10 Books I Read In 2019

2019 was a difficult year to find time to read or listen to books but I was able to make time and below is a list of the 10 books from this year. You never really know where you are going to find inspiration; some find it in a sunset, others find it in a seminar or sermon, and a few find it in conversations with friends and loved ones. Reading has always challenged me to understand a perspective outside of my own and has lead to some tremendous personal inspiration which lead me to start a business. Starting up a new company presented unique challenges and kept me tied up on the phone during the commutes I would normally use to listen to audio books. The mixture of books was a departure from my usual mix of business books and faith based books as I included a book on health and a personal favorite classic.

Please feel free to leave a comment about the books on this list or others you would recommend. If you would like to see the reviews of the books I read previously check out these links; https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/18-books-i-read-2018-clint-akin and

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/26-books-i-read-2017-clint-akin. 

Boys Should Be Boys – Dr Meg Meeker – This book is amazing if you are someone who ever finds themselves around boys; whether you are their parent or not. I had nephews prior to the birth of my son and I also co-taught 8th grade boys at church for nearly three years. Dr. Meeker definitely writes from a perspective that might be portrayed as somewhat counter-culture by some current popular culture views but she has timeless examples of how to raise boys correctly in any society or any time. My personal view aligns with Dr. Meeker’s in regards to challenging boys so they can embrace manhood without creating toxic masculinity or gender neutrality (both are very damaging and lead to mental and physical health issues).

The Life Giving Leader – Tyler Regaen, Craig Groeschel – There is a bad misconception that you must have an important title or have some highly visible form of success to be a leader and this is simply false. This book does a great job of helping you understand that you lead best by showing others through your personal and consistent everyday ways.

New Sales Simplified – Mike Weinberg – I have read a great amount of sales books throughout my sixteen years in sales and this book very quickly jumped to the top of my list of favorite sales books. Mike does a great job of presenting what is required to be successful in sells in the current US market base. There are always timeless principals in sales that must be held onto because they work but with the advent of social media, texting, and emails there are new techniques and rules with technology. Mike doesn’t dig to deep into technology by evaluating CRM’s and advising which one to use but he does do a fantastic job of explaining how you can be more effective with technology in combination with traditional sales methods.

The Robe – Lloyd C Douglas – This book is one of the first books I read out of high school that was not required reading. I never enjoyed the required reading books with the exception of; The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas and A Separate Peace by John Knowles. The Robe is about a historical fictional novel about the soldier who gambled for Christ robe at the crucifixion and won. There are many historical references which are fairly accurate and Lloyd C Douglas does an amazing job of intertwining his fictional story into a captivating tell. I can’t highly recommend this book enough as it is my personal favorite.

The 4 Hour Body – Timothy Ferriss – This was a very challenging read! I honestly am still on the fence as to whether or not this is a good book. There are those who have tried Timothy Ferriss’s health advice and achieved great success and its hard to argue with proven results. There were really two things that made this book challenging for me. The first thing that made it challenging is how complicated the diet and supplement regiment would be to follow without proper medical/health guidance. If you are independently wealthy it might be a little less challenging to follow the diet and supplement regiment. The second challenge was one of the things which makes has lead to Timothy Ferriss personal success, he is very disciplined and admittedly obsessed with getting results. This may sound like a slam but it certainly isn’t meant to be but some people just aren’t as self obsessed (I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing and it could perhaps fall under a more amoral category). To each their own!

The Upside of Irrationality – Dan Ariely – Fun fact! I was a sociology minor and a communications major and both have a large amount of psychology wrapped up in them. This book is about social experiments and I love them. My personal bias made this book fascinating but there are a great amount of personal and professional applications that can be applied from the experiments in the book. I recommend reading this book to see if you could apply the experiments into your situation/issues to see if you could create better results. Dan Ariely also has a very inspirational story in regards to his own life and how he overcame personal tragedy.

Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink, Leif Babin – Anytime you get to read about American heros and Navy Seals you will learn a lot. Add the twist of leadership and business application and you have this book. You will probably have to re-read this book to really get the impact of all the insight. I highly recommend listening to the audio version first and then buy a copy of the book to understand more of the business applications.

Love Does – Bob Goff – This book is very uplifting and encouraging. Bob’s life stories are interesting and prove his point that we must show love by doing for others (the greatest two commandments per Jesus Christ Matt 22:37-40). The only issue I had with the book is Bob had a lot of biblical references but did not specifically site the scripture he wrote about. While his interpretation of the scriptures seem to be in context and aligned with most common theology it is still important to reference the verses or provide a key of some kind for those who do want to reference it. I understand by not quoting scripture this book can appeal to a larger audience who might be not read it otherwise.

The Dichotomy of Leadership – Jocko Willink, Lief Babin – This book follows much of the same format as Extreme Ownership but you don’t have to read Extreme Ownership to see the value in this book as it can stand on it’s own merit. I am grateful the authors recognized the need to provide further clarification regarding the delicate balance true leaders must have (strong but sensitive, ect). This book also has a great amount of insight to unpack and I would recommend listening to the audio version first then read the book to get more applications and take-aways. 

It’s What We Do Together That Counts – Earl Heard – This book tells the life story of BIC Alliance founder Earl Heard. He explains the trials and tribulations he was able to overcome by building into others and helping them achieve their goals. There are some interesting personal anecdotes he shares and some good personal application he applies. Anyone who can look book in time over their struggles should be able to provide insight into how they could have done it better while recognizing how others helped them to arrive at where they are at today.