The Essential Reading List for Leaders

Shirzad Chamine
Positive Intelligence (PQ) measures the percentage of time your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. While your IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) contribute to your maximum potential, it is your PQ that determines how much of that potential you actually achieve. The great news is that you can improve your PQ significantly in as little as 21 days.

Judith E. Glaser
The key to success in life and business is to become a master at Conversational Intelligence. It’s not about how smart you are, but how open you are to learn new and effective powerful conversational rituals that prime the brain for trust, partnership, and mutual success. Conversational Intelligence translates the wealth of new insights coming out of neuroscience from across the globe, and brings the science down to earth so people can understand and apply it in their everyday lives.

Marshall Goldsmith & Mark Reiter
America’s most sought-after executive coach shows how to climb the last few rungs of the ladder. The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They’re intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle — subtle nuances make all the difference. Using Goldsmith’s straightforward, jargon-free advice, it’s amazingly easy behavior to change.

Mike Wien
Many people have the misconception that success is the result of innate talent, dumb luck, or a magic formula. In reality, winners succeed through a combination of three things: the concentration to retain focus, the discipline to continually improve, and the endurance to overcome obstacles and failures. The Specific Edge is a blueprint for the average person to achieve success and fulfillment far above average. You will be guided to discover your specific edge and develop a strategy to outsmart your competitors.

Karen & Henry Kimsey-House
A Multidimensional Approach to Leadership: In this visionary book, Karen and Henry Kimsey-House provide a model that harnesses the possibility of many rather than relying on the power of one. Their revolutionary FIVE DIMENSIONAL approach recognizes that leadership has to be fluid and flexible and that the roles leaders and followers play must shift to suit the situation.

Peter Bregman
Based upon his weekly Harvard Business Review columns (which is one of the most popular columns on HBR.com), 18 MINUTES clearly shows how busy people can cut through all the daily clutter and distractions and find a way to focus on those key items which are truly the top priorities in our lives.

Gino Wickman
In Traction, you’ll learn the secrets of strengthening the six key components of your business. You’ll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company that will give you and your leadership team more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment. Successful companies are applying Traction every day to run profitable, frustration-free businesses—and you can too.

DON MIGUEL RUIZ
In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. Through maintaining these deceptively simple agreements, lives will “become filled with grace, peace, and unconditional love.”

Marshall Goldsmith
Mojo is the moment when we do something that’s purposeful, powerful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. This book is about that moment–and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it.

Goldsmith shares the ways in which to get–and keep–our Mojo to help you achieve both happiness and meaning–not only in business, but in life.

Jim Collins
Over five years, Collins and his team analyzed the histories of twenty-eight companies and discovered the key determinants of greatness — why some companies make the leap and others don’t. The findings will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, “fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne
Blue Ocean Strategy continues to challenge everything you thought you knew about competing in today’s crowded market place.

Kim and Mauborgne argue that lasting success comes from creating ‘blue oceans’: untapped new market spaces ripe from growth.

Malcolm gladwell
What makes high-achievers different? Gladwell’s answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brené Brown
Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage.

Marcus Buckingham
The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. This amazing book explains why.

Camilo Cruz Ph.D
An insightful and deceptively simple guide-from a popular speaker and life coach. Dr. Camilo Cruz helps readers identify the hidden excuses that hold them back-even the most entrenched ones-and open the door to greater success and fulfillment. Inspired by a brief parable in which a family of farmers learns to thrive without their beloved (yet costly and unproductive) cow, this upbeat book speaks to readers of every age and lifestyle, helping them take ownership of their choices and their lives.

Henry Kimsey-House & David Skibbins
Today’s world requires men and women who can lead from their vision, their passion, and their deepest sense of purpose. These new leaders respect the preciousness of life. They know how to call forth the resourcefulness and creativity of those they lead. They hold a deep belief in their own capacity to change their world for the better. In The Stake, a step-by-step account of how these leaders are created, the founder of an international leadership training program has teamed up with an award-winning mystery writer. The result is a compelling, readable book about the development of authentic, responsible leaders.

Patrick Lencioni
Silos devastate organizations, kill productivity, push good people out the door, and jeopardize the achievement of corporate goals. An eager young management consultant struggles to launch his practice. Through trial and error, he develops a simple yet ground-breaking approach for helping them transform confusion and infighting into clarity and alignment.

Patrick Lencioni
Refreshingly original and utterly compelling, this razor-sharp novelette plus self-assessment (written to be read in one sitting) serves as a timeless and potent reminder that success as a leader can come down to practicing a few simple behaviors. Behaviors that are painfully difficult for each of us to master. Any executive can learn how to recognize the mistakes that leaders can make and how to avoid them.

