FALL BACK TO READING SERIES – Featuring Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

This year, as the seasons change and we enjoy fall, I’ve launched my FALL BACK TO READING SERIES. The series will feature two dozen leadership and marketing experts, who will share their inspiration in both fiction and nonfiction, and hopefully, provide the impetus to read more. To quote New York Times Bestselling author Kristin Harmel, “If you give a person a book, you give him the world.” For today’s post, I’d like to introduce Dr. Natalie Petouhoff.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff is a customer and employee experience consultant, speaker, and co-author of the WSJ best-selling book Empathy in Action. Working side-by-side with top executives, her new theories are transforming the bottom line, by focusing on the two most important assets in a company, the customer and the employee. By transforming their experiences, she is able to show executives how to reduce costs and increase revenue, even in a tough economy.

QUESTION: Which three business books have made the biggest impact on your career?
DR. NATALIE PETOUHOFF: Here are my four:

Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, David Searls, and David Weinberger: This book stands out because these authors predicted that there would be a time where technology would transform all of our lives. Think Internet and digital social media. Their account of the future (the book was first published to the web in 1999 and as a book in 2000) was hauntingly amazing, and their foresight was incredible.

The Experience Economy by Joe Pine: This book really was the pioneer on establishing the value on the experience that the customer has on the brand as well as on profitability.

When More is Not Better by Roger Martin: Roger has taken the current accounting principles and turned them on their head! He's really driving new economic profitability models that include customer and employee experience.

Bold by Peter Diamandis: This is a book about the art of the possible, showing us that there is enough for everyone, especially with advancing exponential technologies that make things possible in ways that were never possible before.

QUESTION: Who is your favorite author, and why?
DR. NATALIE PETOUHOFF: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I love this book (and author) because it reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering, so that we can become who we truly are meant to be.

QUESTION: What book did you read in high school or college that, to this day, you still remember vividly, and why?
DR. NATALIE PETOUHOFF: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is that book for me. Here's a stand-out quote from the book: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

I love this quote because it is the essence of peace. When we understand things from someone else's point of view (i.e., practice empathy), we can truly understand one another and become a better person. If everyone did this, the world would be a much better place!

QUESTION: Do you intersperse fiction with your business reading? If yes, what was the last work of fiction that you read, and what caught your attention about it?
DR. NATALIE PETOUHOFF: Yes, and the last book I read was Season of Life: A Football Star, a Boy, a Journey to Manhood by Jeffery Marx. In a world where new leadership models are necessary to create a world where people are loving, kind, and supportive of one another, this book is a glowing example of what it means to be a leader.

QUESTION: If you created a nonprofit organization to promote reading to children and young adults, what would you name it, and why?
DR. NATALIE PETOUHOFF: Reading is Freedom.

Because when you learn things from reading, it gives you the power and knowledge you need to make your way in the world like nothing else!

SHARE THIS: Reading is freedom. ~@drnatalie #Reading #DebbieLaskeysBlog

My gratitude to Natalie for participating in this year’s fall back to reading series and for sharing her inspiring recommendations!

Image Credit: NatureWorks.

Connect with Natalie at these links:
Website: https://www.drnatalienews.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DrNatalieP
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnataliepetouhoff/
Facebook book: https://www.facebook.com/natalie.petouhoff/