2021 - Did I do anything besides reading and studying?

Before I proceed to tell you what I read and studied, the answer is yes. I still have a full-time job, a coaching business, two delightful kids, and a spouse who encourages my reading and learning. But life is too short to not learn and you don't do that my leaning back on what you already know.

How 2021 Started

2020 was an exhausting year with pandemic-enforced quarantine, attempting to work and care for our son through most of the year, and not being able to see friends and family. But it was also a banner year for my reading as I read 26 books in the calendar year - the most I'd ever read.

When I set up my home office at the end of 2020/beginning of 2021, I opted for floating shelves above my file cabinet and credenza. But when I realized that this is what people would see in my background when I was on video calls, I decided to play with the background.

I found some letters from an arts and crafts kit I bought for my son and added "Done" and "To Read" to each of the shelves. And sadly I did not put a big dent in that wine rack as my wife was expecting and as a result, our wine consumption decreased.

Throughout the year, my stack of books on the "Done" shelf grew. And sharp eyes on the part of my Zoom/Teams calls would occasionally notice the posters, the books, and the signs.

How 2021 Ended

See that big stack on the left? That's not even all of the books I read - just the paperback and hardcover ones. I also used Libby (the free audiobook app you can connect to your public library) and the Kindle app.

Once I was able to clean off the "Done" pile, it was like hitting reset on the 2022 year.

Before you say anything, yes - I know my credenza needs to be cleaned up. I went a little hogwild on Etsy and Society6 buying prints. It's much cleaner today and the photo below should show that. :-) But beyond my messy office, 2021 was by far my best reading year ever - 59 books when all was said and done.

2021 was by far my best reading year ever - 59 books when all was said and done.

What I Read in 2021

Some of the themes that carried over from 2020 included politics (eight books on the Trump administration, America's reputation in the world, and authoritarianism), RVing, and stoic philosophy. But several Asian-American centric books, the science around well-being (breathing and sleep), and diversity/allyship/inclusion also made the list.

Average time it took me to read each book: 294 days.

Ouch... almost 10 months per book! But in fairness, several books that took me several YEARS to complete throw this average off. I made an intentional effort to reduce the number of books I was reading concurrently - this included a bunch that I'd started and stopped reading years ago.

Without the books that took me more than 1000 days to read (HBR's 10 Must Reads On Change Management, Positive Intelligence, The McKinsey WayMake Your Mark: The Creative's Guide to Building a Business with Impact, The Southerner's Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience), my average time to read each book was 106.7 days. Not bad.

What I Read in 2021 (the list)

