100 books like Emotional Agility

It’s hard for me to explain just how important this book has been in Western culture. Part autobiography, part meditation manual, this book is what popularized the modern mindfulness movement, beginning with Jon’s first forays into teaching ‘secularized’ mindfulness practices in the basement of a medical school building in the late 1970s.

Rather than staying in that basement, Jon’s combination of scientific training, deep commitment to understanding the mechanisms of the mental joy and suffering, and passion for helping others came together to create one of the first and most influential Western meditation training programs: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. This program has been the foundation for decades of scientific research as western culture as come to appreciate the importance of training ourselves for mental health and wellness.

This book is the story of that program, it takes you firsthand through the rationale and practices that have helped so many people, acting… show more.

This book may seem out of place in a list of psychologically-minded self-help recommendations. And it is long, and hard to read. Don’t even get me started on the use of end-notes in a work of fiction. But it is quite simply one of the best books written in the past 100 years and it is all about people who have gotten stuck, trapped by habit or circumstance, and are yearning for a way to find meaning in life.

To me, this book is a self help book because it is written so powerfully (in a not-so-distance fictional future) that as the characters are inevitably transformed and sometimes freed from their assumed destinies, Wallace somehow illustrates how we too can be transformed in our daily routines and interactions by finding moments of clarity and meaning right where we are, rather than being saved by some outside force that promises liberation… show more.

Kai-Fu Lee, once himself an AI pioneer, wrote AI Superpowers to help non-technical readers understand how and why AI is changing our world, with an emphasis on how it’s reshaping work. Lee breaks down which types of jobs are most vs. least likely to be replaced by AI, and offers wisdom on which skills it makes sense for all of us to lean into given those shifts. He also offers clear-eyed predictions about the potential for AI innovations to reshape global politics. 

I enjoyed this book from page one. Lee’s prose is crisp and his points sharp. I appreciated his occasional meanderings into humanistic realms. This also feels like a personal book, given how much Lee himself has done to accelerate the AI revolution.

I remember vividly the moment, while researching change, when I read an article by Jeffrey Pfeffer on power in organisations. It was an ah-ha moment for me in making sense of some of the behaviours I was witnessing at work. Marie McIntyre, who studied with Pfeffer, wrote Secrets to Winning at Office Politics and writes in a much more accessible and practical way on understanding and working with these politics, while maintaining your own integrity. Many a mentee has said to me, ‘I’m not interested in the politics, I just want to do my job.' And my response to that is that if you want to be successful in your career, then you need to not just understand but work with the politics. But there are ways to do this, while still being you. And this book helps with how.

Prof. Ethan Kross already had a strong reputation in the world of academic psychology for his work on that little voice inside our head and how it both gives us a sense of purpose but also drives us to despair at times. This book is essential reading for those interested in how to better understand the connection between mental habits and one’s state of well-being.

We so often forget when the voice inside our head recites criticisms and worries; we can easily be in the driver’s seat and direct these conversations. The voice inside our head is part of us, even if it seems deeply informed by the collection of critics we have met in the past. Our challenge, then, is to be a bit more intentional about how we cultivate this inner voice, when do we give it our attention, and how do we respond to the inevitable negative… show more.

While we would love to think we are always rational, we are hard-wired for story not the rational data (albeit key data can be a strong anchor in a story). I started my career far more in the assumption of rational data trumps all, but recognised, through bumps and bruises, how stories can overtake decision-making. When I learned how to tell a better story, I learned how to get the results I needed. Gabrielle is such a down-to-earth, energising speaker and writer, and this book provided me with such a practical, relatable framework for always having a good story or two in my back pocket.  

Getting your dream job is only the first step. You want to start strong and deliver value to the organization as quickly as possible. That is where Michael Watkins’ book comes in handy. When I was the head of talent management for a Fortune 50 company, we gave a copy of this book to each newly hired executive.

This book outlines how to promote yourself and learn your new role faster. It helps you analyze your business situation and choose the right strategy to get things done. Finally, it shares how to build a winning team that delivers results. You want your boss, peers, and subordinates to feel good about you.  This book helps you achieve early wins, energize your team, and build your credibility.

Colin is a French entrepreneur with expertise in the intersection of policy and tech. Hedge offers the most detailed vision I have seen for what the future of work could look like, fleshing out one particular future in which workers are separated into different classes based on how much direct service they provide other humans. Colin also offers a specific set of answers for the problems this will raise. Whether or not one agrees with his predictions or solutions the richness of the history and analysis he provides is invigorating and thought-provoking. This book makes clear just what is at stake for all of us in the coming decades, one way or another.

Future Politics takes the conversation to the societal level, looking at how technology will change the fabric of our communities. Susskind brings an expert eye to a sweeping body of knowledge and resists simple narratives. This book is dense, but worth the effort for those looking to understand the dynamics that will shape society as we know it, for better and for worse.

Susskind is a scholar of history and politics and brings that love of fundamental political questions to this work. I enjoy how he anchors modern questions about the implications of technology for freedom, for example, in much older debates about freedom and the State.

Quite a lot about what the defining forces in today’s world of work became clear to our military leaders many decades ago. Warfare was once centralized, linear, and choreographed. Modern war is fragmented, dynamic, and unpredictable. The term VUCA itself came from the military.

Scales is one of our greatest military thinkers leading the way on how we should be approaching soldier readiness in this new reality. We need to think much more about psychological agility and resilience so that the front lines are enabled to respond to an unforeseeable challenge. He’s ahead of the corporate curve in this thinking, but just by a hair.