Here are 100 books that The Fourth Quarter of Your Life fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am an immigrant who has successfully pursued the American dream, living it now for 50 years. After 10 years as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, I spent 40 years in the Sports and Entertainment business, capped by building my own marketing agency, The Aspire Group, which has generated $1.75B in revenues for 300 iconic sports properties globally. While I’ve been able to make the dream a reality for myself and my family, I believe it has become out of reach for too many. I want to show my appreciation for Americans adopting me by revitalizing the aspirational elements of that dream and making it attainable for all.
Captain Marquette’s YouTube video inspired me to create a highly productive team using independent thinking. Then, reading his book really spoke to me because it resonated with my first working experience outside the University of Massachusetts—namely, with the Pittsburgh Pirates as SVP of Business. The Pirates were the worst team in Major League Baseball then, losing over 100 games per season, drawing only 7,000 fans per game, and losing $10M annually. The staff were deflated and defeated.
After getting direct input from the senior staff, I planned the Pirates turnaround in three stages: 1. Stop the ship sailing in the wrong direction; 2. Turn the ship around; 3. Gain speed and momentum in the right direction. I think the key statement in Marquette’s book is, “It doesn’t matter how smart the plan is if the staff can’t execute it.”
I read this landmark book well after being at the Pirates…
"Leadership should mean giving control rather than taking control and creating leaders rather than forging followers."
David Marquet, an experienced Navy officer, was used to giving orders. As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well. But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet.
I am an immigrant who has successfully pursued the American dream, living it now for 50 years. After 10 years as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, I spent 40 years in the Sports and Entertainment business, capped by building my own marketing agency, The Aspire Group, which has generated $1.75B in revenues for 300 iconic sports properties globally. While I’ve been able to make the dream a reality for myself and my family, I believe it has become out of reach for too many. I want to show my appreciation for Americans adopting me by revitalizing the aspirational elements of that dream and making it attainable for all.
I have read numerous Jon Gordon books over the years, such as The Energy Bus, The Hard Hat, and The One Truth. They are always quick and simple reads that impart great points that I’ve found immediately implementable.
This one was a fun book to read, and it immediately got me psyched to have my senior staff implement its lessons. It particularly struck a chord for me because I know Gordon’s co-author, PJ Fleck, from his days as Head Football Coach at Western Michigan University. His analogy of “The Oar” as the source of the energy and “The Boat” as the team coming together in common sacrifice was particularly telling as I read the book shortly after seeing the movie, The Boys in the Boat, about the University of Washington 1936 Olympic gold medal-winning crew team.
At my organization, Aspire, we’ve incorporated these concepts, lessons, and philosophies into our…
Learn to live and lead with enthusiasm and optimism, impact your team, and transform your culture
In Row the Boat, Minnesota Golden Gophers Head Coach P.J. Fleck and bestselling author Jon Gordon deliver an inspiring message about what you can achieve when you approach life with a never-give-up philosophy. The book shows you how to choose enthusiasm and optimism as your guiding lights instead of being defined by circumstances and events outside of your control.
Discover how to put the three key components of row the boat into practice in your life:
I am an immigrant who has successfully pursued the American dream, living it now for 50 years. After 10 years as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, I spent 40 years in the Sports and Entertainment business, capped by building my own marketing agency, The Aspire Group, which has generated $1.75B in revenues for 300 iconic sports properties globally. While I’ve been able to make the dream a reality for myself and my family, I believe it has become out of reach for too many. I want to show my appreciation for Americans adopting me by revitalizing the aspirational elements of that dream and making it attainable for all.
Twin Thieves is a true story whose main message is simple and reinforces what I know to be true—great teams are built first and foremost by great leaders. The focus is on overcoming the two biggest fears that most of us have as athletes, coaches, and/or leaders of teams—the fear of failure and of being judged unfavorably.
In reading the book, one of the first things that came to mind was the old adage: “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one is willing to die first.” The trick in applying this book to enhance my leadership style was to recall and tap into how I’ve overcome those fears in my life as an athlete, team member, coach, and executive. I personally learned how to get all, or at least the majority, of team members to channel those fears into positive energy.
Tired of underperforming in the biggest moments, the Westlake Aviators football team realizes their greatest challenge isn’t beating an opponent but rather rising above the Twin Thieves: the Fear of Failure and the Fear of Judgment. Through a journey of adversity, celebration, and heartbreak, the Aviators come to understand that great teams are built by great leaders.
This powerful story serves as a playbook for anybody in business, sports, education, or life looking to help a group of people maximize their potential.
