So why a book a week challenge?

So why a book a week challenge? They say that leaders are readers. The average successful CEO reads a book a week. Yes that is true. But for me I see that in a single book one person can put a lifetime of experience, knowledge and unique expertise. The average non fiction audio book is about 8 hours. I can listen to that book at 2.5x the speed to make that listen to comfortably in 3.2 hours.  I can easily listen to that 3.2 hour book for 30 minutes at a time essentially in 6 days when I am on the treadmill, walking outside, driving or other otherwise dead time and in one week without much extra effort I have just received that special gift of information from that unique person who wrote it down. I look at how week after week if I get in that habit what will happen, what will I know, what will I now be able to do and how will I change as a person – and I desire all of that.  Your personal growth is much like the growth like compound interest in your retirement account. Starting early makes for much larger gains later on in your life. So start now because not sure if you agree with me, but I believe I owe it to my God, myself and my family and those that work with and for me to be the best person I can be.   

More selfishly, the book a week club is really secretly my pilot club and springboard to accidentally engage in more extensive coaching conversations in a group environment.

I will be choosing 4 books (or so) every 30 days for the next period of time. We will base the books on potential progressions of knowledge I think are helpful as well as reminders I or my staff might need in the business anyways. 

Here is the book review schedule upcoming (we will do it via Google meet only unless there is sufficient interest in in person meetings at my office for lunch as well): 

• Wednesday February 7th 2024 1:30 PM – Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation – Dr. Benjamin Hardy
• Wednesday February 14th 2024 1:30 PM – Your Most Important Number: Increase Collaboration, Achieve Your Strategy, and Execute to Win By: Lee Benson
• Wednesday February 21st 2024 1:30 PM – Atomic Habits – James Clear
• Wednesday February 28th 2024 1:30 PM – The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – Gary Keller

Not all of these books will be relevant to everyone. Some books will be something that some people enjoy a super lot. Others you will find are not enjoyable. The key is developing discipline with small habits which then leads to you staying in the game long enough to start to like this. Sometimes there will be so much information you are disoriented. You might also see so many potential ideal human states that you feel kind of bad not to have experienced any of the many things shared with you by the authors. These are both normal and to be expected. To move forward I find it helps to sit with my negative feelings and really accept and self validate them. If you can learn to sit with that emotion, accept it, connect yourself while feeling it, you will be able to appreciatively let it go and then move forward in growth and capacity. And that is what the book a week challenge is meant to do. To allow you to overcome your current obstacles and blocks to your success and grow into the person you desire to be. 

It’s important to note that all this knowledge will not make you wise. But knowledge is like food to a wise heart. Wisdom is a state of wholeness you won’t perpetually be in but you can find in increasing amounts if you choose to pursue it. If you do pursue wisdom you can be assured that you will find it helping you in every important area of your life.

The following books are ones I have (mostly) really enjoyed and think have been some of the most impactful on my life (other than the Bible). There’s over 80 of these titles and I started this on week 5 of a 52 week year and some books will need more than one week to get through so we won’t get through 52 books this year. But if we can maintain generally a one book a week pace and I think there will be a lot of rewarding personal growth for everyone who participates. 

• General Business
  • The Personal MBA – Josh Kaufman – This book was written by Josh Kaufman after his viral article claiming that one could get the equivalent of an MBA just by reading numerous business books. He summarized the books he had read to get his “Personal MBA” and this is it. Its a great survey especially when you are looking for ideas to improve or create a 10,000 foot view for yourself on business.
  • 10x Is Easier than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less – Dr. Benjamin Hardy – This is a fabulous book about how to think bigger in life. This succeeds where many others don’t at really causing you not just to think bigger but totally different.
  • Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire Hardcover –Dan Martell – So is a book like this and many of the other ones really relevant to those maybe who are not entrepreneurs? First let me tell you what this book is about. It is probably the best manual I have seen for an CEO or entrepreneur getting there time back from tasks that rob energy from them and keep them from their area of genius that they are great at and will make the biggest impact in their life and business with. 10x is easier that 2x talks about how when we think big we aren’t just making big goals but having to figure out whole new other ways to get things done. One of the ways to do this is to not just you yourself as CEO grow as a person but to apply a process of constantly reorienting the people that work for yours time into their area of genius while they have other people take the other parts of time that aren’t in their area of genius. Essentially every worker in the company needs to start thinking like they are the CEO or entrepreneur of their own business.
