Greetings from Barcelona☀️
🙌Many thanks for reading The Quest.
If you are joining for the first time, welcome to our deep dive into facilitation, learning, and how to live a creative life.
This week I’m excited to share the ✨The Quest Essential Summer Reading List✨ with 6 books that will help you become an exceptional facilitator.
Let’s jump right in!
📚6 Books That Will Help You Become an Exceptional Facilitator (and all-round better person😅)
Last year I shared a reading list of 6 handpicked books that led to breakthroughs in my facilitation practice. The books gave me insights on how to gather well, empower group members, build connections online, give better feedback, and ask better questions.
This year I have added 6 more books. None of them actually have “facilitation” in the title. But each book reveals the secrets to exceptional facilitation. These include listening, curiosity, self-awareness, creating memorable moments, authenticity, presence, and more.
So here it is… The 2022 Quest Essential Summer Reading List 🥁
1. 💪The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier
2. 💡The Power of Moments: Chip Heath and Dan Heath
3. 🧭The Heroine’s Journey, Gail Carriger
4. 🔥Embrace Your Weird, Felicia Day
5. 🔎Insight, Tasha Eurich
6. 🗣️Find Your Voice, Caroline Goyder
Want a quick summary and my favorite insights from each book? Read on👇
1. 💪The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, Michael Bungay Stanier
Coaching and facilitation are like first cousins. To be an exceptional facilitator you need some coaching skills. Facilitators often turn to our coaching cousins to learn the art of active listening and asking good questions.
In the Coaching Habit, Stanier has distilled the 7 core questions at the heart of exceptional coaching. These questions have helped me lead better group discussions and spark more breakthroughs for my group members.
My favorite insights👇
👉Stop giving advice and start asking questions. Asking the right question will lead others to find the right solution to the right problem.
👉Ask what not why. “Why” puts people on the defensive. “What” opens up a conversation.
👉Get comfortable with silence. Silence lets people think and creates space for learning and insight.
2. 💡The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, Chip Heath and Dan Heath
What makes for “defining moments” and how can you create more of them? That’s the question that the Heath brothers answer in their book The Power of Moments.
This book helped me to start thinking in moments. It’s helped me shift from designing workshops to designing experiences.
My favorite insights👇
👉Design defining moments. Build “peak experiences” by adding interactive elements that spark emotions.
👉Break the script. Disrupt routines and welcome humanity and spontaneity into the system.
👉Create shared meaning. Design a mission that binds people together.
3. 🧭The Heroine’s Journey, Gail Carriger
You may be familiar with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. It has shaped modern storytelling and moviemaking (think Star Wars). And it can teach us a lot about how to design transformative learning experiences.
But as an individual quest, I always felt that there was something missing in the Hero’s Journey. Group work is both an individual journey and a collective quest.
That’s why I had a major “aha!” moment reading the Heroine’s Journey by fiction writer Gail Carriger. It’s a book for fiction writers. But there are also profound lessons for facilitators. Especially when it comes to the power of networks and community in becoming better versions of ourselves.
My favorite insights👇
👉On strength: Requesting help from others is a sign of strength.
👉On power: The heroine has her most powerful moments with others.
👉On endings: The heroine is more likely to get a happy ending surrounded by friends and family.
4. 🔥Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity, Felicia Day
This was one of my favorite books of the last year. Maybe even ever.
Day writes a (hilarious) book about embracing your weird. By that, she means the things that make you unique. She argues that your weirdness is the fuel for your creativity. It’s one of the best and most practical books I’ve read on authenticity, one of the exceptional facilitation superpowers.
My favorite insights👇
👉Being weird is about being yourself. Channeling that uniqueness helps others build trust in you.
👉We need to know the truth about ourselves to create. That means taking time to build our self-knowledge.
👉 Self-awareness is a muscle we need to flex. It will make us more comfortable expressing our point of view.
5. 🔎Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, And Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think, Tasha Eurich
Self-awareness can be one of those fuzzy concepts that’s difficult to wrestle down. That’s why I loved the book Insight by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich. She unveils the secrets about self-awareness, what it is and how to build it.
This book reminded me how crucial it is to keep developing self-awareness to increase safety and trust with groups.
My favorite insights👇
👉Self-awareness is a developable skill. It can be long difficult, and messy. And It never really ends.
👉Reframing helps increase self-knowledge. Looking from new and different angles gives us an opportunity to grow.
👉To be truly self-aware we need to know how others see us. Seek out feedback from people who will tell you the truth.
6. 🗣️Find Your Voice: The Secret to Talking with Confidence in Any Situation, Caroline Goyder
What really helps you connect to your relaxed, expressive, confident power? That’s what voice coach (and Quest Reader hi Caroline 👋) Caroline Goyder reveals in her book Find Your Voice.
Find Your Voice taught me how voice and breath are connected to presence – yet another facilitator superpower. And thanks to Caroline I now sing before every live session to help me tune up my voice.😅
My favorite insights👇
👉Your voice is an instrument that improves with practice. The best way to practice is to sing (I have tried it – it works!).
👉Your diaphragm is the “king of confidence”. It helps you to control stress and keep calm in front of an audience.
👉We breathe our thoughts. Understanding how to use your breath is the secret to developing your presence.
What is on your essential summer reading list? Hit reply and let me know!
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
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Special shout-outs to 🙌 Berta, Gillian, Connie, Joan, Jenny SK, Adam, Michaele, and Barb.
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Creatively yours,
