In this post I’ll list the books I read along to my opinion about them.
Unlike my other posts about my readings, I’m not including a description of the book itself, just my opinion about it.
Please, let me know in the comments if you want me to expand this and I will.
Lean UX (book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden)
During 2019 and 2020 I had studied the Lean methodology in depth, so I decided to buy this book to understand how to apply, in a practical way, the principles of this methodology to create new user experiences.
I had received a lot of recommendations for reading this book so my expectations were very high.
Even though I discovered a few interesting techniques in the book, I considered it to be too practical. I found many of the techniques to be hardly applicable in real life.
I do suggest reading the book, it’s good content, but I’d warn you that many of these techniques, in my opinion, are more applicable in a teaching room than in a real-life project.
Sprint (book by Jake Knapp)
A “Sprint” is a 5-day process (it has shorter versions as well) to evaluate a problem, suggest ideas, and test them within that time frame.
I found this book highly interesting, not only because of the process itself but also because the philosophy the process is built upon.
A colleague suggested me this book as I was looking to dig into Design Thinking and I have to say it was a great choice.
While I still haven’t had the chance (or the willing) to implement a Sprint, I do feel that this book helped me a lot to understand the Design Thinking process and to acquire a mindset based on that framework.
I recommend it.
The 5 am Club (book by Robin Sharma)
If you know me, you know how I love this book.
2020 was a very intense year for me, professionally and personally, so I decided to implement a few changes in my personal organization.
One of them was to start (much) earlier. I started to wake up at 5 am using the jetlag of a trip I took. After starting to feel the benefits of the early rising, I decided to try waking up even earlier, making 3:45 am the earliest I tried.
I followed this routine for about 6 months until, for different reasons (among them, I did want to have some social life), I couldn’t go to bed early (and the top hidden secret about waking up early is going to bed early).
So, in 2021 I heard about this book and I bought it immediately.
It generated a radical change in my lifestyle and productivity. I know that the idea of waking up at 5 am doesn’t sound attractive to most people and that many would say “I’m more the kind of a night owl”, but give this book a chance.
Some people go to bed late because they can’t do the opposite (maybe you work in the night shift) or because they follow a complex routine that ends late; but the truth is that most people I talked to about this, go to bed late because the watch 2 o 3 episodes of they favorite series after dinner, or playing video games, or any other activity that doesn’t really add any value to their life.
I strongly suggest reading this book. Even if you end up not waking up at 5, there are plenty you can get from the book. It’s a huge motivator to me.
Disclaimer: Read my “negative” experience with this book in my opinion of “Why we sleep”.
Permission Marketing (book by Seth Godin)
As a CEO you have to wear a different hat depending on the occasion. Sometimes you have to wear several at the same time (as ridiculous that may look).
I started to participate more in the Marketing of my company so I wanted to broaden my knowledge on the topic (which, to be honest, they weren’t too broad).
I bought this book for the recommendation of Fernando Labastida, a great marketer, who told me this book set the foundations for a “nice” marketing.
It’s not the classic Marketing book that promises a recipe for making millions out of nothing, but quite the opposite: Seth despises those manipulating and invasive techniques, and encourages the reader to follow strategies and tactics that really provide value to the end customer. He sees Marketing as a tool to communicate value as opposite to a tool to just generate sales.
I’d not only suggest this book to anyone who’s interested in Marketing but to everyone else. We all do Marketing, in one way or another. So it’s good to do it properly.
Why we sleep (book by Matthew Walker)
The book “The 5 am Club” states that to generate a habit to have to do the thing you want to make a habit for 66 days. It also states that the amount of hours of sleep we need vary from person to person. Some people can do well with 6 hours per day (consistently over time) and other may need 9 or even 10 hours.
I, in my eagerness to get as many active hours as I could, I wanted to be in the first group: sleep 7 hours a day, every day, and to feel great. I would go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at 5 am. At least, that was the intention.
The reality was a little more complicated. I just failed to fall asleep by 10 pm, whether because I’d decided to read a little bit longer, or because I had to wash the dishes, or just because my 1-year-old son felt sick and I had to take care of him. So my ideal 7 hours of sleep time a day turned into 7 hours a day maximum. The norm were 5:30 or 6 hours, regularly. Sometimes even less.
It’s worth to clarify that I follow this routine 7 days a week, so I don’t have weekends to make up lost sleep time.
The result was:
- I started to feel tired. The book states that you should feel great.
- I felt bad because my performance was not consistent over the week.
- I wasn’t laser-like focused nor felt fluency in my mind.
- The sum of this was an increasing frustration.
So, I read a recommendation of my buddy Bill about the “Why we sleep” book, and I bought it. I really wanted to know what “wasn’t working” in me. I wanted to know how the human body works so I could tune it.
I have to say: this book brought me clarity. As obvious as it sounds, every person works differently, and the amount of sleep time we need varies from person to person. I’d warn you against the 5 am book when it says (many times) that most people can do well with 6 hours of sleep time. Yeah, it’s not that simple.
This book wasn’t a light lecture but it was amazing. It made me understand a lot of things about our bodies and our minds. It even gave me tips to improve my learning process and my overall performance.
After this book, I was able to modify my routine and get the best out of it.
I’d suggest you to read this book if you want to go deep on this topic. Otherwise, you can do well finding some summary of it online.
