Release Date:
June 6, 2025
Reading books doesn’t make you a better leader—applying them does.
In this solo episode, Learnit CEO and bestselling author Damon Lembi shares five books that have fundamentally shaped how he leads, makes decisions, and builds high-performing teams. But this isn’t a generic reading list. Damon reveals exactly what he took from each book—and how he’s put those lessons to work.
If you're looking to lead with more intention, clarity, and impact, start here.
What You'll Learn:
In This Episode:
Resources & Mentions:
Want to Learn More?:
The most powerful leadership tool: reading (with intention)
0:00
in my own experience over 25 years as
0:02
CEO of Learn It reading books has been
0:04
the single most powerful tool I've used
0:07
and it still is today so in this episode
0:10
I'm going to share with you five books
0:12
that I believe every leader should read
0:14
and when it comes to being a leader I
0:16
don't just mean someone with a title i
0:19
believe that we're all leaders parents
0:21
coaches small business owners big
0:24
brothers and even individual
0:26
contributors who want to get out there
0:28
and lead by example now before we dive
0:30
into those five books there's something
0:32
else that I want to point out that I
0:34
really want you to remember and this is
0:36
a great line that I was told by David
0:38
Katz who's the founder of Plastic Bank
0:41
all right learning without doing is
0:43
treason think about that for a second
0:45
and so what David is saying here is
0:47
don't just read a 100 books just to say
0:49
that you finished them you need to read
0:51
by being intentional you need to think
0:53
about what you're reading and how you
0:55
can apply it to your everyday life and
0:57
that is what I'm going to do in this
0:59
episode today and I'm going to share
1:00
with you what I've applied from reading
1:02
those books in my professional and
1:04
personal life welcome to the Learn It
1:06
All Podcast the show for today's leaders
1:08
who want to get ahead and stay ahead
Book #1: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
1:10
because we believe great leaders aren't
1:12
born or made they're always in the
1:14
making i'm your host Damon Ley two-time
1:16
best-selling author and CEO of Learn It
1:18
a live learning platform that has helped
1:20
upskill over two million people over the
1:23
past three decades and I wouldn't have
1:25
been able to do this without the benefit
1:27
of reading great books and I'm super
1:30
excited to jump in now with the books
1:31
that I want to share with you today the
1:33
first book I want to share with you
1:34
today is A Team of Rivals by Doris Karns
1:37
Goodwin and it's a biography and first
Embracing diverse viewpoints and emotional control
1:40
and foremost I highly recommend reading
1:42
as many biographies as you can you could
1:44
learn so many great things so many
1:47
failures and learning lessons from some
1:49
of the greatest leaders throughout
1:50
history so a quick summary of this book
1:53
it explores how Abraham Lincoln brought
1:56
together a cabinet full of rivals people
1:59
who hated him and he brought them
2:01
together in this divided country to help
2:04
unite the country back in 1860 when he
2:07
was stepping into president and I think
2:09
there's some very very important lessons
2:11
in it the first lesson most important
2:13
really is embracing diverse uh
2:16
viewpoints so an example of this was
2:19
that Lincoln appointed William H stewart
2:21
as the Secretary of State stuart ran
2:24
against Lincoln as a top Republican
2:26
candidate and he thought he was way more
2:28
qualified than Lincoln lincoln was able
2:30
to get Stuart to buy in and become his
2:34
most loyal confidant because he saw that
2:37
the humility that Lincoln had that
2:39
Lincoln thought he didn't have all the
2:40
answers and that he was open to
2:42
listening and growing and I think as a
2:44
leader what I've always tried over the
2:45
years is to surround myself with great
2:47
talent with people who had diverse
2:49
opinions and that I could listen to them
2:52
and learn from their strengths and
2:54
implement what they had to say look I
2:56
work with a lot of organizations where
2:58
I've seen where they've had a yes man or
Lincoln’s “hot letter” method: emotional intelligence inaction
3:00
yes woman at the top and everybody had
3:02
to agree with what they said what I
3:04
found with those types of organizations
3:05
they lack growth opportunities and
3:07
people don't want to work for places
3:09
where you either have to agree and their
3:12
opinion is never heard so embracing
3:14
diverse viewpoints like LinkedIn did and
3:18
creating that healthy conflict was
3:19
incredibly important the second point is
3:22
mastering emotional control lincoln
3:25
talks about how he wrote hot letters to
3:27
himself and essentially what he did is
3:29
when he would be angry or upset with
3:31
what was going on he'd write himself a
3:33
letter and then he'd put it in his
3:34
pocket or he buried it in a drawer and a
3:37
lot of those letters never came to to
3:39
light he never sent them so I want you
3:42
to think about a time that you've
3:43
written an email or a text that you wish
3:46
you could take back and this is a great
3:49
example of emotional intelligence and
3:51
emotional control there's so many great
3:53
lessons from this book but another one
3:55
of my favorite lessons before we move on
3:57
to the next book is learning and
3:59
adapting when Lincoln first was
From criticized novice to strategic mastermind: Lincoln’sgrowth
4:01
president he was criticized all the time
4:04
because they felt like he was indecisive
4:06
and he didn't know much about military
