21 Influential Books to add to your reading list!

Will - by Will Smith

I read this book “pre-slap”. Before this antic, I was a HUGE fan of Will Smith. Reading this book, I found myself resonating with how misunderstood he was (and probably still is). It’s a lesson in believing in myself, that fixing problems is not always the answer. That emotional intelligence impacts relationships and happiness comes from within and not from possessions or achievements. Reflecting on “the slap”, if there’s anything else that shines through for Will… He isn’t perfect… The action is not a behaviour I condone or agree with and frankly my response to what he did was visceral… There is nothing excusable about it, but his path since the incident will be make or break, to admit his error and ask for forgiveness. I’m glad I read this book “pre-slap”… What great context… My personal opinion here is that “the slap” shows how people in power are bound to abuse it. It’s likely a symptom of his inability to control himself in amongst his perceived metoeric rise of late. As Lord Acton said in the 1800’s “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. For someone that simply could do no wrong between 2020-2021, the perceived lack of consequences could be an adequate force to drive such a spectacle. I’m watching with interest on how he portrays himself over the next few years.

Ordinary Men - Robert Browning

A horrifying play by play recount of the events of the holocaust. This, at times, was hard to read. The gradual manipulation of people in command by being given “special commands”. This book taught me a lot about the terrible reality of the victims and their families. I read this book following a book by an escapee Eddie Jaku “The happiest man on earth” which recounts his own journey of being captured and fleeing to Sydney, Australia to complete a life filled only with love and appreciation. Specifically, this book was a working example of social identity theory in action, how people deal with authority, influential leadership through propaganda. It was a real life simulation of two famous psychological experiments called Millgram’s experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these experiments portrayed how people deal with authority and what happens when people band together in their abuse of power - their actions, when approved of by peers, just don’t seem so grave anymore. Based on the level of influence Hitler had on his followers, one can only ask - “does that make him a leader?”… I would argue that the difference between leadership and manipulation is intent - with his being malevolence.

12 Rules For Life, an antidote to chaos - Jordan Peterson

think this book is deeply thoughtful, highly intellectual and keenly observant. I like how it offers a historial and psychological perspective on society today. I do believe that there are a lot of themes that are layers deeper than my ability to understand. Overall, it dives deeply into why we should do some of the basic things in life, sharing consequences and examples of when these “rules” (basic things in life) aren’t followed and what happens when they are. An excellent book that forms an intellectual understanding of the way of lifeis and to some extent, the way life should be in Peterson’s perspective.

Compassionomics - Stephen Trzeciak & Anthony Mazzarelli

This book delivers one main message… Compassion basically improves everything.

There are extensive examples and statistics that support this notion littered throughout the book. As a health professional, some cirumstances really hit me hard showing me ways I could improve where I was really dropping the ball with my patients and how I can immediately train my team to lift our game.

It discerned the difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy being the perception of what others are going through, and compassion being the approach you decide to take in acting upon the empathy you’ve perceived.

Overall, compassion is crucial in a health care setting. Getting to know people, finding the cause and making a plan. It’s great for personal health and wellness and it’s good for company performance and revenue. Ultimately, doing right by the patients ends up reducing the overall costs associated with healthcare.

It was a little long winded, but worth reading.

21 lessons for the 21st century - Yuval Noah Harari

This was an interesting read.

There were some great conceptual ideologies and ways of thinking that made sense of what we’re seeing today globally in a sociopolitical sense, in social psychology and also in terms of our own individual neuropsychology.

Some things were daunting to listen to as to the grave reality of where life is as we see it today and is incredibly relevant as some of the things he talks about are coming to fruition just 3 years after he wrote the book.

So you’re going to be a dad - Peter Downey

This was an excellent book for the first time dad.

A perfectly balanced, clear, concise and to the point description of what it's like to find out you're going to be a Dad all the way up to the baby being a toddler.

Insights that no course or internet search can give you. the author has done all the work and compiled it into a handy book. easy to read and down to earth.

Highly recommended.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo - Christy Lefteri

The story of asylum seekers travelling from Aleppo to England through Greece.

Describes the hardships faced and obstacles overcome bye typical asylum seekers.

