Here are 100 books that Not Your Job fans have personally recommended if you like
Not Your Job.
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I learned about leadership and building organizations in a volunteer, community-based organization growing up. I ran my first leadership workshop as an 18-year-old for 15-16-year-old kids, and at its peak, led a passionate group of 200+ kids. I then woke up from that dream into a “real job” as a product manager in a company selling products like bath soap and shampoo, and later as a strategy consultant. It was there that I noticed the significant pain people were experiencing in the corporate world, and I realized I could help leaders build organizations where both the business and its people could thrive.
This book by Noam Wasserman brought scientific rigor to the difficult, often painful decisions entrepreneurs face. Wasserman was one of the first to deeply analyze these challenges, and I found his approach innovative.
I was particularly impressed by his creative method of gathering data—founders who were too busy to fill out traditional surveys were drawn in by an executive compensation benchmarking survey, only to find that 90% of the questions fed directly into his research.
Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder's Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman…
I have devoted my career to helping leaders navigate challenging transitions into new roles, build their teams, and transform their organizations. Strategic thinking is a key foundation of my work as an executive coach and advisor at Genesis Advisers and a professor at the IMD Business School. Whether executives are taking new roles or driving large-scale transformations, they must be able to rapidly analyze the context, craft good visions and strategies, and mobilize people to realize them. I try to equip the leaders I work with with the mental frameworks, tools, and skillsets to adapt and succeed in the first 90 days and beyond.
I liked that this book highlighted how supposedly tried-and-true approaches to innovation fail to deliver results.
The book’s insights about how to drive radical innovation informed the advice I now give executives about how to approach organizational transformation, starting with an ambitious vision, communicating the “why,” and enlisting great people to go on the journey with them.
It helped me to understand that building organizations to develop disruptive technologies requires leaders to envision things that may sound crazy until they are realized.
What Valuable Company Is Nobody Building? The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there. "Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how". (Elon…
I’m just an ordinary person who’s struggled with their own habits and compulsions. My fear and anxiety led me to read many self-help books over the last thirty-something years, and a lot of them helped me to firmly believe that if you start your day in the best way you can, then there’s no limit to the things that you can achieve!
Each of the books I’ve recommended has given me simple tools to help me do just that. Ultimately, I know they inspired me to create the Bad Habit Kicker system. I truly believe they can all help others optimize their lives and become the best versions of themselves!
If you’ve ever felt the pull of resistance, and the frustration of knowing that there’s something that you really want to do, but then that little voice in your head steps up and stops you, then this book will 100% help you. It explains a very easy way of short-circuiting that discussion.
It’s another simple idea, which is what makes it so powerful and helpful. And if you enjoy listening to podcasts, Mel now has an excellent one, "The Mel Robbins Podcast," which you can find on all platforms.
How to enrich your life and destroy doubt in 5 seconds.
Throughout your life, you've had parents, coaches, teachers, friends and mentors who have pushed you to be better than your excuses and bigger than your fears. What if the secret to having the confidence and courage to enrich your life and work is simply knowing how to push yourself?
Using the science of habits, riveting stories and surprising facts from some of the most famous moments in history, art and business, Mel Robbins will explain the power of a "push moment."…
I have a real passion for entrepreneurship, so much so that I married an entrepreneur and produced two children who became entrepreneurs. During my 25 years as a professor in the Greif Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Southern California, one of the top programs in the U.S., I had the privilege of inspiring and mentoring hundreds of new entrepreneurs. I found my passion in technology businesses. I had the business skills needed to help scientists and engineers raise funding, bring their inventions to market, and build their companies. I managed to start and run four ventures of my own as well as write several books about entrepreneurship.
I absolutely love this book! It’s an easy read, reads like a novel, but it’s packed with very valuable lessons on entrepreneurship, venture capital, and leadership.
