2022 Reads in Review
What a surprise when I tallied my 2022 reads for the year: 23 books!
These reads fueled my passion to empower women to return from burnout to badass.
I jump at the chance to share book recs - and even more eagerly, I love recommendations from others. In the spirit or sharing, I hope you enjoy my top takeaways from these inspiring books.
Reach out if you read any of these and would like to talk!
Reading is great for personal knowledge and growth, but the true impact happens when we share our learnings and challenge each other to dream bigger!
I have a lot to say, so bookmark this post to read when you’ve got a little time and perhaps a mug of your favorite hot beverage.
Typically, I like to link to the author’s main website. But for this post, I’m linking to Amazon in case you want to add directly to your GTR (get to read pile aka TBR).
What 2022 read challenged you to dream bigger?
1
Coming in as my top favorite and most-recommended title, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily & Amelia Nagoski was my biggest discovery of 2022. I’ve spoken extensively about my personal journey to and through burnout, and this book truly became my reference volume for every step of the journey and beyond. What I find striking is that the Nagoski sisters published this in 2019 - women were already burning out, moments before the true burnout that drove nearly 2 million women from the workforce in since Feb 2020.
2
I loved the 2017 book from Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less. I’ve recommended this countless times as a great pairing with Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play (below). In her very personal account, Dufu shares how she overcame the feeling that she needs to do it all and outlines in very practical terms the steps she and her husband used to achieve greater fairness in the household. The highlights for me are learning about your highest and best contribution and adjusting your expectations as I strive to let my grip on all-the-things loosen to give me more time and space to be myself.
3
Technically, I read Ashley Whilans’ Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time & Live a Happier Life in 2021, but I re-read it in February ahead of my Time Shift: A New Way to Manage Time event. There are so many practical gems in this book - a relatively quick read to validate that we’re all time-starved but that when we acknowledge that we’re at choice with how we spend our time, we can reclaim our happiness. I especially love Whilans’ perspective about time confetti - that when we find an hour of leisure time, it’s all too easy to splinter the hour like confetti with a million unimportant things (read: phone notifications).
4
Truly a perspective-changer, I stopped counting the number of times I recommended Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do (and More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky to women this year. Also a podcast and Netflix doc, the Fair Play System takes the guesswork out of more fairly dividing the invisible, unpaid labor in the household. With wit and practicality, Rodsky shares her own journey to building the Fair Play system and why it works for so, so many couples. Even if you don’t adopt the entire system, recognizing that breaking up a task between partners without the full conception, planning and execution roadmap is certainly going to lead to someone being late to the birthday party.
5
I’m not sure how the recommendation for How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith hit my TBR, but my last read of 2022 was a surprise hit. The 12 habits highlighted were like sucker punches, but with a big warm hug to help overcome the habit that holds us back. Lacking self-promotion was a big one - and resonated with my other 2022 reads, Brag Better and Ladies Get Paid (see below).
6
What a thrill to re-read Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr this year as I studied directly with Mohr in her course for facilitators and coaches. Watching the material come to life in real time - to send our inner critics packing, to define negotiation as just a conversation, to learn to leap and grow with a collective of like-valued, empowering women all over the world was a highlight for me.
7
Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Busy Moms by Kate Northrup was recommended to me a few years ago, when reading a book felt like climbing to the top of Everest (I know, I know - that’s a bit dramatic - but I bet you know what I mean when you have small kids). Northrup takes us through her personal journey to realizing she needed to do less to thrive and then offers achievable experiments to put her do-less methods into practice.
8
I enjoyed The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price at the start of the summer, when I was hoping to infuse our longer days together with more fun. What I learned is that you can’t demand fun, it needs to be more organic than that. One of three of my 2022 reads written during the pandemic which directly impacted the content. On one hand, I quiver in the corner, thinking it’s “too soon” to talk about; on the other hand, it’s a balm to experience the fruit someone else harvested during such a trying time. Price also authored How to Break Up with Your Phone, so she understandably covers a lot of screen/life balance related to how much fun you have. Like any good values-based approach, The Power of Fun is rooted in finding what brings you pleasure and joy, building a “fun squad” to help you bring more of it into your life and celebrating the fun as it’s happening.
