Recommended Reading List

• Empowerment & Leadership

Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations

By: William Ury

In Getting Past No, William Ury of Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation offers a proven breakthrough strategy for turning adversaries into negotiating partners.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Good Vibes, Good Life: How Self-Love Is the Key to Unlocking Your Greatness

By: Vex King

How can you learn to truly love yourself? How can you transform negative emotions into positive ones? Is it possible to find lasting happiness? In this book, Instagram guru Vex King answers all of these questions and more.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Positive Affirmations for Black Women: Attract Love, Success, Happiness, Wealth and Abundance, Increase Confidence & Self-Love, Improve Your Mindset

By: Limitless Abundance

The words we say to ourselves have immense power and impact over our lives. What you think, you become. Affirmations restructure the dynamic of our brains so that we truly begin to think nothing is impossible. This book contains a collection of affirmations written specifically for Black women. Positive affirmations are a great way to combat subconscious thoughts, by allowing you to focus your energy on encouraging positive changes in your life.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

By: Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have spent the past fifteen years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. In Thanks for the Feedback, they explain why receiving feedback is so crucial yet so challenging, offering a simple framework and powerful tools to help us take on life’s blizzard of offhand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited input with curiosity and grace. They blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, hard-headed advice. Thanks for the Feedback is destined to become a classic in the fields of leadership, organizational behavior, and education.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Self-Love Workbook for Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are

By: Megan Logan MSW LCSW

Embrace who you are with this guided self-love book for women of any age and any background. This year, you’ll embark on your journey of self-discovery by learning what self-love is, and then immersing yourself in activities that help you build your self-esteem and improve your relationships. This book includes a variety of exercises to engage with your sense of self-love, and the companion journal encourages you to go even deeper with writing and reflection.

• Empowerment & Leadership

For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color

By: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez

For generations, Brown girls have had to push against powerful forces of sexism, racism, and classism, often feeling alone in the struggle. By founding Latina Rebels, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez has created a community to help women fight together. In For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she offers wisdom and a liberating path forward for all women of color.

• Empowerment & Leadership

The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Stop People-Pleasing: Finally, Put Yourself First, Set Boundaries with Confidence, and Release the Negativity in Saying NO!

By: C. Jeffrey

If you struggle to say “no” to others, usually at the expense of your own needs, know that there’s a way out. This guide was specially written for highly sensitive people like you, whose empathetic nature can sometimes be used against them. You’ll see that it’s possible to utilize the power of your heightened sensitivity while overcoming your people-pleasing and self-defeating tendencies at the same time.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Sensitive Is the New Strong: The Power of Empaths in an Increasingly Harsh World

By: Anita Moorjani

In a time when traits like sensitivity, kindness, and compassion are sorely undervalued, Anita Moorjani helps empaths—whether emerging or acknowledged—navigate obstacles they may face and identify what makes them unique. She teaches them how to claim their true powers as empaths and to be their most authentic selves.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

By: Simon Sinek

In his work with organizations around the world, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so deeply that they would literally put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why? The answer became clear during a conversation with a Marine Corps general. “Officers eat last,” he said. Sinek watched as the most junior Marines ate first while the most senior Marines took their place at the back of the line. What’s symbolic in the chow hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort–even their own survival–for the good of those in their care.

• Empowerment & Leadership

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

By: Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher

We attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day-whether dealing with an underperforming employee, disagreeing with a spouse, or negotiating with a client. From the Harvard Negotiation Project, the organization that brought you Getting to Yes, Difficult Conversations provides a step-by-step approach to having those tough conversations with less stress and more success.

• Empowerment & Leadership

The Gifts of Imperfection

By: Brené Brown

What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practices are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way.