I must admit, my family have often nick named me “the sponge”. I just love reading and learning and “Love of Learning” is one of my top three strengths on my VIA Character profile. So, when it comes to books, I have a whole lot on my bookshelf.
So, I thought I would share what I have read, what I am reading and what I intend to read for this year. There might be some in here that might spark your interest too and get you ready for 2020 and give you some wonderful food for thought.
Carol Dweck’s - Mindset
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea-the power of our mindset.
Dweck explains why it's not just our abilities and talent that bring us success-but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn't foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardise success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals-personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.
Amy Cuddy’s – Presence
Don't fake it till you make it, fake it until you become it - the essential guide to body language
Amy Cuddy shows how your body language influences others and even changes the way you see yourself. Social scientists have shown that we make sweeping inferences and judgements based on body language, judgements that can predict meaningful life outcomes like who we hire, who we promote, who we ask out on a date, who we invest in and who we trust. In Presence, Amy Cuddy reveals that we have the power not only to affect how others see us but also to change how we see ourselves and even the ability to alter our own chemistry, simply by changing body positions.
Cuddy's research shows how faking body postures that convey competence and power (power posing) even for as little as two minutes changes our cortisone and testosterone levels, increases our appetite for risk, helps us perform better in job interviews and configures our brains to cope in stressful situations. If you act powerfully, you will begin to think powerfully.
Bill Eckstrom and Sarah Wirth – The Coaching Effect
The most effective leader behaves more like a coach
Authors Bill Eckstrom and Sarah Wirth have spent a decade researching the activities, behaviours, and performance of leaders. After studying more than 100,000 coaching interactions in the workplace, they have been able to determine how coaching affects team outcomes and growth.
The authors share three critical performance drivers, along with the four high-growth activities that coaches must execute to build a team that is motivated to achieve at the highest levels. Through both hard data and rich stories, Eckstrom and Wirth demonstrate how leaders can measure and improve their coaching to lead their teams to better results.
The Coaching Effect will help leaders at all levels understand the necessity of challenging people out of their comfort zone to create a high-growth organization. Leaders will learn how they can develop trust relationships, drive accountability and leverage growth experiences to propel their team members to the highest levels of success.
Victor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances.
The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.
Brene Brown – Dare To Lead
Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential.
When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.
But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start.
How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture?
James Clear – Atomic Habits
A revolutionary system to get 1 per cent better every day
People think when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions – doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.
He calls them atomic habits.
In this ground-breaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medallists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy. These small changes will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships, and your life.
John Corrigan – Red Brain Blue Brain
We all have two brains, the ‘blue brain’ where we are at our best – confident, collaborative and creative – and the ‘red brain’ where we become self-focused, impulsive and emotional, where we lack choice.
It seems we were born this way, but we weren’t.
The ‘red brain’ is a consequence of how we are brought up, how our society is structured and how society is replicated through our schools. We learn to manage the ‘red brain’ to a greater or lesser extent, we all know we can do that.
But, we can also cause it to fade away … and not create it in our children in the first place.
It is this insight and how we put it into practice that is key to living, loving and leading without fear.
Scott Zarcinas – It’s Up To You
Featuring 9 Life Leadership Strategies to Live the Life You Want, the Way You Want, How You Want.
Do you feel stuck in a rut and your life is on hold? Are you looking for new direction but don't know which way to turn?
We all want to do more than just survive; we want to thrive. But if you're trapped in the same old routine, now is the time to start living the life you were born to live--with abundance.
Your life situation today is the result of the choices you have made in the past. So to experience something different, you need to make different choices.
Scott Zarcinas – The Banana Trap
Science-based Stress Management Strategies to De-Stress & Prosper
Do you feel overwhelmed and over-stressed? Are you trapped in recurring cycles of worry and frustration? Do you crumble in stressful moments?
Don't worry, everybody has moments of high stress and overwhelm! This guidebook will help you understand why you experience stress, what you can do to break the cycle of chronic stress, and how to finally liberate yourself of stress, worry, and fear.
This book will help you to:
· Feel less overwhelmed and more confident
· Escape The Banana Trap and reclaim your life
· Identify and overcome the different types of stress
· Eliminate stressful habits and increase happiness
· Deal with high-pressure situations and be in control
PLUS develop a long-term strategy to prevent high stress before it occurs.
Johann Hari - Lost Connections
Depression and anxiety are now at epidemic levels. Why? Across the world, scientists have uncovered evidence for nine different causes. Some are in our biology, but most are in the way we are living today.
Lost Connections offers a radical new way of thinking about this crisis. It shows that once we understand the real causes, we can begin to turn to pioneering new solutions - ones that offer real hope.
Marilee Adams – Change Your Questions Change Your Life
Change Your Questions, Change Your Life is a worldwide, word-of-mouth bestseller. Readers have said they personally experienced life-changing benefits by learning to ask the right questions-ones that empowered them rather than got in their way. Through a compelling story Marilee Adams shows that, in any situation, we can ask "Judger" questions that impede our progress and keep us from getting results we want. Or we can ask "Learner" questions that open us to growth, connection, satisfaction, and success.
