100 books like Power vs. Force

My purpose is to help leaders connect to and manage their energy. I help them bring coherence to how they lead and reach their full societal impact. For more than a  decade, I have coached 300 of the most senior leaders at some of the largest and most recognizable companies in the world. My recommended to-read book list represents crucible moments in my life and my calling to learn about human energy. Representing different lenses, which are key to adding to a mix of ingredients, allows the reader to drink a potion that will exalt all your buckets (physical, mental, emotional & spiritual) of energy holistically. 

I love helping people save money in creative ways, build wealth, and gain financial freedom. Thankfully, my Dad taught me how to budget when I was 12 years old. My accounting professor used a ski lift as a way to analyze business profitability. I could visualize that! At Citibank, I found that people were overwhelmed with their finances and Wall Street was confusing. I’m a CPA and MBA in Finance. I love writing, sharing examples, and finding straightforward ways to help people save money and build wealth. These experiences showed me how to make my money work for me. I show you how to make your money work for you!

I was driven to become a veterinarian for as long as I could remember. Then, in high school, I developed a love of performance. I felt stuck. Should I choose art or science? I chose science, and despite a great career, I felt like something was missing. When I reconnected with my creativity through stand-up comedy, entrepreneurship and other non-artistic creative outlets, I found out what I had been missing. Why do we drop creativity for science? It was a common story. I dove into the research on creativity, and was blown away by how a bit of creativity can make us happier, more resilient, and make workplaces more effective.

My science fiction and fantasy writing is concerned with the values I was exposed to growing up. As a lifelong Quaker, I have struggled—often unsuccessfully—to live out Quakerism’s non-conformist, almost utopian commitment to equality, simplicity, peace, and community. Not only have I tried to bear witness to those values in my writing, but those ideals led me to my career as an instructor at a community college, one of America’s great socioeconomic leveling institutions. My background as a speculative fiction writer has also made me into a teacher of science fiction and fantasy literature at my college, where I read and came to love the books I recommend here. 

I was brought up spiritually, believing our souls are here for a limited time and for a specific purpose before being reincarnated. But my “knowing” about spirituality was tested when my best friend found her 12-year-old son hanging. As I tried to make sense of this heartbreaking tragedy, I began journaling. Not long after, I began to hear her son’s voice. He explained that my writing was a jumping-off point for a novel. I listened and Winter of the Wolf was born. Researching and writing this novel helped me realign with my beliefs and grow in new and profound ways and it will do the same for readers.

After decades of trial and error, reading hundreds of books and applying the lessons I learned, practicing thousands of hours of meditation & emotional integration work, landing in jail multiple times, battling 20 years of chronic fatigue, surviving a prolonged life/death illness, losing everything, becoming homeless, and rebuilding myself anew, I’ve seen a few things. When I emerged from the abyss, and without my conscious awareness of the fact, I had become transformed. I had become who I’d been seeking all along. Now I hold the space for my clients to express themselves unconditionally, access their deeply held suppressed emotional charges, and shatter the beliefs that keep them tethered to an outdated reality that is fast becoming obsolete in the New Earth.

I’m an innovator. I’ve been one since I was a kid. Since then, I’ve started a couple of non-profits and four companies, and I’ve advised hundreds of clients on innovation opportunities. I’ve also led the team that created one of the world’s first smartphones. Over the past dozen years, I’ve written four books on the strategy and capabilities of innovation. Innovation is one of the essential characteristics that make us human. It can get the world into trouble, but it does more good than harm on balance. My mission is to make us better at innovation and make the world a better place.

For nearly 40 years, I have studied and written about blending the business world and the spiritual side of life together. By spiritual, I mean everything to do with our purpose and why we exist. I refer to this as being ALIVE @ WORK ®. We spend countless hours at work doing a j-o-b, when what we want most is knowing that we are making a difference in our lives and the lives of others. The key is taking 100% responsibility for our lives, knowing we have the power to change them in an instant. You will find this thread woven through all of my books and those I recommend.

After decades of trial and error, reading hundreds of books and applying the lessons I learned, practicing thousands of hours of meditation & emotional integration work, landing in jail multiple times, battling 20 years of chronic fatigue, surviving a prolonged life/death illness, losing everything, becoming homeless, and rebuilding myself anew, I’ve seen a few things. When I emerged from the abyss, and without my conscious awareness of the fact, I had become transformed. I had become who I’d been seeking all along. Now I hold the space for my clients to express themselves unconditionally, access their deeply held suppressed emotional charges, and shatter the beliefs that keep them tethered to an outdated reality that is fast becoming obsolete in the New Earth.

I’m a published author specializing in nature, travel, and wine writing, and I have been an organic farmer for nearly two decades on an award-winning estate in France. I’ve written four books about the transformation of our organic farm. In my latest, Cultivating Change, I explore how biodiversity helps us address climate change and how important it is to the health of the land. It is also a human story; like the books below, stories are key to bringing these subjects to life. My list is women authors, not because I set out to do that, but because these books are beautiful, intuitive, and deep, like the women who wrote them.