Recommended Reading


There are few things in life more enjoyable than a really great book. Check out some of our top favourites, guaranteed to help you elevate your life, both personally and professionally.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Co-active Coaching
Do What You Are
The Dream Manager
Fish!
Fish! Sticks
It's All Too Much
A New Earth
No Opportunity Wasted
Off Balance
The Rhythm of Life
Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough
Taming Your Gremlin
You are a Badass

 



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An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield

As Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield captivated the world with stunning photos and commentary from space. Now, in his first book, Chris offers readers extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality

Chris Hadfield decided to become an astronaut after watching the Apollo moon landing with his family on Stag Island, Ontario, when he was nine years old, and it was impossible for Canadians to be astronauts. In 2013, he served as Commander of the International Space Station orbiting the Earth during a five-month mission. Fulfilling this lifelong dream required intense focus, natural ability and a singular commitment to “thinking like an astronaut.” In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris gives us a rare insider’s perspective on just what that kind of thinking involves, and how earthbound humans can use it to achieve success and happiness in their lives.

Astronaut training turns popular wisdom about how to be successful on its head. Instead of visualizing victory, astronauts prepare for the worst; always sweat the small stuff; and do care what others think. Chris shows how this unique education comes into play with dramatic anecdotes about going blind during a spacewalk, getting rid of a live snake while piloting a plane, and docking with space station Mir when laser tracking systems fail at the critical moment. Along the way, he shares exhilarating experiences, and challenges, from his 144 days on the ISS, and provides an unforgettable answer to his most-asked question: What’s it really like in outer space?

Written with humour, humility and a profound optimism for the future of space exploration, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth offers readers not just the inspiring story of one man’s journey to the ISS, but the opportunity to step into his space-boots and think like an astronaut—and renew their commitment to pursuing their own dreams, big or small.

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Co-active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching people Toward Success in Work and Life, Laura Whitworth, et al.

Discover what's new in this classic work that helped define the field of coaching. With the first edition of Co-Active Coaching, Laura Whitworth and her pioneering co-authors set the stage for what has become a cultural and business phenomenon, and helped launch the professional practice of coaching. Their flexible Co-Active Coaching model has stood the test of time as a transformative communication process that co-workers and teammates, managers, teachers, and students can use to build strong and collaborative relationships. In this new edition, the authors reflect today's reality of how coaching has moved beyond its initial focus on life skills to become an integral part of an organization's toolkit for developing leaders. Already used as the definitive resource in dozens of corporate and professional development programs, Co-Active Coaching has been updated to include the latest terminology and a variety of fresh coaching examples drawn from the authors' firsthand experiences with thousands of international coaching trainees and clients. The power-packed Coach's Toolkit has been expanded to include more than 35 exercises, questionnaires, checklists, and reproducible forms. And a CD containing sample audio coaching sessions, and printable forms from the Toolkit, have been added to make these proven principles and techniques practical.

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Do What You Are, Paul Tieger, et al.

For over 10 years Do What You Are has helped hundreds of thousands of people find the job that suits their personality type best. It lists the wide array of occupations that are popular with your personality type, including todays hottest career tracks in growth areas such as e-commerce, biotechnology, new media, and telecommunications. Throughout, the authors provide savvy career advice and highlight the strengths and pitfalls of each personality type with real-life examples.

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The Dream Manager, Matthew Kelly

A business parable about how companies can achieve remarkable results by helping their employees fulfill their dreams

Managing people is difficult. With disengagement and turnover on the rise, many managers are scratching their heads wondering what to do. It's not that we don't dream of being great managers, it's just that we haven't found a practical and efficient way to do it. Until now . . .

The fictional company in this remarkable book is grappling with real problems of high turnover and low morale -- so the managers begin to investigate what really drives the employees. What they discover is that the key to motivation isn't necessarily the promise of a bigger paycheck or title, but rather the fulfillment of crucial personal dreams. They also learned that people at every level need to be offered specific kinds of help and encouragement -- or our dreams will forever remain just dreams as we grow dissatisfied with our lives and jobs.

Beginning with his important thought that a company can only become the-best-version-of-itself to the extent that its employees are becoming better-versions-of-themselves, Matthew Kelly explores the connection between the dreams we are chasing personally and the way we all engage at work. Tackling head-on the growing problem of employee disengagement, Kelly explores the dynamic collaboration that is unleashed when people work together to achieve company objectives and personal dreams.

