Books

Career

1. What Color Is Your Parachute? 2021: Your Guide to a Lifetime of Meaningful Work and Career Success by Richard Bolles and Katherine Brooks, PhD

In today’s challenging job market, the time-tested advice of What Color Is Your Parachute? is needed more than ever. Recent grads facing a tough economic landscape, workers laid off mid-career, and people searching for an inspiring work-life change all look to career guru Richard N. Bolles for support, encouragement, and advice on which job-hunt strategies work–and which don’t. (Amazon)

2. Reinvention Roadmap: Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and Career You Deserve by Liz Ryan

Whether you’re entering the workplace or looking to switch careers, you can get the perfect job if you step off the beaten path and follow the approaches insiders use to gain access to the best positions. Reinvention Roadmap is the colorful, fun, irreverent, and deeply practical guide to getting the job you want and building the career of your dreams. (Amazon)

3. StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath

There is an online assessment you can take. I did do this and found it helpful. This is not a paid endorsement and I don’t receive any compensation. (Amazon)

4. Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise. (Amazon)

5. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss

Goals

1. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference. This must-read book is for anyone striving to succeed. (Amazon)

2. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does and how that affects every aspect of life. (Amazon)

3. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman

Attention works much like a muscle: use it poorly and it can wither; work it well and it grows. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to contend with, let alone thrive in, a complex world. (Amazon)

4. Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith

Our reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are usually the result of unappreciated triggers in our environment—the people and situations that lure us into behaving in a manner diametrically opposed to the colleague, partner, parent, or friend we imagine ourselves to be. These triggers are constant and relentless and omnipresent. So often the environment seems to be outside our control. Even if that is true, as Goldsmith points out, we have a choice in how we respond. (Amazon)

5. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor

“We’ve been taught that if we work hard, we will be successful, and then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, get a raise, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this formula is actually backward: happiness fuels success, not the other way around. ” Shawn Achor

Self-Development

1. The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.

This inspirational book is a synthesis of Rosamund Stone Zander’s knowledge of cutting-edge psychology and Benjamin Zander’s experiences as the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Infused with the energy of their dynamic partnership, the book joins together Ben’s extraordinary talent as a mover and shaker, teacher, and communicator with Rosamund’s genius for creating innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment. (Amazon)

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, by Stephen Covey

One of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has captivated readers for 25 years. It has transformed the lives of Presidents and CEOs, educators and parents— in short, millions of people of all ages and occupations. (Amazon)

3. The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: What Scientists Have Learned and How You Can Use It by David Niven PhD

Now the bestselling author of the 100 Simple Secrets series distills the scientific findings of over a thousand of the most important studies on happiness into easy-to-digest nuggets of advice. (Amazon)

4. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential. (Amazon)

5. A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient–Powered by the Science of Games by Jane McGonigal

In this book, McGonigal reveals a decade’s worth of scientific research into the ways all games—including video games, sports, and puzzles—change how we respond to stress, challenge, and pain. She explains how we can cultivate new powers of recovery and resilience in everyday life simply by adopting a more “gameful” mindset. (Amazon)

1. Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David

Emotional agility is a revolutionary, science-based approach that allows us to navigate life’s twists and turns with self-acceptance, clear-sightedness, and an open mind. (Amazon)

2. Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain to Get More Done in Less Time by Paul Hammerness and Margaret Moore

This remarkable team shows you how to use the innate organizational power of your brain to make your life less stressful, more productive, and rewarding. You’ll learn how to:

–Regain control of your frenzy

–Embrace effective uni-tasking (because multitasking doesn’t work)

–Fluidly shift from one task to another

—Use your creativity to connect the dots (Amazon)

3. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristen Niff

More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients—and Dr. Neff’s extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living. (Amazon)

4. 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story by Dan Harris

After having a nationally televised panic attack Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes A lifelong nonbeliever he found himself on a bizarre adventure involving a disgraced pastor a mysterious self help guru and a gaggle of brain scientists Eventually Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset the incessant insatiable voice in his head which had propelled him through the ranks of a hyper-competitive business but had also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freakout. (Amazon)

5. Working with You is Killing Me by Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster

Two well-respected management experts deliver an authoritative manual that provides valuable insights for turning conflicts in the workplace into productive working relationships. (Amazon)