5 Books - Careers, Leadership, Success, Happiness

Here are a few books I liked reading recently. Reading keeps our mind sharp and it also feeds our inspiration well which can run dry unless we keep filling it with uplifting material.

Range by David Epstein – This book will get you thinking about your career in a unique way for sure. The book starts with the examples of Roger Federer and Tiger Woods. It is interesting that when he was a kid Roger Federer wanted to meet Boris Becker and reach 6 grand slams. However, Tiger Woods wanted to be the best of all time. The key learning here is that thriving in the 21st century workforce requires us to be a generalist than just specialists. You may not be the best at something but if you have multiple things you are good at you will win bigger. It has a lot of examples across the spectrum.

How to Win in a Winner-Take-All World by Neil Irwin – This is another book I enjoyed reading. Again, the books main theme is we should be learning across the spectrum and not just be specialized in one area. One of the terms used is Pareto optimality. This means someone might be better than you in leadership but since you are also equally good in sales you will do well across the multiple discipline. This is all about having the big picture in mind and look well beyond your role to succeed. Another principle mentioned is to become a glue person which means brining multiple teams across disciplines together.

Moonshot by Richard Wiseman– I initially thought this book was going to talk about the Apollo 11 landing and how it was done. I was pleasantly surprised that it was much more than that and has specific analogies for us to adopt. I found this book to be inspirational. Some of the ideas are create a grand goal, set a dramatic deadline, be the first to do something, what would you do if you had only half the resources, do the opposite of everyone else, celebrate small wins, and develop growth mindset. This book is full of actionable advice and can help us set bigger goals.

1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently by Marc Chernoff and Angel Chernoff – They had earlier written a book I liked called Getting to Happy. This book seems like a collection of blog posts but to have it in one place is good. It is full of inspiration and actionable advice. One of the main themes that runs throughout the book is to really let go of your past completely and understand that everything that had to happen happened. The other suggestion is to understand some people come into our lives only for a short life to teach us something and they may not reappear. Setting goals is also discussed here. There are a lot of chapters across different topics like adversity, relationships, self-love, passion and growth. I have also written an article based on their earlier book. 9 ways to be super- motivated.

Identity Leadership by Stedman Graham – This is all about understanding yourself which is the key to good leadership. To become better leaders, we should understand ourselves thoroughly. Knowing what make us tick is critical to long term success. A lot of examples across the board are provided to show case the principles. Creating your vision is the first step to self-leadership and inspiring others as well. Another principle I liked was about building your dream team. There is no shortage of leadership books but this one seemed practical to me.

These 5 books are excellent and can keep us inspired. Thanks for reading this post.

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.