12 Books I am Re-Reading in 2025
One of the things I love most about books is the messages you receive from them change every time you read them. One of the things I love most about sharing books with friends is that the messages they receive and the messages you receive are going to be different with similarities here and there.
2024 was a year of major change, growth, upleveling, and stillness for me. I’ve said this often to friends and family who ask “2024 was simultaneously the best year and the hardest year of my life so far.” As it turns out, welcoming a child (just one) to the world, while keeping up at work and with family/friends is a real tough-y.
I am sure 2025 will have it’s own challenges: At home, Ronnie and I are planning to be more intentional about the time we spend together this year, during 2024 between one of us having to stay home with Charlie (awake or asleep) all nights and weekends, plus our demanding travel schedule (work and play), the time we did spend together at home left us both wanting more. On the note of Charlie, she is in full-out toddler mode now, we often joke that she’s in “Wreck-It Ralph-mode” as she struts around the house destroying things in her path. At work, 2024 was a fantastic selling season for my team, I am so proud of what each of them individually and collectively accomplished, which means 2025 is all about keeping that trend going. And in my writing, 2024 was a year of “just be consistent,” whereas 2025 my vision is more “plan like an engineer so you can live like an artist.”
Which leads me to this: I am SO excited to pick up some books that have been life-defining, career-defining, and utterly game-changing in so many ways. AGAIN. These are the 12 books that I am going to re-read this year, okay actually there’s 13 but the last one is a bonus book. And damnnnn am I excited. My energy towards returning to these books feels a bit like going back to college campus to revisit my favorite professors and catch up for the first time in a long time.
Drum. Roll. Please.
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Books to Support Your Self-Worth, Authenticity, and Integrity
1. JANUARY - The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck - You are born with your own true nature, and then you hit culture. And when your true nature and culture clash, you sell out your true nature to culture. In this book, Martha shares why you do this, how to stop doing it, and the bliss you’ll open yourself up to on the other side.
2. FEBRUARY - You 2 by Price Pritchett, Ph.D. - The idea behind this book is that you can go from your present state of abundance, joy, and success to one exponentially greater without any incremental effort. In this book, Dr Pritchett presents the science of this patter in nature, and how given the human experience is just a fractal mirroring the possibilities of nature, we too are capable of quantum leaps.
3. MARCH - The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks - The big idea of this book is that we all have an self-induced limit on how much success we can hold, and when we hit that limit we knowingly or unknowingly self-sabotage. In this book, Gay presents the problem, and helps you spot the ways you are “upper limiting” in your own life, so you can expand your ability to hold success.
4. APRIL - 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan - The big idea here is that the path to 2x success is doubling your current efforts, whereas the path to 10x success requires something vastly different, as you can’t 10x your way to 10x, you’ll hit very real constraints before that’s possible. In this book, Dan presents the problem of 2x, presents why going 10x is actually easier, and provides tools for how to 10x your own life.
5. MAY - Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima - The big idea here is that you do not rise to the level of what you believe is possible, you fall to the level of what you believe you are worthy of. In this book, Jamie shares her own journey with self-worth (she’s a self-made billionaire who still struggles with self-worth) and presents tools for how she wrestles with the topic in her own life, and shares tools for how you can do so as well.
Books to Support Your Ambitious Goals
6. JUNE - ManifestHer by Stef Caldwell - The big idea here is that when you get to the end of the road of your “prescribed life” you hit a very real feeling of jumping off into the abyss of eternity, and that’s a damn long time to spend aimlessly wandering. In this book, I share my own journey wandering this abyss, as well as the tools and practical exercises I put myself through to navigate out of it and back onto the path of fulfilling my potential.
7. JULY - The Source by Dr Tara Swart - The big idea here is that our brains are wired to co-conspire with the universe to deliver everything we want in our lives. In this book, Dr Swart presents the science of how setting goals activates our RAS (reticular activating system), and how our RAS is a filter deciding what we let into our consciousness, and how the more present we are to our desires, the more help our RAS can be on our journey to bringing all of those manifestations into our lives.
8. AUGUST - Atomic Habits by James Clear - The big idea here is that we do not rise to the level of our goals, but we fall to the level of our systems and the identities we embody. In this book, James presents the problems with goals, and shares tools for embodying the identities you want to step into, as well as ways you can set up systems to help you take action to embody those identities in your day to day.
9. SEPTEMBER - Thrive by Arianna Huffington - The big idea here is that the Western definition of a successful life is deeply misguided towards the pursuits of material pleasures and financial success at the cost of our health, relationships, creativity, and purpose. In this book, Arianna presents a new metric for success, and how she wrestles with the topic in her own life, sharing tools and resources for you to do so as well.
Books to Help Reset and Remind
10. OCTOBER - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - The big idea here is that our lives are filled to the brim with material possessions that don’t bring us joy, and as a result our lives are crowded, we feel dis-ease in our physical spaces, and this translates to the peace we feel in the world. In this book, Marie presents a simple framework for decluttering your personal space, which is really a great analogy for decluttering everything else in your life.
11. NOVEMBER - The Body Book by Cameron Diaz - The big idea here is that we take our physical vessels for granted, and for many of us it takes a great awakening to stop doing that. In this book, Cameron presents an idea of what it means to care for our bodies in the modern world, and the tools that she was led to when she started asking herself what it meant to nourish her physical being.
12. DECEMBER - Why We Sleep By Matthew Walker - The big idea here is that sleep is the greatest resource we all have for upleveling every aspect of our being from our physical health, to our relationships, to our performance at the office or in our creative endeavors. In this book, Matthew gets into the science of sleep, how it alters our brain chemistry, how sleep supports the creative process, and all the other reasons why if you’re committed to living your best life, you need to also be committed to excellent sleep hygiene.
Bonus Book
13. DECEMBER #2 - Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown - The big idea here is that we’re always focused on more, more, more, but in reality, the key to success is less, less, less. In this book, Greg presents tools for stripping away the layers of excess, helping you find your way to the core practices that fuel your success, so you can do less, and achieve more.
I am genuinely SO excited to revisit these books, and I am secretly hoping you will read and enjoy them right alongside me. I put them in this order for a reason, because I think what it will take to get the most out of each read as you work your way through them is to take the lessons from each prior book with you into the next one.
First, we’ll expand our self-worth, look at where we are being driven by our ego to material successes, rather than by our true nature and what our core essences is being called to become. Then, we’ll revisit ambition, setting goals and embodying new identities that ideally are aligned with our true nature and authentic code. Finally, we’ll purge some of the unhealthy aspects of our physical spaces and beings, so we can return to that which is essential, fueling our success for the year ahead.
Ahhhh it’s going to be such a nourishing experience. I can’t stinking wait.
DM me if you want to read alongside me. I am thinking of doing a little zoom book club on Sunday mornings at the end of each month to bring together like minded readers to chat about these books and share our individual and mutual experiences with them…. Weeeeee!!!!! Doesn’t that sound fun!?!?! :)
Xo!