The story is told through a conversation between a venture capitalist (Komisar) and two young entrepreneurs who are planning to start a business for all the wrong reasons. It’s humorous, touching, and very entertaining. I laughed a lot.
In the end, you learn that a business needs much more than nuts and bolts. It needs heart and soul.
Equally as important as what you learn about startups, the story will teach you how to avoid the Deferred Life Plan, putting off what you want to do, and instead live your life with passion.
This book describes how one Silicon Valley insider has blazed a path of professional - and personal - success playing the game by his own rules. Silicon Valley is filled with garage-to-riches stories and hot young entrepreneurs with big ideas. Yet even in this place where the exceptional is common, Randy Komisar is a breed apart. Currently a "Virtual CEO" who provides "leadership on demand" for several renowned companies, Komisar was recently described by the "Washington Post" as a "combined professional mentor, minister without portfolio, in-your-face investor, trouble-shooter and door opener." But even more interesting than what he does is…
I am an internationally recognised wellbeing and health writer, accredited stress and performance coach, and originally trained, qualified, and worked as a state registered nurse in the UK. I am also the author of numerous health-related books published internationally, including I Want to Be Calm and I Want to Sleep.
Originally published in 2002, the author took a revolutionary approach to burnout, suggesting that burnout could be an opportunity for making overdue changes rather than a reason to panic. Ignoring the warning signs of burnout, feeling exhausted, frustrated, empty, disconnected, spent, or cynical will ultimately lead to a state of collapse, but listening to the message of burnout and exploring life alternatives will enable you to make beneficial changes. One of the founders of Skyros Holistic Holidays in Greece, psychotherapist and imagework practitioner Glouberman promotes alternative ways of living and being that actively promote psychological health.
Are you feeling exhausted, hollow, cynical, trapped, angry or just not there? Working harder but getting less done? Ill too often or for too long? Or do you know someone else who feels like this?These are some of the classic warning signs of burnout. More importantly they hold out the promise of a whole new life. In this ground breaking book Dr Dina Glouberman, visionary co-founder of the Skyros holistic health holidays, demonstrates that burnout happens at work or at home when the meaning goes out of what we are doing but we have too much invested to stop and…
At The Financial Diet, I’ve written and produced videos about money, productivity, and work/life balance for the better part of a decade. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of our commonly held beliefs about money and work are incorrect: your job shouldn’t be your main purpose, and money shouldn’t be the end goal in and of itself. I’ve also been a longtime nonfiction reader, and I lead a monthly book club for our Patreon members. This list is composed of my favorite selections from those meetings (a few of which I’d read previously), and I hope they invite you to question your own relationship with work and money!
I am in awe of how Anne Helen Petersen was able to weave together a cathartic validation of how exhausted our generation is with a clear historical explanation of where American burnout culture actually comes from. As someone who has fallen victim to cycles of overwork despite my best efforts to inject my life with balance, I needed to read about how overworking is not my fault, but it is also not necessary.
This also gave me some great data points to cite in debates with well-meaning family members who still look upon our entire generation as lazy and entitled.
"Urgent and insightful book... Read this and get a much-needed perspective" Stylist
Are you tired, stressed and trying your best but somehow still not doing enough? Has the bottom half of your To Do list been locked in place for months? Is everything becoming work as your job seeps into your evenings, you monetise your hobbies and perform your leisure time on social media?
This is burnout - what increasingly like the defining feature of our lives. We are exhausted. But burnout is not a…
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.
For me, beating burnout involves knowing yourself well, and this book helps with a critical aspect of that: understanding my interactions with others.
The book is so easy to read and understand without being oversimplified. I’ve used the material to help teach people how to create and maintain healthy boundaries in life and work.
I’m a veteran teacher, instructional coach, and speaker. I’ve dealt with the bull crap and beauty of education for a decade and a half. As such, I’m dedicated to helping educators find their love of this work, even amidst the struggles. I’m a columnist for Education Leadershipand host of the Educator Happy Hour podcast. I travel all over the world to help teachers and school leaders learn the science of well-being so they can be at their best in order to give their best, even on full-moon, post-holiday, “WIFI crashed” days of student chaos.
