What Do 15 Best-Selling Authors Teach Us?
12 November 2009
23 Comments
Some books and authors change how we think.
I was catching up with an old friend and I was distilling some of my favorite books into one-liners to show the contributions of various authors. He suggested I share them as a post, so here it is …
- In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcolm Gladwell teaches us that thin slices of data tell us a lot.
- In Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst
Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirschner teach us that difficult behaviors stem from 4 intents: get the task done, get it right, get along with people, or get appreciation.
- In Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance
Marcus Buckingham teaches us to give our best, where we have our best to give.
- In Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life
Martin E. P. Seligman teaches us that optimism is not about thinking positive. It’s simply not thinking negative and avoiding explaining bad events as permanent, personal, and pervasive.
- In Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More John Eliot teaches us to use stress to be our best.
- In Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service
Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles teach us to create a vision of perfection, centered on the customer.
- In Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions
, Gary Klein teaches us to fill our heads with patterns and experience to make better decisions.
- In Stumbling on Happiness
Dan Gilbert teaches us we can’t predict our happiness. We can make our own happiness and it’s just as real (synthetic happiness.)
- In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
John C. Maxwell teaches us that leadership is influence.
- In The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service Into a World-Class Brand
Al Ries and Laura Ries teach us that to dominate a category, narrow our focus.
- In The 8th Habit Personal Workbook: Strategies to Take You from Effectiveness to Greatness
, Stephen Covey teaches us to find our voice, and help others find theirs.
- In The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Nassim Taleb teaches us that If you miss the train, don’t chase it. Catch the next one. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it.
- In The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
Seth Godin teaches us to quit the right things and pick the right dips to lean into.
- In The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams
Tim Sanders teaches us that likability is a skill.
- In The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Steven Pressfield teaches us that resistance is the enemy within.
What book changed how you think?
Photo by Capture Queen.
Wow, this is great! It really sums up these books well… What a perfect little dose of insights!
My choice of a classic would be “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. While it is an extremely old book, it does have many useful bits in it. I wonder if anyone could write a book today that has the same level of impact that Mr. Tzu’s book has had in many different fields as while the book has obvious military uses the strategies can apply to most fields if one can read between the lines to find the many nuggets of wisdom within the book.
I love the idea of synthetic happiness and I love the idea that it’s just as real.
J.D. a fine list and your personal blink on the main point of each one. This was a fun post to go through.
“Blink” definitely changed the way I think about over analysis. The Art of War was also thought provoking in terms of dealing with people in corporate America, and God Hunger influences me spiritually probably as much as the writings of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
The books we read and the people we spend time with do change us.
Great lineup.
I have read some already, and some not.
Going next for “Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance”
Damn it, love perf
Hi JD
Gosh, I’m trying to think of which books to comment on here. There have been many.
One that I have read lately and really enjoyed (perhaps you and your readers would too):
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely.
That shows just how illogical we are – and, shockingly, it is quite predictable.
Here’s his website: http://www.predictablyirrational.com/
Think I’m going to be reading some of your mentions in the not too distant future…
Juliet
@ Positively Present
Big things come in small insights
@ JB King
I like the patterns-oriented approach of the The Art of War. I would like to analyze the Art of War in conjunction with Thirty-Six Stratagems.
@ Vered
It’s one of those game-changing ideas that helps us get a little more out of life, if we know the way.
@ Erin
Thank you. Well put – the people and books in our lives do shape us.
@ Alik
It’s one of the most pragmatic books I know for playing to your strengths in work and life.
@ Juliet
I’ve heared of it, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s on my backlog and I’ve heard good things.
I totally totally agree with making our own happiness.
And as to my blog “narrowing my focus,” with a vow to keep it light and bright over there.
And just curious, over what time period did you read all those books?
The book that changed how I think is Liara Covert’s “Self Disclosure.” That one made me realize there really is never anything to fear.
And The Guiness Book Of World Records, that one made me realize there is no end to “crazy.”
