The Books I Enjoyed Reading in 2020

Here are some of the books I wanted to share with you from my reading list of 2020.

Before the year even started I was reading Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind of Yuval Noah Harari. In my list of great books of 2019, I mentioned his other book 21 Lessons for 21st Century. I was so impressed with his knowledge and what he shared in that book.

This again sheds a light into human history from many perspectives and makes you question today. As historians always say and believe, knowing the past gives you a better chance to see how far we came (or not in some instances). You are reminded how we only have a glimpse of the world in the short time we have on earth and how things shaped until we got here. Again I am in awe with his depth of knowledge. It is truly remarkable. I highly recommend all of his books.

The second book I enjoyed reading was from Aaron Dignan. A group of wise people in a group I belong were talking highly of his book Brave New Work. Since it fits very well with my passion of creating better workplaces and tapping into human potential, I have several notes, highlighted statements and many post-its hanging out of this book. It became one of my reference books for sure. I had the pleasure of meeting him on social media too. His company The Ready is mentioned quite often in my conversations with other consultants. It is a great book about the new ways we need to work.

Two other books were recommended by my friend Jay Goldstein. The first one was Trillion Dollar Coach written by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle (all Google execs at some point) explaining how exceptional Bill Campbell was as a coach. He obviously had a great influence shaping Google, Apple and Intuit. As I got to know more about him, it was not surprising to see he was a man with a great balance of IQ and EQ. Great story.

The second book Jay was reading that intrigued me was the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership written by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp. It is again another book I will reference and pick up all the time since it brings together all the qualities of leaders we need that you may have ran across reading several other books. There are great exercises and it is a book for everyone at every level. It really shows again how leadership requires inside work and self-awareness more than anything else. Great one.

The next book came from an old list that I had for years. One of the classics I would say. It is the book Flow from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a well-known psychologist. Since I have always been intrigued by passion and purpose, it is a great study of what happens when we are in the “flow”. It is quite detailed and scientific and some people might be bored of the details. I loved finding out more about what is happening behind the scenes when we lose ourselves in something we love to do. Great book indeed.

Then my friend Mike Vacanti’s book Believership got published. It is always extra special when your friend writes a book. When you read this one, you want to weigh in every word. I started underlying some of the sentences and gave up at some point since I realized every sentence would need to be highlighted. Great read from the Founder of HumansFirst explaining the type of leadership we need in this world right now and how our beliefs shape the type of leader we are. If you are about putting people first and wanting to be a real leader, you have to read this book.

My last visit face to face before the pandemic hit was with Moshe Engelberg. We met because Kevin Monroe introduced us and he was kind enough to gift me his book The Amare Wave. I was able to get to his book towards the end of the year. I enjoyed reading how he brought “love” to work. There are many exercises for leaders to adopt caring environments where people come first. It is like a do-it-yourself book where all the practices he implemented at companies are openly shared. This was one more book around my passion to create better workplaces.

The last one I want to list here is The Surrender Experiment from Michael A. Singer. Again another friend of mine, Jodi recommended it to me. His Untethered Soul book is my bedside book which I read every few years. So I was interested in this book which mainly talks about his own life. You wonder how everything fell in place when he was always going with the flow. Very interesting life story of an accomplished CEO, business owner, and a very spiritual man.

As always, I wonder who I would be without the books I read.

As always, I want to find even more time to read.

As always, the list of books I want to read never get shorter.

As always, I feel so lucky that I love to read.

For many more books to enjoy in 2021!