Our well-being is largely within our influence. But that doesn’t mean context doesn’t matter. Too often the burden of burnout is placed on the shoulders of educators; the reality is that burnout is made worse by unhealthy working conditions. This book will reassure you that burnout is not your fault, while giving you ideas on what schools need to make conditions better.
Moss does a great job breaking down decades of burnout research to help any reader realize the specifics of their burnout and what the biggest culprits are. Read this to feel affirmed. Then ninja-sneak it onto your principal’s desk as required reading.
Named one of 10 Best New Management Books for 2022 by Thinkers50
Named to the shortlist for the 2021 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the Management & Culture Category
In this important and timely book, workplace well-being expert Jennifer Moss helps leaders and individuals prevent burnout and create healthier, happier, and more productive workplaces.
We tend to think of burnout as a problem we can solve with self-care: more yoga, better breathing techniques, and more resilience. But evidence is mounting that applying personal, Band-Aid solutions to an epic and rapidly evolving workplace phenomenon isn't enough-in fact, it's not…
As a veteran business and finance journalist, I’ve always been amazed at the huge gender gap that still exists in so many parts of the economy and society despite all the strides we’ve ostensibly made. When I became a mother, it became even clearer to me that gender norms are still so entrenched in culture and still have a huge bearing on women’s economic and professional lives. I’ve written about this topic for a whole host of publications, from the BBC to The Washington Post. I have an MBA from Columbia Business School and am an associate Instructor in the Strategic Communications program at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies.
I was fascinated by Susan Faludi’s book as a haunting explanation of why women’s empowerment has stalled so dramatically over the past few decades.
Faludi does an amazing job of weaving a narrative that is as rich in information as it is absorbing, and I think this book is as important to read today as it was in 1991, when it was first published.
It’s enraging and inspiring, but more than anything, it’s a critical book to read for anyone who wants to understand the complex and ever-changing dynamics between gender, power, and money.
A new edition of the feminist classic, with an all-new introduction exploring the role of backlash in the 2016 election and laying out a path forward for 2020 and beyond
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award • “Enraging, enlightening, and invigorating, Backlash is, most of all, true.”—Newsday
First published in 1991, Backlash made headlines and became a bestselling classic for its thoroughgoing debunking of a decadelong antifeminist backlash against women’s advances. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Susan Faludi brilliantly deconstructed the reigning myths about the “costs” of women’s independence—from the supposed “man shortage” to the “infertility epidemic” to “career…
I am a clinical psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard. My personal experience of burnout, when I was a psychologist on a medical team in a hospital setting, led me to specialize in burnout in my private therapy practice. I’ve been doing therapy with adults experiencing chronic stress and burnout for many years since. I’ve also interviewed thought leaders in mental health on my podcast, Psychologists Off the Clock. I understand the complexity of burnout and the reason “quick fixes,” like individual wellness interventions, are often not enough to help with burnout. To really solve the problem, we must “dig deeper” and find both personal and cultural solutions.
I never realized how much I was overvaluing work and productivity until I read this book. I have been very good at achieving, hustling, and grinding, and have bought into the belief that hard work is a moral virtue, unlike laziness. I believed that being unproductive was fine for other people but not for me.
This book helped me see how my culturally constructed beliefs were feeding into my overworking tendencies. As a lifelong “people pleaser” in recovery, Chapter 6 (“Your Relationships Should Not Leave You Exhausted”) was especially powerful for me!
From social psychologist Dr. Devon Price, a conversational, stirring call to "a better, more human way to live" (Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author) that examines the "laziness lie"-which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough.
Extra-curricular activities. Honors classes. 60-hour work weeks. Side hustles.
Like many Americans, Dr. Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart…