• The Room Where it Happened
• Taste: The Infographic Book of Food: Put this on your coffee table and pick it up every couple of days for some really intriguing insights into food from across the world.
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art: You breathe and don't thing about it, ever. Because why would you? You know you need it. You do it without conscious effort (cause otherwise, you'd die). But what do you actually know about how we breathe? Find out.
• The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals (Includes Refrigerator Labels): The founders of the Home Edit became super popular super fast...and while I don't plan on completely adopting their system, color coding my books sure does make them look pretty.
• Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management Interviews
• How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Avoid this book. Follow the premise though.
• Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces (2nd Edition): A VITAL book for anyone looking to become a stronger ally in the workplace and in society.
• Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy
• Talent Wins: The New Playbook for Putting People First
• The Coaching Mindset: 8 Ways to Think Like a Coach
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
• Interior Chinatown: A Novel: A deeply amusing story. If you're down for a little sound with your reading, get this on audiobook. And don't be afraid to imagine the Law and Order SVU "chunk-chunk" sound.
• Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents
• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: Atul Gawande's classic text is a reminder of the societal impact that can happen when we trust a process and honor that process.
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us: Daniel Pink's book is worth reading for so many reasons. In addition to the easy-to-read style of his writing, understanding what mastery, autonomy, and purpose are and why they're important will shape how you look at work and what motivates us.
• HBR's 10 Must Reads On Change Management
• Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential AND HOW YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOURS
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated): Outdated, but some of the concepts here are worth throwing at your brain.
• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (Harrowing Historical Nonfiction Bestseller About a Courageous Fight for Justice): A dark tale of how unsafe some jobs were before OSHA existed and before standards were installed to protect workers. A fascinating and heartbreaking story.
• The McKinsey Way
• A Life Worth Living: Finding Your Purpose and Daring to Live the Life You've Imagined: If you've never lost anyone in your life or had a major trauma, you may not have perspective. Read this and you'll gain plenty.
• Ready Player Two: Let's just say it wasn't as good as Ready Player One, but it was a fine distraction from the chaos of the real world.
• Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, 20th Anniversary Edition: Remember two books above how I talked about lacking perspective? Scratch that. This book will give you perspective on leading a life worth living. Particularly meaningful to me as this was a book my mother read long before she passed away - and one she encouraged me to read. It took me 20+ years but I finally got it done.
• Make Your Mark: The Creative's Guide to Building a Business with Impact (The 99U Book Series) The 99U Book Series
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams: A complex text with many scientific concepts that will put you into a dizzy spin, but the core message is clear: WE. NEED. SLEEP. That's it. The why? Contained within this book.
• Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
• Getting Unstuck: A Guide to Discovering Your Next Career Path A Guide to Discovering Your Next Career Path
• How to Traumatize Your Children: Don't worry, this is a tongue-in-cheek satire.
• The Flying Tigers: The Untold Story of the American Pilots Who Waged a Secret War Against Japan: To read one or two books on World War II each year is to learn something incredible once or twice a year. This story of American pilots in China before the US officially entered World War II is compelling.
• A Beginner's Guide to Living in an RV: Everything I Wish I Knew Before Full-Time RVing Across America Everything I Wish I Knew Before Full-Time RVing Across America
• How Will You Measure Your Life?: Make no mistake. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christiansen's book is a self-help book. But it poses important questions - especially for MBA graduates and students alike.
• The Southerner's Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life: I included this book on my post, "A reading list for any incoming graduate business student (especially Vanderbilt students)" from August 2021 - but really it's an excellent read for anyone who has lived in or traveled to the south or is planning on living or traveling to the south. Food, drink, history, style, culture.
• Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco
