For the last 2 years, I’ve set the personal goal of reading 50 books per year. Why 50? I have no idea. Maybe because it forces me to read a book every week. Or maybe because it’s a big enough number to look challenging. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I ended up reading only 10 in 2015, less than half of what I managed to read in 2014.
However, while far from ideal I read books that made an impact on me and that I regular mention in conversations about life, startups, tech, economics or politics.
It’s also important to mention, that I love reading. Since I first start reading (20 something years ago), I read something every day. Might be a small paragraph, an online article, 20 pages or a full book. I read, because it’s the second best way to learn. I spent my days learning by doing & reading.
So, without further due, here is the list of books I read in 2015 by order.
- The Average is Over by Tyler Cowen.
- Data Driven: Creating a Data Culture by Hilary Mason & DJ Patil.
- Crazy is a Compliment by Linda Rottenberg.
- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
- Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy by Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant
- inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity by Tina Seelig
- Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
- Pebbles of Perception: How a Few Good Choices make All the Difference by Laurence Endersen
- The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam
My main take aways from these books are:
1. Technology is changing our society, but in ways that are not very clear right now and in a pace that’s more accelerated that has ever been. One of the quotes that impacted me the most comes from “Race Against the Machine”:
“The root of our problems is not that we’re in a Great Recession, or a Great Stagnation, but rather that we are in the early throes of a Great Restructuring”.
Are we ready for this restructuring? I don’t believe so.
2. For some reason, since a very early age we are convinced that we either are creative or we aren’t. There are two completely separated buckets and you can’t go from one to another. “inGenius” by Tina Seelig shows that creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised and can really make a difference in our lives:
“With enhanced creativity, instead of problems you see potential, instead of obstacles you see opportunities, and instead of challenges you see a chance to create breakthrough solutions.”
3. Having been a History lover all my life, reading “Lessons of History” completely change my perception of history and civilisation. Here are some of the highlights of that book:
“So the first biological lesson of history is that life is a competition. The second biological lesson of history is that life is a selection. In the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival.”
“Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilisation.”
“It’s not the race that makes the civilisation, it is the civilisation that makes the people: circumstances geographical, economic, and political create a culture, and the culture creates a human type.”
“The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character, the only real emancipation is individual, and the only real revolutionists are philosophers and saints.”
4. In Thrive Arianna Huffington shares lots of personal stories to show that’s up to us to decide how we want to live our lives. She quotes Marcus Aurelius:
“the quality of our day is up to each of us. We have little power to choose what happens, but we have complete power over how we respond.”
5. A final note about the book “Education of a Coach”. This book is about Bill Belichick who won 4 Super Bowls. In this book you read the story of a man that has been preparing himself for a coaching career since a very early age and you see a man that was able to make the most of each and every opportunity by outworking everyone. Here is a quote from the book that sums it all really well:
“When things went wrong, you simply worked a little harder. If anything, you examined yourself more closely to see what else you might have done to improve things. You did not blame the fates. Others could do that.”
Goals for 2016: Read 50 books. I plan to read lots of books on growth hacking, product development, marketing, analytics and communication. But in 2016, I’m going to make an effort to read some fiction. Let’s see how this goes!
Photo by: Abhi Sharma
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