8 books I loved reading this year

The Long View by Brian Fetherstonhaugh [Business / Personal Success]

As professional careers are getting longer, more competitive, and more uncertain, it is surprising to note that little practical advice is available to understand them as a whole. This book fills this gap and takes "The Long View" perspective on career design and development.?It defines three interconnected stages in a career and explains how to build various types of "fuel" during each stage to create long-lasting and fulfilling success. The author, whom I had the chance to meet in NYC, also addresses the nonlinearity of many successful careers, how to manage adversity and the jobs of the future, and how to get prepared for them.

Although most would benefit from reading this book, I recommend it specifically for people transitioning from one phase to the other: (1) students or young graduates who want to start strong, (2) successful mid to late thirties executives who don't want to plateau but instead reach high, and (3) senior professionals in their fifties who wonder about "what's next?" and want to have a lasting impact.?

Extreme Productivity by?Robert C. Pozen [Business / Personal Success]

I've become suspicious about books with similar titles. In my experience, they all address basics such as "sleep well, eat well and exercise," and "family and work-life balance are important." Still, they largely fail to provide practical, actionable insights and advice. And the valuable tips they give are often related to getting more done in a given unit of time. These might be useful for people who find themselves inefficient and don't know where to start. But when you are already efficient and, with experience, have come to realize that there is always more work and that taking all of it is not sustainable, what you need is to understand how to become more effective. You need to know how to do less, and better.

That's what this book is about, and its subtitle gives a better description: "Boost your results. Reduce your hours". It helps you define and prioritize your personal goals and act accordingly. It provides many valuable tips to communicate effectively, manage up and down, and maximize your options. I recommend it to all who will recognize themselves in the above.

Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet [Entrepreneurship]

Entrepreneurship is often praised for being a key driver of innovation, personal growth, and wealth … which it can be. It is also often depicted as being the work of a single, often charismatic, genius leader with that 'special gene' others lack. The likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the exception rather than the rule. Entrepreneurship is something that can be taught, and that can be learned. This clearly appears from the significantly-above-average successes originating from places where it is taught and experimented with discipline in the right supporting ecosystem.

Disciplined Entrepreneurship, written by the Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and used widely in the MIT ecosystem and beyond, focuses on Innovation-Driven Entrepreneurship. It demystifies the process of defining and refining your idea and acts as a 24-steps guide that, when followed with discipline, will increase the chance of success of your new venture(s).

I recommend it to those who have a technological breakthrough, an idea, or a passion but don't know where to start. It will also be a fantastic read for those who support entrepreneurs (e.g., incubators) and an excellent read for anybody who wants to learn about it.

Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone et al. [Communication/Psychology]

We've all been there repeatedly: we know we must talk to a colleague, our boss, our partner, or a friend about something we know will be at least uncomfortable and at worst explosive. So we repeatedly mull it over until we can no longer put it off and then finally stumble through a confrontation when we could have had a conversation. Difficult Conversations is the definitive work on handling these unpleasant exchanges.

I'm aligned with sperzdechly's LibraryThing review, which expressed it better than I could, saying:

This is not a typical communication/negotiation book, where you receive tactical tips on how to assess the other party's goal, frame the situation, and navigate the conversation to end it up as close to your goal as possible. "Difficult Conversations" is more of a strategic planning book, where you receive tips on how to explore your feelings and motives to stay grounded when emotions and irrationally kick in.

I really like how it embraces the human side of having a heated discussion and guides self-discovery. It provides a lot of examples that illustrate the theory and make it more accessible via a variety of situations and contexts of difficult conversations.

I recommend it to people leading and interacting a lot within and across modern organizations, but also for anybody's personal life. Just bear in mind that it is relatively dense, will be slow to read and digest, and therefore will require multiple breaks to help the content sink in.

Les Vertus de l’échec {The Virtues of Failure} by Charles Pépin [Self-development]

Failure is part of our lives, yet our personal experiences with it and various cultures' perspectives vary tremendously. Whereas some embrace it as a source of experience and wisdom, and therefore accelerated innovation and growth, others have difficulties getting out of old systems in which little room is left for error, and failure is stigmatized rather than encouraged.

For those coming from the latter systems, the author proposes to change our perspective on failure. It does so very well by providing a plethora of real-life examples of well-known, highly successful people who grew and became their best selves after failing big… and sometimes repeatedly. Steve Job's return to Apple as CEO years after being fired from the same role is a well-known example. Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb was another one. But Rafael Nadal's story and many others are much less so.

This short book provides and contextualizes many such examples, covers the topic from multiple perspectives: failure as a way to learn and grow, as a lesson in humility,?a way to experience reality or even to create opportunities, and obviously how to deal with failure, as an individual, and as a society.

Read this book, especially if you haven't failed yet, or enough, and/or if you have trouble recovering from it. The first times are tough. Not only be prepared for it but experiment and seek it.

La Technique des étincelles {The Sparks Technique} by Vanessa Cahierre and Nadège Fougeras [Self-help]

Life is made of upheavals, disruptions, separations, and other kinds of changes that were desired or endured: relocation, career events, break-ups, arrival or departure of a child, health issues… How to manage these turbulent times? Many professionals and books address this question, but I find this one to provide a very simple, complete, and practical toolbox to facilitate the ride. Each "spark" in this book is an experience or activity that provokes a positive action and growing awareness, and that is based on, complemented by, or illustrated by scientific research.

It is delightful and easy to read, light and interactive, and filled with great tips and advice that will help anyone have more serenity in times of change and even embrace that change. A book to have at home, read little by little, or go to a specific chapter/theme in time of need, and ideally come back regularly.

I recommend this type of book for anybody who has or will have a significant change in their lives… wait, that's basically everybody! Start with this book if you want to reflect on your own, at your rhythm, using practical and easy-to-read support. (Unfortunately, I don't believe there is a translation to English yet.)

The Moth [True stories]

Storytelling has always been a critical component of personal and community development in humanity's history. Long before the internet, television, and radio, and even further in time before mass literacy, people would gather on porches outside their homes and tell stories until late at night, with moths flying around the light. The Moth is a non-profit group trying to recapture this art and craft, helping people hone their stories before sharing them in front of packed crowds at sold-out live events storytelling events.

This book was their first. It is a recollection of 50 of the most amazing true stories told during those events. The stories are relatively short and tell some extract of a person's life, sometimes fairly mundane, but often quite extraordinary: a famous rapper's dive into his family's history, the life as a Sultan's concubine, the fight to save Mother Theresa's life, a friend of Hemingway's accidental enrollment as a substitute bullfighter… Every single one of these true stories tells something interesting and gets the reader to think.

It's a fantastic book to be savored in modest doses, one story at a time: in bed before going to sleep, in a comfy armchair with a cup of tea, or nature during a break. I recommend it to anybody who appreciates short stories, likes to learn about others, and/or enjoys reflecting on their own life and luck.??

La Porte d’Ivoire {The Ivory Gate} by Serge Brussolo [Novel]

I love reading but have never really been a fan of fiction as much as non-fiction. But this is one of the few books that did the trick for me in the last few years: it grabbed my attention, transported me to a different place where my reality faded for a few hours, and did not let go until the last page.

The story starts with the disappearance of an old billionaire during an expedition in the Congolese rainforest, as he was searching for a lost city, and his daughter setting up a search party to find him... From there, the adventure begins for the reader as well as for the protagonists, with a wacky mix of Indiana Jones-type adventure and action…

I don't want to say more, but you'll have a great time reading this book, which won the best novel in the adventure category in France in 2018. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find an English translation yet.