Summer is approaching, and it’s time for accountants to dive into new reading time to rejuvenate, refresh, and re-expand their horizons. So here are my three recommendations for you to try something different that will illuminate and supercharge your gray cells, which you can apply to enhance your work and life.

In no particular order:

This #1 Wall Street Journal Best Seller and USA Today Best Seller by TED Talk sensation Susan David presents a super-compelling, counterintuitive approach to achieving your true potential, heralded by the Harvard Business Review as a groundbreaking idea of the year (2016).

Drawing on her deep research, decades of international consulting, and her own experience overcoming adversity after losing her father at a young age, David shows how anyone can thrive in an uncertain world by becoming more emotionally agile. To guide us, she shares four key concepts that allow us to acknowledge uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them, thereby allowing us to embrace our core values and adjust our actions so they can move us where we truly want to go.

Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David (Author)

When she requested, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” 60% of people let her skip ahead of them in line.

To know this and much more about human behavior and how you can ethically and powerfully leverage it to create more significant influence, don’t miss this book. This is one of the topmost books that has had a profoundly positive personal and professional impact on me. I bet you will refer to it repeatedly, year after year.

The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion—a renowned international bestseller with over 5 million copies sold—is now revised, adding new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.

In the world of artificial intelligence and how the accounting profession will transform like never before because of AI, accountants will need to master human faculties in more profound ways to create new value for themselves and their clients. This book will empower you to build a strong foundation for that future.

Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini, Ph.D. (Author)

Talking of AI, hasn’t ChatGPT amused you? But it is just one star in the galaxy of Artificial Intelligence.

When the creators of such tools cannot confidently predict what AI can/will do, accountants – responsible for protecting client interests and client data confidentiality – must learn how AI is created, how it learns (on its own), and how it works. You can almost always know what your traditional software does, but AI is not traditional software.

Bought so far by accountants from seven Countries across three Continents, this “exclusively for accountants” essential AI guidebook defogs the enigma of implementing AI, simplifying the understanding of AI fundamentals with several accounting-specific examples and presenting a roadmap to launching AI initiatives that will get predictable results.

With real-world AI examples about common accounting work processes to trigger your own ideas, you’ll learn how to identify high-impact AI opportunities, prepare your firm for a planned AI transition, and measure the performance of your AI initiatives.

Rise of The AiCCOUNTANTS™ - The Essential Guide to The What, Why, and How of AI for Accountants - by yours truly, Hitendra R. Patil. Also available on Google Play and Apple Books.

Happy summer reading!