The power of The Dream Manager is that simply becoming aware of the concept will change the way you manage and relate to people instantly and forever. What's your dream?

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Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, Stephen C. Lundin

Over 5 Million Copies Sold! Imagine a workplace where everyone chooses to bring energy, passion, and a positive attitude to the job every day.

A powerful parable that will help you see your life and work in a new way.

It's a rainy day in Seattle, and on the third floor of First Guarantee Financial, people have stopped believing they can make a difference. To new manager Mary Jane Ramirez, the challenge of bringing life back to her unenthusiastic and unmotivated team seems impossible, until she discovers an incredibly successful workplace down the street where the employees are so alive and passionate that people stop just to watch them work!

FISH! is the remarkable story of what happens when Mary Jane seeks the help of these unlikely business "experts" and learns their secret: four simple practices that, when applied daily, help anyone to be more energized, effective, and fulfilled.

Filled with inspiration and timeless wisdom that will resonate with anyone in any field or career level, it's easy to see why FISH! is one of the most popular business parables of all time. People in organizations around the world use its practical lessons to improve customer service, build trust and teamwork, bolster leadership, and increase employee satisfaction. They also use the lessons to strengthen personal relationships, fulfill lifelong dreams, and realize their ambitions.

FISH! will help you discover the amazing power that is already inside you to make a positive difference-wherever you are in life.

Based on a bestselling ChartHouse training video which has been adopted by corporations including Southwest Airlines, Sprint, and Nordstrom.

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Fish! Sticks: A Remarkable Way to Adapt to Changing Times and Keep Your Work Fresh, Stephen C. Lundin

The 'o-FISH!-al' follow-up to the phenomenal bestselling Fish! and Fish! Tales, Fish! Sticks is a stand-alone business parable that shows you how to come up with a vision for your business and how to keep it alive, vital, and renewed through tough times, such as turnover in management and staff or a troubled economy. Using the example of a hugely successful, fictional sushi restaurant as a model for a vision of continual renewal, Fish! Sticks employs the same kind of easy-to-read story that was used in Fish! to illustrate its three major principals of continued success: Commit, Be It, and Coach It.

When Stephanie, a new manager, takes over from a wildly popular and now promoted boss, she is faced with the problem of how to keep spirits up in a corporate unit that has, frankly, started to get bored and cranky and revert to its old ways. But then she visits the amazing Taka Sushi (formerly Taka Teriyaki), with its lines of customers cheerfully waiting for hours to get in. Soon, she realizes that the way to keep her employees motivated and her customers delighted can be learned from a bunch of waiters who teach one another everything they need to know. And when she finds out just how the owner of Taka knew to switch her main bill of fare from teriyaki to sushi long before anyone else, what she really discovers is the secret of keeping your work fresh.

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It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, Peter Walsh

Whether it’s tidying up or tiny-house living, the decluttering revolution is taking America by storm. In It’s All Too Much organizational expert Peter Walsh reveals the tools for taking control of your physical—and emotional—clutter in order to reclaim your life.

Are you surrounded by papers? Overstuffed closets? Are you stepping over toys or searching under piles, and leaving boxes of mementos unopened for years? Do you feel under siege by your belongings? Peter Walsh, the organizational guru from TLC's hit show Clean Sweep, understands.

It's All Too Much is Peter’s proven system for anyone who wants to let go and escape the suffocating clutter in their lives. With his good humor and reassuring advice, Peter shows you how to face the really big question: What is the vision for the life you want to live? Through simple techniques and step-by-step plans, you can assess the state of your home, prioritize your possessions, and let go of the clutter you have been holding on to that has kept you from living the life you imagine. Going way beyond color-coded boxes and storage bin solutions, It's All Too Much shows you how to honestly determine what adds to your quality of life and what's keeping you from living the life of your dreams. The result is freed-up space, less stress, and more energy for living a happier, richer life every day.

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A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle

With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived “in the now.” In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life—and for building a better world.

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No Opportunity Wasted: 8 Ways to Create a List for the Life You Want, Phil Keoghan

In dramatic narrative form, Phil Keoghan transports the reader from the Yucatan Jungle to the depths of an underwater cave to the top of an erupting volcano. But this is no armchair traveler book. It is an urgent call to action, inspiring and enabling people to overcome fear and seek out memorable experiences of their own. With his fresh and compelling N.O.W. philosophy, No Opportunity Wasted will help us all dream more freely and live more fully.