Some things you will learn…
Everybody wants a championship team until it’s time to do…
I am an immigrant who has successfully pursued the American dream, living it now for 50 years. After 10 years as a Professor at the University of Massachusetts, I spent 40 years in the Sports and Entertainment business, capped by building my own marketing agency, The Aspire Group, which has generated $1.75B in revenues for 300 iconic sports properties globally. While I’ve been able to make the dream a reality for myself and my family, I believe it has become out of reach for too many. I want to show my appreciation for Americans adopting me by revitalizing the aspirational elements of that dream and making it attainable for all.
I know Mark Cuban from when I was SVP of Marketing and Team Business at the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the early 2000s. When he bought the Dallas Mavericks franchise, I had just created the NBA Owners 101 program to introduce new team owners to the assets they’d acquired. Mark was as fascinating then as he is now, although less famous.
I spent two days getting to know him and telling him what he was buying. Since that time, he has only become more fascinating to me. When I read this unusual book several years ago, his advice was exactly what I’d witnessed from him in person—completely unique and different. Namely, the businesses started with no money are those you’re really passionate about; learn how to learn first; embrace technology; only associate yourself with those who are equally passionate about the business, and learn from failure. His other key…
"Cuban [explains] what it means to have 'the edge,' the necessary drive to forego the confines of a comfortable job, triumph over setbacks, and build a successful company." -Business Insider
"Exceeded . . . expectations." -Huffington Post
Now celebrating over ten years of How to Win at the Sport of Business, Mark Cuban, one of the world's wealthiest and most influential businessmen, collects his greatest lessons on what it takes to become a thriving entrepreneur. Drawing upon his profound insider knowledge, Cuban offers unconventional business tips and tells his stunning rags-to-riches tale from selling powdered milk and sleeping on friends'…
Every teacher from pre-Kindergarten to higher education, who has experienced and understands what it means to be committed to equity and to practice transformation but still not see the kinds of outcomes expected, needed, or deserved among students of color. These students of color, particularly Black and Brown students, tend to be grossly underserved in and through the educational system. Decoteau Irby amplifies the humanity of those young people and situates them in the context of suburbia, an understudied place and space among Black and Brown communities.
The most valuable and practical part of the book is their “mapping your immunity to change” process.
This process asks people to understand the things that they do, how they do the things that they do, and how the way they think can keep people from actually being able to change.
The book moves from an individual level to how organizations talk, and how people and organizations talk together. It changes how people can work together.
Why is the gap so great between our hopes, our intentions, even our decisions-and what we are actually able to bring about? Even when we are able to make important changes-in our own lives or the groups we lead at work-why are the changes are so frequently short-lived and we are soon back to business as usual? What can we do to transform this troubling reality?
In this intensely practical book, Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey take us on a carefully guided journey designed to help us answer these very questions. And not just generally, or in…
As a moral philosopher, I ask practical questions: What kind of person am I becoming? What kind of life will I live? What loves, hopes, and fears drive my choices and shape my relationships? Character formation moves us from vice to virtue. It starts with self-reflection and moves toward intentional practice. Over time, those practices shape us and add up to a way of life. You will be formed—but how? Glittering Vices, like my job, combines my passions for character development and wise teaching. Enduring the fiery furnace of cancer treatment made formation an urgent, life-changing topic for me. I hope these books open your life to renewal too.
“Discipleship is becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.” This is Willard’s classic map of areas of spiritual transformation. The second half of the book gives his signature “how-to” guide for patterning your life and character after the life and character of Jesus Christ. The book tracks every aspect of our person and life: our will and choices, our thoughts and feelings, and our social relationships. A lifelong apprenticeship begins with intentional, practical steps. This book maps the terrain and guides each step forward, balancing grace and effort perfectly. See Johnson’s and Willard’s follow-up text (Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation) for more practical wisdom from two seasoned spiritual masters.
Renovation of the Heart is an influential contribution from the late Dallas Willard that continues to break ground twenty years after its first release.
Helping us to understand how character is formed and where Jesus does his most significant work on our spiritual and emotional health, this book changed a generation’s mind about what it means to follow Jesus—not a matter of sin management but a matter of drawing near and letting ourselves be shaped into the eternal people of God.
With reflections on the book’s impact over its life from family, friends, and admirers of Dallas, and supplemental resources…
Life is busy. We all feel it. As my husband and I have built businesses, published books, traveled the country, and homeschooled our four kids, we’ve worried at times that our schedule is too packed and we’re losing sight of what matters. Seven years ago, we took time to write out a “Family Values List,” which has guided our family’s trajectory. We measure every decision and opportunity up against our core values. This provides a depth of intentionality in our parenting, which has led us to read (and write!) resources around how to make the most of the time we have together as a family. “Do life together” is on our values list, and it’s what we aim to do each day.