  • Business Made Simple – Donald Miller – This book has an excellent simple matrix for how to evaluate and manage your business and handle every major section. A great index of what an MBA should be.
  • The Road Less Stupid By: Keith J. Cunningham – This book has an inspiring set of stories on mistakes in business made and how to avoid them. The basic gist is use thinking prompts to do the hard work up front of thinking rather than experience the painful consequences of not thinking later. Can you make this discipline a habit and maybe even enjoyable and thus skyrocket your success.
• Accounting / Systems / Operations
  • Simple Numbers – Greg Crabtree – This is a short fun to read accounting classic. It’s worth multiple reads for any business person.
  • Profit First – Mike Micaliwicz – This is a book that gives instructions on emotional accounting. Basically if you use this system it creates enforcement of the best accounting disciplines and it has made thousands of businesses lots of money.
  • Your Most Important Number: Increase Collaboration, Achieve Your Strategy, and Execute to Win By: Lee Benson – This is the best book on business operating systems I have found. I plan to read this book quarterly until I have fully implemented this operating system in my business.
  • Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman – This business classic outlines EOS (Entrepreneurs Operating System). This book comes across with religious dogma and frankly the complications and rules are hard to implement without an expensive consultant. But the concepts are well worth a read. 
  • 2 Second Lean – Paul Akers – This is a wonderful story about a guy that went beserk over a simple concept. If you are looking for efficiency and especially info about lien then he has some great ideas on implementation.
  • Systemology – David Jenyns – This is the funnest and simplest manual on systemization. One of his mentors Michael Gerber wrote the E-Myth. That could depress you. But this is light and motivating and very helpful. 
  • ClockWork – Mike Michalowicz –  This author is one of my favorite. This is a book on systems and well worth a read.
  • The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right 1st Edition, Kindle Edition – Atul Gawande -This is one of the best books on checklists. It is a classic work for a reason. Discipline caused me to choose to read it. But the joy of learning deep in a simple subject by from a master teacher and story teller who is also extremely accomplished in his original field of study caused me to continue reading it. It’s a really good book in spite of winning the award for all time most boring book title.
  • Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & flow By: Dominica Degrandis – This is a great book to show you one way to visualize work, especially hard to visualize office work using Kanban. This would be a narrow subset of lean strategy.
  • A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload – Cal Newport –  He talks about the ideal work system that will allow new levels of productivity for knowledge workers.
  • Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World – Cal Newport – This classic delves into barriers to getting work done that most of us by nature of our consciousness would never see on our own. This book is an enjoyable read and will change the way you think about how you do the work that is most important to you while being less stressed out.
• Leadership
  • Developing the Leaders Around You – John Maxwell – Great book on developing yourself as a leader. Very much enjoyed it and was motivated to be a better leader.
  • Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 – John Maxwell – Excellent and inspiring book. John Maxwell has a way with words and makes the case for leaders who teach other leads.
  • The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever – Michael Bungay Stanier – A simple framework for developing the habit of coaching.
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie – This is a classic and still remains an amazing book about how people can connect to people.
  • Crucial Conversations – Joseph Grenny – This is a classic business book for how to have those hard conversations. Well worth your time to prepare for the matters that your entire life will depend on to have successfully.
  • Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Talking About Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior – Joseph Grenny – A continuation of the Crucial Conversations book but specifically for when there is an actual confrontation. All leaders will have a confrontation at some point. 
  • Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire – Paul Smith – Stories the stuff that touches our heart. Leadership – the act of guiding hearts. Sounds like a good combination. 
  • Start With Why – Simon Sinek – This book is a classic and blew up after this authors Ted talk. But it really sets the foundation for company culture trouncing all else.
  • Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward By: Henry Cloud – I hate firing people. I hate conflict. I hate feeling like a jerk. The circle of life includes beginnings and endings. For any organization or any person to move forward in life there will be separations and endings. This book will clear your head and help you make that important but difficult decision. 
