The point of summer vacation (or any vacation) is to unplug from work, which too few people truly do. If we do it right, we arrive back at work recharged, refreshed and ready to go. And while the traditional notion of summer book reading is about escaping into thrillers, mysteries or romances, some of you may want to read about work while you unplug from work — both of which can make you work better when you return.
So as a follow-up to our summer book guide, here’s the Thrive Global Summer Book Guide to Work. The books on this list are all about some aspect of work, entrepreneurship or careers that you can mix in with your lighter summer fare. In the end, as long as you’re putting your phone down — to read, sightsee, connect with your friends and family or just to do nothing — you’re doing vacation right.
Identity Leadership: To Lead Others You Must First Lead Yourself, by Stedman Graham
As Graham shows, before we earn the authority to lead others, we have to do the hard work of leading ourselves, and here he gives a point-by-point guide for how we can lead with purpose by first challenging ourselves.
Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed With Early Achievement, by Rich Karlgaard
Drawing on the latest research, interviews with scientists and experts and his own experience, Karlgaard shows why the obsession with early success is misguided and offers a practical guide to finding our full potential on our own timetable.
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcall
Second-generation physicist and bioentrepreneur Safi Bahcall’s Loonshots is an entertaining guide to the subtle and often indiscernible factors that create the conditions for breakthrough ideas, along with lessons for how we can make our own lives more fertile ground for game-changing creativity.
The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance, by Steven G. Rogelberg
Contrary to what most people experience every day at work, meetings actually can be efficient, productive and successful, and Steven Rogelberg uses years of data, analytics and interviews to show how we can make better use of time spent in meetings.
Resilience: How Women Use Obstacles to Fuel Their Success, by Veronica Dagher
The stories of the 20 women, many of them well-known, told in this e-book by the Wall Street Journal’s Veronica Dagher vary wildly. What they have in common is the resilience they found to overcome hardships ranging from divorce and sexual assault to self-doubt and failed businesses. Along the way, Dagher shows how we can find our own resilience to overcome the challenges in our own lives.
Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less, by Michael Hyatt
As Hyatt shows, productivity isn’t about working longer or more quickly; it’s about prioritization and getting done what really needs to get done. Here he shows how to maximize productivity so we’ll have more time in our lives for what we really value.
The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace, by Lindsey Pollak
Here, one of the leading experts on millennials in the workplace shows how managers and leaders at all levels can make generational diversity a competitive advantage. Read an excerpt here.
Tech Boss Lady: How to Start-up, Disrupt, and Thrive as a Female Founder, by Adriana Gascoigne
Sharing her own story of how she broke into the boys’ club of Silicon Valley, along with how 20 other women tech leaders did the same, the founder of Girls in Tech show how we can all be our own tech boss lady. Read an excerpt here.
Subscribe here for my Weekly Thoughts Newsletter, where you’ll find my take on the week’s news, my favorite pieces on how we can thrive even in our stressful world, and some fun and inspiring extras.