Patrick Lencioni
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

Patrick Lencioni
In his latest page-turning work of business fiction, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni provides readers with another powerful and thought-provoking book, this one centered around a cure for the most painful yet underestimated problem of modern business: bad meetings. And what he suggests is both simple and revolutionary.

Jim Collins
Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond. Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors, from their very beginnings to the present day — as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations.

Michael Thomas Sunnarborg
Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course?

Christina Randle
Getting it Together teaches you how to thrive, not just survive. You will also learn the EDGE process, a proven system that will assist you and your organization in decreasing stress while becoming more productive and getting things done faster…AND doing it all better by using your company email and calendaring tools.

Guy Kawasaki
APE is 300 pages of step-by-step, tactical advice and practical inspiration. If you want a hype-filled, get-rich-quick book, you should look elsewhere. On the other hand, if you want a comprehensive and realistic guide to self-publishing, APE is the answer.

Jenny Lawson
In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, we share in Lawson’s discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives.

Rick Hanson
If you change your brain, you can change your life. Great teachers like the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, and Gandhi were all born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s—and then they changed their brains in ways that changed the world. Science is now revealing how the flow of thoughts actually sculpts the brain, and more and more, we are learning that it’s possible to strengthen positive brain states.

Helene Cho
A fun and easy read on how to cultivate Work/Life balance. Sally, a Hamster, is the main character; a busy single mother of two with a demanding job and parent. With the help of friends and teachers, she learns how to stand up for herself, self-care, cultivate positive thoughts and beliefs and to look at life in a completely different way. There are seven steps to Work/Life Balance that can be followed to create a wonderful life.

Rebecca Ryan
Live First, Work Second helps you understand the next generation – your children, your employees, your volunteers, patrons and donors … and your future leaders. The book summarizes the collective intelligence of over 20,000 interviews with members of the next generations, and presents the findings in an accessible, sometimes irreverant style, in which the reader becomes a co-consiprator in creating better places to live and work.

Seth Godin
According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts. Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt—until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.

Seth Godin
A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It’s our nature. Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are enabling countless new tribes to be born—groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming. And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?

Achim Nowack
THE MOMENT is a compulsively readable book. Instead of urging us to do more and work harder, THE MOMENT shows us how to rediscover a childlike delight in the world. Apply the 4 keys, and sumptuous moments will suddenly pop up all around you. You will instantly experience more success in business and in life. You will know the infinite pleasures of living in the moment.

Lynn Twist
This unique and fundamentally liberating book shows us that examining our attitudes toward money—earning it, spending it, and giving it away—can offer surprising insight into our lives, our values, and the essence of prosperity. Lynne Twist, a global activist and fundraiser, has raised more than $150 million for charitable causes. Through personal stories and practical advice, she demonstrates how we can replace feelings of scarcity, guilt, and burden with experiences of sufficiency, freedom, and purpose.

Chip & Dan Heath
Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas “stick.” Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”

Lewis Schiff
In Business Brilliant, Lewis Schiff combines compelling storytelling with ground-breaking research to show the rest of us what America’s self-made rich already know: It’s synergy, not serendipity that produces success. He explodes common myths about wealth and explains how legendary entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Suze Orman, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffet have subscribed to a set of priorities that’s completely different from those of the middle class. Schiff identifies the seven distinct principles practiced by individuals who may or may not be any smarter than the rest of the population, but seem to understand instinctively how money is made. This guide also reveals how these business icons excel in areas of team building, risk management, and leadership development to accumulate their wealth.

Gary Markle
After two decades of hands-on experience with performance management systems in some of the world’s most well recognized organizations, Markle has come to propound what he calls a universal law of modern business. People hate performance reviews. Drawing upon his studies of and experience with systems theory and illustrating his points with real-life examples, Markle explains why employees and managers both have come to regard the ubiquitous performance evaluation as industry’s poorest performing, most ineffective, and least efficient personnel practice. By digging down to its roots, he helps us understand why attempts to correct the flawed system fail. He provides an innovative way to measure their ineffectiveness and inefficiency and then introduces his catalytic coaching to replace them.

Geoffrey A. Moore
In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore shows that in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle—which begins with innovators and moves to early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards—there is a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements in productivity. The challenge for innovators and marketers is to narrow this chasm and ultimately accelerate adoption across every segment.

