One of the wisest people I’ve ever met (my high school maths teacher) taught me a powerful lesson about books.

You only have so many years to live and it’s impossible to read every book ever published, so make sure what you read changes your life.

With that in mind, here are 5 books that changed my life in 2022:

Start With Why by Simon Sinek

The tl;dr of Start with Why by Simon Sinek is that understanding purpose is important, and being explicit about what that purpose is and staying true to it is the key to corporate and marketing success.

Sinek pitches the importance of starting with ‘why’ at corporate leaders, citing examples of how companies like Apple and Southwest Airlines have managed to achieve sustained success.

But what I found it fascinating that most of ‘Start with Why’ can be applied in one’s personal life and career.

A really fun experiment was re-imagining my own career as one of the ‘companies’ that Start With Why is aimed at.

Understanding my ‘why’ was one of the key enablers for making career moves I did in 2022.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss (with Tahl Raz)

In Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss writes about his experiences as one of the FBI’s top hostage negotiators.

He highlights some of his key learnings from real life hostage negotiations and suggests practical tools for negotiation prep.

My natural urge has always been to compromise as a way of navigating (and sometimes avoiding) conflict situations and negotiations.

Drawing on examples from his experience with the FBI, Voss explains why this is a bad tactic.

Voss skillfully discusses the psychology behind high stakes negotiations and his summaries after each chapter are particularly helpful reference notes.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who has to negotiate with any regular frequency. It’s certainly transformed my approach to negotiations.

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

It’s really easy to take Zero to One: Notes on Startups and How to Build the Future at face value as a book solely aimed at those interested in startups.

Drilling down a bit deeper, Peter Thiel’s seminal book is in essence a guide to innovation.

Thiel explains the role that startups and innovative companies play in changing macro-economic conditions.

At it’s core, Zero to One is a book about the science of creation and how the act of creation shapes the world around us.

I’d highly encourage any aspiring creatives to read this book.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I’ve often wondered whether successful people (whatever that means) are born or made.

Outliers tries to answer that question. It draws on real human stories that highlight 2 major factors for success: Opportunity and socio-familial context.

Admittedly, I found Outliers evoked a range of conflicting emotions.

In Part 1, we’re reminded that people like Bill Gates achieve success because of hard work and talent, but also by being in the right place at the right time. Opportunity and privilege are frequent bed-fellows.

In Part 2, however, Gladwell tries to offer encouragement that hardship can breed traits and skills that cultivate success (see his examples of rice paddy workers and Asian maths students).

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

The Lean Startup is essential reading for anyone working at a startup or founding one.

That said, Ries’ explanations of concepts like validated learning and root cause analyses can be applied to other businesses.

I’ve even started using some of Ries’ ideas in my everyday life – you can read more here!

I’d recommend The Lean Startup to anyone interested in building businesses and innovation.

What are you reading in 2023?

With my maths teacher’s words in my mind, I’m quite excited to dive into a number of life-changing books this year.

Let me know what’s on your reading list for 2023 in the comments below!