2017 Summer Reading for Your "Think" and "Relax" Time
/Growing a business or career can be intense. We coach goals, focus, accountability, and measurement. It feels like you’re always “on.” (You are.) We also coach balance, that you must take care of yourself - your body and mind - before everything else. You can’t be an effective leader, spouse, parent, friend, or community participant if you are not healthy and sane.
With summer upon us comes an opportunity for days away from the office - fun Fridays, vacations, hammock and beach days, or quiet mornings at the campsite. If you’ve planned for it, you should be able to turn off “work” for a few days or more and shift your balance. Tune your body with healthy activities. Fuel your body with good food and drink. Then feed your mind. Take this opportunity to read, learn, and reflect.
Trajectify coaches and clients each year share what we’ve been recently reading and recommending. We hope you find something here to enjoy and grow your awareness, skills, and confidence.
Recent Releases
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
by Adam Grant
The #1 New York Times bestseller that examines how people can champion new ideas—and how leaders can fight groupthink, from the author of Give and Take and co-author of Option B. With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
by Angela Duckworth
In this instant New York Times bestseller, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of “genius,” Duckworth, now a celebrated researcher and professor, describes her early eye-opening stints in teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not “genius” but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance.
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds Hardcover
by Michael Lewis
How a Nobel Prize–winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality. Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred, systematically, when forced to make judgments in uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. Kahneman and Tversky are more responsible than anybody for the powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms.
Radical Candor - Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
By Kim Scott
Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor. Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging it’s ruinous empathy. When you do neither it’s manipulative insincerity.
Strategy & Leadership
Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, 10th-Anniversary Edition
by Bo Burlingham
How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill — and focused on greatness instead. It’s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great customer service, making great contributions to their communities, and finding great ways to lead their lives.
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win
by Jocko Willink
Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed “all but lost.” In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership―at every level―is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training that helped forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After departing the SEAL Teams, they launched Echelon Front, a company that teaches these same leadership principles to businesses and organizations. From promising startups to Fortune 500 companies, Babin and Willink have helped scores of clients across a broad range of industries build their own high-performance teams and dominate their battlefields.'
The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader
by James C. Hunter
In The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle, Hunter demonstrates that leadership and character development are one and the same. But the work, even the pain, of changing one's self - breaking old, worn-out habits - is difficult. Hunter provides an uncomplicated, straightforward, three-step change process he has seen successfully employed by literally thousands of leaders to effect change in their lives and organizations and fulfill beneficial goals. This groundbreaking book will open the eyes of frustrated, disheartened leaders at every level and foster change for good at the personal, organizational, and societal level.
Growing Your Mind
Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection
by Jia Jiang
An entertaining and inspiring account of conquering the fear of rejection, offering a completely new perspective on how to turn a no into a yes. Jia Jiang came to the United States with the dream of being the next Bill Gates. But despite early success in the corporate world, his first attempt to pursue his entrepreneurial dream ended in rejection. Jia was crushed, and spiraled into a period of deep self doubt. But he realized that his fear of rejection was a bigger obstacle than any single rejection would ever be, and he needed to find a way to cope with being told no without letting it destroy him. Thus was born his "100 days of rejection" experiment, during which he willfully sought rejection on a daily basis--from requesting a lesson in sales from a car salesman (no) to asking a flight attendant if he could make an announcement on the loudspeaker (yes) to his famous request to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the shape of Olympic rings (yes, with a viral video to prove it).
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
by Carol S. Dweck
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.
The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
by Olivia Fox Cabane
The charisma myth is the idea that charisma is a fundamental, inborn quality—you either have it (Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Oprah) or you don’t. But that’s simply not true, as Olivia Fox Cabane reveals. Charismatic behaviors can be learned and perfected by anyone. Drawing on techniques she originally developed for Harvard and MIT, Cabane breaks charisma down into its components. Becoming more charismatic doesn’t mean transforming your fundamental personality. It’s about adopting a series of specific practices that fit in with the personality you already have. The Charisma Myth shows you how to become more influential, more persuasive, and more inspiring.
Spontaneous Happiness: A New Path to Emotional Well-Being Paperback
by Andrew Weil
In Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil redefines the notion of happiness and demonstrates the limitations of the biomedical model of mental health. He presents a vast, scientifically proven array of integrative treatment strategies for low mood and depression, drawing on techniques from Ayurveda, Buddhism, acupuncture, psychotherapy, mindfulness training, and much more. Dr. Weil offers advice on lifestyle, behavior, and dietary changes, and helps readers assess their own emotional well-being and build personalized step-by-step plans to manage their moods. Whether suffering from mild to moderate depression, or simply seeking greater contentment, readers can use Dr. Weil's science-based integrative approach to achieve their goals.
The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
by Daniel J. Levitin
New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin shifts his keen insights from your brain on music to your brain in a sea of details. The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more—and faster—decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up. But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.
Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less
by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
For most of us, overwork is the new normal and rest is an afterthought. In our busy lives, rest is defined as the absence of work: late-night TV binges, hours spent trawling the internet, something to do once we’ve finished everything else on our to-do lists. But dismissing rest stifles our ability to think creatively and truly recharge.
In Rest, Silicon Valley consultant Alex Pang argues that we can be more successful in all areas of our lives by recognizing the importance of rest: working better does not mean working more, it means working less and resting better.
Have Some Fun
Who Cut The Cheese? An Amazing Parody About Change And How We Can Get Our Hands On Yours
by Stilton Jarlsberg
"Who Cut The Cheese?" is the original, hilarious parody of the business bestseller "Who Moved My Cheese?" It is a parable in which four rats must find a way through a maze in their hunt for "Cheese." But this "Cheese" is actually symbolic of the things we all want out of life: success and self-confidence, a nice house, a loving marital relationship, perfect children, a loyal dog, indoor plumbing, good Chinese food, several million tax-free dollars, and red-hot sex with multiple partners. The "Maze" in this story is symbolic of the twisting, turning, confusing, mugger-filled blind alleys of Your Life. And since you're being compared to a rat in this book, the whole "Maze" analogy works like a charm.
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
by Lizzy Goodman
Meet Me in the Bathroom charts the transformation of the New York music scene in the first decade of the 2000s, the bands behind it—including The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, and Vampire Weekend—and the cultural forces that shaped it, from the Internet to a booming real estate market that forced artists out of the Lower East Side to Williamsburg. Drawing on 200 original interviews with James Murphy, Julian Casablancas, Karen O, Ezra Koenig, and many others musicians, artists, journalists, bloggers, photographers, managers, music executives, groupies, models, movie stars, and DJs who lived through this explosive time, journalist Lizzy Goodman offers a fascinating portrait of a time and a place that gave birth to a new era in modern rock-and-roll.
