6 Books Every Professional Must Read to Ride Change

Here are 6 books every professional must read to ride change. I carefully curated the list for you!
Teach Yourself How to Learn

The world is going through a period of intense change right now. Toronto went back into lock down a couple of weeks ago. And will stay that way for at least a month. There is nothing I can do, so I'm not going to stress myself out because there will always be change happening in your environment. Let me recommend 6 books every professional must read to ride change.

There are many book recommendations floating around. And I’ve shared several of those lists on social media. The books are really great books. But what sets this list apart, that I’m going to share with you, is that it goes back to the basics.

You’ll build a strong foundation for effective reading and learning. Some of  some of my six books every professional must read to ride change, you may be familiar with while others you may be seeing for the first time.

6 Books Every Professional Must Read to Ride Change

1. Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning
2. Teach Yourself How to Learn
3. The MacGyver  Secret
4. The Obstacle is the Way
5. Opportunity
6. Non-Obvious Megatrends

Why These 6 Books Will Benefit Your Career/Business?

In How to Read a Book, the authors state that there are three reasons for reading any book:

1. Entertainment
2. Information
3. Further your knowledge on a topic

I read for all three reasons. And I find that even when I’m reading for entertainment, I learn a lot. Elon Musk stated recently that the Foundation Series of books inspired him to start SpaceX. Now when you read the six books, you’re developing a habit of reading nonfiction in a certain way. You’re reading to learn. And you're reading to solve problems. You want to quickly grab what you need from the right books. You'll find these six books every professional must read to ride change worth reading.

The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning paired with Non Obvious Megatrends teach you to read books in such a way that you’ll see what others miss. Even if you’re all reading the exact same books. You’ll also learn how to analyze and synthesize informational text to get the most from the books you read. How cool is that? I find that most professionals don't read deeply enough.

The Obstacle is the Way paired with Opportunity will teach you how to find opportunities. Even in difficult situations. The books provide processes for you to do that. Now is the time to read these books. The world is crazy right now, but you can fight back. These two books give you the tools to do so. In Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, the author, Tim Harford, one of the things he emphasized, which is important today, is that with any new technology, there are winners and losers. And this point is relevant to any change.

Teach Yourself How to Learn will take your reading to a whole new level. When you’re reading and learning you’ll move through the six stages of an information hierarchy. And finally the fourth book, The MacGyver Secret teaches a 3-step model to solve problems in an unconventional way. Unconventional problem solving is welcome right now. Why? We’re facing a lot of uncertainty. Use the tools to pivot your career and/or business.

Reading and Learning: Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning

Lifetime Learner's Guide to Reading and LearningThis book is important because it teaches you the best way to read nonfiction books. Although you may have some downtime because of the forced isolation, you don’t want to read more of a book than you need to. Think of the 80/20 Rule. In terms of reading books, you’d read 20 percent of a nonfiction book and understand 80 percent of the text.

The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning explains to you how to inspect a book before you read it. This action allows you to digest the average nonfiction book in 30 to 60 minutes. Because you’ll only be reading the important sections in a book. This is not about speed reading. It’s about reading as much of the book as you need to, to get what you need from it. This is about reading to learn and understand.

The kind of reading that this book teaches you to do will allow you to digest more books that will grow your career and business. It’s all about the fundamentals. Once you have those in place, you can always build on them. But you need to build a strong foundation first.

Learning: Teach Yourself How to Learn

This book has lots of excellent reading tips and learning strategies. But I like it especially for the updated Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most people don’t know about this information hierarchy, which is great if you’re reading books to mine ideas. The book does a great job of explaining every level of the information hierarchy.

I’d like you to work your way up to the Create stage. This is how you’ll get the most from reading the right books. At this level, that’s where you use the knowledge gained from the books you read to create products and services. You create products and services to solve problems.

The MacGyver Secret: Connect to Your Inner MacGyver & Solve Anything

The MacGyver SecretIdeas are the currency of business success. Imagine if you were able to get idea after idea, how would your life change? During a period of great change like we’re experiencing right now, this is exactly what’s needed to pivot a business or a career. The MacGyver Secret presents a non-conventional problem solving system to conceive original and valuable ideas.

