My favorite materials for self development
If you also work in a corporation you are most likely prompt regularly to go through trainings: whether it is a new product line, new features, improved sales models, HR or legal courses, enterprises nowadays have understood it is critical for employees to grow on a constant basis and be aware of evolutions internally and within their market.
While I find these trainings are beneficial and essential, I also like to rely on outside sources to enrich my perspective, grow other aspects of my spirit. Therefore, I seek additional information & materials.
You’ll find below a list of the best tools I rely on to feed my brain!
My favorite podcast: The Life Coach School
Whether I am on my way to a meeting and taking a jog, there’s one podcast I always go back to: The Life Coach School podcast. The teachings of Brooke Castillo have taught me so much in terms of understanding my mind, my thought process and how these bring me the results I want to obtain - or not! Her model is a tool you will use over and over to analyze your thoughts and yield your positive thinking. The basis being the more your thinking is positive, the more your results will be as well. The framework is based on a five steps analysis: what are your circumstances, what are your thoughts, what are the feelings coming from these thoughts, what are the actions you are following with and what are the results you are getting. So - so powerful. I highly recommend you checking out this podcast! It first aired in 2014 so there’s a LOT of episodes and if you are not familiar with the model, I’d recommend you start from the very beginning.
My favorite newsletter: The Harvard Business Review Tip of Day
This newsletter what recommended to me by a friend and I have been subscribed for several years now. It is a fantastic way to get insights for managers or aspiring managers on situations they’ll encounter in their day to day work life. Whether it is on dealing with stress, being more productive, growing your clients’ base, dealing with difficult members of your teams ; all article are very helpful with their input. I also love HBR’s format: you’ll receive it on a weekly basis and the content is pretty short which makes it easily accessible even on your craziest, most busy weeks. You can subscribe here. They also have a Leadership newsletter, Best of the Issue newsletter and The Daily Alerts which links to digital articles published in the last 24 hours.
My favorite book: Lean In
Especially early in my career, I found it difficult to position myself as a women within the company. Imposter syndrome: check ; difficulty to speak during team meetings: check ; modesty around my accomplishments: check. Sheryl Sandberg’s first book Lean In was recommended to me years ago by my then mentor at Cisco. And I am so, so, so glad I read it as it completely changed my perspective. This book brought me such powerful insight on how to navigate a corporate environment and taught me that it’s not only ok to be different, it’s necessary for richer teams. I highly recommend this read both to women in business AND for men in business to be more sensitive to driving inclusion and diversity within the teams.
What are your favorite tools to expand your learning? Do share them in the comments, I am always keen to expand to new sources.
Have a great day!