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“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” – Harry S. Truman

My short list contains a small sample of book and podcast recommendations. The list touches on a number of themes to include leadership, personal finance, mindfulness, fitness and history.  I like to strike a balance among competing schools of thought, challenging my own biases, assumptions and comfort levels. Read the gamut, and then make up your own mind what you want to believe.   

The most successful people are curious, lifelong learners. Make reading a priority if you want to be successful.


Disclaimer: This list is not intended to imply official endorsement of any author, creator, or specific product. Nor is purchase or consumption of the materials a condition of employment.

Readings

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

By Thomas Stanley and William Danko
Link to E-book

Most of the truly wealthy in the United States don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue. They live next door.

America’s wealthy seldom get that way through an inheritance or an advanced degree. They bargain-shop for used cars, raise children who don’t realize how rich their families are, and reject a lifestyle of flashy exhibitionism and competitive spending. In fact, the glamorous people many of us think of as “rich” are actually a tiny minority of America’s truly wealthy citizens—and behave quite differently than the majority.
 
At the time of its first publication, The Millionaire Next Door was a groundbreaking examination of America’s rich—exposing for the first time the seven common qualities that appear over and over among this exclusive demographic. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley—updating the original content in the context of the financial crash and the twenty-first century.


The Daily Stoic

The Daily Stoic

By Ryan Holiday
Link to E-book

Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise.

The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms.

By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.


Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

By David Fideler
Link to E-book

In Breakfast with Seneca, philosopher David Fideler mines Seneca’s classic works in a series of focused chapters, clearly explaining Seneca’s ideas without oversimplifying them. Best enjoyed as a daily ritual, like an energizing cup of coffee, Seneca’s wisdom provides us with a steady stream of time-tested advice about the human condition―which, as it turns out, hasn’t changed much over the past two thousand years.


The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

By Scott Galloway
Link to E-book

The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning draws on Professor Galloway's mix of anecdotes and no-BS insight to share hard-won wisdom about life's challenges, along with poignant personal stories.

Whether it's advice on if you should drop out of school to be an entrepreneur (it might have worked for Steve Jobs, but you're probably not Steve Jobs), ideas on how to position yourself in a crowded job market (do something "boring" and move to a city; passion is for people who are already rich), discovering what the most important decision in your life is (it's not your job, your car, OR your zip code), or arguing that our relationships to others are ultimately all that matter, Galloway entertains, inspires, and provokes.

Brash, funny, and surprisingly moving, The Algebra of Happiness represents a refreshing perspective on our need for both professional success and personal fulfillment, and makes the perfect gift for any new graduate, or for anyone who feels adrift.


The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style

By William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Link to E-book
 In his classic reference book The Elements of Style (1920), William Strunk Jr. explains that writers must first understand writing’s rules before they can break them. He offers clear, instructive advice on proper sentence composition. Strunk composed this book in 1918 and self-published before seeking traditional publication. The book was originally intended to be a textbook for his own English class, but the principles proved to be widely useful. It was later edited and developed by a former student, E. B. White.
Six Frigates

Six Frigates

By Ian Toll
Link to E-book

Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military became the most divisive issue facing the new government. The founders―particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams―debated fiercely. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect from pirates or drain the treasury and provoke hostility? Britain alone had hundreds of powerful warships.

From the decision to build six heavy frigates, through the cliff-hanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of Founding Brothers and the narrative flair of Patrick O'Brian.


Endurance

Endurance

By Alfred Lansing
Link to E-book

The book details the almost two-year struggle for survival endured by the twenty-eight man crew of the ship Endurance. The ship was beset and eventually crushed by ice floes in the Weddell Sea, leaving the men stranded on the pack ice. All in all, the crew drifted on the ice for just over a year. They were able to launch their boats and somehow managed to land them safely on Elephant Island. Shackleton then led a crew of five aboard the James Caird through the Drake Passage, and miraculously reached South Georgia Island 650 nautical miles away. He then took two of those men on the first successful overland crossing of the island. Three months later, he was finally able to rescue the remaining crew members they had left behind on Elephant Island.


