Become Who You Are

A New Theory of Self-Esteem, Human Greatness, and the Opposite of Depression

By: Ryan A Bush, Designing the Mind

Narrated by: Ryan A Bush

Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

After spending over a decade researching the psychology and philosophy of well-being, and even writing his first book on the topic, it took a struggle with his own mental health for Ryan A Bush to integrate the data he had studied to form a groundbreaking new psychological theory. Become Who You Are argues that the peak form of human happiness is determined, not by pleasure or pain, loss or gain, but by the admirability we observe in our own behaviors.

“From post-traumatic growth to postpartum depression, the many counterintuitive stories of happiness actually all tell the same tale. Our overall well-being does not correspond to the surface-level events to which we tend to attribute it. But it corresponds perfectly to something else—something going on beneath the surface of our external outcomes.”

This philosophy-infused self-development guide takes listeners on a kaleidoscopic journey through Stoic philosophy and neuropsychology—Nietzschean virtue ethics and evolutionary psychology—spiritual wisdom and psychotherapy. It offers a moving account of Ryan’s own descent into depression, his climb back to flourishing, and the ambitious new framework this journey led him to that we can use to decode and direct our lives.

Become Who You Are: A New Theory of Self-Esteem, Human Greatness, and the Opposite of Depression is Bush’s best, most rigorous, and most personal work to date. The theory it presents will have radical implications for our understanding of the mind and countless individual lives. And it will provide listeners with an invaluable guide for reaching the peaks of flourishing and a powerful call to personal greatness.

©2024 Designing the Mind (P)2024 Designing the Mind

Critic reviews

From the author of the international bestseller Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture comes "a paradigm-challenging new look at real happiness.” - Kirkus Reviews

So interesting but seriously irritating technical glitches in narration

I think the authors premise is super interesting and probably correct. I would love to listen to this book and relax and let it soak in and take a bunch of notes to.mull over. However, there are some technical issues with the recording. A lot of words are clipped off at the end of sentences. Some sections are repeating, and skipping. It is very hard to listen to.

Most Frustrating Listen Ever - Glitchy Playback?!?

I was genuinely interested in this title when I came across it, but after acquiring it to my library and attempting to learn from it, I quickly discovered that the audio was damn near unlistenable. At first I thought it was a problem with my headphones, or even my phone, but then I opened the same file on my desktop and the exact same issues were still present. Words kept getting clipped short in a very glitchy sort of way, to the point where the content of the book was just completely lost. I could barely comprehend the nonsense I was hearing. And somewhere near the beginning of Chapter 3 there was a random computer voice that interrupts the playback with a computer voice loudly proclaiming "FILE-FILE-FILE-". ?!?! Fortunately, Audible has a feature that allows you to return a title and refund the credit spent on it. How very extremely frustrating this has been.

I seriously hope these technical errors get figured out. I was really looking forward to listening to this one.

Audible terrible, book amazing

The audio book is glitchy and hard to listen to. Have been reading the book in Kindle. Highly recommended, please fix the audio book.