There are very clear gateways and sacrifices that need to be made and in particular sacrifices and compromises that need to be made at every step of the way in order to get the destination

In order for life to be lived healing needs to take place in order to sustain relationships.

Final Spin - Jocko Willink

This story was the first fiction book written by Jocko.. A great read considering the tone of his usual writing.

This was about someone who wants to break free of the monotony and jail of life. He decides to commit a crime to do so. His crime goes from bad to worse as his friend dies, he takes down to cops and then he himself gets killed in a negotiation that ends badly. It's a lesson that going fast and acting on impulse never wins and happiness can literally be right around the corner of only you just wait.

Greenlights - Matthew McConaughey

This was a book about life - but about his take on his own life.

Allowing life to happen and letting go of control.

Not understanding the lessons until you're ready to learn them.

Having fun, being present and allowing yourself to celebrate your wins and commiserate your losses.

Knowing that your family is always going to be there - until they're not and they've moved onto their next life.

I think this is a book about presence. About appreciation for who you are and the world around you. Relinquishing control and enjoying the ride. A great book.

No Spin - Shane Warne

This was a book about Shane Warne's life. Talked a lot about how his love for cricket was Less a passion and more interests.

He talked a lot about his unapologetic style and approach towards life and his career and that he would stand up for his values and what he wanted to do more then following tradition and doing what other people wanted him to do.

I feel that there was some topics that he spoke about when he was candid however biased in almost defensive way around how he was treated and have a media spun some of the events around his life and his career.

Overall it was a good read learning about his life and an appreciation of how much is squeezed into his short years before he passed away.

Ask Gary Vee - Gary Vaynerchuk

What was a variety of topics which was nothing more than a transcription of his podcast.

There were some good bits throughout it but the book totality did not seem to make any point particular.

Although it was well segmented into topics there was nothing groundbreaking and probably a good one to put back on the shelf as decoration.

And what I mean by this is covered across broad topics but there are better books about these topics that go into more depth the greater purpose

Drive - Daniel Pink

Main points where about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation and how they should be rewarded

For work that people are intrinsically motivated to do, the work itself is the reward. Assigning rewards and consequences to something they are doing that they are intrinsically motivated to do will detract from this drive they already have in the first place.

Assigning rewards and punishments to extrinsically motivated behaviours such as rules and tasks is more effective. But only in the short term... As operant conditioning states, that the reward will lose its value if it is always received upon completion.

Using "if then" rewards or punishments works well for rule based tasks.

Using "now that" rewards or punishments works well for behaviours that aren't natural that the team are trying to build. Ie. Team performance.. "now that" you have worked well as a team and done (something specific), you get X reward. But this is not done everytime so as to create an expectation of reward. It's to shine light on a behaviour or outcome that is desirable to be repeated.

Delivering Happiness - Tony Hseih

This book is about aligning what you intrinsically want with what you do every single day

It is all about culture and how to build and sustain it at scale

It is less of a how.to.book.an more of a story about the trials and tribulations associated with the company zappos.

There is some great examples of when the culture was lost and fragmented.

There is a specific focus on getting clear on what your company's main strength is supposed to be and focusing on that. In the case of zappos it was providing excellent customer service and focusing on a great experience for the team.

Big focus on the importance of building and sustaining and upholding core values

The Danish Way of Parenting - Jessica Joelle Alexander

Play - conditions children to stress and allow them to explore thier boundaries of danger. They naturally put themselves in different scenarios to experience emotions associated with differing circumstances which elicit stress responses.

Authenticity - parents need to tell the truth but hadn't appropriate level with respect to the age and zone of proximal development. Also the open this to experience a variety of emotions and deem them all is normal rather than over exaggerate happy thoughts and feelings whilst try to suppress negative thoughts and feelings. Instead allow the child to embrace all aspects of emotions as they are all normal and realistic given different circumstances. The key is to help them navigate through the exploration of their own emotions to help them understand themselves without judgement.

Rreframe - offering various ways to look at the same frame and choosing more optimistic ways of looking at the same thing. There is a distinction between this and toxic positive as we are not trying to make something bad good, looking at the same thing in negative and positive frames.

Empathy - being sensitive to the way that other people might be feeling and portraying acceptance of all others for their choices due to understanding on how they might be feeling. Expressing judgement and intolerance other people's choice is stems from a competitive streak of wanting to buy us your own parenting style as period but he's not as rewarding as collaborating and accepting other people's choice is for what they are creating a community driven by love stemming from empathy.

