Sarah JamesEvery book on this list is a must-read for business owners and executives fed up with the way things are. These authors have solutions whether you’re suffering from emotional abuse at work or at home, finding it difficult to properly handle various personalities, or looking for significance in both your personal and professional life.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and Humboldt University in Germany found in a ground-breaking study that people are more stressed and frustrated while working on “interrupted tasks,” which are tasks that are interrupted by interruptions like an urgent phone call, an instant message, or a physical intrusion into one’s workspace.
According to an analysis by the Economist Intelligence Unit, workplace distraction costs over 600 man-hours per worker annually, or $35,000 on average.
It is unrealistic to expect interruptions to completely disappear from your workplace. However, making a few very minor changes to your routine and outlook can have a big impact on how productive you are. Although they can take months or years to implement, bigger improvements have a greater impact.
List of Must-Read for Business Owners
- Richard Grannon: A Cult of One
Trained psychologists find it challenging to recognise the symptoms of emotional abuse. In cycles of gaslighting, self-doubt, and remorse, it is frequently almost impossible for victims trapped in violent relationships to escape.
Anyone who has dealt with toxic narcissism in their own life will be able to relate to Richard Grannon’s highly personal teachings from a four-decade journey in A Cult of One: How to Deprogram Yourself From Narcissistic Abuse. Grannon doesn’t profess to have all the answers, but his evidence-based approach is open-ended enough to be applied to your own personal path, even if it doesn’t mirror Grannon’s. When you read it, it includes Zen meditation, psychedelics, martial arts, and spirituality.
Even if you haven’t experienced narcissistic abuse, if your company is expanding, you’ll probably soon run into it at work or find yourself managing those who have. Because of this, A Cult of One merits a spot on your office bookcase.
- Dr. Tomi White Bryan—Emotional Intelligence 3.0
Some diversion is transient. Others are in our system and are systemic.
In her book Emotional Intelligence, Dr. Tomi White Bryan takes aim at this second kind of distraction. 3.0: What to do Instead of Playing Small in a Really Big Universe is a manual for regaining the unrestricted creativity you possessed as a youngster and in your early adult years, before the foundations of your parents’ or “society’s” or of your own desire started to disintegrate.
Dr. Bryan’s path of self-rediscovery continues with gratitude, acknowledgment, and thanks for the accomplishment you have already attained. It involves reinventing what is feasible in your life and reopening your own horizons. It concludes with a customised plan for accomplishing your goals, regardless of how much they have evolved over time.
Importantly, Dr. Bryan’s approach is simple to use outside of your own life and job. Although you might not be aware of every team member’s darkest secrets and loftiest aspirations, Dr. Bryan was created especially for managers who want to get more from their direct reports.
- Dana Röfer: Do some social shopping.
Dana Roefer’s Shop socially: connect with the people and things that support your greatest life. This is a must read if the demands of conformity and materialism have you sidetracked to the point of burnout.
Roefer does not encourage you to join a Buy Nothing group or make your own sweaters, so shopping socially is not a radical act. (Although you’re welcome to if it makes you happy.) Roefer only wants us to alter the way we view the world. Acting more consciously and less reactively when choosing which goods to purchase. Which businesses to support, and which policies to advocate for.
Roefer’s secret: circles, or small groups of similarly minded customers and business owners. These are not the MLMs or buying groups from the past. They serve as manifestations of a unifying goal and enduring principles in the face of a downward spiral. And your “social shop” circle might be the keystone that shifts how you perceive your duties. To your group, your clients, and your social associates.
- Joann Wortham—EDI is the new black
Implicit bias has been the mother of all workplace distractions. A significant productivity-killer for C-suite employees for far too long.
Learning about inequality is a difficult task. Many organisations put off because it appears so daunting and they can’t see the benefits. However, EDI is the new black, dominating the industry with a diversified crew. Investors with medium-to long-term aspirations can keep gold and silver in their wallets. Due to the uncertainty in the global economy and geopolitical affairs.