What I will do differently after the books I read in 2021

Book covers from the books I’ve read this year (GoodReads)

2021 was a strange year for us all, and in the following books you’ll notice chapters of acceptance, reflection, optimism and preparation. For this year’s recap, I decided to repeat the same format I used in 2020. Every year, I spend time thinking about the one thing I want to remember or do differently from each of the books I’ve read in order to compound my learnings year over year. Previous years: 2019, 2018.

The most impactful read of the year was Benjamin Hardy, PhD’s: Gap and the Gain, a remarkably simple, yet profound way to reframe how we look back (and forward) to measure ourselves by the gains we’ve experienced instead of the gaps. This allows not only kindness and celebration but facts and evidence to take centerstage, avoiding the pitfalls of idealism tarnishing our self worth.

Disclosure: each book is linked to an affiliate link on Amazon to make it easier to find.

Non-fiction

A More Exciting Life by the School of Life

• Why: Seeing that another wave of lockdown was imminent at the beginning of the year, I decided to add on yet another School of Life book to focus on building excitement without leaving your home.
• 1 Thing: Remind myself that deep creative work that doesn’t yield an outcome or output isn’t lazy, it’s necessary. “Our lives might be a lot more balanced if we learnt to reallocate prestige, pulling it away from those with a full diary and towards those wise enough to allow for long afternoons of reflection. We should think that there is courage not just in travelling the world, but also in daring to sit at home with one’s thoughts for a while, risking encounters with certain anxiety-inducing or melancholy but also necessary ideas.”

Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl

• Why: Reading through the Startupbuilder.mba launch and went into a rabbit hole of Twitter threads which listed this as a must-read book.
• 1 Thing: Coming from the world of PM before VC, I was trained to always be problem centric when validating any assumptions, this book started a new branch of thinking on going audience-first. Changing my perspective from what problems can I spend years solving, to which types of people can I spend years serving was such a freeing reframe. I then followed up on this book with Greg’s Community College on Maven to further refine the framework to being Community-first.

Rituals for Virtual Meetings by Kursat Ozenc

• Why: I built the entire EF Canada (12+) team during the pandemic which required quite a bit of experimenting of team rituals, this was a super timely release to complement the author’s previous book.
• 1 Thing: Whenever I am hosting a kickoff for a virtual event, I’ll browse the pages to see what I can try to create psychological safety by design. I found the “Hi, by name” ritual delightfully simple and effective in large 20+ groups.

Real World AI by Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger

• Why: Alyssa is an acquaintance I met on LinkedIn, I used her platform Figure Eight during my AI for PM Udacity’s Nanodegree where she used to be the VP of Product.
• 1 Thing: The most valuable takeaway was the criteria for an AI Pilot, which I’ll just list the headings here: Goal, team, strategy, Bias, Execution, Data annotation, deploying to production, and build or buy. Very actionable one-pager that alone was well worth the purchase!

Founder Handbook by Andrius Sutas

• Why: Andrius is an EF alumni who exited his company and I was about to start my next journey as a founder so thought it came at the right time.
• 1 Thing: A complement to Real World AI, Andrius set up a really useful pilot framework for any type of engagement: understand how customers usually purchase products, when was the last time they evaluated a product like yours, how long do they run pilots for, how did the last few pilots go? Design phase, setting realistic expectations, pricing, IP, commercial budget, commercial pricing, roll-out, volumes, time-frames, etc.

Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia

• Why: I’m a late follower to SHL, and was considering joining his Maven course, thought the book might be a quick way to get my feet wet!
• 1 Thing: “You don’t learn and then start, you start and then you learn.” Having been in the world of venture capital for the last 4 years, it is so easy to get into the trap of think first, execute second, being able to default to starting has been a really large shift in mindset. Sahil’s story particular resonating for me as he went VC-backed for Gumroad at the start and his transition to a bootstrapped then crowdfunded startup really creates a journey I really look up to.

Trajectory: Startup by Dave Parker

• Why: Similar to PM I tend to get caught into FOMO reads on entrepreneurship, with many of the books essentially spitting out similar versions of each other. While this book wasn’t a particular stand out, it did have a few really tactical elements I learned from.
• 1 Thing: Most valuable takeaway was actually a reminder of Mike Fishbein’s really useful customer development questions, which are find are a very useful complement to the Mom Test and Talking to Humans.

