Reading Over the Holidays, Make the Commitment to Yourself

Christmas and New Year’s are in the next week or two and my gift to you, and myself, is a little bit of holiday reading. I mentioned a reading list a couple of weeks ago, but wanted to call out two of my top picks that I’m going to reread before 2020.

This list comprises 20 titles from some of the smartest and most interesting people, but I’m obviously not going to have the time to read every one in the next few weeks. So I’ve narrowed it down to two:

1. Leaders Eat Last
2. The Thank You Economy

I’ve picked these two specifically because their subject matter centers around my main focuses for 2020. Two subjects I’ve been very passionate and vocal about this past year and want to continue to grow at this upcoming year.

My advice to you when looking through this list is decide what you want to up-level in 2020 and pick two books that will help you do it - then apply them, and pick two more.

Happy reading.

Leaders Eat Last

The first book I’m going to open is Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. Sinek is more known for his books Start with Why and Find Your Why covering how leaders inspire action and loyalty and how teams can find their own inspiration by asking and finding WHY. 

But if you’re a current leader, aspiring leader, or a leader looking to up your game, there are so many tactical nuggets in Leaders Eat Last in terms of the small things that you do everyday to either set your team up to really win or to demotivate them. Sinek talks a lot about what motivates people and what works and what doesn’t. It’s definitely something you can check yourself against again and again. 

Big shout out to Eaters Eat Last and definitely worth rereading.

The Thank You Economy

The Thank You Economy is one of Gary V.’s more underrated books in my opinion. Everyone has heard of or read Crush It or Ask Gary V. The Thank You Economy is basically Gary’s predictions from 2011 on what social media was going to turn into. He comes at it from a very B2C perspective, so it talks a lot about Facebook and other emerging platforms. The reason why I’m excited for a reread is because a lot of those behaviors are actually similar to what’s happening now on LinkedIn. My intention is to retrace history as I reread and apply it to what I think LinkedIn is going to do. 

It’ll also be entertaining to look back and say WOW Gary V. was spot on about a lot of trends.

MY HOLIDAY READING LIST

1. Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek
2. The Thank You Economy - Gary Vaynerchuk
3. Primed to Perform - Neel Doshi & Lindsay McGregor
4. Multipliers - Liz Wiseman
5. Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
6. Winning - Jack Welch with Suzy Welch
7. Purple Cow - Seth Godin
8. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight
9. How to Master the Art of Selling - Tom Hopkins
10. Secrets of the Close - Zig Ziglar
11. Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Sales Answers - Jeffrey Gitomer
12. To Sell is Human - Daniel H. Pink
13. When - Daniel H. Pink
14. The Challenger Sale - Mathew Dixon & Brent Adamson
15. Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank
16. Managing by Influence - Kenneth Schatz & Linda Schatz
17. Discipline Without Punishment - Dick Grote
18. Zero to One - Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
19. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
20. Start with Why - Simon Sinek