Read Deeply and Widely

I set out with the goal of reading 50 books in 2017. I completed 22. While I never like admitting defeat on a goal, I grew from the books I read and I learned about the discipline it takes to get to 50, and I have new strategies for making it to 50 in 2018.

And I may make it to 25 before we pop the cork on 2018, as I have some paid time off and a fireside reading spot secured. I can at least claw my way to a respectable 50% complete. Then I'll polish off some good Scotch and start all over again in 2018.

As for the books I did finish, here's a look at back on the books that moved me in 2018:

One of the first books I read in 2017, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (Magic Cleaning #1), by Marie Kondō altered my approach to living and gave me a new perspective for the material things in my life. Looking back I find this book helped me grow as much, if not more than any of the books on this list.

In The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks by Joshua Cooper Ramo we are handed a prism through which to view humanity as it advances into the next decade. A dynamic view, that fractures into 1000 possibilities, torqued and twisted by the forces that are shaping global society. Networks and their platforms will continue to have major impacts on our world, how we harness them and apply knowledge will impact how we solve problems and which possible futures become reality.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg, taught me about "Habit Loops" and how we can hack our behavior by understanding how the cues the can send us into automated response mode. Understanding what rewards we are after, can help us understand what cues send us seeking those rewards, and thus we can find ways to modify our behavior.

Leaders Eat Last, by Simon Sinek, provided a look at leadership at selected large organizations and identified common traits of the leaders, culture, and environment they have created. That in and of itself, not a very intriguing feat, however, Simon connects the dots between common traits and their impact on brain chemistry and how that impacts worker productivity and loyalty. It's the connections that he makes here that provide insights into identifying the right type of people to hire and the right type of companies and leaders to work for.

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, changed the way I view risk, bias and a slew of other things. This book is a must-have for a business leader and gave me a deeper understanding of the power of slowing down and thinking.

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, by Michael Lewis, provides a very clear understanding that Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky are fucking badasses and that we should read more of their work.

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, by Robert B. Cialdini, is a follow up his book The Psychology of Influence of Persuasion. A nice read and additional detail on how we communicate and what you can do to help your ideas get accepted by others. Its content partnered well with The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa.

Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences, by Andrew Abbott was a read that really changed my approach to selecting books to read. If you want to be really good at solving problems, you have to get really good at identifying them. "Read deeply and widely" is a mantra I picked up from this book and it has stayed with me. It also introduced me to the "Mundanity of Excellence".

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, by John Izzo is a simple and easy framework for happiness and helped remind me that regret is a cold and unforgiving land. A quick read over the weekend at our families mountain home, this book is a great read.

The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, was probably not the obvious choice for light reading for a 4-hour flight from Boston to Denver. Adding to the unlikelihood of the choice was the fact I was on the tail end of work meetings and gatherings. Whatever the probably was, I am sure it was small, however, I made a very good choice. A walk through a family's misfortune, in step with a walk through history as told through the study Nature. Reading it awakened my thirst for the study of math, science, and thought.

What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning will Renew our Lost Evolutionary Strength, by Scott Carney, gave me additional tools for managing my mind and body. There is truth in the cold, if you are willing to be uncomfortable, you can learn to be unstoppable. Oddly enough, a lot of the science the underpins the technics here is rooted in human genetics and human history.

Others were interesting reads as well. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond presented an intriguing take on how we got to now. (However, I believe that my next read, Sapiens, will blow this away.) Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance painted a portrait of growing up in the rust belt. JD's story is exceptional as far as outcomes go for anyone born and raised with his circumstances. Many people hold this up as a model for understanding communities like JD's, yet I didn't see that.

In November, we went home and visited my parents in Iowa. I decided I wanted one book. That book choice was The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon. An entertaining read, I cursed myself for waiting so long to read it.

Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan provides stats in language that entertains and engages the reader. Great book for someone who has taken multiple statistic courses or none at all, readers walk away with a much better grasp of the concepts of statistics. how they are applied and what to look out for from people trying to use shady stats to sell their wares.

Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management, by Masaaki Imai. One of the concepts that stayed with me from this book that continuous improvement is not just a spreadsheet, it's not a calculation, it's a philosophy, whose core tenant is self-discipline. Additionally, this book also taught me something that I thought I knew, and it turned out I was wrong. I had been ignorant of the fact that it was the United States who brought Total Quality Manufacturing to the Japanese, as part of the rebuilding of Japan after WWII. And the Japanese then took TQM to a whole different level, meanwhile, the US got lazy, deregulated and TQM was all but forgotten about till the 1980's.

Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World, by Lee Kuan Yew - Singapore wasn't a world class city-state at the start of the 20th century. Now it's a leading global hub. This book gives insight into the man who leads the transformation and the ideas that he used to shape society.

Andrew S Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive - I would have loved to have stumbled on this in my undergrad days. High Output Management and Only the Paranoid Survive are management classics.

One Child: The Story of China's Most Radical Experiment, by Mei Fong is a look at the policy that will have implications for China and therefore the rest of the world in decades to come. Maddening at times, this is a powerful story.

If you're like me, you're facing a lot of calories consumption choices over the next weekend. Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, by Michael Moss won't provide any helpful hints on keeping your figure in check over the holidays but it will provide a lot of eye-opening detail into the business of selling food.