“Let my people go surfing” is the story of Yvon Chouinard and his philosophy of why he set up the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. It was meant as a company handbook, explaining the company story and ethos and then was turned into a book and has become a bestseller.

In a way it is a bit like “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight the guy who started Nike. That said, I found “Shoe Dog” to be page turner, whereas “let my people go surfing” was a little drier.

Yvon, walks you through eight philosophies; product design, production, distribution, marketing, financial, human resources, management and environmental. Yvon does not share any of the detail of the real hardships of the business and growing pains, like Phil Knight does in “Shoe Dog”.

If you are looking to run a modern ethical company, (like I am) then this should certainly be on your reading list. Like “Shoe Dog” I walked away a fan of Nike, this book will certainly mean you walk away a fan of Patagonia. 

A friend of mine was raving about “reasons to stay alive” on LinkedIn and while I’m not depressed or suffer from any mental illness, I always think it’s great to have skills in my “kit bag”, just in case. 

It’s clear that Matt Haig is a popular writer from the number of books he has written and from the number of celebrities supporting his work. After all, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry and Rev. Richard Coles are not dummies.

The start of the book, does take you into a dark place as Matt explains how he felt, his anxieties and the crisis he felt over a number of years. After taking you into that dark place, the reader then knows that Matt is talking from experience and this is not some make believe “do gooder”, Matt then takes you through coping strategies.  

The book is therefore autobiographic, but a self-help book at the same time.

Not being a gamer, I must admit I missed out on “Ready Player One” the first time and the film. I was talking to some people at a conference about the Metaverse, or we were talking about what would a world be like where we are all users of the Metaverse and they highly recommend this book.

“Ready Player One” was written about a world where we work from home, we are all big users of the internet, in fact we no longer need to go shopping in fact we no longer need to cook food as goods in fact everything can be delivered. If you think about it, the pandemic has created at world that isn’t dissimilar to that, if we wanted it. There are even “big tech” billionaires influencing how the world works. Frightening like today.

Layer on top of that the Metaverse, which is the element of the future. The Metaverse being a web 3.0 - 3-dimensional (3D) space, where we use virtual reality (VR) goggles, avatars and haptic suits and we live out a second world, sitting at home. 

In this book, “The shallows”, Nicholas Carr, put forward the argument that if we do certain actions, it can change our brains. If we take the internet, this is not just changing the way we think but hard wiring our brains.

He provides evidence of how our attention span has changed, the same arguments that were made when television was introduced. I have to admit that Nicholas does not know the half of it, if you are interested then maybe “thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman or “ the hype machine” by Sinan Arai would be worth a read.

I was looking for a book that could teach me the fundamentals to crypto and all that entails and found an article that had the top 10 books around this subject and this book was on the list so I thought I would give it a go.

And yes, it was that, an introduction into bitcoin, bitcoin mining, blockchain, Altcoins, business on the blockchain examples, private blockchain examples, plus an overview of the market. The good and the bad. The book does just that, very entry level, just enough detail that I can have conversations. It’s very easy to use, with simple examples, highly recommend to anybody that wants to know more.

Joanna has had a number of roles in corporate life and based on her experiences, she shares a number of suggestions to help you survive.

Joanna has an honest approach, working in companies can often seem like “musical chairs”, some change you know is coming, some change can be thrust upon you. How can you plan and take as much control as you can?

There are many books that talk about taking control of your career, by selling objectives and affirmations. Or how you can get “that job”. In this book, she explains how you can take control of your career, working within a company. How you can make sure you don’t get fired when there is that reorganisation or merger. Or even how you can get that promotion. All critical skills in the world of business today.

It probably does not surprise anybody but this book is about how to organise and structure a TedTalk. From examples of how to start the presentation, how to finish it and even what to wear.

Chris covers many of the mistakes that people make, how to make a connection with the audience, how to make visuals and what to avoid, how to prepare, and what speakers should do onstage.

There are other books on presentations, such as “Lend me your ears” by Professor Max Atkinson.

I read Tim Harford’s book “Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy” back in 2018 and this sister edition “the next fifty things that made the modern economy” was given to me for Christmas 2021.

As you can imagine the books are very simpler, but highlight different inventions and subject matter. In this book, Tim covers, the pencil, bricks, canned food, credit cards, CCTV, QWERTY keyboard, etc, etc. All subject areas are all well researched as you would expect by Tim Harford. Tim writes with his tongue ever so slightly with his tongue in his cheek, so it’s serious if a little light hearted book.

I met Gary Vaynerchuk when he came to Vaynermedia in London and I was introduced by an employee of Gary’s. Before the meeting, I had a conversation with that employee that went like this.

Me: I bet Gary is really hard to work for?

Employee: Not at all, he’s one of the best managers I’ve ever had.

Me: A hard task master?

Employee: of course, he expects the best in people, but he supports a culture of experimentation and risk taking. That means he supports us if we make mistakes.

Me: Is it a hire and fire culture?

Employee: no, in fact if people are not in the right roles, Gary will create a new role that they will be better suited to.

Anyway, when I met Gary, he was brilliant, he insisted on having a selfie taken with me and my business partner and he insisted in holding my first book.

The thing is Gary often comes across as brash, this is compounded by his direct attitude in his previous books. He was vocal for “hustle culture” which added to his edge.

In his latest book, “Twelve and half” Gary puts forward a different Gary. One that is empathetic, compassionate, self-aware, patient, in fact 12 and half emotional ingredients you need to be a leader and manager today.  

The book is split into three, what are the emotional ingredients that we need as leaders, real-life scenarios and finally a number of exercises to undertake. 

Mike Kunkle’s “sales enablement” book is the best I’ve read so far.

There are a number of things I look for in a sales enablement book
1. The book explains what sales enablement is, I still don’t believe it’s a commonly understood term.
2. There is a mention in the book that a company’s objective is to make money therefore the sales enablements team’s job is to help the company make money. It took Mike 100 pages or so to get there but he did say it.

I have read sales enablement books where they don’t do either and sales enablement then seems to sit as some sort of “ivory tower” full of failed salespeople.

It’s not a big book, 143 pages, but Mike does fill it with practical advice, I have to admit it does feel like a pitch for Mike and his mates, but you should walk away from reading it knowing more than when you started.

Certainly, worth a read if you want to understand what sales enablement is, you are trying to run a sales enablement team, you are looking to benchmark your current sales enablement team, or you are a sales leader and are thinking of creating a sales enablement role.

Of course, a blog like this, is going to mention my two books.  My first book on social selling, is not about personal branding, it's not about how to use LinkedIn, it's not about my journey.  From the start I offer you techniques to increase the number of deals you can win from using social selling.  These are techniques on how to be social on social, this increasing your conversations, the number of leads you create and the number of deals you will close. 

The book is written as a workbook (don't buy the kindle edition, buy the book) that you can work through.  None of this "ivory tower" stuff, it's highly practical with techniques you can action today. 

My second book, if I had written it today, we would have called it RevOps (RevenueOperations).  The book is about how to merge sales and marketing under one single strategy, measurement and governance structure.  It's based on an actual case study, but we cannot mention who that is.  What I mean is the book, (like my first book) is practical and takes you through the steps you need to under take to implement a RevOps strategy.  Right down to reporting and things you need to look out for so the project is a success.