Books Recommended by Ashley Hathaway

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell has got to be at least one of my all-time favorites. I reference it constantly. If you’re not familiar the book is just a conversation between the journalist Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, who worked in comparative mythology and religious studies. It so beautifully brings every human experience together from the beginning of time. The world is basically explained through archetypes of people and the stories we tell. I highly recommend it and re-read parts regularly.

I could probably name a dozen books here, but I’ll point out The Business Model Generation and Value Prop Design from Strategyzer. I steal from these constantly and are engrained in my work process. These books put into practice really taught me how to think. As soon as I saw that everything should have a foundation of empathy, what good user-testing looks like, how to test and iterate it changed everything. After that any problem could be solved. It wasn’t solving one big monolithic problem. It was going through a process.

One thing I have learned is that some books don’t stick or I’m not ready for them at that time and that’s ok. Now if I get 50 or 100 pages in and lose interest I don’t struggle through the rest of it. I put it down and find another book. I try to just stick with books that I think about when I’m not reading. When I’m standing in line somewhere or walking and think “I wonder what’s next.” That’s a good book. I’m in the middle of Brene Brown’s new book right now.

I’d say Finite & Infinite games was my favorite & quite impactful. They were all impactful, actually. I read my altMBA books on a beach in Kauai (highly recommended). It was odd though because I was by myself and it was just- total knowledge bombs all over the place. Reading the altMBA books in rapid succession like that took a few months to digest honestly.

I could probably name a dozen books here, but I’ll point out The Business Model Generation and Value Prop Design from Strategyzer. I steal from these constantly and are engrained in my work process. These books put into practice really taught me how to think. As soon as I saw that everything should have a foundation of empathy, what good user-testing looks like, how to test and iterate it changed everything. After that any problem could be solved. It wasn’t solving one big monolithic problem. It was going through a process.