Somehow it became a summer tradition of this blog: here’s my latest list of book recommendations (you can see the lists from previous years here). As usual, they all have something to do with creative decision making and goal achievement. The first is a novel, the rest is non-fiction:
Wood, Benjamin (2016). The Ecliptic. A Novel.
More than the plot, it was the premise and setting that had me hooked from the start: an isolated artists’ colony on a small island – its anonymous residents lingering for years, all expenses paid. Relieved of their own ego and the burdens of everyday life, they should be free to create their next masterpieces. Needless to say, it doesn’t work out quite so smoothly for everyone. You can start reading here.
Two excerpts highlight why this book fits this particular reading list and the topic of my blog. Here’s the voice of the protagonist Elspeth, a Scottish painter: “Any guest who could not wait to talk about the project he was working on was usually a short-termer — that was our evaluation. Anyone who proclaimed his own genius was a fraud, because, as Quickman himself once put it, genius does not have time to stand admiring its reflection; it has too much work to get finished. We never sought out the company of short-termers. We left them to work and find their clarity alone, while we got on with jabbing at our own unwieldy projects. None of us seemed to recognise the fact that our separation from the others was, in fact, a tacit declaration of our own genius — and, thus, it surely followed that we were the biggest frauds of all.”
And the voice of her mentor: “Actually, it reminds me of the work I did when I was drinking — heavily drinking. Your thoughts are leaking out of so many different places you can’t hold them. There’s no control, no discipline. Everything’s just streaming out of you and you can’t stop it. I understand what that feels like, believe me I do. Feels like freedom but all you’re really doing is shutting things out. It leads you nowhere good.”
James Clear (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
Of all the books on habit changes I’ve read so far, this might be the most practical yet. It focuses on small improvements and makes a compelling argument that in the case of habits, thinking small produces the biggest results over time.
Some of the take-home points:
- Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
- The most effective way to change your habits is NOT to focus not on specific goals. Focus on your system instead. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
- Four rules to build better habits: (1) Make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying. (The opposite rules apply to extinguishing bad habits.) The book goes into many examples and methods on how to apply each of those rules.
- The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom. As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. It is therefore essential that we keep improving our systems. For that we need to remain conscious of our performance with reflection and review.
- Success, therefore, is not to reach a specific threshold or goal, but to keep improving our systems.(Conveniently enough though, this is also the best strategy to reach any specific goals.)
You can look into the first part of the book here.
Annie Duke (2018): Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts.
As a former World Series of Poker champion, Annie Duke shares a convincing perspective of how important it is to cope well with uncertainty, if we want to make better decisions. As opposed to most of us, professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don’t always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don’t always lead to bad outcomes, and they are unafraid to scrutinize and review their own decisions (the processes, not the outcomes!) rigorously, because they know this pays off hugely in the long run.
Annie Duke’s advice is that we need to let go of our need for certainty, and instead make it a practice to accurately assess what we know and what we don’t. One way to committing to this practice is to find a peer group that can help you build a non-confrontational, non-threatening decision review team. If you want to read a sample, here’s a preview.
Vicki Lind, Tifini Roberts, and Leslie Yeargers (2019). Landing a Job Worth Having.
This is a new handbook written by three of my colleagues at Vicki Lind & Associates. It is full of very practical tips and resources, from searching for the right position to negotiating your salary. The authors guide you through all these steps:
- Assessing what type of job you want
- Using job boards and social media to find those jobs
- Building a network of contacts to put you in front of hiring managers
- Crafting resumes and cover letters to get you interviews
- Interviewing with confidence and build great references
- Negotiating a compensation package that matches your worth
by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR
About the author: Bruce Hazen is a career and management coach in Portland, Oregon. He has lead 
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