The monk who sold his Ferrari (book by Robin Sharma)
Having made pace with Robin’s method, I quickly decided to buy another of his best-sellers. I like Robin’s writing and his ability to combine philosophy with practical methods.
I felt this book as a reinforcement of “The 5 am Club”‘s principles. This one is a little more “spiritual” and subjective (in his later writings, like “The 5 am Club”, Robin added a lot of scientific validation of his method).
I recommend it. It’s a nice and light book, although very profound.
The 1-Page Marketing Plan (book by Allan Dib)
If “Permission Marketing” is too abstract, this one is too concrete.
Something I never liked about Marketing is how it can become real complex very easily. Not only the Marketing Plan gets complex but also its execution, management, measurement, etc.
Because of my background as a developer and because I’ve known and applied the KISS principle (“KISS” stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid”) for a long time, I see complex things as inefficient, lacking of clarity, and candidate to be broken down into smaller/simpler pieces.
This book was great because it was exactly that: Marketing made it simple.
Allan proposes to write the whole Marketing Plan in one page (crazy, isn’t it?). It’s a radical shift in the regular approach and it’s highly productive.
While I wouldn’t apply it exactly as Allan proposes, I did consider many things while working on our Marketing Plan.
Steve Jobs (book by Walter Isaacson)
Something Robin Sharma says all the time in his books is that reading biographies and getting to know the lives of these “top producers” is highly enriching to us. And it was indeed.
I had heard about the life and accomplishments of Steve Jobs before, but not to this level.
Getting to know this person helped me a lot. I’d recommend the book to every entrepreneur and person that’s curious (like me) about these kind of incredible high productive people.
Be warned, it’s a long book. But it’s worth it.
The ontology of the language (book by Rafael Echeverría)
I took a few session of Ontology Coaching in 2021 with Lorena Carmody. When she told me how she used the ontology to analyze people, I immediately asked her to recommend me a book. And so I bought this one.
Rafael Echeverría, the author, is considered to be the father of the ontology of the language.
This book was fascinating. Through this method you can not only analyze yourself but design and develop a new version of you!
It’s great. I highly recommend it.
Hunger of Memory (book by Richard Rodriguez)
While I was reading “The ontology of the language” and was understanding how we define ourselves based on the things we tell us, I though: “How does our mind work when we speak more than one language?”. Then I ran into this book and, yes, I bought it.
Richard narrates his experience as son of Mexican parents living in the US. He grew up speaking Spanish and had to “switch” to English while studying high school.
His mind “operated” in two languages, even generating the difference between “public” space and “private” space depending on the language people used in it.
This book was of great help to understand many things. Furthermore, Richard Rodriguez’s life is very interesting and from which one can learn a great deal.
I recommend it.
Agile Contracts (book by Andres Opelt, Boris Gloger, and others)
I bought this book to understand the legal aspects of Agile. But the truth is that I found that I knew very little of the Agile methodology.
We may thing that we follow Agile because we do stand-ups, run Sprints, or use Jira. But being Agile is waaaay more than that.
This book was a great starting point to understand how to be Agile and apply the methodology in every part of a project: from the very first discovery meeting, to the last wrap up meeting.
While it’s called “Agile Contracts“, you can learn a lot of the Agile methodology from it. Actually, forcing yourself to use a true Agile Contract is a great way to apply the methodology as you should.
Breaking the habit of being yourself (book by Joe Dispenza)
Sorry Joe, but this was one of the worst books I read in the last few years 🙂
I found this book to be extremely light on content. And with few to no scientific bases. It’s mostly written upon Joe Dispenza’s believes and opinions.
Besides that, he frequently mentions his accomplishments and awards, adding no value to the value-less book.
I have to say, it’s not as bad as I may be expressing. It’s a super fast read and it can provide a few topics to investigate separately. Also, Joe talks a lot about the brain’s plasticity, which is great to actually do something to change ourselves instead of staying in the analysis stage.
I’d suggest the book only with a big disclaimer: don’t trust everything you read and do external research if you want to get the topic right.
More resources
The 5 am Miracle (podcast by Jeff Sanders) – link
I loved this podcast! It’s great that Jeff is personally following his advice, not only predicating it.
In this way, this podcast is a lot more “human” than “The 5 am Club” book. From the book I got something like: “you can form a new habit in 66 days and, if you wake up at 5 am every day for the rest of your life, that habit will stick”. But, hell, it didn’t work like that to me.
Jeff, instead, has ups and downs like everyone else. And that’s comforting. It generates empathy. It makes you feel that you’ll fail from time to time, but you will keep trying. And that’s life, no?
His podcast is about Good Habits, Meditation, Running, Sports, Plan-Based Nutrition, and more.
Each episode is about 30 to 60 minutes and it’s full of content.
I strongly recommend it.
Blinks (App) – link
One thing I did after listening a few episodes from the Jeff’s podcast was to uninstall a lot of apps from my phone. Instead, I replaced them for apps that added value either to me or to my personal pursuits.
I ran into this app and I gave it a try. That decision was one of the best I made in 2021.
This app is GREAT.
It gives you a 15-minute “blink” of a book, describing the book in a very well synthesized summary.
When you sign up, you set your content preferences, so (with the free version) you get one blink a day of the topics of your choice. Which is great. I may not read a full book of politics, but I’d read a 15-minute summary of it.
This app helped me to use my phone more efficiently in my breaks (like while taking a shower) and gave me a lot of recommendations for new readings.
I strongly recommend it!
