How I read 52 Books, in 52 Weeks!
Yep ... i managed to read 52 books in 52 weeks and this is how ...
One day I had an amazing idea - to update my knowledge, learn what people are researching and increase my thoughts on leadership. So, I decided from the 1st of July 2016 that I would read one book, which would assist my knowledge on leadership, each week for 52 weeks.
Without any forward thinking, I selected a book and got reading. Very quickly, I learnt that I somehow had to squeeze in between all my business commitments and the motherly duties, many pages of reading. However, at the end of the first week I managed to put the fingers on the keyboard and shared my thoughts, lessons and applicability to the role of a leader or for someone interested to practise leadership.
Then, people started asking, "How do you read a leadership book in one week?" Of course, the context is from a time management perspective. I run my own business and the family, so I started recording how I managed to squeeze the reading into my days and evenings:
While I eat my lunch on my deck at the home office.
I break down my reading into page targets - with a minimum number of pages to be read a day. For example - I am to read a 300 page book in four days - that's 75 pages a day. I then break that down to pages per morning, afternoon and then in bed!
While I eat my Breakfast early in the morning.
While drinking champagne!
I sneak in a page of reading every time I move between tasks.
Reading on a Sunday afternoon while it's pouring rain.
What have I been reading?
First Book: The Coaching Habit – Michael Bungay Stanier
Book Two: Connect - Jane Anderson & Kylie Chown
Book Three: The origins of ethical failures Lessons for leaders – Dennis Gentilin
Book Four: Cultural Chemistry – Simple Strategies for Bridging Cultural Gaps
Book Five: The Wife Drought – Why women need wives and men need lives – Annabel Crabb
Book Six: Your Leadership Edge – Lead Anytime, Anywhere – Ed O’Malley Amanda Cebula
Book Seven: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead - Sheryl Sandberg
Book Eight: The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World – Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow
Book Nine: The 4 – Hour Workweek – Timothy Ferriss
Book Ten: Moments of Truth – New Strategies for today’s Customer-Driven Economy – Jan Carlzon
Book Eleven: Making Sense A Handbook for the future of work – Lynne Cazaly
Book Twelve: The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd – Allan Dib
Book Thirteen: Work With Me – How to get people to buy into your ideas - Simon Dowling
Book Fourteen: A Whole New Mind – Daniel H. Pink
Book Fifteen: The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
Book Sixteen: The Element – How finding your passion changes everything – Ken Robinson
Book Seventeen: Finding Your Element – How to discover your talents and passions and transform your life – Ken Robinson
Book Eighteen: Connected Leadership – How to build a more agile, customer-driven business - Simon Hayward
Book Nineteen: Ego is the Enemy: The fight to master our greatest opponent – Ryan Holiday
Book Twenty: How to get rich – Donald J. Trump
Book Twenty One: The Unlimited Self – Destroy limiting beliefs uncover inner greatness and live the good life – Jonathan Heston
Book Twenty Two: The Fish Rots from the Head – Bob Garratt (1996)
Book Twenty Three: That’s a Great Question – Greg Bustin
Book Twenty Four: What the most successful people do before breakfast – Laura Vanderkam
Book Twenty Five: My Shining Year – Leonie Dawson
Book Twenty Six: Ten Leadership Lessons you must teach your teenager – Dr Tim Hawkes
Book Twenty Seven: Tribes – Seth Godin (still writing this review)
Book Twenty Eight: London – Edward Rutherfurd (still writing this review)
Book Twenty Nine: Conversational Leadership – Judith E. Glaser
Book Thirty: Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert
Book Thirty One: Try Hard - Em Rusciano
Book Thirty Two: I Love Negotiating - Sam Trattles
Book Thirty Three: HR Disrupted - It's time for something different - Lucy Adams Book
Book Thirty Four: Rising Strong - Brene Brown
Book Thirty Five: What The Most Successful People Do On The Weekend - Laura Vanderkam
Book Thirty Six: This Year I Will - M. J. Ryan
Book Thirty Seven: The Obvious - Everything you need to know to succeed - James Dale
Book Thirty Eight: The Boomerang Effect - Tim Reid
Book Thirty Nine: Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Book Forty: 365 Thank Yous - John Kralik
Book Forty One: Breaking the Mould - Angela Pippos
Book Forty Two: Think One Team - Graham Winter
Book Forty Three: I Am The Problem - Soozey Johnstone
Book Forty Four: Customer Centricity - Peter Fader
Book Forty Five: Speakership - Matt Church
Book Forty Six: Confidence - Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Book Forty Seven: Everybody Matters - Bob Chapman
Book Forty Eight: Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor E Frankl
Book Forty Nine: The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*CK - Mark Manson
Book Fifty: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
Book Fifty One: Refuse to Choose - Barbara Sher
Book Fifty Two: Zero To One - Peter Thiel
Two great books - one which I read 15 years ago, and one this year.
Take me back HOME
To read the review of these books, jump over to by blog page Leadership Thoughts