Books I Read in Q4 2019

One of my goals for the end of 2019 was to make a solid dent in my rapidly growing pile of books before the year’s end. I’m happy to report back that as of this posting, this stack has gotten noticeably smaller. Over the last few weeks, I have read 13 books and am working to finish up a few more by the close of the year.

Below, you will find each of the books I read this quarter, in the order I read them in, with my commentary about central takeaways and who I think would enjoy each book.

1 - Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You - Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is one of my favorite human beings in the world. He was the musical genius behind In The Heights and Hamilton. This book is a sampling of his “Gmorning, Gnight” tweets with artful illustrations. Ironically enough, I found this to be a great book to both start and end my day with reading.

One of my favorite little pep talks from this book:

Gmorning.

I don’t know how to tell you this,

But

You’re not perfect.

You never will be.

You keep growing and messing up

And learning, 

And your quirks become strengths.

You are SO much better than

Perfect, love.

2 - Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products - Leander Kahney

Jony Ive is the former Chief Design Officer at Apple and is one of the most influential industrial designers of our lifetime. This book is a history of both Jony’s relationships with Steve Jobs and Apple’s products. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in industrial design or consumer electronics.

Also, this is a quote from Jony Ive that stuck out to me during my read:

“I started to learn more about Apple, how it had been founded, its values and its structure. The more I learned about this cheeky, almost rebellious company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had a reason for being that wasn’t just about making money.”

3 - Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - John Carreyrou 

This book read like a fiction novel. I constantly had to do a pulse check as I thought I was reading a theaterized story about a corrupt dreamt up business. With that being said, I read the book and its 352 pages within 48 hours of starting it. I could not put it down.

4 - Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder - Kenny Moore

This was a book recommendation from a friend of mine, Dan. Moore’s work does a great job at capturing Bill Bowerman’s life and his impact at both the University of Oregon and Nike.

5 - I will teach you to be rich, Second Edition: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works - Ramit Sethi

I found this book to be informative and very approachable for someone who is looking for starter principles and tactics to better manage their personal finances.

Disclaimer: I do want to note that I am also very opinionated when it comes to personal finance best practices. My copy of this book has sticky notes throughout highlighting best practices that I agree with fully and also scrutinizing suggestions that I couldn’t disagree with more. Like all advice, take it with a grain of salt and find what works best for you.

6 - New to Big: How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs, Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth - David Kidder, Christina Wallace 

This book was recommended to me when I was looking for a solid read on corporate innovation and it did not disappoint. Kidder and Wallace explain that corporates are great at “Big to Bigger”, but are not set up to succeed at “New to Big” like startups are. Throughout the book, the authors explain startup principles that can be implemented into a corporate innovation strategy to help with sustainable and repeatable growth.

The core idea of this book is summarized below:

First you need to make sure that the product or service in development is addressing your customer’s problem, rather than solving your own problem. Market-making innovation isn’t about you. It’s about the problems or needs in the world that you are strategically positioned to address. Look outside your own walls and pay attention to the new behaviors, shifting market forces, and emerging technologies that will define both what you build and how you build it. You must reorient from “inside out” to “outside in” to discover growth. You’ll never find disruptive growth in internal, consensus-driven beliefs.

If you are new to startup lean methodology, I would highly recommend this free course on Udacity by Steve Blank linked here.

7 - Remote: Office Not Required - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson 

I worked remotely for Fledging from July-November and now run a business where all of my clients are based outside of the city of Chicago. Both authors do a great job explaining why they believe remote work is the future and the arguments for and against it at the employer and employee level. I am a firm believer that remote work will become more and more of the norm and this is a great read introducing you to it if you are unfamiliar.

8 - The Product Book: How to Become a Great Product Manager - Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia, Josh Anon 

This is a great book to read if you are looking for a mile-wide introduction to Product Management. You can get a free PDF copy here on the Product School’s website.

I recommend this to anyone looking to break into product through their career or anyone working for a product-based business.

9 - It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson 

This is the second book from the Basecamp founders on this list and the third book I have read by them this year (I read Rework back in Q3 2019).

Both authors talk about their strategy to create the ideal company culture called “the calm company.” This book goes against hustle culture and provides a living example of a successful company that operates calmly.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is an aspiring entrepreneur and looking for direction on how to run their business and build its culture over time. I would also recommend adding Let My People Go Surfing to that list too.

10 - Selling 101: What Every Successful Sales Professional Needs to Know - Zig Ziglar

This is a quick read on some sales principles gathered over time by Zig Ziglar. I would recommend this for someone new to or looking to break into a sales career.

A small sample of one of the many Frameworks that Ziglar walks through is below:

Zig’s Four-Step Formula

1. Need Analysis: Goal is to x-ray the prospect to identify their wants and needs
2. Need Awareness: Identify one or more specific needs that can be clearly articulated and help the prospect understand that there is a need and what the specifics of that need are
3. Need Solution: Present your product/service and how it solves the need you have made aware for the prospect
4. Need Satisfaction: Ask for the order and close the sale

11 - The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation - Frans Johansson

This book was recommended to me by a friend, Lloyd, and it is all about innovation and creativity. This book covers a lot during its read and below is just one of many examples of research insights about creativity shared in the book.

Harvard researcher Teresa Amabile found that not only are people LESS creative when under serious time pressure, but people actually believe that they are MORE creative during these times.

12 - Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America's Master Communicator - George Lois

My friend, Dan, made it twice on this list for recommendations. This book is a list of tidbits of advice from George Lois or the Real “Don Draper” from Mad Men. Lois shares advice that he has picked up throughout his ad career with examples of some of his most famous work.

One piece of advice that I particularly enjoyed was: Even a brilliant idea won’t sell itself.

Lois then goes on to share the three things you need to do when presenting a Big Idea:

1. Tell them what they are going to see.
2. Show it to them.
3. Tell them, dramatically, what they just saw.

13 - On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction - William Zinsser

I have been wanting to read more on writing since I am doing a lot more of it through Abstract Thoughts (a weekly post I do on LinkedIn every Wednesday. I share books/videos/quotes/hot-takes on topics in and around entrepreneurship) and more regular blog posts.

This book is an incredible guide to writing nonfiction. I have pages folded, sections highlighted, and lots of notes in the margins. If you are looking for a resource that will help you with your writing, get this book.

*I am including the final book below because I am at least halfway through it now and plan to finish it before the end of 2019.*

14 - Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions - Bruce Hanington, Bella Martin (Work-In-Progress)

This book is a collection of 100 different ways to research complex problems. Each page introduces a new method, what it looks like in action, and what type of information that method is good at gathering.

This is a great book for a creative data analyst, entrepreneur performing customer discovery for their idea, an ethnographic researcher, industrial designer, or anyone looking to learn more about the people their product/service serves using creative and proven methods.

What books have you read the past few months? What did you learn from them? Do you have any recommendations on what I should add to my list for early 2020?