I’m excited to share these important and life-changing texts with you! I hope they are as helpful to you as they were to me.
#1 How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
In short, it’s hard to get what you want without aligning to what other people want. This book teaches leadership, influence, and friend-making. The name of the game is to find win-win opportunities, which often requires a shift in mindset from “what do I want” to “how can we both get what we want”. This book gets my top spot – no other book has influenced me more. Read this book now, and re-read it every few years!
#2 How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
The key takeaway is to think in terms of systems, not goals. (Adams says “Goals are for losers”.) A goal has two states – failed and achieved. Most of your time is spent in “failed”, and “achieved” is a fleeting moment. A goal is “lose 10 pounds”, a system is “eat healthy every day”. Systems give you momentum that reinforces your success. And, a system need not have a specific end in mind. Like Adams, I write without knowing exactly where it will take me. My system is to write regularly and be ready for the good things that come from it.
#3 12 habits that you don’t realize are destroying your confidence by Lolly Daskal at Inc.
Like many professionals, I went through a serious bout of Impostor Syndrome, one that took years to fully work through. This article pulled me out to the other side. We are who we are, with our own strengths and weaknesses. Don’t consume yourself comparing your weaknesses to others’ strengths. I made peace with the fact that some colleagues are just plain better than me in some areas, but I also realize my strengths that some others don’t have. I recognized my place as a key member of a leadership team, placing emphasis on each word, so that I was mindful when to use my strengths and when to rely on others.
#4 You are not a leader until you have produced a leader who who can produce another leader by Simon Banks
The quote and image at the link say it all. I love the way this encourages long term thinking and I continually marvel at things that take years to pay off. It’s one thing to train a couple of potential leaders, it is truly amazing to influence and train whole generations of leaders. It’s a big motivation for my writing and mentoring – I don’t know which specific things will pay off, but if I want to influence entire generations of future leaders I have a lot of work to do!
#5 General and Surprising by Paul Graham
Many times we silence ourselves, thinking that what we have to say isn’t that interesting or novel – surely whatever we have to say has been said before. Paul Graham reminds us that even though that sentiment is mostly true, speak and write anyway! Through sheer force of slight changes in repetition, we will eventually generate novelty. Whether this novelty is small or large, it advances human understanding that much further. The worst case scenario is most writing is that you won’t say anything new. Even in this scenario, you still practice writing. But the best case scenario is that you’ll introduce a new and valuable nugget to the world. That’s why I write!
Conclusion
Each of these books, articles, and posts have been truly life-changing for me. I hope you find them as useful as I did. Please add your favorites in the comments!