9
A true resource volume, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown will have a place on my shelf to reference emotions for years to come. I highly recommend checking out the audiobook version, as Brown’s off-script reading feels much like her podcasts.
10
Not just for your sock drawer, Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein, crafts an approachable practical guide to the Konmari Method at work - both on your desk, in your inbox and for your goals.
11
A fascinating follow-up to Fair Play, Eve Rodsky braves the early days of the pandemic, recognizing that as the days drag on, she’s losing part of herself. Already equipped with the system to define what she needs, Rodsky starts writing Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World as her unicorn space, in between zoom calls and remote school. The concept is simple - we are all creative people and we thrive when we find our creative outlet that we get to share with the world. For me personally, for now this has become drawing. I love sharing my unicorn space on IG and gifting to friends for special occasions.
12
The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness by Bari Tessler coats a reality check around money in a thick layer of decadent dark chocolate (IYKYK) through practical and actionable steps to build a relationship with your relationship. Tessler also just launched a workbook to walk through her approach in a self-directed way.
13
I learned that bragging isn’t a dirty word in Meredith Fineman’s Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion. Self-promotion is key to getting ahead and we can all benefit from getting clear about our personal message.
14
Stepping into the driver’s seat of your own career is critical and Claire Wasserman gives clear, actionable tools to implement in Ladies Get Paid: The Ultimate Guide to Breaking Barriers, Owning Your Worth, and Taking Command of Your Career.
15
I loved Adam Grant’s perspective that we should always be rethinking and evaluating with an eye to new information in Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know. I’m a huge fan of making decisive action based on the best info I have at had, and staying open to how my action/opinion needs to change when new info comes to light.
16
How to Raise an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi is what I consider the best parenting book I’ve ever read. Reading Dr. Kendi’s perspective as a parent and call to raising curious kids continues to inspire me as I strive to raise young women that I hope will lead with compassion and curiosity.
17
Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day by Amishi P. Jha, PhD caught me by surprise. I heard Dr. Jha on Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead Podcast and was immediately taken with her approach to attention. If you’re still not a meditation convert but desperately want to wrangle back your attention, I highly recommend checking this out. Part scientific exploration, part simple meditations to play with, Peak Mind makes overcoming overwhelm feel possible.
18
So many themes emerged from my 2022 reading list, and boundaries were a big one. Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab walks through not only Tawwab’s personal need for boundaries, but also her honed expertise for creating them in your own way.
19
Overall this wasn’t my favorite book of 2022, but the concept was worthy of exploring. The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward by Daniel H. Pink shifts thinking about regret as a place to feel stuck and rather think as a tool to live our life more in alignment with what we truly want.
20
I received The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks as a gift. This falls a bit in a woo-do category, a little woo woo with practical, doable steps to live in your “zone of genius.” As I learn more about burnout, I see Hendricks’ “upper limit problem” emerge when someone accomplishes or overcomes a big challenge and then immediately gets sick, or into a fender bender, or some other unfortunate (not generally catastrophic) event.
21
Most of what I read this year was recent, I’m also enjoying the “back catalog” of classic leadership resources. In Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek. So often, we get into action before we’ve had taken the time and space to map out the why.
22
In some ways, I felt like I was reading out of order - the sequel first. In Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most, Greg McKeown shares what life was like in his personal “disciplined pursuit of less” after Essentialism. McKeown maps out steps to live in an effortless state, going beyond removing the essentials. What happens when you’ve removed all the non-essentials and only the essentials remain, but it’s still too much?
23
The precursor to Effortless, in Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown helps us discern what’s essential and what isn’t, highlighting the impact of removing the noise, so only the essentials remain.