  • Fierce Conversations Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time By: Susan Craig Scott M.D. – I first heard Susan talk at a conference. She was from Seattle or Portland and my closed mind said any woman and probably person from that end of the country is going to be so slanted in what they say that they couldn’t possibly teach me anything about relationships and conversation. Well I stuck it out and was glad I did. I still don’t know what her political views are because I have been too busy enjoying her insights and don’t want to have my enjoyment ruined. Here books are all great and I learned a lot from “Fierce Conversations.” 
• Customer Service
  • Never Lose A Customer Again – Joey Coleman – This is the most straightforward book on customer service from the strategic level. A must read for those in customer service, especially if they are designing or implementing customer service improvement measures.
  • The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty – Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, Rick DeLisi – This is the groundbreaking book that explains how many customer service strategies actually work the opposite of what we think including the one above. Both are true and both should be understood.
  • Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It By: Chris Voss – Every conversation is also a negotiation. No person in any level in business be without Negotiation 101 and this is it.
• Marketing / Sales
  • Ultimate Marketing Engine – John Jantsch – This is the single best and most comprehensive book on modern day marketing I have seen. 
  • They Ask You Answer – Marcus Sheridan – This is the basis for modern day inbound marketing. A great book well written with a simple concept to help companies launch initiatives to communicate the important things to their customers.
  • 100M Offers – Alex Hormozi – Ok so this book is genius. I have never ever ever seen such a well written arrangement of how to make a marketing offer. I have heard all before. Just never described like this. Their is a reason Alex is worth so much. 
  • 100m Leads – Alex Hormozi – This is a good and worthwhile sales book. I recommend it though it is not genius like 100M Offers.
  • Building A StoryBrand – Donald Miller – Donald Miller is an OG author. So anything he writes is good. But his break into the business writing world was this book and it is a classic. You will find what he says in the Ultimate Marketing Engine but this book is well worth the read if you are interested in selling and or marketing or setting a company culture.
  • Influence – Robert Cialdini – So Robert Cialdini is a researcher. It’s a long book but it is a good listen. This book on influence will give you show you how you are influenced as well as how to influence others in every part of your life.
  • Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change – Another great book from Cialdini. Its worth reviewing understanding and considering.
  • Virtual Selling – Jeb Blount – In this day and age you can do so much more by sharpening your sales skills for the virtual meeting.
  • Objections: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering the Art and Science of Getting past No – Jeb Blount – Jeb Blount is a classy guy and this is not pushy salesmanship. Instead he is all about showing you how to serve your clients better by understanding them and providing them a solution they would be crazy to say no to.
  • Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email and Cold Calling – Prospecting is where it starts. Get good at it if you want to make an excellent income in sales.
• Real Estate
  • Real Estate by the Numbers: A Complete Reference Guide to Deal Analysis – This is a primer on the numbers of small real estate deals. Its worth while to work through these even if you aren’t a real estate investor. To understand is bliss. 🙂
  • Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat: The BRRRR Rental Property Investment Strategy Made Simple By: David M Greene – This strategy popularized in the BiggerPockets community which has been around for ages is to renovate a home and using sweat equity combined with good deal choice you can have 20% plus equity necessary to refinance all your costs. This way with a small nest egg you can buy one house, get it ready and rent it and then refinance out and move to the next. By doing this you can make over a longer period of time 5 to 10 times more wealth in the long run per deal than if you were to simply renovate and flip properties. 
  • The Book on Managing Rental Properties: A Proven System for Finding, Screening, and Managing Tenants with Fewer Headaches and Maximum Profits By: Brandon Turner, Heather Turner – Well this might not be of universal interest but hey we are a real estate management company so it’s helpful for our own employees to read the most widely available public manual to managing rental properties. The focus is on self managing but the fundamentals are generally the same with some nuances.
  • Simple Wealth: Six Proven Principles for Financial Freedom By: David Ash – I loved this simple book about wealth. Of course it helps that he talks about real estate a little bit and also life. I very much appreciated his straightforward perspective.
  • The Millionaire Real Estate Agent – Gary Keller – Ok so I’m a real estate broker. Gary Keller is a great author and for real estate agents this is worth a yearly read.