• The Better Allies Approach to Hiring: Karen Catlin's books are all easy to read and provide insight actionable lessons based on her experiences (and others') in the world of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
• The Food Truck Handbook: Start, Grow, and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business: Lesson learned. I'm not opening a food truck any time soon. But quite interesting to see the mechanics of what goes into site selection, inventory management, marketing, and crafting delicious food/drink!
• The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China: I'd wager good money that many of you had NO idea about the Jewish families whose business empires were built in China and had an outsized impact on both the country and the world.
• prettycitynewyork: Discovering New York's Beautiful Places: Not really a traditional book to read, but when you're obsessed with Manhattan like I am, any book featuring pictures and stories of NYC's neighborhoods is going to be like catnip.
• A Promised Land: Definitely listen to this on audiobook so you can hear our man Barry O's excellent reading voice narrate his life story.
• Growing Up in San Francisco's Chinatown: Boomer Memories from Noodle Rolls to Apple Pie Boomer Memories from Noodle Rolls to Apple Pie: A deeply personal book to me, written by a man who probably knew my mother before she passed (and whom she likely knew as well). The stories of people from my parents' generation growing up in San Francisco's Chinagtown hit me in the feels...especially when I found my mother in one of the pictures in this book.
• How Democracies Die: The breakdown in American democracy has been well publicized in the media lately. This should be your primer to understanding why this is such a big concern.
• Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell: If you're looking for an inspirational story, go somewhere else. Bill Campbell may have coached some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley but this book did not make it clear why I should care. And you should not either.
• The Little Book of New York
• What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism: Dan Rather's folksy tone and trustworthy voice (sadly slightly tainted by the scandal that forced him from his role at CBS) harkens back to a time when there were revered presences in the media (in a time of the Fairness Doctrine). He doesn't get a pass on his mistake but his words still ring true.
• The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
• Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents: Isabel Wilkerson's meticulously researched writing will leave you confounded, angry, irritated, and stunned. This should be required reading for all students in America.
• The Negroni: A Love Affair with a Classic Cocktail: Do not read this book and NOT have gin, campari, and sweet vermouth nearby. Just don't get too flustered and buy all of the ingredients in this book. The joy is in experiencing these out in the world - not in your living room.
• Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams
• Family Handyman Best Tips & Projects 2020
• The Fifth Risk: This one was on my list for awhile. Having finally finished it, I am left thinking a few things. 1.) I really need to better understand what the US government does (as do you). 2.) The Trump Administration could not have been any less prepared to run the Federal government. 3.) Some of the people profiled in this book truly are American heroes.
• Black Flags: The Rise of Isis: If you lack an understanding of events in the Middle East, particularly around what Isis is, how American foreign policy and actions led to its growth, and what the US has had to deal with as a result, you need to read this.
• Grow the F*ck up: A few valuable nuggets on life skills are unnecessarily overshadowed by a wildly sexist and ignorant author's lewd attempts at comedy. Skip this.
• The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Stoicism has become a part of my life philosophy after reading "The Obstacle is the Way" - and this book makes it really easy to consume thoughtful passages from Stoicism on a daily basis. Or as I did it, with one chapter read straight on one day per month.
• Hiring for Diversity: The Guide to Building an Inclusive and Equitable Organization: Quite possibly the most comprehensive book written for HR professionals, diversity leaders, and business leaders to understand the facets of diversity and how to build inclusion into an organization.
• Peril: There's a lot of Trump on this list, but it's important to truly understand the 2017-2021 years in American politics and history at large.
• After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's classic text is a powerful read, but know that the text is tiny and deep and reading this will take you longer than you expect. You've been warned. Now go read it.
• 2034: A Novel of the Next World War: It's fiction but understanding that the next major world conflict may come between the US and China is worth reading - if only to reinforce the need for de-escalation.
• Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World: "How could this have happened" is a question you'll be restating over and over once you read this book, about the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia.

