Personal Development

Business Related

This was an interesting book about networking, and the title pretty much says it all. However, the author confides that he was divorced, which got me thinking that you have to take his advice with a grain of salt, since spending all your meals with business contacts doesn’t leave a lot of time for your wife and family.

• Never Eat Alone
  by Keith Ferrazzi

Here are some other books about personal development that are really geared towards making you more effective in business.

• Attitude Plus Self-Confidence
  by Keith Harrell

Parenting and Understanding Boys

It isn’t easy being a parent. Not only do our faults and weaknesses become amplified, but it is hard to know what to expect from our kids at the different stages of their lives and what they are going through. Here are some of the books I have read to try to help with this. Of the books about boys, this one was the best:

• The Minds of Boys
  by Michael Gurian

Here are some more that had some other good advice:

• Raising Boys
  by Steve Biddulph
• Speaking of Boys
  by Michael Thompson

This one, I didn’t really like, because I felt as if the main message was that boys would be better off if they were more like girls:

• Boy Talk
  by Mary Polce-Lynch

Here are some other books about parenting, teaching or dealing with my own issues:

• Parenting from the Inside Out
  by Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell
• I Don’t Want To Talk About It
  by Terrence Real
• Why Can’t You Behave
  by Paula Rogovin
• Reluctant Disciplinarian
  by Gary Rubinstein

Other

It is not to far of a stretch to say that the following book changed my life. I found it one day while browsing the books at Stacey’s in San Francisco. Maybe the red cover first drew my attention, but then the title intrigued me because it was exactly the question I was asking myself at the moment. I was thinking that maybe I wanted to quit my job and move to Hawaii and become a surf instructor. However, after reading this book, I realized that there were three things I loved: working with technology, growing businesses and helping people. So I quit my job anyways, but instead of moving to Hawaii, I spent time learning new computer technologies and helping people build businesses:

• What Should I Do with My Life?
  by Po Bronson

Po’s followup book didn’t speak to me as directly as his first, but it was still very heart wrenching and ultimately, uplifting.

• Why Do I Love These People?
  by Po Bronson

Here are some other books relating to personal development that I have enjoyed.

• The Zone
  by Barry Sears
• Emotional Intelligence : Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
  by Daniel Goleman
• Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
  by Robert M. Sapolsky