About Author/s:

Dr. Steven MacGregor is a wellbeing pioneer and leadership development expert. He was an elite athlete in his youth, a national Duathlon champion, which he disarmingly describes as ‘triathlon for bad swimmers’, which brought him to the marginal gain training of cyclists and runners and  then to the world of executive performance and well-being. Today, with over 20 years of experience in wellbeing and positive leadership, he is an advisor for McKinsey & Company and has worked with dozens of the world’s leading organizations, as well as being an Honorary Professor on Health and Wellbeing at the Glasgow School of Art.

He is the author of a two previous books in the wellbeing space: Sustaining Executive Performance and Chief Wellbeing Officer as well as hosting the Chief Wellbeing Officer podcast.

Context

Burnout. A word that was largely unknown prior to the 1960s, and is today part of common discourse. As we fret about AI taking over our jobs – and everything else – we should pause to consider that technology has so far only added to our work, increased the velocity of our working lives and submerged us in more data to analyse and digest than we ever thought possible, even two decades ago.

As such we are seeing talented managers and executives burning-out ever more regularly – and ever younger. Amy Bradley and Katherine Semler’s book Running On Empty (reviewed in DLQ41) explored what organizations can do about this – but it is as much a duty of us as individuals to embrace our wellbeing and take action to combat the creeping effects of stress, lack of exercise and poor diet that accrue from forever having too many things on your ‘to do’ list, and failing to take the positive action to combat them.

Core Idea

The Daily Reset is Steven MacGregor’s antidote to this. While the authors of most business books have high-hopes that their books will be read cover-to-cover but little expectation that they will be returned to on a regular basis, The Daily Reset is the opposite of that. It is specifically designed to be, in MacGregor’s words ‘engaged with’ – dip in to it, go back to it, scribble notes and thoughts in it and experiment with the content.

There are 366 nudges, hacks, stories all designed to improve your behaviour ‘to help keep wellbeing and a positive working life top of mind each day of the year’ (there is even one for 29th February). Each is a piece of distilled wisdom, and prompts the reader to ponder a while or reflect differently on something – and hopefully to take action and engage with that idea.

While the book is a page-a-day through the year, it is also chunked into themes by month: Only 29 ‘Habits’ for February but the full 31 for Movement, Sleep, Mindfulness, Exercise, Purpose, Resilience and Community.

The entries are pleasingly short – so you can absorb them quickly; and are hugely variable as the themes require. February 15th:

Exponential Gain:  1% better every day for a year:  1.01³⁶⁵ = 37.87%.      1% worse every day for a year: 0.99³⁶⁵ = 0.03%      This is the compound interest of small but consistent effort.

Most others are longer but not alot. June 24th

Go for a Good Gut: Bacteria make up 13% of all biomass on earth. (To put that in perspective, all the mammals on earth make up only 5%). Every one of us has between 300 and 500 different species of bacteria in our gut…. we need to keep these bacteria happy. It’s important to promote good bacteria over bad. This is microbial health.

You do this through prebiotics and probiotics: Prebiotics feed your existing bacteria….

Every book is a window into the author’s soul in some way, and this book reveals plenty of MacGregor’s life story in the reflections and choices of pieces he selects – which adds to the personal energy and passion he channels so effectively.

Conclusion

This is an updated edition of the book. The first edition was published in the midst of the pandemic and was clearly angled at a ‘moving on from lockdown’ type of wellbeing – this edition has done itself moved on from lockdown, and is a broader and more upbeat perspective on attaining and maintaining wellbeing through the slings and arrows of our daily lives.

As such it is a compendium of focused wisdom on wellbeing. There are a plethora of books selling bitesize wisdom out there, but The Daily Reset manages to differentiate itself from them, with that clear objective about striving for the goal of year-round wellbeing, and structuring itself in a way that allows the reader to apply the insights in that consistent, cumulative manner – all wrapped in the author’s gentle yet emphatic enthusiasm and knowledge.

The Daily Reset is to be recommended to be used on a constant and consistent basis – but it is also will serve us well, even if we cannot do that, to dip into it and feast on the digestible delights it contains sporadically.

BUY THIS BOOK

• Title: The Daily Reset: 365 Days of Wellbeing

  Author/s Name/s: Steven P MacGregor

  Publisher: Sheepdog Press

  ISBN: 978-84-09-56544-3

  Publishing Date: January, 2024

  Number of Pages: 405

• Author Knowledge Rating: 1-5 (based on their years of experience, academic expertise in subject areas, and exposure to cross-functional thinking in the area)
  Readability: 1-5 score(1=dense and v academic; 5=frantic; page turner)
  Appropriate Length: (1=could have been written in 25% of the length;5=could have been longer)
  Core Idea Value: (1=nonsense (or entirely esoteric); 5=game-changer)