Contemporary self-help recommendations
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
Extreme Ownership serves as an anecdotal memoir of retired Navy Seal officer, Jocko Willink, recounting several missions both in and outside the domain of military combat which emphasize leadership principles applicable not only in the military but in business, employment and other domains. The core principle around which his several precepts revolve is ‘extreme ownership’ or ‘absolute accountability’ for every facet and detail concerning one’s mission. When encountering overwhelming complications or when unprecedented problems arise, a good leader doesn’t blame his misfortune on team members, colleagues and other ‘factors beyond him’. He instead owns these problems and subsequently takes measure steps to solve them, knowing full well that these shortcomings and mistakes are his and his alone – no one else’s. This fundamental tenet is Jocko Willink’s foundation for many of his teachings.
Traction by Gino Wickman
Traction by Gino Wickman offers more literal and palpable practices than theoretical know-how. It showcases how a start-up company, blog-writer or website moderator would be able to gather ‘traction’ – measurable through modern-day metrics such as ‘click-per-views’ and gross income – through several different means, such as Targeting Blogs, Publicity Stunts, Unconventional PR, Affiliate Programs and Search Engine Optimization. It offers a host of recommended third-party sites and plugins that would aid in measuring exactly how much traction your business is going to get. Some of its important lessons are the importance of targeted marketing – creating a demand in niche and unpopulated markets with little competition and the value of making controversial entrants in an already saturated market.
Influence by Robert cialdini
Influence by Robert Caldiani leans more towards the social, psychological and psychosocial aspect of persuasion. It informs its readers about the several “heuristics” and intrinsic vulnerabilities of the human psyche whereby one with the knowledge thereof would then have the options to either avoid them or take advantage of them. The book touches on several psychological theorems – with statistical and professional corroborations – such as the principles of Consistency, Reciprocation, Social Proof and Scarcity. The book goes into deeper detail about each one of them. Social Proof, for example, is the theory which espouses that we’re more willing to execute an activity when we see other people like ourselves do likewise. One application thereof is how an organization was able to receive more answered surveys in college campuses by having their distributors wear the jeans, T-shirt and backpacks typical of a college student.
Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k
Pejorative title aside, Subtle Art of Not Giving a [insert euphemism here] by Mark Manson apprises the reader of the significance of compartmentalizing concerns and setting priorities. It teaches how one should focus solely on the area of intersection between one’s ‘sphere of influence’ and ‘sphere of concern’. It reminds its readership that the opinions of strangers or suspicions thereof should never throw us off from our own personal goals and values. One shouldn’t be completely malleable to the influence of others, especially if it’s neither essential nor pertinent to the things that matter most to you – namely your kith, kin and your incipient dreams and aspirations. One invaluable epiphany from the book is what author Mark Manson considers to be the key to living a good and contented life: not giving a damn more but giving a damn less – and only on the what is most exigent and important to you.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People, written by self-help author and lecturer Dale Carnegie, is one of my highly endorsed books in understanding the core tenets of diplomacy and – as the appellation so bluntly puts – how to win over and influence people. This book inculcates its reader the importance of being polite, diplomatic and amiable. It strongly decries argumentation, debating and other forms of verbal confrontation, because this method serves only to reinforce the opposition’s own standpoint. This book emphasizes the importance of showing genuine appreciation – lauding one’s colleagues and acquaintances with ‘praise and approbation’, the magic of inciting within another person an ‘eager want’ instead of outright demanding what you want and several universally applicable techniques on how to lead a reluctant team such as by throwing down a subtle challenge.
One example of which was when Charles Schwab, one of the leading manufacturers and industrialists of his time, amended a discrepancy in performance between the day shift and the night shift. He simply asked the administrator for the branch how much rails the day shift was able to produce, drew the number on the floor using white chalk and left without saying a word. When the night shift was apprised of what the number on the floor meant, they became competitive, one-upping the day shift and changing the number to a value much higher. Both shifts eventually took part in this friendly competition and the branch subsequently rates of produce had never been higher. The book is replete with several examples such as these.
Some afterword
So yeah! These were a few humble self-help book recommendations – some of which you may have heard before – which give valuable and oft circumstantial advice on how to turn one’s life around or just simply improve upon it. The aforementioned books are available throughout the web, from several different sources (e.g. Goodreads, LibraryThing and Bookish).
A decade or two ago, people had to go to and from libraries and book-stores to avail for… well… books. But now that we’ve the internet and its entire host of information and knowledge just milling around in the cloud, we needn’t always have to trudge around shelves and rows of books to look for something to read! There is a motley score of book and e-book sources online – some offer theirs at a discount while others might give some away for free. Information is a fickle and capricious thing, considering how rapidly the world changes, ofttimes catching us unaware. I do advice staying apprised regularly, and reading a few self-help books is one way to do just that.