Book Review - Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired

About the Book
In Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired, Spiritual intelligence (SI) is not a belief in a higher power or God, nor is it an experience of awakening, a momentary realization, or simply feeling “at one” with the universe. Developing your spiritual intelligence means learning to cultivate and embody qualities hailed by all the world’s wisdom traditions—virtues such as purpose, compassion, integrity, presence, humility, and joy. 

 Modern research and most leadership experts agree, actualizing these traits can set off a ripple effect of inspiration that will reverberate across your entire organization, attracting others to you and your vision. But doing so requires learning new habits that can lead you to this new you: someone inner- and inter-connected, rooted in their essence and spark of life. 

 Whether you are a current or an aspiring leader, if you have a keen desire to connect with the true source of your authentic power and presence, this book is for you. With practical case studies and transformative exercises, it will guide you in discovering and growing your spiritual intelligence so that you may lead an inspired life: a life of great power, deep fulfillment, and lasting success.

My Take on the Book

This was a fresh look at leadership and how to be able to incorporate spiritual intelligence into your work. I will be honest and say that I did not know much about spiritual intelligence, but this book really opened my eyes to this and how I can better support the people around me. Emotional intelligence has been a buzzword and something that all of us in leadership roles have been focusing on for many years. Now, after reading this cook, I can see how spiritual intelligence is yet another factor and level that we need to make sure that we do not forget in working with our employees.

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Book Review - The Art of Active Listening

About the Book

Improve communication, engagement, and culture with active listening.

When employees, colleagues, and customers are not being heard, organizational culture, employee happiness, and overall organizational success will suffer. How well do you listen?

Active listening is the doorway to increased belonging, loyalty, profitability, innovation, and so much more. It is the difference between thinking we understand what people want and knowing what they want. Want to build stronger relationships, avoid misunderstandings, and anticipate problems before they surface at work?

All you have to do is listen.

The Art of Active Listening introduces a 5-step framework that shows you how to listen successfully and act upon what you are hearing. Readers will discover how to:

1. Recognize the unsaid
2. Seek to understand
3. Decode
4. Act
5. Close the loop

Backed by her personal review of over 30,000 employee and customer surveys and facilitation of 100’s of focus groups, Younger discovered one universal truth: We all want to be heard. We want our voices to matter. We want the work we do to matter.

When we get this right - when we listen to our employees and customers and care about them not just for what they can do but for who they ARE - they can and will move mountains.

Using the tools provided in this book, you can implement active listening, regardless of whether you’re in-person or virtual, that benefits all team members and customers, strengthens overall engagement, improves organizational culture, and creates a space for everyone to have a voice.

When those at work feel heard, they will do whatever it takes to achieve outcomes that serve your relationship and your organization.


My Take on the Book
This was a great book that really pulls in a ton of stories that allows you as a reader and as a leader connect and make meaningful changes to your life to be a more active listener. The book is practical and  makes you rethink about what it means to be an active listener. What I loved about the book is that it made me see that the way in which we have tried to actively listen in the past does not work. Instead, the author has created a practical guide with tips and strategies that are both easy to follow, but also easy to implement. I found that I was able to take the strategies and start using them right away. In the end, I found that this book really allowed me to change the way that I am doing things and I know that it will help me to better lead and support others in my office in the future.

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Book Review - A Pretty Implausible Premise

About the Book

When Hattie and Presley meet, it's love at first sight. Head-spinning, Taylor-Swift-song-level feelings.

 
In A Pretty Implausible Premise, their instant connection seems implausible, even impossible, as they start to realize all they have in common. Both are grieving, living in worlds haunted by ghosts; both have a parent who's out of sight, not out of mind; and both were forced to give up their Olympic dreams. Connected by experiences only they understand, Hattie and Presley fall into a whirlwind romance—flirting at their workplace, sleeping side by side beneath the stars, ice skating to a playlist all their own. But like the wildfires surrounding their California town, the trauma that haunts them is unrelenting. Can they overcome their losses without losing each other? Or will their ghosts break them apart?

Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Rachel Lynn Solomon, A Pretty Implausible Premise explores the power of a love beyond comprehension, and how seemingly implausible connections can be the ones we need the most.

My Take on the Book
This book explores so many topics surrounding love, trauma, and more. The author does a great job of creating an atmosphere that draws you in from beginning to end. The book makes you think, but is also passionate and heartfelt. The characters are ones that you can really relate to because of the wide array of emotions that they show throughout the book. The book is a roller-coaster, but one that you will never forget.

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Book Review - The Heart of Innovation: A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand

About the Book

In The Heart of Innovation A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand four innovation experts from the startup world, large enterprises, nonprofits, and academia come together to reveal the secret of uncovering authentic demand to build successful innovations.

Books on innovation mostly focus on how to nurture innovative cultures and brainstorm ideas. The Heart of Innovation is the first popular book to concretely delve into what innovations really are and how to create them. Many attempts at innovation fail because customers turn out to be indifferent. The key to success is to uncover unmet authentic demand; what customers cannot be indifferent to. Through fresh case studies, ranging from how SoulCycle revolutionized the fitness industry, to how IBM built an $8 billion business on the Web, to a single mother ending abuse in a slum in Africa, The Heart of Innovation explores how authentic demand is often hidden or taken for granted.

The first half of the book explores cases where people accidentally found their way to meeting an unmet authentic demand—or failed to. The second half of the book provides a field guide to methodically identifying and building products, services, and businesses around authentic demand.

At Georgia Tech, IBM, and elsewhere, the authors have worked with scores of startups and large companies, developing a unique methodology that unpacks the “black box” of authentic demand and shows innovators how to search for it, recognize it, and create situations for their customers that catalyze it. They explore the differences, and different challenges, to the three types of innovation—incremental improvement, company transformation, and radical “formative” innovation.

Authors Chanoff, Furst, Sabbah, and Wegman take innovators and people who work with them on a new journey through innovation. Their fresh case studies, from IBM’s entry to the Web, to a single mother in a slum in Kenya, make The Heart of Innovation as obsessively readable as it is informative.

If customers are already pulling your innovation from your hands, you don’t need this book. Otherwise, reach for The Heart of Innovation.

My Take on the Book
In this book the author challenges you to step back and work on the things that block you from coming up with and moving forward with creating new ideas. One of the things that I loved about the book is that the author has made it practical with actionable steps that you can use right away. As you read this you will leave the book with so many strategies and lessons that will move you beyond yourself. Get ready to get unstuck with this great book!

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Book Review - Quest Kids and the Dark Prophecy of Doug

About the Book

In Quest Kids and the Dark Prophecy of Doug, it's been six months since the Quest Kids—Ned, Terra, Gil, Boulder, and Ash—saved a village from a furious dragon (no big deal) and turned their questing efforts toward finding Ned’s parents. But when the crew notices a serious sense of doom and gloom across the Seven Kingdoms, they set out in search of Doug, whose mysterious Dark Prophecy has the potential to send the world into even more dire darkness and dread.

With help from new and old friends, the Quest Kids sail through stormy seas, vacation on the newly rebranded Contentment Island, and venture into the Forsaken Lands to find Doug, whose wicked tunes and even wickeder plans are in full force. Can the Quest Kids get it together to counter Doug's plans and find Ned's parents—or must they watch as a triumphant Doug surfs on waves of fire and fulfills his terrible prophecy?


My Take on the Book
I was a fan of the first book and I have to say that I loved the second book as well. Everything that stood out in the first book got amped up in book two as well. Get ready for craziness that ensues within the book with these characters that you have come to know and love. As you read this book you definitely get drawn in from beginning to end and I loved that by the end you are definitely ready for the next book! The book is easy to read and is definitely written with the middle-school reader in mind. Get ready to laugh and maybe even grown with some of the humor that is shared. In the end, this was a great book that was a quick and sun read for all ages!

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