Have you read any of these, my top five favourites reads from 2018?

I’m a learning junkie.  To dive into a book, to be transported to another world where I can surf and learn at leisure, is my idea of bliss. Which is why I have an annual goal to read a minimum of one book a month.  I begin each year with giddy anticipation of what I’ll learn and I close out each year reflecting on the pile of books I’ve inhaled.

Dip a toe in, go up to your waist or dive into my learning well.  

Welcome and enjoy.  Here for you are my top five favs from 2018 and why you might want to consider reading them.  Then I dive into all the other books I read in 2018, divided into:

• Books about how people work and do (or don’t) manage,
• Books for the heart
• Books about learning
• Books for the nerd in us and
• Books about communication& strategy

My top five favs from 2018

• Your personality explained: exploring the science of identity (National Geographic) à read if you want to take a fascinating dive into personality.  This was the genesis of my motivation survey, which looks at whatmotivates you.  Fill it in and you getyour answer immediately.

• Born a Crime (Trevor Noah)à epic, inspiring, poignant, laugh yourself silly on one page, cry yourself to sleep on the next, Trevor carries a wallop of a story. 

• Power of moments (Chip and Dan Heath) à they’ve done it again! The Heath brothers have no end of illuminating, fun stories.  I’ve used this for teaching workshop participants how to raise the bar and give effective feedback.

• The four day win (MarthaBeck) à this is ostensibly a diet book but it’s SO much more.  I used her trans theoretical theory of change to design a tool for how to find your tech personality.  Are you an armadillo, turtle, duck or dolphin?

• The art of innovation (Tom Kelley of IDEO) à a fascinating sneak peek behind the scenes of the wildly innovative IDEO company. It’s an oldie but a goldie.  Bonus; some of the tech references will keep you chuckling and realizing how far we’ve come!

Books about how people work & (do or don’t) manage

• Ready, set, change …again (Gregg Brown) à a quick, handy dandy summary of various change models.  I’m hoping to use this for one of my Learning and Development Roundtable sessions next year.

• The innovator’s mindset; empower learning, unleash talent & lead a culture of creativity (George Couros) à this book sparked redesigning my workshop evaluation forms in a thoughtful, creative manner.  Love it.

• Persuasion (ArleneDickinson) à one of the Dragons on the Canadian Dragon’s Den, Arleneliterally came from nothing and built her and marketing company to be wildly successful.  It’s an honour to get to peek inside that epically smart brain of hers and to benefit from pearls like “The story yout ell yourself about your mistakes really matters.”

Books for the heart 

• Hot glue gun mess (Mr.Kate) à in another life I’d aspire to be an interior designer, hence Mr. Kate’s YouTube channel is a favourite of mine to hang out.  Her (yes Mr. Kate is a woman) and her ‘creative weirdos’ clan make magic from transforming people’s spaces. When I found out she’d written a book I had to get it.  Prepare for wild creativity and chuckles galore.

Books about learning

• Mind; a scientific guide to who you are, how you got that way & how to make the most of it (PatriciaDaniels, National Geographic) à read if you want to find out more fascinating stuff about yourself like ‘we have roughly 11 million bits of information a second coming at us.  We pay attention to about 40.’

• Power of visual storytelling (Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio) à did you know we interpret pictures 600,000 times faster than text? This and more gets covered with (of course) lots of great images.

• Everybody writes (AnnHandley) à an easy to read, helpful book about writing, which she distillsinto 12 steps (no not that kind of 12 step).

• We can do this; 10 tools to unleash our collective genius (Kate Sutherland) à a super practical book to help you in your social change efforts, that all hinge on ‘love the world you want into existence’ (from the forward).

• Finish; give yourself the gift of done (Jon Acuff) à a popular book about getting stuff done.  I love his notion of looking for what he calls cuckoos – or limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves but might not be aware of.

Books for the nerd in us

• How emotions are made, the secret life of the brain (Lisa Feldman Barrett) à this is a deep dive into the neuro science of emotions, including how they affect the law and illness. She’s turning neuro science on its head, including the fallacy of the triune (3 part) brain.

Books about communication & strategy

• Upgrade your life; the life hacker’s guide to working smarter, faster, better (Gina Trapani) à another oldie but goldie, give me a tool to help with my ease and efficiency and I’m hooked.

• All I ever needed to know about business I learned from a Canadian (Leonard Brody and David Raffa) à I’d been meaning to read this one for ages and finally got to it.  So gratifying to read about so many Canadian success stories and concepts like Nick Graham (Joe Boxer’s founder) ‘emotionalgrowth margin’ which really got me thinking.

Ready for more?  Here are my top 5 reads & why you should read them from 2017 part one and part two.

And take a peek about how I motivate myself to keep reading with ‘Finding inspiration for reading for the love & learning of it.

Until our paths cross again, may you dive deep into a book you love and surface with new perspectives and learning.