What I Studied in 2021

2021 was the year I decided to ramp up my learning, both structured and informal. A total of 62 courses across three platforms (MasterClass, LinkedIn Learning, Calm) plus a bunch of institutions.

On the structured side, an eCornell certificate on Diversity and Inclusion for HR and five coaching certifications (Four Tendencies, CTI's Professional Coach Certification, ICF ACC Certification, Hogan Assessment and Designing Your Life).

On the informal side, MasterClasses by Gordon Ramsay, Mashama Bailey, and Madhur Jaffray and LinkedIn Learning courses on allyship, racism, and cultural communications opened me up to wonderful new learnings. This was especially due to my continued involvement in a LinkedIn Learning Club (#lilclub), in which we took courses and discussed questions and thoughts (if that sounds appealing, please see the link above or contact me).

Average time it took me to complete each course: 26.55 days.

What I Studied in 2021 (the list)

• LinkedIn: Unconscious Bias
• LinkedIn: Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging
• LinkedIn: Succeeding in a New Role By Managing Up
• LinkedIn: Skills for Inclusive Conversations
• LinkedIn: Become a Chief of Staff with Brian Rumao: I met Brian Rumao in a LinkedIn alumni event right around the time I was finishing this course. If you're up for or consider a Chief of Staff role, watch this.
• LinkedIn: Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues
• LinkedIn: Communicating Across Cultures: TAKE. THIS. COURSE.
• LinkedIn: Bystander Training: From Bystander to Upstander
• MasterClass: Jake Shimabukuro: I bought a ukulele to practice with this course and what I learned is that I suck at all musical instruments. Jake is amazing though
• LinkedIn: The Six Morning Habits of High Performers
• Calm: Stoic Wisdom for Modern Life
• Co-Active Training Institute - Certification: Loved this program. Probably more than most people want to address (takes at least a year, including the prerequisite coach training program) but it changed my life!
• LinkedIn: The Science of Compassion: Transforming Empathic Distress
• LinkedIn: Confronting Racism, with Robin DiAngelo: No longer available because of a fiasco involving Coca Cola employees who did not like the contents of this course. A shame too because I thought it was a productive, thoughtful course.
• LinkedIn: Enhance Your Productivity with Effective Note-Taking
• CreativeLiveDYL Class
• LinkedIn: Working with an Executive Coach
• LinkedIn: Gretchen Rubin on Creating Great Workplace Habits
• LinkedIn: Organizing your Remote Office for Maximum Productivity
• LinkedIn: Find Your Passion: How Padma Lakshmi Found Hers
• LinkedIn: Building a Stellar Employee Experience: One of my least favorite LinkedIn Learning courses ever. Just really lacking in any useful insight and the delivery was not engaging.
• MasterClass: Nancy Cartwright
• LinkedIn: Getting Things Done
• eCornell: Diversity and Inclusion in Practice for HR: the six courses here listed under eCornell were part of their Diversity and Inclusion for HR certificate program. Some of it was super informative but their program is not cheap and I think you can get equivalent content elsewhere (like on LinkedIn Learning).
• eCornell: Fostering an Inclusive Climate
• LinkedIn: Becoming a Male Ally at Work: I would recommend all men to watch this course.
• LinkedIn: Managing Up Virtually as an Employee
• LinkedIn: Rolling Out a Diversity and Inclusion Training Program in Your Company
• eCornell: Driving Engagement for HR
• LinkedIn: How to Develop your Career Plan
• ICF ACC Certification
• LinkedIn: Product Marketing Foundations
• Improve Your Listening Skills
• eCornell: Countering Bias in the Workplace for HR
• eCornell: Employment Law and Policy Issues
• MasterClass: Thomas Keller (Teaches Cooking Techniques I: Vegetables, Pasta, and Eggs): You never knew simple dishes could be made so complex and beautiful.
• eCornell: Workplace Disability Inclusion: the most useful of the eCornell courses - and vital for making people aware about neurodiversity, amongst other topics within the ability/disability realm.
• LinkedIn: Fred Kofman on Managing Conflict
• MasterClass: Levar Burton: Fans of Reading Rainbow or Geordi LaForge will appreciate this course. So will non-fans!
• Hogan Virtual Certification Workshop
• Hogan Virtual Advanced Interpretation Workshop
• Hogan Virtual Advanced Feedback Workshop
• LinkedIn: Communicating with Diplomacy and Tact
• MasterClass: Serena Williams: As a lifelong tennis player, I admire Serena who will go down as one of (if not the) greatest tennis players of all time. But this course was utterly useless. Go watch tennis matches and practice with a ball machine.
• MasterClass: Robert Reffkin
• MasterClass: Corey Jenkins
• LinkedIn: Success Habits
• LinkedIn: Understanding and Supporting Asian Employees: Any business leader and diversity and inclusion professionals should consider taking this course if they themselves are NOT Asian and are responsible for ERG planning, have direct reports who are Asian, or know any Asian employees. (yes, likely to be most people)
• MasterClass: Mashama Bailey: Prepare to be hungry during and after this course.
• Designing Your Life Certification
• MasterClass: Madhur Jaffray: Prepare to be hungry during and after this course.
• LinkedIn: Uncovering Your Authentic Self at Work
• LinkedIn: Take a More Creative Approach to Problem-Solving
• LinkedIn: The Value of Employee Resource Groups

Conclusion(s)

One might assume (fairly) that I was only after quantity and not the quality of reading and learning. And I completed more books and courses than I have in any previous year, that couldn't be further from the truth. In my scant free time (usually when putting my son to sleep at 8:30 PM each night, driving him to daycare, or as her or our newborn daughter napped), I took every opportunity to doze, read, or learn. When I got on my Peloton for a casual 15-minute scenic ride, I opened up a book. As I mowed my lawn, I listened to Obama on Audible.

It's an odd thing to love reading and learning at this stage of my life. During my undergrad, master's, and earlier in my life (when I had more time and opportunities/motivations to focus), I did none of that. I hope some of these books or courses appeal to you and you consider joining me on a path to learning!

Further Reading

If you'd like to read any of my other posts on reading, have a gander:

• 2020 - A Year of Reading and Learning in Review?(January 4, 2021)
• Oh how I hated learning as a kid?(May 21, 2019)
• Why I have a "To Learn" list vs. a "To Do" list?(February 8, 2019)
• On the Importance of Reading and Learning?(August 17, 2018)
• If you'd like to see the full, up-to-date list of everything I read or learn in courses, feel free to browse?my Google spreadsheet.?