I used to love watching MacGyver, the hit television series and always marveled at how the character of the same name got himself out of the tightest spots using only the tools he had access to. The creator of the hit series, Lee David Zlotoff, used this problem solving process, to come up with the idea for the TV show.  

You may be out of a job. Or you could have lost your business. Whatever the reason, wouldn’t it make sense to try a creative process to figure out what’s next for you?

Have you read?

Summary: The MacGyver Secret by Lee David Zlotoff

The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

The Obstacle is the WayI love the saying that tough times never last but tough people do. The world is going through a crisis right now. But one thing for sure is that this too shall pass. In The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday presents a process for you to find the opportunity lurking within every challenge. And there’s also a process for managing difficult situations.

In any career or business, professionals will always find themselves in difficult situations. But some situations will be more difficult than others. Therefore, it’s important to have a way to work through those difficulties.

Whenever there is great change, there will be winners and losers. No one knows what tomorrow brings. But if you had a process to search for the opportunity that comes with adversity, you’d have a next step to take to keep you focused.

Have you read?

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, Book Review

OpportunityOpportunity: How to Win in Business and Create a Life You Love

I’ve often seen the formula:

Luck = Opportunity + Preparedness.

So to get lucky, you need to prepare yourself by finding opportunities. This book, Opportunity, complements The Obstacle is the Way. Opportunities come with a window, therefore it’s important to act on them quickly. Great places to look for opportunities are by studying the news and reading books. And also when there is change or stagnation.

The last book on this list, Non-Obvious, can also help you to find opportunities. To find opportunities, take what’s available, then combine them in new ways to create something on a higher order. Say for instance you study the news and read diverse books. If you’re using the Haystack Method that's outlined in Non-Obvious, you’ll be combining disparate ideas and elevating them into better and more encompassing ideas.

What Eben Pagan calls emergent opportunities arise when you start aligning the ideas with a human need. It's combining information from Non-Obvious by Rohit Bhargava with information from Opportunity by Eben Pagan. What’s going on in the world now is teaching you things that you can use to create a future you want to live in. Think about the following two questions and how might they help you to find the opportunity in the change we’re experiencing now.

1. Where’s the greatest opportunity in my environment? 
2. How can I avoid failure and create success, and a surrounding that inspires me?

Have you read?

When Opportunity Knocks Do You Grab It Or Allow It to Slip By?

Synthesizing and Analyzing Information: Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future

Non Obvious MegatrendsI absolutely love this book. Most professionals don’t allow themselves to go deep enough into a book. The Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning teaches you to focus on the important sections in a book. When you read the important sections, you read actively, going as deeply as you need to to understand the text. You should be able to teach what you learn to another person.

Non Obvious Megatrends provides a 5-step process that guides you when you read a book. Although the process was created for curating trends, you can use it to mine ideas from the books you read. It’s all about using information in a different context. By using this model that Rohit Bhargava created, ultimately you see what others miss. You combine ideas from different books. This is a fantastic tool especially when you read books across multiple disciplines.

Have you read?

Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas and Predict the Future by Rohit Bhargava

6 Books Every Professional Must Read to Ride Change, One More Thing

Reading these six books will enable you to become a more effective reader. They'll help you to build a strong foundation, so that you’ll know how to get more from the time you invest in reading books.

I recommend that you first read the Lifetime Learner’s Guide to Reading and Learning. This book teaches you how to find and digest the important information in a nonfiction book. Do you think my six books to read will benefit your career.

Do you think these are books every professional must read to ride change?

The most accomplished people use books as problem solving tools. They carve out the time in their schedule to find solutions in the pages of a book. Let me help you to solve your own problems. Additionally, this program helps you to learn valuable career skills. Click the link MoreReads: Blueprint to Change Your World to buy.

If someone clicks on a link and buys something from Amazon, the company will pay me a small commission. First published April 2020.