Many of today’s grads aspire to a business career which by necessity will require managing people. That task will be much easier if you learn to manage yourself first. Here’s four great resources. All are short reads that you may well read again and again:
Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni: This book made the author famous and in my opinion is not just for CEOs. It’s about behavioral traps that we all fall into without knowing until the damage is done.
Making of a Manager: Julie Zhou started out as an intern at Facebook and rose to a senior VP level. Her recounting of her journey may make yours easier.
Man’s Search for Meaning: Dr. Viktor Frankl was a German psychiatrist who spent much of World War II in a Nazi Concentration Camp. He survived through remarkable choices about how he reacted to his circumstances. This is a classic (nearly 93,000 reviews on Amazon). You’ll read it more than once.
The Daily Stoic: Stoicism is an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy which in recent years has been adopted by successful leaders in business sports and other venues. One of my favorite books on this body of knowledge offers a daily quote from Stoic philosophers like Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Diogenes, and others accompanied by a short commentary by editor Ryan Holiday who has become the best-known advocate of applying Stoic Philosophy to modern life. The Daily Stoic (34,000 reviews on Amazon) is a great choice regardless of your religious orientation.