Outliers

Outliers

By Malcolm Gladwell
Link to E-book
 In Outliers, Gladwell delves into what it means to be successful and examines how successful people reach their pinnacle. He makes the case that talent and hard work are not enough—true outliers also need family, culture, community, and some good luck to make it to the top.
Eat Bacon, Don't Jog

Eat Bacon, Don't Jog

By Grant Petersen
Link to E-book

In Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog, Petersen upends the last 30 years of conventional health wisdom to offer a clear path to weight loss and fitness. In more than 100 short, compelling directives, Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog shows why we should drop the carbs, embrace fat, and hang up our running shoes, with the latest science to back up its claims.

Diet and Exercise make up the bulk of the book, with food addressed in essays such as “Carbohydrate Primer” ―and why it’s okay to eat less kale―and “You’ll Eat Less Often If You Eat More Fat.” The exercise chapters begin with “Don’t Jog” (it just makes you hungry and trains muscle to tolerate more jogging while raising stressors like cortisol) and lead to a series of interval-training exercises and a suite of kettlebell lifts that greatly enhance strength and endurance.

The balance of the book explains the science of nutrition and includes more than a dozen simple and delicious carb-free recipes.


My American Journey

By Colin Powel
Link to E-Book

Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history—Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm—but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier’s directness.

My American Journey is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell’s passionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, “the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers” inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision.


How to Become CEO: The Rules of Rising to the Top of any Organization

By Jeffrey Fox
Link to E-Book

In How to Become CEO, consultant Jeffrey Fox has written an insightful handbook of traits to develop for all generations of CEO aspirants - or for anyone who wants to get ahead in today's business world. Open it to any page and find a short, provocative piece of brutally honest advice written in a conversational tone. Each of the seventy-five "rules" focuses on a specific action that should be taken, a trait that needs to be developed, or a prohibition to follow. The words never and always are used frequently. These are smart, no-nonsense business messages that are meant to be revisited in your rise to the top. Anyone looking to climb the corporate ladder will be grateful for Fox's direct, pithy advice - the essentials to follow if you want to reach the top.


A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

By William Bernstein
Link to E-Book

A Splendid Exchange tells the epic story of global commerce, from its prehistoric origins to the myriad crises confronting it today. It travels from the sugar rush that brought the British to Jamaica in the seventeenth century to our current debates over globalization, from the silk route between China and Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth. Throughout, William Bernstein examines how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to our planet's agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual and industrial progress and made us both prosperous and vulnerable.


Poised for Success: Mastering the Four Qualities that Distinguish Outstanding Professionals

By Jacqueline Whitmore
Link to E-Book
In the past, the business world favored the aggressive "Type A" personality. But in these unsettled times, being courteous and thoughtful has proven to be a more effective way to win clients and customers and influence others. The competitive advantage depends on your ability to use your emotional intelligence and social graces to take your career to the next level.

In POISED FOR SUCCESS, Jacqueline Whitmore states that good business etiquette is important, but she also knows that there is more to becoming invaluable at work than simply mastering good behavior. In order to be poised for success, you must cultivate what Jacqueline calls the four "P" qualities: Presence, Polish, Professionalism, and Passion. These include how to:

-Package yourself for success by refining your personal brand
-Nurture professional relationships with flair
-Master the five ways to make yourself more memorable
-Learn the seven unwritten rules of workplace etiquette

Whitmore, using her 15 years of experience as a protocol and etiquette expert, will arm you with the skills to become more self-aware, more confident and comfortable in your own skin, and better able to communicate with others in a credible, authentic manner.

Podcasts

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner uncovers the hidden side of everything. Why is it safer to fly in an airplane than drive a car? How do we decide whom to marry? Why is the media so full of bad news? Also: things you never knew you wanted to know about wolves, bananas, pollution, search engines, and the quirks of human behavior.

Listen to the podcast here.
The Knowledge Project Podcast: Learn from the world’s experts

The Knowledge Project Podcast: Learn from the world’s experts

Hosted by Shane Parrish, The Knowledge Project Podcast uncovers the best of what other people have already figured out so you can use their insights in your life. New episodes every second Tuesday.

Listen to the podcast here.
Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Tyler

On the Conversations with Tyler podcast, esteemed economist Tyler Cowen engages with today’s most underrated thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between.

Listen to the podcast here.

 

 


The Ezra Klein Show

The Ezra Klein Show

Named a best podcast of 2021 by Time, Vulture, Esquire and The Atlantic. Each Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Listen to the podcast here.
 

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