How many books do you read a year? Me personally, this past year I read around 45-50 books if you include all of the audio books. Our team actually reads one book a month together because we value learning so much. This in return helps our team to become more innovative and allows us to better our service for our customers and clients.
The following books have influenced my life and our team. Feel free to look into them.
1. The Brain That Changes Itself / The Brains Way of Healing by Norman Doidge, M.D.
Dr. Doidge traveled around the world talking to the most people massively successful at working with their clients using methods that effect their neuroplasticity. As it explorers amazing ways folks have healed from neurological trauma and brain disease he tells a fascinating story and manages to make dry research into a page turner. The two books are fascinating and have influenced me by completely changing the way I thought about human development and the way I see others. Even the way I approach relationships with people has changed
2. The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Guande
This is an amazing book with a boring title. It is about a doctor who had a big role in developing a surgical checklist for the World Health Organization that has saved many thousands of lives.
- He goes into a lot of nuances on checklists that have never been thought of before
- Researches the history and practical ways of using the checklists
- Explains how different industries use checklists
3. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
Where good ideas weaves together research and biographical stories from some really smart people. There are many books on learning but this book talks about how to take what you learn and notice and put it together into innovation. It changed the way I thought about innovation caused me to focus more on how I can take the information I learn in my extensive reading practice and implement it.
4. The Heartmath Solution by Doc Childre
The author, Doc Childre, did a lot of interesting research on chemical, hormone, and immunological effects of changing the way you think. There are specific exercises of building awareness around your heart. Your heart, in addition to pumping blood, is a HUGE part of your emotional system. These exercises make you think certain feelings which have been proven to affect the hearts synchronization with brainwave patterns. I’m working on teaching these exercises at work and even teaching them to my kids.
5. Mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel
This book was written many years ago and after hearing it referenced over and over again I thought I would finally read the source. It explores Viktor Frankel surviving the Nazi Concentration Camps. He describes as they faced death daily. He describes how the survivors fought as their humanity was stripped from them, that they still retained the essence of humanity, the ability to choose their own thoughts and feelings. This is true to such an extent that many of his fellow survivors claimed to not regret their terrible experiences because without them they would have never been able to learn the unusual lessons from their experiences. This is a classic well worth reading if you haven’t and you might find your self-crying a bit.
BONUS. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
I won’t include this officially in the list of 2016 best books because I have not finished reading it. However, it is a very fun and powerful book. It has all sorts of cutting edge relevant ideas for peak performance. The author does over 200 interviews with billionaires and people at the top of their industries!! It’s like real-world stuff that happened in the conversations between two people. He pulls together cliff notes on the points that stood out to him and distils them into the essence of really cool stuff.
I hope you enjoy these books and get one or all of them to read.