  • The Millionaire Real Estate Investor – Gary Keller – This book in the millionaire series by Gary Keller et al is a good inspiration. Its not a manual probably for all the variations in investment but it will help you get started and realize the tremendous well possible when making a business out of real estate. Real estate is not a cur all. It won’t save you. It won’t guarantee you millions. It takes time to manage and deal with and has its risks. But it can be a really good vehicle as part of an overall wealth building strategy and can be part of an over all cash flow strategy as well. This book helps you dig your feet in that as well as do the books from bigger pockets and of courses the the any podcast, forum or book from biggerpockets.com.
• Success
  • Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation – Dr. Benjamin Hardy –  My friend, executive coach and currently Sheffield Village Mayor Bob Markovich likes to say, It’s all about GROWTH SETTING not GOAL SETTING. I like to talk about the giant bungee cord from your current self to your future accomplishments pulling you back from the potential future you could have. Cut that bungee cord keeping you from your future self. So anyways this book was a very good read. This book is next level stuff. I have read extensively in this genre and I would say this is the best one I have found on this topic. He really got me when he talked about how you feel about the future person you will become and the kind of relationship you will have with that person. In healing its so important to relate with compassion to the 5 year old or 10 year old version of you that was injured. But here he talks about relating well with the future self. Do I have a responsibility now to myself in the future? It’s an interesting question.
  • The Big Leap – Gay Hendricks – A simple question he asks to help you reveal that many of your limits are just your really not limits but your own identity chopping you off at your knees. I think he gets a bit woo woo but I still love the core of what he is saying and found it helpful. The book’s simple format is thought provoking and this book is worthy of your consideration if you desire to grow your prosperity without so much struggle.
  • Atomic Habits – James Clear – This is the best book on habits I have seen. He has a well developed simple model and a compelling way of writing. Worth studying because the only difference between you and someone more successful in terms of what they do is that they have learned a set of habits and probably learned how to develop a set of habits that supports them in their success.
  • Tiny Habits – BJ Fogg – This book is a single concept. Yes it’s a book on habits. But it also once you read it will sell you on this simple concept in a way that will make a difference in your life to help end procrastination about the mundane but super important things in your life. Well worth the time. 
  • 10x is easier that 2x – Dr. Benjamin Hardy – There’s another book on the 10x rule but this really is communicated even better than that one in a way that is amazing. 10x is too big a leap for most. But read this book and it will help you think big WITHOUT getting stressed out.
  • Beyond Positive Thinking – Arnold Fox M.D. – I’m not a fan of positive thinking, but this book gives some really good insight into how positive thinking and positive actions can be used in every area of your life.  
  • Rules for a Knight Ethan Hawke – This is one I want to read. I can’t review it but hope to share it. It was highly recommended as a higher level wisdom and character book.
  • The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success – Ed Mylett – I enjoyed Ed’s podcast and appreciate this book where Ed teaches some of his secrets to the success he has found. 
  • Personality – Daniel Nettle – You can’t have success without relationships. And if you want to relate to someone or yourself, it’s very helpful to understand people’s personality. 
  • 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos By: Jordan B. Peterson, Norman Doidge MD – Jordan Peterson and Norman Doidge? Two of my favorite thinkers. So what’s not to like when they get together to co write a book together. 
  • The New Psycho-Cybernetics By: Maxwell Maltz edited by Dan S. Kennedy – I know so many people who learned about how to train the heart via Maxwell Maltz’s techniques. Dan Kennedy is a legendary marketer and purchased his work and brought this book to the modern age. This will make you think.
  • So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love By: Cal Newport – Cal Newport is a career and productivity expert. The title might be self explanatory but the read is well worth it if you are looking to take your career to the next level. 
  • Grow Your Consciousness Grow Your Prosperity Seminar – Andy Morris – Yes o.k. I tricked you. This isn’t a book and it is by me. This work is a way for me to process all the books I  have read and connect them in a useful way for myself and other people by sharing visual concepts in a way that many people have told me is extremely helpful to them. We will go through this at some point probably for several weeks as a group and kind of transition into more coaching for whatever group is hanging in there.
  • Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You – Ali Abdaal – Ok loved this book. It seems to bring a lot of other books into this list as summaries including the – Altar Ego Effect – Drive – Atomic Habits and more. This is a really practical book written by a humble high achiever with down to earth examples to back up his key points and concepts.

• Learning / Creativity / Decision making / Wisdom / Problem solving
  • Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life – Jim Kwik – Jim Kwik is the man when it comes to learning. I’ve been to his seminar and taken his courses. This will change how you think about learning and potential to use your brain.
  • Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide – John Cleese – This book is just a short jewel. I really enjoyed it and will look forward to going over it again. There were some points here on creativity I hadn’t really heard.
  • The Art of Learning Josh Waitzkin – I listened to this book when it first came and changed my life and how I thought about focus. Josh has a compelling story and his story allows him to have done stuff that most people could only dream about. Very much looking forward to doing this again. This is not about learning math. Its about learning how to perform at a world class level.
  • The Einstein Factor: A Proven New Method for Increasing Your Intelligence By: Win Wenger, Richard Poe – First read this book over 20 years ago. There is content in this book that you will not find in any other book about intelligence learning performance and creativity. Win is a unique character and he changed my teenage self and my adult self with this book. I will look forward to going through this book again. His image streaming technique, if not a proven way to increase intelligence, is a very interesting way to bridge and integrate the mind and come up with new insight.
  • The Inner Game Of Tennis – Timothy Gallwey – I’ve heard this guy used this book to start a cult. That being said, it’s a genius book that changed how I thought about performance and consciousness. As a teenager I wanted to develop my tennis game for varsity tennis. It’s one of the few books highlighted and studied other than the Bible. It changed my game and changed how I focus in life. It is a performance  psychology classic to such an extent that I am told it is a required textbook for most music performance majors in college and you will find it in the music section of your college bookstore not in the health and physical education section. 
  • The Alter Ego Effect: Defeat the Enemy, Unlock Your Heroic Self, and Start Kicking Ass – Todd Herman – I’ve never heard anyone else talk about how to use the power of story on your own identity to perform at a higher level. This will be a classic in performance psychology and I would love to go back through again and really apply it to the things I do.
  • Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career – Scott H. Young – This is an excellent book for a learner to read. I very much enjoyed it.
  • The Art of War By: Lionel Giles – translator, Sun Tzu – The forms described in this short book seem to be very good for problem solving in all sorts of situations. A quick read doesn’t do it justice but it is really good when you can’t think of how to move forward and you can just take any of the battle situations and try to force fit your situation to them. It’s a real creativity stimulator. I’ve been in mastermind courses where they would practice applying to real life situations and it created some really novel approaches in business and life.
  • Proverbs – King Solomon – Wisdom is a state not that comes and goes. That is what you will find when you study King Solomon’s life. Yet our feeling is always that it’s an accomplishment. Once accomplished it you have it for life. I read a chapter from this book nearly every day of my life. Its verses are worth a meditation no matter your religious affiliation.
  • How to Have a Beautiful Mind By: Edward De Bono – I’ve enjoyed this author and his works on creativity over the years. Creativity is an important part of success and it’s worth attacking this subject head on.
  • 80/20 Sales and Marketing – Perry Marshall – Any quest for wisdom isn’t complete without consideration of the 80/20 rule because wisdom presupposes this rule. You can catch the book by Koch on the 80/20 rule or read this more specific one which I would say takes it quite a bit further. Genius in fact.
  • The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – Gary Keller – Gary the author is a real estate OG and I have his other book on real estate in this list. This is a New York Times best seller serving all audiences and for good reason. He distills the 80/20 rule into a single question that really helps you see the truth in any situation in such a way that you know exactly what to do next.
• Physical health
  • Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Unabridged Peter Attia MD – So Peter Attia might be just a tad “doctory” for me if that is a word. But honestly this book is solid and I’ll take wisdom from anyone’s unique experience. I’m always suspicious of those who are seeking the golden chalice of immortality. I consider it a fool’s errand (idol worship) to make eternal life on this earth your hope and greatest wish.  Its a distraction from the what has been given to you. However he really explains the basic pillars on how not just to live longer but as he says have a longer “health span.” His story on his emotional healing journey as part of this is worth the price of the book. 
  • Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Matthew Walker – Sleep is the number one factor in health and chronic disease. If your sleep is truly excellent you probably won’t ever get sick. This book is well written and as much of a page turner as you can get. 
• Emotional Health / Intelligence / Wisdom / Trauma Healing
  • Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl – Victor Frankly and his story of concentration camp survival and how he used that lesson to change modern day psychotherapy is a must read for all those looking for a purposeful life. Don’t read about this book which you probably have without knowing it (it’s cited and referred to in many many modern works). Read this book doubly because it is a short, easy and compelling read.
  • The Brain That Changes Itself: Personal Triumphs from the Frontiers of Brain Science By: Norman Doidge M.D. – Book of the year for me in 2017 along side its companion The Brain’s Way of Healing. I can tell you these books set me on a healing journey. They aren’t a prescription and they are both long books. However they are readable with story after story and case history after case history illustrating valuable concepts. There are many concepts here that I haven’t read elsewhere as well as many connections to information I did know. I call these two books my “book of the year” for 2017 because they ended up really laying out a path for how I could heal myself by just applying the general principles as stated here.
  • HeartMath Method: Five Steps to Total Calm, Confidence and Creativity – Howard Martin – This book puts together a number of parts of consciousness for me, especially in its discussion on the research of the heart and how it relates to our whole self and life’s experience and even performance in general. It is again coming from the perspective of a group that I would say is “woo woo” or new age. However the observations here are solid as are many of the conclusions and I found many to align with my study of the Bible. The exercises for training your mind around to respond lightly to situations around fear and anger are worth the price of the book. Also the theme in many of these books is around integration and this is no exception. There is a lot of talk about how the heart itself can be a tool to cause your cells, neurology and body processes to start to synchronize in a way that my other studies seem to indicate as well as there’s to integrate you as a person.
  • Boundaries, Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life – John Townsend, Henry Cloud – This simple concept has been developed into a meaty way to apply to every part of life and business. You may have heard that what you say yes to is less important than what you say no to. The best should never fall victim to the good. The good should never fall victim to the bad. Every 1 yes is a no to an infinite amount of other options you had and every no opens you up to an infinite number of potential yesses in life. Creating boundaries in life will be essential to your success if you wish to live a life of greatness. I have seen young people, and old people and people in between benefit greatly in their life from this book. It is one of the best in this list.
  • It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle – Mark Wolynn – There are some very interesting things said here. He comes from a perspective I don’t agree with but his explanation of what is essentially a “generational curse” I think is important to think about. I found his exercises to help you heal the relationships with your parents and think differently about them were very helpful even with the really great parents I had. Commenters on audible gave it a really low score because many people who had abused found his recommendations to reestablish a relationship with abusive parents not appropriate. This book wasn’t really written to be 100% implemented in that situation. However even for severely abused children I think most of what is here is relevant and can be implemented. 
  • Emotional Intelligence 2.0: A Practical Guide to Master Your Emotions. Stop Overthinking and Discover the Secrets to Increase Your Mental Toughness, Self Discipline and Leadership Abilities – I read this book a long time ago. I enjoyed it and would love to read it again. The themes here resonate with a number of sections. Emotional intelligence will allow more success in relating to yourself and others which means it is an overall multiplier of success in all areas of your life.
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Audible Logo Audible Audiobook –  Bessel A. van der Kolk – Best seller on trauma from one of the world’s leading authorities on the treatment of trauma. Hint most of us have some trauma and if you don’t you will have kids you don’t want to traumatize and you have relationships with people in trauma. This is extremely important to understand. This book is worth your time for multiple reasons.
  • Slow Sex: The Path to Fulfilling and Sustainable Sexuality Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Diana Richardson – I was attracted to this book because I had always believed that Sex could be a source of healing just as much as it is used in violence to hurt people. This is a sex manual not necessarily directly for sexual healing but more as an exercise that would make sex a tool for healing in general. This book gives a perspective of sex I have not seen in any other single book about sex and I have read or listened to probably more than 20 books on sex. I’ve read three books called “Slow Sex.” All are helpful for reasons which I could go on about but this was my favorite.
  • Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life By: Emily Nagoski PhD – This book’s secular perspective is definitely different from my approach. However it has some really good points about sex. Most books on sex talk about how to want it more and do it better. Emily talks about drive but also goes deeply into things that stop arousal. It’s an interesting exploration and seems to have some interesting science with plenty of practical advice for any adult.
  • Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy Audible – Mo Gawdat – This book really made me think more about how I think about time and how that relates to joy or happiness. It’s a good book with some interesting thoughts.
  • EFT: The New Technology for Immediate Healing and Vitality Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Lee Pulos Ph.D.– So EFT is not a new tool, but it is a tool you can use among others for a great deal of emotional healing. It is great in that in many instances you can use it in self therapy and in group therapy in addition to one on one therapy. Bessel the author above and one of the leading authorities on trauma has used it successfully as one of his many tools to deal with trauma. I’ve used it off an on over the past 20 years to help me in my personal life, trauma healing and move past blockages in my career.
  • Flow: Living at the Peak of Your Abilities -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Ph.D – I read this book as a teenager. It is groundbreaking work and since then I have probably heard this author and his work referenced over 20 times in other books I have read. I look forward to covering this book again and reacquainting myself with this work and how it relates to the other stuff I have learned. It very much relates or touches many of the other works on this list. If you keep hearing a work referenced like this one, The Brain That Changes Itself, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Mans Search For Meaning etc etc then you probably you should go read those originals that everyone else keeps basing their work on.
  • Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul – – Stuart Brown – I first watched this guy’s TED talk on Play. He really makes a case for play in our lives, families and businesses and his story about play between predator and prey is compelling. I recommend this book to anyone looking to have fun as well as perform better.
  • Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence – Dr. Anna Lembke – I haven’t read this yet but have gotten rave reviews from those I have. I’ve read some similar books and hope to get to this one at some point because I think at its heart it touches from a secular perspective and a biochemical perspective many of the things that are most important to us. 
  • The Field – Updated Edition: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe – Lynne McTaggart – This book made me think more about how we are created and this world was created. I love thinking about being conscious and yet The Field very much turns our typical view of consciousness on its side by looking at what a Quantum universe might mean.
  • Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation – Daniel J. Siegel – Dr. Siegel delves into how we use our minds for healing. I love his clear thinking and learned a lot from his work. I love the concept he talks about trauma: When you are traumatized you tend to go either towards chaos or rigidity. In healing we are pursuing flexibility and the ability to respond to all the challenges of the world proportionally and with discernment. 
  • Trust: Knowing When to Give It, When to Withhold It, How to Earn It, and How to Fix It When It Gets Broken – Dr. Henry Cloud – I haven’t read this but its in my audible account queued up. I like the relational subject and like the author and and looking forward to making some further distinctions in my relational model. 
  • Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions – Dan Ariely – Dan Ariely’s book is along the same lines of the classic tomb Thinking Fast And Slow by fellow behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman but shorter and easier to read. Predictably Irrational is very helpful for understanding yourself and others better so that we can make our best choices and help others make better choices as well. 
  • Improvisation and the Theatre – Keith Johnstone – Working on the edge of creativity and the subconscious mind (read heart) like he does, he shows himself to be unfiltered and thus you get an unfiltered view of stuff (some which is genius and some profane and some both).  But still his insights on relationship dynamics, play and impromptu creative performance work are ground breaking and I found myself making a lot of interesting connections and being very inspired. He had a very interesting insight linking creativity and filters of your primary five senses and I am very interested on how meaning and thinking can be used to modulate block and alter our 5 senses. I’m looking forward to going through this again especially because one of my values is listed as “freestyle.”
  • I Hear You The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships – Michael S. Sorensen – Very interesting description of the essential skill of validation with some really cool research cited. Short as well. I’m always suspicious of books that reek of woke religious dogma and woke religious legalism (I hate these things when coming from any religion as I have experienced their trauma inducing effects.). This has a couple hints of it but the principles subverted and perverted to create a kind of woke religious / political / educational brainwashing cult can be looked at in pure form and used to do well in life and promote human flourishing and thus this book gets my endorsement.