5 Books to Help you with your Career
One of the habits that most successful people credit their success to is reading.
Oprah Winfrey said, “Books were my path to personal freedom. They allowed me to see a world beyond the front porch of my grandmother’s shotgun house.” These 5 books to help you with your career have been handpicked by us to help your career flourish in 2022.
Reading can be a powerful tool for absorbing new knowledge, building new skills, learning new ways of being or enriching your perspectives and understanding of this vast world we live in. Why not see what happens when you make it a priority in your life? Use these 5 books as a great starting point!
Start With Why
Learn the secrets of inventive, pioneering and successful people and how they inspire and impact as leaders. Start With Why highlights that it’s not what you do, it’s why you do it.
Simon Sinek shows you how to inspire and be inspired, how to be a better leader, and demonstrates the difference between the inspiring and uninspiring leaders. What makes them unique? What differentiates them from the rest? Why does their success seem unlimited?
Start With Why will show you why they are great leaders, and what and how to become more like them. Tony Robbins, one of the most influential leaders of our time, considers this book required reading. So, if you are wanting to become a leader in your own life, start with Start With Why! You can also watch ‘the most-watched TED Talk of all time’ by Simon Sinek.
When
We’ve all heard the phrase, timing is everything, but have you ever read a book on how to apply the scientific secrets of perfect timing? If timing is EVERYTHING, perhaps we should build our knowledge in this area and read When by Daniel H. Pink. For example, do you want to learn the value of taking a certain break to improve the results in your life? Are there hidden patterns of the day that build a schedule for optimal productivity and time management? What about big life timings such as the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers and get married, and daily timings, like when it might be the best time to drink a coffee?
All timings, big or seemingly small, interweave to make up the moments of your entire life, and how you feel living it. With cutting edge research and data on timing, Daniel H. Pink has written an intriguing narrative. Living a richer, more intentional life sounds good, right? This book will help you do just that with stories and practical takeaways to help you get started.
The Squiggly Career
Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis have written a book all about the squiggly career, and how to navigate work with “the tools you need to thrive in your career now and in the future” as said by business expert and author of Everything is Figureoutable, Marie Forleo.
Squiggly careers are becoming the new normal today and many people are going to move between different roles, industries, locations and careers many times throughout their lifetime.
This book is to help you make the most of your squiggly career, counteract the stress and overwhelm that will inevitably accompany it, become happier in your career, and as a result, more successful. Expect to be fuelled with inspiration and insights to motivate and explore how to optimise and find fulfillment in a squiggly career.
The Art of Saying No
This is one for the people pleasers in the room! Saying no is an essential skill for not only work but life too. People pleasers often feel an overwhelming guilt when they say no, but they also get super fed up and frustrated when they say yes, which is most of the time. Sound like you? It’s an easy trap to fall into. The more you overextend yourself and say yes to every person, the more burnt out you will be, and the more people will keep expecting.
This isn’t exactly a recipe for a purposeful and balanced life. The Art of Saying No by Damon Zahariades will help you decline invitations with confidence, inspire respect in others and take back your time and energy from being able to say no to anyone with a heartbeat, whether that’s coworkers, family, spouses, friends, children, clients, neighbours and strangers!
Dare to Lead
What does it take to make a true leader? Brené Brown is a leader of vulnerability, courage over comfort and rising strong and she makes it clear that money, power and status does not necessarily make a great leader. There are more substantial ingredients needed!
In Dare to Lead, she writes about cultivating braver leadership and how to step up as a leader, referencing new research conducted with leaders, change makers and culture shifters. Expect actionable strategies and real stories to inspire you with building your own leadership skills.
Feel free to get in touch if you read any of these and let us know your most impactful takeaways. If you want guidance and support with your career in 2022, take a look at our volunteer work experience and become a trainee with us!