The Right It by Alberto Savoia

• Why: Recommended to me by a now (ex)cofounder I worked with on EF’s platform.
• 1 Thing: Start with an idea, create a market engagement hypothesis (MEH) and then turn that into an XYZ hypothesis, and then go micro to test an xyz hypothesis. Example would be:
• Idea: Second-day sushi
• MEH: If we sold day old sushi at a significant discount, a lot of people would be interested in buying.
• XYZ: At least 20% of packaged sushi eaters will try Second-Day sushi if it’s half the price of regular packaged sushi.
• xyz: At least 20% of students buying packaged sushi at a sushi shop today will choose second day sushi if it’s half the price.

Connect by David Bradford

• Why: Moving back to North America from Asia meant that a lot of my strongest perosnal relationships were in need of a lot of care and I wanted to have a more methodical way of investing time and care into those relationships as well as ones in North America that I am reintegrating myself back into.
• 1 Thing: exceptional relationships requires a willingness to look at the issues in a relationship, to allow for the possibility of being wrong and to consider new ways of seeing things. My takeaway is to meet people where they’re at from a psychological safety point of view, to slowly build the trust and foundation to challenge each other, and to make sure that influence is a two way street and not overly one-sided.

Show your Work by Austin Kleon

• Why: I read Steal like an Artist every year, and thought I should add on his second book.
• 1 Thing: Sometimes amateurs have more to teach us than experts. A remember to build, learn and write in public because even if you’re a 6/10, there’s a bunch of people who are a 0 or 1/10 and can learn from our experiences.

Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick

• Why: I’ve read the Mom Test probably over a dozen times and when Rob announced he was writing his next meta book, had to dig in.
• 1 Thing: Whenever I think of writing a book on any topic, I’ll first test it with a live course to gauge feedback, similar to the thinking around XYZ to xyz from the The Right It.

The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte

• Why: Found her course on Udemy and completed it as part of a personal life retreat.
• 1 Thing: A simple life hack is to change your goals from outcomes to feelings, that lead to outcomes. If a life goal is to become an athlete, what feelings emerge? For me it’s the nutritional aspect of feeling nourished and therefore I prioritise decisions and actions that make me feel nourished, as opposed to exercise 4 days a week (I still do).

How to Relax by Thich Nhat Hanh

• Why: I was feeling quite anxious one day, and one of my coping mechanisms is to go to a bookstore and just digest a book, this one was on one of the shelves.
• 1 Thing: Remind myself that we’re all in the same race, towards death, so why do I keep on running?

Ask your Developer by Jeff Lawson

• Why: Over the last 4 years working in VC, I felt that my technical vocabulary has decreased since my PM days, wanted to continue having a growth mindset towards engineering even if it isn’t primary area of learning.
• 1 Thing: Hospitality is the foundation of business, virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in a business transaction (link to emotional/social JTBDs). One way to cultivate it is to make sure that every new hire spends time in the shoes of the support team as part of their onboarding.

The Startup Playbook by Will Herman and Rajat Bhargava

• Why: Another FOMO read on startup playbooks.
• 1 Thing: A lot of useful takeaways but the core thing to remember for me would be the habits as a founder you’ll need: working smart, being persistent and focusing on the right things.

Startup Myths and Models: Rizwan Virk

• Why: As I prepped to go from VC to founder, I loaded up on mental models to break away from my power law thinking into execution thinking instead.
• 1 Thing: Biggest takeaway is that context matters in advice and there are no universal truths in startups (focus, passion, solo vs cofounder), everything is contextual.

Generating Product Ideas by Artiom Dashinsky

• Why: Found it on Amazon and wanted to load up on ideation frameworks.
• 1 Thing: When in need of idea generation, remember the 5 mental models presented in the book
• Solving your own business problems, scratching your own itch
• Productizing life experiences, automate and simplify complex workflows.
• Insider ideas, listing all the processes used within your current organisation, and what the company hasn’t prioritised. Every spreadsheet that is used daily in a company is a company on its own.
• Vision/mission based ideas: find the reasons why your vision is not a reality, list ways of potentially solving it.
• Cross-industry, mix and match, X for Y.
• Localisation of existing business models, Rocket Internet approach.
• Automate a marketplace
• Unbundling an existing platform
• Exploit data sets
• Explore Search trends
• Build a table of audiences, problems and potential solutions.
• Build a business model matrix
• Audience x Common Goals matrix (saving money, saving time, increasing sales, reducing churn, etc.

Fundraising by Ryan Breslow

• Why: A really short book I found on fundraising which is an area that I’ve played a supporting role on but haven’t specifically led myself.
• 1 Thing: Fundraising starts months if not years through relationship building prior to build a network of champions (Ryan hosted dinners and gatherings), and above all, as founder you need to demonstrate that you are relentless, authentic, positive and kind.

Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

• Why: On a catch up with one of my mentors and they brought it up as a must read.
• 1 Thing: “Less ego and more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see.”

Workshop Survival Guide by Rob Fitzpatrick

• Why: I’ve workshopped to over 1500 students while at General Assembly and every single time I do, I find at least 3–4 things I could have done better, big fan of Rob and the Mom Test as well.
• 1 Thing: One thing I’ve always admired from Rob’s talks (he runs workshops at EF) was how simple his language is when he is on stage, he doesn’t try to sound elegant, but really speaks in an elementary style without coming off as condescending. What I’ll remember to continue doing as a workshopper is not to come off as smart, but to remember that workshops live and die by two factors, what the audience learns and how they feel.

Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy, PhD

• Why: Ben DM’d me on LinkedIn to buy the book, really doubt it was him who really messaged but I loved his previous book on personality not being permanent so I gave it a try. If I could have only read one book in 2021, this one would have been it.
• 1 Thing: I have a ritual of doing life retrospectives every month to look back at what I did well and what I could have done better, I will add a reframe to this through the form of gains, what have I gained over the last month, once you take a step back it’s really special how much you can gain and grow in just 30 days if you simply take a step back and soak it in. Doing this will reinforce a habit of looking for the gain instead of being stuck in the gap.

The Embedded Entrepreneur by Arvid Kahl

• Why: Zero to Sold was a really instrumental read for me last year, and entering the world of bootstrapped entrepreneur in 2022, I really found this book to be chalk full of tactical advice.
• 1 Thing: 2022 is the year I commit to building my Twitter audience again, something I’ve neglected since moving to Asia (Twitter’s penetration is tiny in comparison except for Indonesia).

Startup Playbook by Sam Altman

• Why: Another playbook that I wanted to quickly absorb while I was advising an EF portfolio company who had also gone through YC.
• 1 Thing: “As a founder, it’s important to distort reality for others but not for yourself. You have to convince people that your company is primed to be the most important startup of the decade, but you yourself should be paranoid about everything that could go wrong.”

The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

• Why: I’ve read a couple of Matt’s books, and I always appreciated how raw and honest he is in his exploration of mental health.
• 1 Thing: “The hardest dream of all to achieve is the dream of not being tormented by our unlived dreams. To cope with and accept unfulfillment as a natural human condition. To be complete in our incompleteness. To be free from the shackles of memory, and ambition, to be free from comparison to other people and other hypothetical selves, and to meet the moment without any other agenda, to exist as freely as time itself.”

Get Out of My Head by Meredith Arthur

• Why: Going into Startupland really introduces massive amounts of imposter syndrome, wanted to add tools on the self-compassion and kindness toolkit.
• 1 Thing: “It’s never too late to kick off a virtuous cycle. You begin with the cycle of self-awareness and study your personal patterns; buried within them is the treasure you earn for passing through. You then get to the cycle of acceptance, where you remember that what sets you apart also makes you special and strong. You then set off the cycle of setting boundaries, where you teach your brain to reframe the beliefs that have been causing you pain, and you begin the cycle of play, where you are able to let go of expectation and live increasingly in the moment.”

Fiction

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

• Why: It won the best fiction book of 2020, and while I don’t agree with that high of praise, I was eager to read it as Matt’s book as Notes on a Nervous Planet was a deep exploration into mental health that was really striking when I read it in 2019.
• 1 Thing: “If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.”

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

• Why: My life partner has been recommending this book for years, and I wanted to make an effort to read more fiction in 2021.
• 1 Thing: Reminded me of the dopamine rush of a solid page turner, I immediately loaded my Kindle with books 2 and 3 half way through the book.

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

• Why: Have to find out what happens.
• 1 Thing: Same as above

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

• Why: Max gave this book a glowing recommendation, 11/10 stars which is high praise from him, and so I decided to give it a shot.
• 1 Thing: To stop every now and then and just say “amaze”, life truly is filled with tiny moments of beauty and awe, Andy captured this well in the adventures of Ryland Grace.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

• Why: A good friend recommended this after a catch up when I opened up about going through a few struggles. It’s a short read and will surely bring you to tears, it’s also beautifully printed and I highly recommend you get the physical book instead of on the Kindle.
• 1 Thing: Whenever I feel like the world is spirally around me, I’ll remember to pour myself a cup of tea and to give myself the kindness of reading through the beautiful pages of the book. For someone who feels like their heart and world is split between North America and Asia, the one thing I’ll remember from this book is home isn’t always a place.