Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

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Interview: Books for Career Practitioners

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Join me for another Peak-Careers Interview with a few of my kindred spirits in the book world.

My guests today are:

— Scott Woodard, is a career development coach

— David Lee  is a trainer and job search strategist

— Amy Pierce-Danders is the founder of E³ Coaching Studio.

(1) How do you find the time to read? When is it? 

(2) Favorite books in 2022

Picture of 4 people being interviewed
Watch now.
With Scott Woodard, Jim Peacock, Amy Pierce-Danders, David Lee

Here are the books we mentioned in the interview:

BIO’s

Scott Woodard is a career development coach, helping people advance in their careers. He customizes a framework of Purpose, Clarity, Focus, and Strategy to help clients identify and articulate the story of their unique value — their Leadership Narrative. He works with them to develop clear, concise, crisp (not canned) stories that convey their value; how they achieve that value; and examples of those achievements. He then develops strategies that help get them to where they want to be.

Scott has coached people from all walks of life: corporate executives and elected officials challenged to transform their organizations; Boomers trying to determine the “second acts” of their lives, and new graduates starting out in their first career.

He lives the ex-pat life in Ajijic, Mexico with his wife, a retired psychotherapist — so he is truly in touch with his feelings. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Amy Pierce-Danders is the founder of E³ Coaching Studio.  Her sole driver as a Career+Life Strategist is to act as a guide to help humans uncover their purposes and passions so they can live an unapologetic life. Amy has helped over 3,000 people in their journey. Her desired legacy is to leave an imprint of impact on the corner of the world she touches. Amy is a sought-after trainer delivering impactful career development and workforce readiness programs; she has presented at 100+ events.Amy Pierce-Danders Career+Life Strategist(616) 552-9702[email protected]Social Channels: www.e3coachingstudio.comFacebookLinkedIn

David Lee is a Job Search and Career Change Coach and the founder of SoulSatisfyingWork.com. A 3X career changer, he has an extensive background in the mind/body medicine and resilience fields, as well as over 20 years as a corporate trainer and keynote speaker. He’s the author of Dealing with a Difficult Co-Worker as well as over 100 articles and book chapters on individual and organizational performance. You can learn more about him at his website and Linkedin links
https://soulsatisfyingwork.com/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidlee-maine 

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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My 2020 Book Reviews

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I love to read. Normally I have a “professional” book going that I read in the morning before I dive into work and a “fun” or “historical novel” that I read in the evenings. Here are the books I’ve read in 2020 in three categories; Books that make me better. Historical / Non-Fiction. Just for Fun. I assume if you are reading this, you love reading books too…check out this interview I did recently with four other book lovers. Watch now.

Each link below will take you to a short summary I have written about the book. I do this so I can share book ideas with others and to help me remember which books I’ve read and the actual correct title and author 🙂

 Books That Make Me Better

Retirement by Design:  A Guided Workbook for Creating a Happy and Purposeful Future. By Ida O. Abbott, JD.

Life’s Great Question : Discover How YOU Contribute To The World. By Tom Rath. Author of Strengths Finder as well. Good stuff here.

Transpirations: Guidance for the Head & Heart through Career and Beyond. By Thomas Bachhuber, Ed.D. A view of the career process with through the filter that Thomas calls, Transpirations is a combination of “transitions” and “spirits”as he says, “transitions inspired by the spirit.” 

The Introvert’s Complete Career Guide: From Landing a Job to Surviving, Thriving, and Moving Up. By Jane Finkle. As an extrovert, I am always looking for insights on introverts to better understand them. 

Small Teaching Online Applying Learning Science in Online Classes. by Flower Darby with James M. Lang. I’ve been teaching online for 18 years and this reinforced much of what I know and gave me some great tips.

Virtual Training Basics by Cindy Huggett . Ditto to my above comment.

Small Teaching :Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. By James M. Lang. This is filled with research on how people learn and much of this was instituted into Flower Darby’s book above.

Creative Lives: An Anthology by Ed Murphy. It is a collection of stories from a variety of people who work in a creative industry and how they got into their jobs.


The Treasure Hunt of Your Life: Seeking Your Calling, Encountering God, Finding Yourself. By Rebecca Schlatter Liberty. I love how serendipity is included in this book of the “treasure hunt”.

 Walking with Glenn Berkenkamp: 35 Wellness Walks to Expand Awareness, Increase Vitality, and Reduce Stress. By Glenn Berkenkamp. My backpacking buddy Howard sent this to me, knowing that I love to do walking-meditation.

Historical and Non-Fiction

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate By Mark Kurlansky. This book is worth it for the pictures in it alone. But his world-wide research on what is killing off salmon is fascinating and frightening.

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster. By Adam Higginbotham. I knew this was a bad thing but had no idea of the depth of the event and how the Russians had hid it from the world for so long.

America’s Game: The epic story of how pro football captured a nation. By Michael MacCambridge. Yep, football and why it is America’s sport. Its great.

Beyond The Trees by Adam Shoalts. If you love the wilderness and canoeing, you will love this 2500 mile canoe trip across the top of Canada.

The Invention of Nature: Alexander Van Humboldt’s New World By Andrea Wulf. Van Humboldt was probably one of the last people on earth who literally knew everything there was to know about all of the sciences in the 1800’s and he was able to tie it all together to give us understanding of nature in a completely different way.

Road to Valor by Aili and Andres McConnon. Thank God people like Aili and Andres saved this story about the Italian bicyclist who rode in WWII. This should not be forgotten.

 JUST FOR FUN BOOKS

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. John LeCarre

As I write this blog, I am finishing up Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre who sadly passed away this month. I will have a link here later this week.

Port City Crossfire. By Gerry Boyle

Flood Tide. By Clive Cussler

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association.

Sign up here to receive my  TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON.  You will also receive the career practitioner’s weekly email on a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more.