Currently Reading: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Best For: Current and aspiring leaders or anyone working on finding their own motivation
Favorite Quote: “Mastery is an asymptote. You can approach it. You can home in on it. You can get really, really. really close to it. But, like Cézanne, you can never touch it. Mastery is impossible to realize fully.”
Notes: This book has a simple concept which it communicates really well. Drive is internal. Using carrots and sticks to get people to do what you want may have some short-term benefits but it can never be used to get people to do their best work (in many fields anyway). It is a little pop-science in its delivery and I did skim a few sections (which is unheard of for me) due to some repetition but it was an easy and overall informative read. I would recommend it for people in and wanting to get in leadership roles. The middle chapters 4, 5, & 6 on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose are worth a read at the least.
Previous Book Read: Behave by Robert Sapolsky
On Deck: I’m taking a quick detour before I get into Social to read The Geometry of Wealth by Brian Portnoy. Brian’s book has been highly recommended by the Twitter circles I travel in so it has been in my queue for a long time. A weeks ago he actually reached out to me on Twitter about an event in Chicago so it has shot up the priority chart. Let that be known, if you have written a book and want me to read it, just reaching out is an effective strategy.
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