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Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction, Matthew Kelly

One of the major issues in our lives today is work-life balance. Everyone wants it; no one has it. But Matthew Kelly believes that work- life balance was a mistake from the start. Because we don't really want balance. We want satisfaction.

Kelly lays out the system he uses with his clients, his team, and himself to find deep, long-term satisfaction both personally and professionally. He introduces us to the three philosophies of our age that are dragging us down. He shows us how to cultivate the energy that will give us enough battery power for everything we need and want to do. And finally, in five clear steps, he shows us how to use his Personal & Professional Satisfaction System to establish and honor our biggest priorities, even if we spend a lot more time on some of the lesser ones.

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The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday with Passion & Purpose, Matthew Kelly

Do you ever feel that if you weren’t so busy you would be happier, healthier, more effective, more fulfilled . . . and maybe even a better person?

Once every twenty-five years or so, a book comes along that perfectly identifies our common search and struggle for happiness, and teaches us how to find lasting fulfillment in a changing world. This is that book. Not since M. Scott Peck published The Road Less Traveled have we experienced a voice as refreshing and authentic as Matthew Kelly’s.

The Rhythm of Life will help you to bring into focus who you are and why you are here. Through this book Matthew Kelly will help you discover your legitimate needs, deepest desires, and unique talents. He will introduce you to the-best-version-of-yourself and lead you to a life filled with passion and purpose.

Here are just a few of the timeless creeds that he presents in The Rhythm of Life . . .

“You were born to become the-best-version-of-yourself. This is your essential purpose. Embrace this one solitary truth and it will change your life more than anything you have ever learned. In every situation, ask yourself, Which of the options before me will help me become the-best-version-of-myself?”

“Everything is a choice. This is life’s greatest truth and its hardest lesson. It is a great truth because it reminds us of our power. Not power over others, but the power to be ourselves and to live the life we have imagined. It is a hard lesson because it causes us to realize that we have chosen the life we are living right now.”

“The measure of your life will be the measure of your courage. Courage animates us, brings us to life, and makes everything else possible. Fear stops more people from doing something with their lives than lack of ability, contacts, resources, or any other single variable. Fear paralyzes the human spirit. Life takes courage.”

“Energy is our most valuable resource, not time. The rhythm of life is a way of life that brings our legitimate needs, our deepest desires, and our unique talents into harmony with each other. The result: passion, purpose, and energy.”

Kelly has a way of thinking and writing that cuts through the stifling clutter of our everyday lives and delivers a clarity that is both refreshing and liberating.

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The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough: How Five Young Women Got Smart, Formed a Money Club, and Took Control of Their Finances, Andrea Baxter, et al

Inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show on personal finance, the Smart Cookies, five dynamic young women who weren’t always so savvy about money, formed a "money club," and together developed strategies for turning their financial lives around – without surrendering their sanity or their social lives.

In this guide, the Cookies demonstrate how women of all ages can achieve financial security. They share their own stories, offer easy-to-follow steps, and lay out simple plans for meeting any goal, whether it’s eliminating debt, making good investments, becoming a smart spender or saving up for a big-ticket purchase.

The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough invites every reader to become "the sixth cookie," to take control of their financial lives and have fun doing it.

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Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way, Rick Carson

This is a completely updated edition of the 1983 classic that introduced a powerful method for gaining freedom from self-defeating behaviors and beliefs. Rick Carson, creator of the renowned Gremlin-Taming™ Method, has revised the book to include fresh interactive activities, real-life vignettes we can all identify with, and new loathsome gremlins ripe for taming. Carson blends his laid-back style, Taoist wisdom, the Zen Theory of Change, and sound psychology in an easy-to-understand, unique, and practical system for banishing the nemesis within. Among the things you will learn are:

  • Techniques for getting a sliver of light between the natural you and the monster of your mind.
  • The extraordinary power of simply noticing and playing with options.
  • Six keys to maintaining emotional balance amid upheaval.

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You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, Jen Sincero

In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, bestselling author and world-traveling success coach, Jen Sincero, serves up 27 bitesized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word, helping you to: Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want, Create a life you totally love. And create it NOW, Make some damn money already. The kind you’ve never made before.

By the end of You Are a Badass, you’ll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can’t change, how to change what you don’t love, and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.

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