I’ve found that to parent with intentionality, I first have to purge away distractions. Parents today are facing challenges that were never an issue in past generations. Likewise, kids today face overwhelming challenges around technology and screens. In Screen Kids, I discovered freedom from guilt and encouragement for how to parent against the current. It’s ok to raise my kids differently. It’s also worth it. This book equipped me with incredibly important ways to take back our home and parent on purpose.
In this digital age, children spend more time interacting with screens and less time playing outside, reading a book, or interacting with family. Though technology has its benefits, it also has its harms.
In Screen Kids Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the tools you need to make positive changes. Through stories, science, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an overdependence on screens. Plus, you’ll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention. Learn…
I believe that spiritual awakening is a service to the universe, and not just for our own enlightenment. Spirituality generally has been viewed as a return to some other realm of consciousness, rather than a means to awakening what we think of as divinity in life. There can never be a “finish line” to spirituality, as there is no end to the possibilities which collective co-evolution can bring about. The only way that intractable problems of humanity will ever be resolved is if a large number of people awaken to higher states of consciousness, while firmly grounded in life.
This opened up new insights into my spiritual journey. Dr. Tiller presents amazing research that shows that when there is a link between subtle energy and ordinary physical space, the physical properties of that space are changed, such that disorder decreases, rather than increases. He has done experiments in which experienced meditators are asked to store an intention in a bit of circuitry that is not connected to anything, such that the pH in water in another laboratory that the circuitry is placed near will increase by one point. This happens, and the experiment has been replicated many times. This is already amazing enough, but the entropy (disorder) in the laboratory decreases, which is contrary to the 2nd law of thermodynamics in ordinary physical space. My inspiration from this research was that any time we bring about a connection between subtle energy and our environment, new possibilities become available.
Overall this book is a paradigm-breaking book for science in that it reveals in some detail a viable larger perspective and framework for scientific description of nature and human evolvement in that framework. It is also a conscious-raising book and a hope-raising book for humanity in that it shows people how to use their own intentionality to bring about...beneficial...changes...in their own bodies. Such changes naturally lead to significant growth in the individual's consciousness.
I am a strategist, human resources executive, and business consultant who is passionate about helping people reach their potential, find enjoyable work, and perform their best. Born in Chicago, I grew up in New England and call Connecticut home with my wife Kathryn. I love learning and have found books to be the gateway to exploring innovative ideas, gaining insights, and achieving success. I am an avid tennis and squash player, and reader. I am part of an international book club that meets several times per year to explore diverse topics.
Beverly Kaye is a training and development icon who received the "Distinguished Contribution" award from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) for her impact on workplace learning over the past three decades.
Most career development and mobility books focus on getting a promotion or new job. But career mobility can also mean growing, stretching, learning, and transforming, without ever changing your job title, company, or location.
Kaye, Williams, and Cowart do an expert job of helping readers analyze their current situation and make good choices by balancing money and meaning. Whether it is time for you to grow right where you are by enriching your skills, making a lateral move, or stepping back and realigning your objectives - this book will guide you through it.
Move up or move out. When those two options appear to be the only ones, dissatisfaction grows and engagement suffers. In decades of studying careers around the globe, Beverly Kaye, Lindy Williams, and Lynn Cowart have found that, in fact, there are more options. And rethinking career mobility can lead you to them!
The authors show how managers, coaches, and employees can partner to determine what's best and what's next. Keep the same job but discover new ways to learn and grow? Explore moving to a position that could be a better fit? Step back…
I am a Scottish writer who has been obsessed with soccer from an early age. I devour books, new or old, on any topic related to the game and have an extensive collection of books, old and new, that keeps outgrowing my bookshelves. I love learning more about the history of the game and especially new soccer cultures.
It’s tricky to recommend one book that just covers one footballing culture, but when a book is this good, it’s hard to leave out. The justification is that the Dutch have had an enormous influence on modern soccer, and it is their ideas of soccer and manipulation of space that are present in all of today’s top teams.
I bought this book as a 17-year-old, and it was a defining moment in my youth. I read it every five years or so. It is so thought-provoking and illuminating. I learned about art, politics, land reclamation, and, of course, the master Johan Cruyff.
If any one thing, Brilliant Orange is about Dutch space and a people whose unique conception of it has led to the most enduring arts, the weirdest architecture, and a bizarrely cerebral form of soccer―Total Football―that led in 1974 to a World Cup finals match with arch-rival Germany, and more recently to a devastating loss against Spain in 2010. With its intricacy and oddity, it continues to mystify and delight observers around the world. As David Winner wryly observes, it is an expression of the Dutch psyche that has a shared ancestry with Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie, Rembrandt's The Night…
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