Fans pick 63 books like Banishing Burnout

Storytelling wields the power to transcend time and place, connecting us through shared experiences and emotions. It shapes our understanding of the world and ignites the imagination, making it an essential part of the human journey. As a psychologist, I understand how the stories we tell about ourselves are crucial in defining who we are and that books and good people can help shape our character. The books I've chosen celebrate the human spirit and our ability to face adversity, adapt, and ultimately choose our destiny. As Stephen Covey wisely stated, “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”

When I worked in clinical practice as a psychotherapist, I worked with many burnt-out clients and always found it frustrating that the conventional wisdom was to take time off or stop working, which is just not practical (or desirable) for many people. I was always looking for alternative things people could do to help themselves. Then I experienced burnout myself, and whilst it was dreadful, I learnt first hand how to put all of this into practice, hence my research on the topic. I now work with people and organisations in high pressured, innovative environments where the focus is on preventing burnout rather than recovering.

When I worked in clinical practice as a psychotherapist, I worked with many burnt-out clients and always found it frustrating that the conventional wisdom was to take time off or stop working, which is just not practical (or desirable) for many people. I was always looking for alternative things people could do to help themselves. Then I experienced burnout myself, and whilst it was dreadful, I learnt first hand how to put all of this into practice, hence my research on the topic. I now work with people and organisations in high pressured, innovative environments where the focus is on preventing burnout rather than recovering.

When I worked in clinical practice as a psychotherapist, I worked with many burnt-out clients and always found it frustrating that the conventional wisdom was to take time off or stop working, which is just not practical (or desirable) for many people. I was always looking for alternative things people could do to help themselves. Then I experienced burnout myself, and whilst it was dreadful, I learnt first hand how to put all of this into practice, hence my research on the topic. I now work with people and organisations in high pressured, innovative environments where the focus is on preventing burnout rather than recovering.

I have been researching the changes in the workplace for 40 years now. The steady move over that time has been away from a situation where employers controlled the development of their “talent” and managed it carefully, especially for white-collar workers, toward arrangements that are much more arms-length where employees are on their own to develop their skills and manage their career. Most employees now see at least some management practices that just don’t make sense even for their own employer–casual approaches to hiring, using “leased employees” and contractors, who are paid more, to do the same work as employees, leaving vacancies open, and so forth.

At 29 I was one of the first female traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, building my own all-female trading company. I lost everything in 1987, which gave me a stellar opportunity to understand my power to choose how I responded to the turmoil. Now, I’m an internationally credentialed Master Certified Coach, Board Certified Coach, University of Chicago-trained psychotherapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Over 25 years ago I founded my coaching company, Jody Michael Associates. We focus on building emotional intelligence, executive presence, and mental fitness. When we help our clients learn to lead lightly, they take themselves, their teams, and their organizations to new levels of awareness, discernment, and performance.

My family moved to Italy when I was six, and I attended Italian first grade in a fishing village where I had to rely on reading body language as I didn’t grasp the language for a bit. Fortunately for me, Italians have lots of body language to read so I could navigate the inevitable cliques and power dynamics evident even at the elementary school level. From that experience to being taken to view the Dachau concentration camp a year later, I’ve always been sensitive to how “the other” gets treated—often unfairly—and the role leaders can play for good or evil.

I grew up in a talkative family in an extroverted culture near NYC. I discovered I also liked the quiet and found a man to marry who was very introverted. After the “opposites attract” phase we needed to learn ways to make our differences work and we've been doing that for almost 50 years. I took this knowledge to the workplace where, as a career coach and learning and development professional, I became a champion for introverts. I've written 4 books on harnessing the talents of both introverts and extroverts at work and speak about this topic around the world. I believe we are all better off when we work through our differences to achieve magic.

We are scholars and writers, coaches and company builders, optimists, and (on our best days) accelerators of action. It’s been the privilege of our lives to work as change agents at some of the world’s most influential companies—and with some of the world’s most inspiring business leaders. But at the core of our identities, we are educators, which is why we write books about leadership. We believe that what we’ve learned in the process of changing things can be useful to anyone who seeks to lead, particularly now, when the scale and complexity of our shared challenges can seem overwhelming. 

I was born in Toronto, yet spent formative years in Atlanta during the height of the civil rights movement. My family shared values dedicated to social justice and actively working against discrimination. Yet at times, I endured antisemitic jokes and name-calling while observing the parents of my “friends” using racist and hateful language toward Black people. We moved to the Seattle area where I later studied political science at the University of Washington, then earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership from the City University of Seattle. For 20+ years, I led global teams at Microsoft and Amazon.