s before the baby expensesdiapers, formula, daycare!start piling up. According to the respondents, even women with insurance are ending up with hefty tabs from the hospital. Almost half (48%) with self-purchased insurance plans say theyve gone into debt due to the costs. Almost a third (32%) of moms with employer-provided plans had the same experience. Furthermore, 18% of moms with Medicaid ended up with debt from out-of-pocket labor and delivery expenses, even though Medicaid is designed for low-income families. While worrying about how you might pay off a rather large and unexpected hospital bill is something a lot of families aren’t prepared for, new moms have another consuming task (aside from trying to figure out how to care for a new human 24/7): the weight of deciding when to go back to work. Given there is no federally mandated maternity leave that ensures moms have time to rest, recover, and bond with their new babies in the U.S., for many, a return to work happens quickly. According to a 2024 report from the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, one in four new mothers go back to work just 10 days after giving birth out of financial necessity. Aside from the strain on their bodies, which are still recovering, that early return isn’t great for new moms’ mental health, either. Women who return to work before the 12-week mark are at an increased risk for developing postpartum mental health challenges, like postpartum depression, according to a 2021 study from Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Women who have at least 12 weeks of paid leave were 30% less likely to report depressive symptoms, the study found. In most other countries, returning to work almost immediately is practically unheard of. In fact, the U.S. practically stands alone in its lack of mandated leave for new mothers. On average, moms receive 19 weeks of paid maternity leave, according to a 2023 study of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, including the United States. The United States is the only country of OECDs 38 member countries that does not guarantee any paid maternity leave.
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