Our Team at Waves’ Favorite Books This Season (Updated Mid Year 2019)

Every so often we like to share what we have been mulling over. Reflecting upon. Learning and loving as we continue to develop personally and corporately. It has been said if you want to lead, then read. Here are some of the favorite books and other things we’ve been taking in thus far in 2019. Comment and please feel free to share yours too!

“Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown

(*Mentioning this book once again because it’s my 2nd time through it and it’s worth re-mentioning. Check out last book update here)

One of the bigger themes we have been implementing in our work and individual lives have been a theme of essentialism. In his book “Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less” Greg McKeown unfolds what it means to both live an essentialist life with ‘less but better’ as the sole focus. Alternately he describes the far too common living of the non-essentialist life.

Huge points. Fun read. I cannot think of anyone I would NOT recommend this to.

“Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss

Wow. A truly fun read this one was. “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss is full of true exciting hostage negotiation stories, worthy of being made into multiple films I might add. However, overarching Chris’ accounts are the principles found that are applicable to life, relationships, sales and marketing.

This book is no run-of-the-mill sales book (there are way too many of those!)

But I should say, I enjoyed the second half of the book the most. There are so many good takeaways in the last 100 pages. Read it with someone else so you can discuss too – lot’s of potential role play moments you could do together for deeper integration.

“Subscription Marketing” by Anne Janzer

As we are implementing a huge refocus of being a video marketing partner to our clients, I have read multiple books on subscription marketing. This one was a great one to end on as it is very hands-on and practical in nature.

Anne does a fantastic job first making the case that it’s the now trend for companies as more and more have become subscription based. Whereas once it was only a few (think Sports Illustrated magazines your mom or dad got when you were younger).

But she then brings into focus how value nurturing and transparency as well as best practices will either make or break your brand long term in this new way of doing business.

“Creativity, Inc.” by Ed Catmull

I read this twice. And will most likely read it again. Telling the story of the making of Pixar, it is both nostalgic for people growing up with Disney and Pixar films and entertaining in nature. Ed shares candidly the true details of many stories in creating a company like Pixar. And then he breaks down what was learned in the process. All lessons which you will find both relatable and very valuable to anyone relating within organizations.