Kim's Possible Booklist

When she began working for Johnson and Johnson as the Manager of Global Education, Kim started a top-notch book club where she and her team would read a book together while analyzing and talking through concepts

"I started reading books, so I got real mentors that I knew and then mentors that I have never met, who have been equally valuable... I realized that the people I was hiring and who were working with me haven't had the same opportunity to interact with these other ways of thinking, and so I started a book club"

Brené Brown:

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

and

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts

"people like Brené Brown... pause this podcast and go listen to everything you can get your hand on from Brené Brown and then come back because she will change your life if you let her... I am a different person today because I interacted with her stuff "

Simon Sinek:

Leaders Eat Last

and

Start With Why

"Simon Sinek, his stuff is amazing, and he's also an amazing guy. Him I've actually met. He's very cool ... I highly recommend investing the time to really learn about why you do what you do, and then having the courage to take all of the armor we've put on to pretend to be something we're not. I spent so many years being someone that I didn't even like because I thought that's what I was supposed to be and so when I started interacting with these people, my career trajectory took off"

Carol Dweck:

Mindset

"Carol Dweck's: Mindset is a game-changer ... after reading it, and realizing how entrenched I was in a fixed mindset, and how to help myself and others get out of that ... incredibly thought-provoking"

"Carol Dweck takes you and puts you in a world and says 'there are two types of people' there are people that are in a fixed mindset, and that's the vast majority of us in some parts of our lives are in a fixed mindset, where we believe this is the hand we have been delt, these are the skills and talents that I have and that's all I have to offer ... And then there are those people, sadly a much smaller group of people who sit in what's called a growth mindset and that's in the ' yes I was dealt a hand when i was born there are certain things that I am predisposed to enjoy, be good at, whatever. But I can learn anything' "

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin:

Extreme Ownership

"This next book we finally worked our way up to what I think of as the most impactful business book that's ever been written, and that's extreme ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. it is, again its an incredible book they do a great job of storytelling and making sense of some of the really critical truths about leadership"

In the podcast, Kim tells a story about listening to a chapter with the main concept being that 'there are no bad teams, just bad leaders'. Kim was really frustrated with this, she had lead many teams over the years, and somewhere bad, really bad! It was getting to the point where she was yelling back retorts in her car, and when the chapter made its final point she truly understood.

"Apart of Extreme Ownership is that you never ever sell out your team, so if there's a problem with the team, it starts with me. and that is so freeing to know that if something went wrong it was my fault because when it's my fault, I can fix it! And I like to fix things. "

David Novak:

Taking People With You

"How do you intentionally build a team of people around yourself, and what does it mean and how do you do it? what should you be looking for? and in order to get to that point, you need to know who you are, what you're good at, what your derailers are, what you should be working on those things you need to continue to build skill in, and then those places where you've already really good and you don't need duplication of those skills. and any time I have hired someone like me, we have butted heads."

Ed Catmull:

Creativity Inc

"He wrote this incredible book, that is really about his approach to leadership, and I think he's got so many things right ... he wanted to create a culture of honesty, but he said honesty has so much, just garbage wrapped around it because there is all of this angst about ' oh you're not being honest with me ' so now its got this emotional component to it, so they started using the word candid. And I actually really like that cause it doesn't carry the emotional baggage that you often get with honesty "

While Kim was speaking, she said a phrase I absolutely adored because it contained almost every book teaching: "... I can do something about it, whatever the solution is, and sometimes the solution is going to be hard and it's going to be messy, but I can do it. because I can learn anything It's my fault, and I am brave enough to take off my armor and say this is hard for me."