Brianna Wiest

Brianna Wiest studied English at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, which later gave her an honorary doctorate in literature. After college she worked as a journalist and wrote for Forbes and Teen Vogue.

She then started to publish personal essays drawn from her own self-inquiry and meditation practice. Many appeared on Thought Catalog, the online publisher where she is now a partner and which published her books. 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think spread widely on social media and became her breakout book.

The Mountain Is You (2020) argues that self-sabotage is not a flaw of character. It is a coping strategy: the habit that blocks a goal is meeting a need the person has not named, often safety or familiarity. The way forward is to find that need, meet it in a healthier way, and build emotional intelligence. Some reviewers find her books repetitive and light on evidence. Her later books include The Pivot Year. Her books have sold millions of copies in more than 40 languages, and she lives in Northern California.