Michael Sliwinski

Founder and CEO of Nozbe

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Book Recommendations:

MS

Recommended by Michael Sliwinski

Now I’m reading @coachgoldsmith’s book: what got you here won’t get you there - and it’s brilliant! https://t.co/xwcnpbiCSL (from X)

America’s most sought-after executive coach shows how to climb the last few rungs of the ladder. The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They’re intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle -- and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small "transactional flaws" performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith’s straightforward, jargon-free advice, it’s amazingly easy behavior to change. Executives who hire Goldsmith for one-on-one coaching pay $250,000 for the privilege. With this book, his help is available for 1/10,000th of the price.

MS

Recommended by Michael Sliwinski

Peak book cover

by K. Anders Ericsson·You?

Selected as a Book of the Year by New Statesman Mozart wasn’t born with perfect pitch. Most athletes are not born with any natural advantage. Three world-class chess players were sisters, whose success was planned by their parents before they were even born. Anders Ericsson has spent thirty years studying The Special Ones, the geniuses, sports stars and musical prodigies. And his remarkable finding, revealed in Peak , is that their special abilities are acquired through training. The innate ‘gift’ of talent is a myth. Exceptional individuals are born with just one unique ability, shared by us all – the ability to develop our brains and bodies through our own efforts. Anders Ericsson’s research was the inspiration for the popular ‘10,000-hour rule’ but, he tells us, this rule is only the beginning of the story. It’s not just the hours that are important but how you use them. We all have the seeds of excellence within us – it’s merely a question of how to make them grow. With a bit of guidance, you’ll be amazed at what the average person can achieve. The astonishing stories in Peak prove that potential is what you make it.

MS

Recommended by Michael Sliwinski

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF 2O16 PICK IN BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP WALL STREET JOURNAL BUSINESS BESTSELLER A BUSINESS BOOK OF THE WEEK AT 800-CEO-READ Master one of our economy’s most rare skills and achieve groundbreaking results with this “exciting” book (Daniel H. Pink) from an “exceptional” author (New York Times Book Review). Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep Work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill. 1. Work Deeply 2. Embrace Boredom 3. Quit Social Media 4. Drain the Shallows A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. Deep Work is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.

MS

Recommended by Michael Sliwinski

THE LIFE-CHANGING NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • MORE THAN TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD “Essentialism holds the keys to solving one of the great puzzles of life: How can we do less but accomplish more?”—Adam Grant, bestselling author of Think Again Essentialism isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin? Are you often busy but not productive? Do you feel like your time is constantly being hijacked? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the Essentialist. Essentialism is more than a time-management technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for where to spend our precious time and energy, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices, instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us. Essentialism is not one more thing to do. It’s a whole new way of doing less, but better, in every area of our lives. Join the millions of people who have used Essentialism to change their outlook on the world.

MS

Recommended by Michael Sliwinski

The book Lifehack calls "The Bible of business and personal productivity." "A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"—Fast Company Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites, organizational tools, seminars, and offshoots. Allen has rewritten the book from start to finish, tweaking his classic text with important perspectives on the new workplace, and adding material that will make the book fresh and relevant for years to come. This new edition of Getting Things Done will be welcomed not only by its hundreds of thousands of existing fans but also by a whole new generation eager to adopt its proven principles.