Books I’ve consumed in 2018 (part 2)
Back in May, I published a list of books I’d consumed to that point in 2018 (you can read that list here), as I wanted to have a record of which — and how many — books I managed to get through this year. As before, I have read and listened to books over the three mediums, so I have broken down the books by the device used.
Most of these are business books, as expected, and not all of them are recommended, but here’s what I managed to get through from May to December.
Audible Books
Pitch Anything by oren klaff. Oren epitomises the American way of ‘pitching’, and through most of the book, it feels like he views most of his meetings as a win-lose situation, whereby either he ‘wins’ by successfully pitching the deal, or he ‘loses’ by the customer not accepting the deal. This principle goes completely against the way we wish to do business, however, the broader ideas around frames were useful in terms of trying to understand what’s going on the other side of the table. I do not recommend this book to anyone who likes to do business ethically, with the mindset of a win-win scenario.
Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Like so many of us, I am a big fan of Michael’s writing, although I saw the movie well before consuming the book. And it hasn’t let me down! There’s so much more backstory to Billy Beane and a number of the main players that is just so fascinating, especially to an Aussie who doesn’t follow baseball closely. If you are a sports fan, and a stats fan, you will completely love this book!
Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown. Following on from reading Rising Strong (see below), both my wife and I listened to Braving the Wilderness. The title is a clever use of her seven-point checklist B.R.A.V.I.N.G. as discussed in Rising Strong, and the premise of the book is around exploring the following quote by Maya Angelou:
“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.”
I found this a really powerful book, especially because not only did I (like everyone else) desperately try to ‘fit in’ while growing up, but also because I can see my children’s struggles with fitting in, and not being comfortable just being “them”. I hope I can take what I learned from this book and impart that knowledge onto them so that their adolescence will be more emotionally comfortable.
Kick Ass by Mel Robbins. I remember when Mel asked people to “pitch” to be coached by her, and this book is the result of that process. Over the course of eight different people, Mel ties in similar threads for not only all of them but for the rest of us to implement in our lives. Really thought-provoking, and well worth consuming.
Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions by Russell Brand. You may think that you know Russell, but the truth, as always, is far different. For starters, he’s been clean from drugs and alcohol since the early 2000s, despite the roles he played in movies in the late 2000s. He’s also incredibly eloquent in how he writes and listening to him narrate the book was an absolute joy.
Crushing it! By Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vee needs no introduction. If you have a social media account, ANY social media account, he will probably appear on your feed at some point! This book is designed to both inspire you (the reader) to go “all out” on social media, as well as give you some tips on how to do it. However, as controversial this might be, I was left a little flat by it. Sure, the stories of people’s success in using social media were great. But I ended up feeling like I needed to be committing 10 hours a day to social media to properly succeed. Of course, this is on top of running my business, finding time to sleep, see my family, etc. 😮
The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World by Michael Lewis. I give this book a one-word review: WOW! This book blew my mind. Like Moneyball, this book goes into so much detail around the two protagonists: Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. We learn so much about both of their upbringings, about how they came together, and then how it ended. I had heard of them, but not so much about their work. The best thing about this book is the detail about WHAT they did, which I found incredibly interesting.
The Founder’s Dilemma by Noam Wasserman. I’m a long way down my founder’s journey (well, it’s been three years), so the themes in this book would have been WAY more relevant back then. Even so, I have taken a lot of information from this book in terms of moving forward. This book was recommended by Daniel Mumby as part of our Startup Leadership Program. It’s a great book for those about to start their first company, giving a lot of food for thought in terms of co-founders, equity structures, and then future hires.
Kindle Books
Rising Strong by Brené Brown. This book was recommended by my wife’s mentor, and I really enjoyed reading it. At its core, the book is about getting comfortable being vulnerable with your ‘yucky’ feelings, not to gloss over them, and to use that to help you to “rise strong” from the event (whatever it is) a better, wiser person. A big takeaway is her idea of “B.R.A.V.I.N.G.” as a seven-point checklist to see if you can trust yourself or someone else.
All Bets are Off by David Schwartz. David is a former Australian Rules player, and in the world of “warts and all” books, this autobiography really goes deep. He goes into extreme (and extremely squeamish at times) details about his “private life” of gambling, and how it led him to complete ruin. Delving deep into his mindset through his journey further and further down the rabbit hole, and also how he managed to climb back out and completely turn his life around.
Dane Swan: My Story by Dane Swan. Dane is considered to be one of the greatest players for the Collingwood Football Club (Australian Rules), the club I support. He was always ‘different’ in his approach to footy, and life, and this book gives a great insight into the person he really is. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot more to Dane than what you might have thought of him. I did have the privilege of being in Bali when he was there in 2016, randomly seeing him in a restaurant one night.
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. Following on from Rising Strong, I read another of Brené’s books. The key theme in this book is about how we need to learn to be ok with being imperfect.
The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. It’s an interesting read, where Ben shares some insights that aren’t normally shared. There are some interesting views on some of the situations you will face as a successful CEO, which (I’m hoping) will be handy when we become successful! However, the one criticism I have of the book is it doesn’t talk about how he got to the point in his companies where he had to make hard decisions. Which led to my next book…
Zero to One by Blake Masters and Peter Theil. This is a re-read from 2017. Whilst the initial thoughts are about going from zero CUSTOMERS to one (ie. making your first sale), it’s in fact about how progress works, that is, when something NEW is created, then we as a society are able to go from zero to one. Staple book for entrepreneurs.
Actual Books
The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth by Eric Ries. This follow-up to The Lean Startup puts the lessons into action in corporate companies. Whilst not overly relevant to me in my position, it’s definitely something to keep an eye on as our business starts to grow, take on employees, and eventually become a “company”. My biggest takeaway involved learning about Innovation Accounting, and since I’m the current CFO, I’m going to have to work out how to implement that into our business!
Self Made by Byron Cole and Bianca Miller-Cole. This is a good book for people who are just starting to look into leaving the comfort of the corporate lifestyle (where the only real comfort is a regular paycheck) and provides a lot of good advice to setting yourself up to succeed as early as possible.
Crossing the Chasm (3rd edition) by Geoffrey Moore. This is, importantly, the 3rd edition because as Geoffrey states at the start of the book, the companies used as examples in the first edition (1995) and the second edition (2002) became unrecognizable to new students to the book, and thus each update was required to maintain relevance.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I read that it’s important to read “non-business” books, and therefore this book finds its way into my list of readings! It provided an incredible thought-provoking view into how Humans (Homo Sapiens) evolved over tens of thousands of years. It then touches a little on the potential future. Definitely a recommended read.
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. I loved this book and the incredible detail that Phil tells the history of Nike. His passion, his drive, his determination, his vision, it was all incredibly inspirational. You follow along with his journey of leading Nike, from the early days where he was the importer of Onitsuka shoes, to how he started Nike, and every step along the way to being the biggest sports clothing company in the world. I can not recommend this book enough!
So after consuming 15 stories in the first half of the year, I ramped it up at got through 19 in the second half of the year!
34 books for the year is good, and I’m pretty proud of being able to get that many considering how busy my days are, but that’s just a base. I’m going to try to get 40 next year! Reading is something that I loved doing when I was a young boy, I drifted away from it for a long time, but in the last few years, I’ve come back to it in a big way. In fact, I’d prefer to read/listen to a book than watch the majority of garbage on tv nowadays.
So how was your 2018? How many books did you read, and which ones do you recommend?
