Insights Aug 21, 2020

13 books we are reading this summer

For many of us fortunate enough to be able to stay home during the quarantine period books have been a source of calm and wisdom. Our team has selected some of the favorite books that got us through the summer and helped us level up in knowledge and skill.

We hope you enjoy our picks. 

Happy reading. 

Business

The Lido Club Hotel (Images of America)  

By Joanne Belli (Author)

This book is the best of two worlds for the history buffs; it covers both golf and a look into a  history of real estate development in Long Beach. Lido Beach Hotel with an adjacent Golf club was bought and operated by Sen. William H. Reynolds in 1928. During WWII it was used as a naval training facility. After the war, it was leased to a newly-formed United Nations and in 1947 went back to the civilian hands to become a luxurious seaside resort. Finally, in 1980 the resort was converted into a luxury condominium. Throughout the year’s many celebrities and historical figures visited or lived on the property.

— Masha Sharma, Co-founder and CTO at RealAtom

Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West 

By Justin Farrell (Author)

“A Yale sociology professor documents the class divide in Teton County, Wyo., where ultra-wealthy tech CEOs, financiers, and political figures are buying up land and romanticizing rural poverty in order to improve their own socioeconomic status.”

— Publishers Weekly

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution

By Gregory Zuckerman (Author)

Read about James Simmons, a billionaire hedge fund manager who is an award-winning mathematician, philanthropist, and world’s most successful investor. This book is great for investment professionals because it touches on the Medallion fund, Simons’s Renaissance Technologies company that has achieved a staggering 69% return and spills a bit of a secret sauce. 

— Yulia Yaani, Co-founder and CEO at RealAtom

Productivity

Applied Flow: Stop Burnout. Be Awesome

By Heather C. Ingram (Author)

High performing teams have leaders who focus their laser-like attention on increasing productivity and minimizing team burnout. We have been thrust into a new reality. The invisible pandemic has shifted many team workers to work from their homes while dealing with new psychological demands. This shift is causing unprecedented burnout across many fields.

Applied Flow is a proven, powerful resource for leaders, creators, and workers who desire to live a happier life in general and seek tools to battle burnout on their team members. 

Heather connects the dots, showing how burnout is a hidden catalyst for corporate stagnation or even its death. In an engaging and visual way, she lays out a framework to help get back in the flow, and increase performance and overall happiness.

— Masha Sharma, Co-founder, and CTO at RealAtom

Thrive: Ten Prescriptions for Exceptional Performance as a Commercial Real Estate Agent

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

Author Blaine Strickland, an expert dealmaker, coach, and instructor, dives into several proven strategies that can accelerate your commercial real estate brokerage career by showing how to build a team and a process to support scaled growth. To which we will just add, don’t forget to partner with the right technology provider to enable your day-to-day interactions.

— Amazon Review

Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

In Joy at Work, bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo and Rice University business professor Scott Sonenshein offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters.

— Amazon Review

Leadership

Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership revolutionizes business management and challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

— Amazon Review

Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say–and What You Don’t 

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

In his last book, Turn the Ship Around!, Marquet told the incredible story of abandoning command-and-control leadership on his submarine and empowering his crew to turn the worst performing submarine to the best performer in the fleet. Now, with Leadership is Language he gives business people the tools they need to achieve such transformational leadership in their organizations.

— Amazon Review

What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

People know who Stephen Schwarzman is — at least they think they do. He’s the man who took $400,000 and co-founded Blackstone, the investment firm that manages over $500 billion (as of January 2019). He’s the CEO whose views are sought by heads of state. He’s the billionaire philanthropist who founded Schwarzman Scholars, this century’s version of the Rhodes Scholarship, in China. But behind these achievements is a man who has spent his life learning and reflecting on what it takes to achieve excellence, make an impact, and live a life of consequence.

Building Blackstone into the leading global financial institution it is today didn’t come easy. Schwarzman focused intensely on culture, hiring great talent, and establishing processes that allow the firm to systematically analyze and evaluate risk. Schwarzman’s simple mantra “don’t lose money” has helped Blackstone become a leading private equity and real estate investor, and manager of alternative assets for institutional investors globally. Both he and the firm are known for the rigor of their investment process, their innovative approach to deal-making, the diversification of their business lines, and a conviction to be the best at everything they do.

— Amazon Review

Life & Health

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

Economics is the science of decision-making, and Cribsheet is a thinking parent’s guide to the chaos and frequent misinformation of the early years. Emily Oster is a trained expert — and mom of two — who can empower us to make better, less fraught decisions — and stay sane in the years before preschool.

— Amazon Review

Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age

By Blaine Strickland (Author)

From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth.

— Amazon Review

Food Fix: How to Save Our Health, Our Economy, Our Communities, and Our Planet–One Bite at a Time

by Dr. Mark Hyman

Pairing the latest developments in nutritional and environmental science with an unflinching look at the dark realities of the global food system and the policies that make it possible, Food Fix is a hard-hitting manifesto that will change the way you think about — and eat — food forever and will provide solutions for citizens, businesses, and policymakers to create a healthier world, society, and planet.

— Amazon Review

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