Dave Crenshaw
The Evil Forces of Chaos Are Out to Destroy Your Small Business! Here’s how you can stop them . . . If you own or work in a small business, you’re at risk. Massive risk. Within five years of business operation, more than half of all businesses fail. By year ten, more than 65% are cut down. Why is this? And—more importantly—how can YOU break the cycle? In this highly original take on entrepreneurship, bestselling author, speaker, and business coach Dave Crenshaw confronts Chaos, the prime culprit of small business failure. He then arms you with the superhero utility belt you need to defeat Chaos and build a focused business. Through real-world examples, in-depth worksheets, and a healthy dose of wit, The Focused Business helps business owners and their key employees develop an action plan to overcome the seven Agents of Chaos, stay focused, and maximize profit. For any entrepreneur seeking to create a solid foundation for lasting growth, The Focused Business is the fun, imaginative, and absolutely invaluable guidebook.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

David Firth
There is a simple idea behind the creation of this little book: we get Manuals for our fridge, our toaster, our cars and our hair dye. It is time we had one for the rest of our lives. But this is the Manual they gave us after they’d created the Upgrade to Life; when they’d realised that the first iteration of the ‘software’ had produced people who too often struggled to accept, embrace and express the freedom and power that they were born with who in turn, and as a natural result of that, created organizations and institutions that were too often characterised by fragmentation, frustration, complaint and scapegoating which in turn, and as a natural result of that, produced societies which were too often characterised by envy, bitterness and the search for retribution. Life’s not always like that, of course, or not for everybody always, but I think there’s enough of those societies and organizations to legitimately ask if there could be a better way. And to question if the problem is not the societies and organizations per se but the individual human beings – and the ‘software’ we are all running.

Jim Collins
Decline can be avoided. Decline can be detected. Decline can be reversed. Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Collins’ research project—more than four years in duration—uncovered five step-wise stages of decline.

Robert Bly
Robert Bly, renowned poet and author of the ground-breaking bestseller Iron John, mingles essay and verse to explore the Shadow — the dark side of the human personality — and the importance of confronting it.

Peter F. Drucker
This is the first book to present innovation and entrepreneurship as a purposeful and systematic discipline that explains and analyzes the challenges and opportunities of America’s new entrepreneurial economy. Superbly practical, Innovation and Entrepreneurship explains what established businesses, public service institutions, and new ventures need to know and do to succeed in today’s economy.

Bob Prosen
Prosen says he’s had enough of the business books that tell readers what to do rather than how. With the same genius that he used to turn around inherited, underperforming operations within 12 to 18 months in some of the world’s most prominent companies including AT&T, Sprint, Hitachi, NCR, and Sabre, Prosen delivers a straightforward, no-nonsense, battle proven guide to accelerate performance and profits in any organization.

Heather P. Remer
Regain balance, focus and control in our fast paced, technology driven world. This 11,000 word book reveals ways to build healthy boundaries around the technology in your life, live more in line with your values and reduce your stress despite the frenzy of the technology age. It’s designed for the busy professional, dependent on technology, who wants practical tips to help regain control of their time, energy and focus.

Barbara Fredrickson
We all know love matters, but in this groundbreaking book positive emotions expert Barbara Fredrickson shows us how much. Even more than happiness and optimism, love holds the key to improving our mental and physical health as well as lengthening our lives. Using research from her own lab, Fredrickson redefines love not as a stable behemoth, but as micro-moments of connection between people—even strangers. She demonstrates that our capacity for experiencing love can be measured and strengthened in ways that improve our health and longevity. Finally, she introduces us to informal and formal practices to unlock love in our lives, generate compassion, and even self-soothe.

Marshall Goldsmith
Mojo happens the moment we do something that’s purposeful, powerful, and positive, and the rest of the world recognizes it. ‘#MOJOtweet’ by New York Times best-selling author Marshall Goldsmith reveals how we can create Mojo in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it. In this book, you will explore the vital ingredients for building Mojo–identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance–and realize the five qualities necessary to do an activity well–motivation, knowledge, ability, confidence, and authenticity. In 140 bite-sized insights (ahas), Goldsmith teaches readers how to discover and nurture these elements within ourselves and how to use them as building blocks for creating our own personal Mojo, the result of which is happiness, reward, meaning, learning, and gratitude.

Barbara Fredrickson
World renowned researcher Dr. Barbara Fredrickson gives you the lab-tested tools necessary to create a healthier, more vibrant, and flourishing life through a process she calls “the upward spiral.” You’ll discover:
• What positivity is, and why it needs to be heartfelt to be effective
• The ten sometimes surprising forms of positivity
• Why positivity is more important than happiness
• How positivity can enhance relationships, work, and health, and how it relieves depression, broadens minds, and builds lives
• The top-notch research that backs the 3-to-1 “positivity ratio” as a key tipping point
• That your own sources of positivity are unique and how to tap into them
• How to calculate your current positivity ratio, track it, and improve it
With Positivity, you’ll learn to see new possibilities, bounce back from setbacks, connect with others, and become the best version of yourself.

