My Library

Books that have shaped how I think about leadership, power, uncertainty, and the long game.

DUNE

Frank Herbert

Why this book matters:

You could replace nearly every book directly written on leadership with Dune; it’s all there. After reading hundreds, Dune is one of the few books I consistently return to, finding new lessons and being reminded of ones that are present with me at the moment. The writing is great, the characters are compelling, the story is intriguing. A timelessness that will stay with me always.

A Principle I Return To

How I Apply it

The worst way to get to know someone is to ask them about themselves. People generally try to be what they’re not. I observe behaviors and look for turnarounds; inobvious things that people don’t mean to be revealing, but when thought of a certain way, tell you everything.

Who Should Read This

Literally everyone. It’s not my favorite book of all time for no reason.

First, Break All the Rules

Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman

Why this book matters:

A counterintuitive perspective on management and its focus and tactics. Most managers fail because they overlook the most obvious and most difficult thing about management: everyone is different and therefore must be managed differently to a certain extent.

A Principle I Return To

How I Apply it

My entire approach is built around helping leaders develop their own operating principles rather than copying someone else’s playbook. This book gives some tactical support for how to accomplish self leadership as it relates to running a team.

Who Should Read This

Founders and CEOs who feel like they’re leading by someone else’s rulebook and know something isn’t working.

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

Why this book matters:

Success at the highest levels carries weight that most people never talk about. This book helped me understand why leaders — even successful ones — can feel disconnected, depleted, or unable to fully land. It give me a lens through which to view people in a compassionate way and rounded out my understanding of success and where an invention that’s more personal is what is needed to move someone forward.

A Principle I Return To

How I Apply it

The work I do with leaders isn’t just strategic — it’s human. Being honest about what’s actually happening, internally and externally, is the starting point for sustainable success. This book deepened my understanding of why that matters.

Who Should Read This

High-performing leaders who feel like they’re winning on the outside but carrying something heavy on the inside.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Oliver Burkeman

Why this book matters:

Having a sense of finitude and perspective is necessary in a world where so much is dangled in front of us all the time and our attention is constantly competed for by the latest algorithm capable of hijacking our subconscious. The ultimate form of focus involves cutting things out and living with the loss, rather than architecting a false reality where we can somehow do it all have it all.

A Principle I Return To

“It’s alarming to face the prospect that you might never truly feel as though you know what you’re doing, in work, marriage, parenting, or anything else. But it’s liberating, too, because it removes a central reason for feeling self-conscious or inhibited about your performance in those domains in the present moment: if the feeling of total authority is never going to arrive, you might as well not wait any longer to give such activities your all—to put bold plans into practice, to stop erring on the side of caution. It is even more liberating to reflect that everyone else is in the same boat, whether they’re aware of it or not.”

How I Apply it

It’s a perspective shift whenever I feel myself staring at a to-do list that seems never-ending, which is all too common when trying to be a father, husband, friend, advisor, CEO, and speaker all at the same time.

Who Should Read This

Anyone still searching for the perfect level of optimization and still feels like they aren’t getting enough done.

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Why this book matters:

It’s impossible to comprehend the potential beauty of the English language until you read Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. In a story where remarkable little happens, much transpires, and despite having read it over and over, I find new layers woven into the characters every time I read it. Both inspiring and cautionary, I consider this the greatest novel ever written and will accept no arguments to the contrary.

A Principle I Return To

How I Apply it

The most dangerous thing in my life is not external circumstances but how I tell the story of those events to myself, what I pour into them, and how I use them to make decisions and dictate my future behaviors.

Who Should Read This

Anyone who cares about the exploration of beauty and wants to deepen their understanding of how wrong things can go when daring to dream goes too far.

Loving What Is

Byron Katie

Why this book matters:

Katie stands as a beacon against anything that you might allow to disempower you when it comes to the story you tell yourself about other people in your life. If you’re really ready to take ownership and make progress this book is both a must read and a must implement.