Paul Bloom – Against Empathy
In a divided world, empathy is not the solution, it is the problem.
We think of empathy – the ability to feel the suffering of others for ourselves – as the ultimate source of all good behaviour. But while it inspires care and protection in personal relationships, it has the opposite effect in the wider world. As the latest research in psychology and neuroscience shows, we feel empathy most for those we find attractive and who seem similar to us and not at all for those who are different, distant or anonymous.
Empathy therefore biases us in favour of individuals we know while numbing us to the plight of thousands. Guiding us expertly through the experiments, case studies and arguments on all sides, Paul Bloom ultimately shows that some of our worst decisions – in charity, child-raising, criminal justice, climate change and war – are motivated by this wolf in sheep's clothing.
Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, Against Empathy overturns widely held assumptions to reveal one of the most profound yet overlooked sources of human conflict.
Martin Seligman – Flourish
Flourish : A new understanding of Life's Greatest Goals- and what it takes to reach them. In this ground breaking book, one of the world's foremost academic psychologists- and founder of the Positive Psychology movement- offers a new theory on what makes people Flourish and how to truly get the most out of life.
Eight years have passed since the publication of Dr Seligman's internationally bestselling Authentic Happiness. As a highly esteemed psychologist, Dr Seligman has been on the cutting edge of psychological research for over two decades, pioneering a science that improves people's lives. And now, with his most life-changing book yet, Flourish, he offers a new theory of individual satisfaction and global purpose.
In a fascinating evolution of thought, Flourish, refines what Positive Psychology is all about and offers inspiring stories of Positive Psychology in action. Building on his game-changing work on optimism, motivation, and character, Dr Seligman shows us how to Flourish and bring well being into our own lives.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow
Legendary 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 ground breaking 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, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
Siobhan McHale – The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change
From disengaged employees to underserved customers, business failures invariably stem from a culture problem. In The Insider's Guide to Culture Change, acclaimed culture transformation expert and global executive Siobhan McHale shares her proven four-step process to demystifying culture transformation and starting down the path to positive change.
· Understand what "corporate culture" really is and how it impacts every aspect of the way your organization operates.
· Analyze where your culture is broken.
· Unlock the power of reframing roles within your company, to empower and engage your employees.
· Utilize proven methods and tools to break through deeply embedded patterns and change your company mindset.
· Keep the momentum going by consolidating gains and maintaining your foot on the change accelerator.
With The Insider's Guide to Culture Change, watch your employees go from followers to change leaders who drive an agile culture that constantly outperforms.
Fatima Doman – Authentic Strengths
Can happiness and optimal performance be learned? Positive psychologists say yes! As decades of research and hundreds of studies have now shown, people who express their strengths tend to be happier, engaged, energetic, resilient, less stressed, and higher achievers.
Jewelers spot diamonds in the rough. Art dealers identify potential masterpieces. Coaches groom stars and create the conditions for people to flourish and soar. Drawing on the best from the science of positive psychology and from her two decades of experience coaching and training executives around the world, Fatima Doman has created a three step coaching process that can transform a dedicated learner into a star performer. Whether coaching yourself or others, Authentic Strengths enables sustainable, transformational change. You will learn the tools designed to explore, empower and engage your strengths all while honouring the strengths in others.
Dr Jason Fox – The Game Changer
Use the science of motivation with the power of game design to unlock motivation and drive progress in your organisation.
There are two conventional ways to approach motivation: set goals and try to change attitudes and beliefs (which takes a lot of personalised effort); or develop incentives and rewards to inspire effort (which takes a lot of money).
This book shows you how to take a third new approach – designing the work itself to be inherently motivating.
Combining the best elements of three distinct fields-motivational science, game design, and agile management-this book shows you how to positively influence behaviour through better work and project design.
This game changing book:
· Gives you a refreshing science-based approach to the classic challenge of motivation in the workplace
· Is ideal for any leader or manager looking to take their workplace culture in a new direction
· Includes practical advice for creating highly productive, motivated and innovative teams
Judith Glasser – Conversational Intelligence
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. Author Judith Glaser presents a framework for knowing what kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain; and what activates higher-level intelligences such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment. Conversational Intelligence makes complex scientific material simple to understand and apply through a wealth of easy to use tools, examples, conversational rituals, and practices for all levels of an organisation.
Timothy Gallwey – The Inner Game of Work
Do you think it's possible to truly enjoy your job? No matter what it is or where you are? Timothy Gallwey does, and in this groundbreaking book he tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.
Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books "The Inner Game of Tennis" and "The Inner Game of Golf," with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack.
What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness.
Daniel Pink – Drive
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people - at work, at school, at home. It is wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and the world.
Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.
Want to explore your personal strengths, motivators and potential in 2020? Contact Michelle on 0412047590 or via email michelle@bakjacconsulting.com
Michelle Bakjac is an experienced Psychologist, Organisational Consultant, Coach, Speaker and Facilitator. As Director of Bakjac Consulting, she is a credentialed Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF) and a member of Mental Toughness Partners and an MTQ48 accredited Mental Toughness practitioner. Michelle assists individuals and organisations to develop their Mental Toughness to improve performance, leadership, behaviour and wellbeing.