Peter M. Senge
Presence is an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. In wide-ranging conversations held over a year and a half, organizational learning pioneers Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers explored the nature of transformational change—how it arises, and the fresh possibilities it offers a world dangerously out of balance. The book introduces the idea of “presence”—a concept borrowed from the natural world that the whole is entirely present in any of its parts—to the worlds of business, education, government, and leadership. Too often, the authors found, we remain stuck in old patterns of seeing and acting. By encouraging deeper levels of learning, we create an awareness of the larger whole, leading to actions that can help to shape its evolution and our future.

Bo Burlingame
How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill — and focused on greatness instead. It’s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do . . . creating a great place to work . . . providing great customer service . . . making great contributions to their communities . . . and finding great ways to lead their lives.

John S. Hammond
Where should I live? Is it time to get a new job? Which job candidate should I hire? What business strategy should I pursue? We spend the majority of our lives making decisions, both big and small. Yet, even though our success is largely determined by the choices that we make, very few of us are equipped with useful decision-making skills. Because of this, we often approach our choices tentatively, or even fearfully, and avoid giving them the time and thought required to put our best foot forward. Smart Choices offers a proven, straightforward, and flexible roadmap for making better and more impactful decisions, and offer the tools to achieve your goals in every aspect of your life.

Cal Newport
In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

Travis Waits
The Authenticity Void: How to stop being a fake leader is aimed to help leaders be more effective in their personal and professional lives. Leadership is about influence, not power. Too many today try to leverage their position of leadership by exerting their power, and the results are counterproductive. Disengaged employees, aloof kids, feelings of burnout and exhaustion for the leader. From the boardroom to the baseball field, our culture is experiencing the demand that leaders use their influence in more authentic ways.

KIRSTEN Miliken
There is no “cure” for ADHD, so there won’t be one in this book. If you are an adult with ADHD, this book is your prescription to play. ADHD is a serious problem. But your approach to it doesn’t have to be serious. This book focuses on how developing a more playful mindset and habit of engaging in playful activities can actually help you to manage your ADHD. Quick insight: Among people with ADHD, those who are playful while at work are happier and more productive. The same can be said of people with ADHD who are more playful in their relationships.

Peter F Drucker
The measure of the executive, Peter F. Drucker reminds us, is the ability to “get the right things done.” This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results. Ranging widely through the annals of business and government, Peter F. Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.

Chris Anderson
The New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that’s already here–now in paperback with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue. Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the Year In the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn’t in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses–the endlessly long tail of that same curve.

Helio Fred Garcia
World-renowned leadership communications expert, consultant, and speaker Helio Fred Garcia reveals how to orient on audiences, recognizing their centers of gravity and most critical concerns. You’ll learn how to integrate and succeed with all three levels of communication: strategic, operational, and tactical. Garcia shows how to take the initiative and control the agenda… respond to events with speed and focus… use the power of maneuver… prepare and plan… and put it all together, becoming a “habitually strategic” communicator.

Malcolm Gladwell
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

James Surowiecki
In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant–better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.

Thomas L. Friedman
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

Ron Taylor
Discover a simple living solution to a busy and productive lifestyle.
Life can be hectic—and the demands for your time will never go away. And while none of us can ignore the demands of work and family obligations, there are things you can do to enjoy a simple living lifestyle, while maintaining a sustainable work life balance in the process. In less than 60 minutes you can learn how getting things done does not mean giving up the things you love, or compromising your career.

Seth Godin
Instead of annoying potential customers by interrupting their most coveted commodity—time—Permission Marketing offers consumers incentives to accept advertising voluntarily. Now this Internet pioneer introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about advertising products and services. By reaching out only to those individuals who have signaled an interest in learning more about a product, Permission Marketing enables companies to develop long-term relationships with customers, create trust, build brand awareness — and greatly improve the chances of making a sale.

Don Tapscott
The acclaimed bestseller that’s teaching the world about the power of mass collaboration and how it’s happening not just at Web sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, but at traditional companies that have embraced technology to breathe new life into their enterprises. This national bestseller reveals the nuances that drive wikinomics, and share fascinating stories of how masses of people (both paid and volunteer) are now creating TV news stories, sequencing the human gnome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for diseases, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles.

David Brooks
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives. Responding to what he calls the culture of the Big Me, which emphasizes external success, Brooks challenges us, and himself, to rebalance the scales between our “résumé virtues”—achieving wealth, fame, and status—and our “eulogy virtues,” those that exist at the core of our being: kindness, bravery, honesty, or faithfulness, focusing on what kind of relationships we have formed.

Steven Pressfield
A succinct, engaging, and practical guide for succeeding in any creative sphere, The War of Art emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and then effectively shows how to reach the highest level of creative discipline. Think of it as tough love . . . for yourself. Whether an artist, writer or business person, this simple, personal, and no-nonsense book will inspire you to seize the potential of your life.

Malcolm Gladwell
Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?