LOL JD – I read the Dip when I was way too far into something I shouldn’t have started. It would have saved me a fortune if I’d read it earlier.
So many things I read, are changing the way I think all the time. I loved Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, so I think I’ll try Blink next.
Hi JD – thanks for that list – I’ve heard of some and not of others and I love the succinctness of your reviews. I haven’t been able to read much recently – I read .. but gleaning information and interesting historical ideas etc I have over the years read an eclectic range and I have a whole backlog here .. now I have your list for which thank you ..
the title that’s always stuck has been Susan Jeffers’ “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” .. so many are stuck in their ruts .. and also there are some great bloggers here with some wonderful insights – even sources of!
I’m printing your list now – so I have it accessible to read!
Thanks – Hilary Melton-butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories
Hmmm, so that’s why you’re such a font of knowledge! Reading is great and I love the sound of these books but I do think that at some point you have to stop reading and start putting it into practice.
I couldn’t take in all that info at once but one of these books is calling my name so I’ll be checking it out:) And practicing all I learn…
Thanks for sharing these. I’m interested in “The War of Art,” and I’m off now to add it to my wish list.
@ Jannie
Light and bright … I like that (of course, I always liked Light Bright.)
Some I didn’t read all the way through, but most I read during a December “book bash.” I was sick so I missed my vacation, so instead I ravaged books. It was life changing.
@ Cath
The Dip’s a great mental model I check against when the going gets tough.
Gladwell really knows how to spin data into interesting insights.
@ Hilary
I like how Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway became such a catch phrase. It’s sticky and viral, and fear is a cause of a lot of ruts (along the lines of learned helplessness.)
I think an eclectic range is the spice of life.
@ Annabel
Too true — reading is cool, but results are king.
I’m a fan of test-driving the books at work with my mentees, projects, and teams.
Any of these books can be a game changer. That’s the beauty, each book is partly what the author presents, but it’s mostly what the reader inteprets, uses, and extends.
@ Melissa
Thanks for stopping by. You’ll find the War of Art to be inspiring and witty. The chapters are short, but the insight runs deep.
I read about 4 books a week and about 100 blogs a week – while my eyesight is holding out….reading just changes my life with every book, I breath it in and then exhale it into my actions even if it is to reject it…My KINDLE reads aloud to me in a robotic voice while I cook – sometime it is the only voice I hear all day….
I wish I could do your one liners and tag phrases….I seem to be too wordy…
In 2010, I am working to actively put more people into my real time and working on talking more
I like this post very much and I am glad you did not post so often right now, sometimes I feel pressured to keep up…
@ Patricia
Never feel pressured to keep up … “catch the next train.”
Your KINDLE sounds great. I use a sticky method for reading books fast, which I should probably write about in a future post.
@JD
I am catching the train to SF to get my ebook published next week…I need my IT for help on this one….good words…and the KINDLE is just amazing.
Yes, I want to know about your reading methods…I need to speed up and my eye sight is going – too many books and maybe not enough time…the Kindle does read aloud to me when my eyes are too tired or I am cooking dinner
I love the one sentence clarity.
My two personal favorites are:
1) Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz: “The Power of Full Engagement” – The most important resource is not time, it is energy.
2) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: “Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience” – Achieve the state of being totally committed to the work at hand.
+ missing the train concept was very insightful
@ Harald
Thank you.
Energy over time is a beautiful point and is a beautiful paradigm shift, especially in today’s world.
Flow is another great concept and I find the key is to either find the job you love or love the job you’re with.
I laugh when I see this title”The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You”.
My country, one of the world’s most ancient and of wisdom one, have hundreds of tips to tell us how to be a leader. When everyone knows those, it is still hard to become a leader. All the tips become those to tell us how to be a good person, good human being. I’d rather drop this one and pick up GTD system introduced by ph.D. Allen, which just tell us how to handle the complex world.
@ Jim
Having a system for dealing with the world is a good thing.
If you check out Maxwell, I think you’ll find his approach refreshing.
OK, I will share more thoughts with you after reading Maxwell’s book.
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