No Ultimatums - this is about making sure that you do not attach extrinsic motivations to things that they are intrinsically motivated to do. This is about learning how to combine empathy with your approach in understanding them as to why they are repeating a particular pattern or appreciating that they make learning their boundaries especially as they enter the barrier testing ages of his 2 to 4. This is also about helping them acknowledge their own feelings and then how other people might be feeling especially when it comes to sharing toys or playing together. Build strategies with your partner and remain calm. If you need a break, tag your partner in.

Togetherness - collectivism > individualism.

The Breakfast Club for 40-somethings - Vanessa Stoykov

5 pillars

Desire - what is it you're spending money on that you're too leveraged to.

Focus - do you know what your goal is?

Time - how are you spending your time? Where are you spending your time?

Belief - what you spend your thoughts on is what becomes your reality. What you think about over and over is what ends up coming true.

Action - with all this in mind... what are you going to do now? What's your plan?

The key point is to unlearn habits and to make proper plans that leading to retirement

Content Inc - Joe Pulizzi

This book describes six steps to building a content strategy to amass an audience and therefore leverage to launch a product or business.

They push the notion that youre better off building an audience before you sell to them.

The formula for content success being:
Knowledge areas + special skills + your own characteristics

Spend time to identify how these apply to you or your business and begin building your audience.

Atlas of the Heart - Brene Brown

A beautiful book talking about our natural responses to emotions and the various ways we perceive them.

She talks a lot about different emotions that arise as a result of different events or circumstances.

It's a bit of a bible based on scenarios about how one might feel if...and how to help them.

It’s probably worthwhile to refer back to this book at times where one might be having a hard time processing their emotions.

Great book. Excellent

Think Again - Adam Grant

This book was about critical thinking and making sure that your thoughts and opinions words and behaviours have some validity to them rather thinking blindly.

His delivery challenged me because of his tone around being based on evidence rather than opinion and bias which inmyview limits ones ability to feel and lead with their heart and spirit.

Overall there was some very good points about how to debate emotional intelligence leadership decision making and in particular rethinking.

Overall I agreed with the notions portrayed in this book and think that he is a great author however did not enjoy the tone as I feel that sometimes it can be interpreted as judgemental. I think that's an indication of some of the stories that I hold inside of me rather than the author's intention

Molecules of Emotion - Candace Pert

This was a great book detailing the important role and mechanics of hormones and neurotransmitters.

It was a great book to understand how emotions are formed and that they simply vibrational frequencies throughout the whole body along with their impacts on psycho neuro immune function and the endocrine system.

A lot of this book was a recount of her story and professional life which wasn't very enthusing, but getting past all that there was some interesting points about feeling things fully and being a fully present and accepting as possible of the vibrational frequencies we experience so as to not block or negatively associate certain feelings with something bad or undesirable.

The Road Less Stupid - Keith Cunningham

Asking critical questions to help facilitate thinking time.

Thinking time is a 30-45min blocked out time for your self in an office or a space without distractions.

The questions allow you to think critically about your business utilising the 5 core disciplines of thinking.

The whole point of thinking time is to slow down business owners from buying into their own bright ideas too quickly and enthusiastically only to incur “dumb-tax” - which are costs incurred due to making decisions without properly thinking about them.

It covers an array of topics and is an excellent book to have as a reference with you at all times to facilitate thinking time.

The Miracle Equation - Hal Elrod

This book follows Hal’s original book - “The morning miracle” which took readers through a morning ritual to set the day up for success.

This sequel was written for the purpose of how to make the miracle morning more applicable, practical and tangible, rather than too ethereal and pie-in-the-sky-like.

There are two main ingredients which help people identify exactly how they wish to achieve their miracle… by developing a daily mantra which in made up of:

Unwavering faith - the thing you truly believe that you will achieve
Extraordinary effort - how you will be able to achieve the thing you truly believe you will.

He talks about believing in things because of blind faith doesn’t lead to anything and there must be a genuine reason why behind the thing you wish to achieve in order to establish the importance of the achievement and thus adding fuel to the fire of why you want to work towards achieving this in the first place.

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