With 42 percent of the U.S. labor force working from home and a nearly unimaginable 81 percent of the global workforce having had workplaces fully or partly closed, it may seem like the time to curl up and watch television. But think: You may have no commute, and if you go to an office, it may be quiet and less stressful. It’s the perfect time to think about how you’d like your career to progress when the world reopens. Here are some books–some new, one classic–to get you focused on the future.
What’s New?
Presence, by Harvard professor Amy Cuddy, helps you hone your “soft skills”–including how to think about any big challenges you may be facing.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear.
The key to this strategy: rather than focusing on the big picture, start small. The book
maps out a method for building the habits, and thus the career and life that you want.
Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds by Carmine Gallo. If you’re a fan of TED talks, you’ll want to read more about how presentation skills work to get a message across. It’s an important business skill, and an enviable one since so many are nervous about speaking. It may help you get back up to speed after work-at-home days hidden behind the screen.
Tried-and-True Classic
It may have been your parents’ go-to business guide or your granddad’s. That’s because people have trusted its strategies for decades.
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. This 1936 book is so well known it’s cited on a list of the best 100 nonfiction books of all time. Its homespun wisdom translates, today, into forming positive relationships in careers and life.
Eyes on the Future
Plenty of books focus on career skills, but The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century
by Adam Davidson takes on what’s going on in the economy with hope. Whatever you do in this changing world, he suggests, embrace it with optimism.