4:07
strategy but Lincoln went allin learning
4:10
about military strategy he was curious
4:12
he spoke to generals he spoke to
4:15
soldiers and he learned from whoever he
4:18
could whether it was Frederick Douglas
4:20
people who would give him open feedback
4:21
and even criticize him right to his face
4:23
but he learned to take that feedback and
4:26
what did it lead to it led to him going
4:28
out and finding one of the greatest
4:29
generals of all time in my opinion
4:31
Ulyses Srant who I'll put a link into
4:34
the show notes for his biography and
4:36
Grant and Lincoln they had the same
4:40
clarity and vision and goals that led
4:42
them to end up winning the Civil War
4:46
three of the top takeaways from A Team
4:47
of Rivals are embracing diverse
4:51
viewpoints controlling your emotions and
4:53
learning and adapting all right let's
4:56
move on to book number two book number
4:58
two is Quiet by Susan Kaine now in this
Book #2: Quiet by Susan Cain
5:01
book essentially it's about introverts
5:04
how introverts work and lead one great
5:07
example from this book is Adam Grant and
5:09
he talks about how there's a um fast
5:13
food company that he does a study on and
5:16
that the out of 130 franchises the
5:20
franchises who had introvert leaders
5:23
were much more successful and a lot of
5:25
it was because introverts tend to lead
5:27
by listening first before suggesting and
5:30
when you do that people felt much more
5:33
comfortable to come up with ideas and
5:35
suggestions
5:36
and I just thought this book was
5:38
incredible because you always think
5:39
about how you have uh all these loud uh
5:43
leaders out there and who who are
Why introverts lead best by listening, not commanding
5:45
charismatic and the extroverts and
5:47
everybody wants to be like um or at
5:50
least you think you want to be like that
5:52
but what you don't realize is that and
5:54
this is what Susan Kane talks about is
5:56
that introverts have a lot of great
5:58
superpowers you know there's listening
6:00
which I already mentioned there's
6:02
focusing and there's really creating
6:04
space for people wanting to be heard i
6:06
first came across this book because I
6:08
wanted to share it with family members
6:10
who had children uh who were introverts
6:13
and I thought maybe it could really help
6:14
them out and what it ended up doing for
6:16
me is realizing there's power of being
6:18
an introvert and I like how in the book
6:21
Susan also talks about I believe the
6:23
woman's name is Laura who's a lawyer who
6:26
she tried herself to go from being an
6:29
introvert to being an extrovert but what
6:31
she did and what she realized was that
6:34
once she let her natural leadership
6:36
style come out she was much more
6:38
successful so introvert is a great book
6:41
you know some of the main takeaways are
6:42
that you don't have to be a big loud
6:44
extrovert to be a great leader a lot of
Advice for introverts—or leaders who manage them
6:47
times introverts like the study showed
6:49
from the fast food restaurants are the
6:50
best leaders through listening first
6:52
instead of suggesting and I also want to
6:54
point out that if either you or somebody
6:58
you know is an introvert and they're
7:00
afraid to go for a leadership role
7:02
because they don't they think that you
7:03
have to be uh an extrovert this is a
7:06
fantastic book for them i've learned
7:07
some tremendous lessons and I like to
7:10
consider myself an introvert now my wife
7:12
and some of my friends might laugh at me
7:13
for that but I highly recommend you pick
7:16
up Quiet it's a fantastic book we're
7:18
moving on to book number three Decisive
7:21
by Chip and Dan Heath it's a
7:23
decision-making book it's a practical
7:25
guide that helps leaders overcome the
7:28
most common decision-making biases in
Book #3: Decisive by Chip & Dan Heath
7:30
their four-part framework RAP you might
7:32
find this very surprising but a recent
7:35
McKenzie study has shown that leaders
7:37
spend 40% of their time making decisions
7:40
so why aren't you spending 40% of your
7:42
time learning how to make better
7:44
decisions you could start off with this
7:46
book Decisive it's an awesome book i've
7:48
read it many many times and so I want to
7:50
take you quickly through the RAP
7:52
framework but you need to read the book
7:54
to see their great stories and examples
7:56
to get the most impact out of it so RAP
7:59
stands for widen your options reality
8:02
test your assumptions attain distance
8:05
before deciding and prepare to be wrong
8:09
so again we're not going to go through
8:10
all of these in the book the Heath
8:12
Brothers have studies that show that by
The WRAP framework: smarter decisions, less regret
8:15
adding even just a third option beyond
8:17
just yes or no helps your chance of
8:20
success go up from 36% to 63% being more
8:25
successful in those decisions so let me
8:27
give you an example several years ago we
8:29
were looking at replacing our CFO and so
8:32
at the time it was either yes or no do
8:34
we let him go or and we hire somebody
8:36
else but in reading this book I really
8:38
wanted to press myself and my team to
8:40
think about what are some of our other
8:41
options so we came up with several other
8:44
options and one other option that we
8:46
didn't think about before was
8:48
outsourcing so now it's either keep them
8:50
let them go hire somebody new at that
8:53
point or outsource the option and we end
8:55
up going the outsource option for the
8:57
very first time and if our team didn't
8:59
think about different options we would
How Damon used it to rethink a CFO hire
9:00
have never gone that route
9:03
so getting out of the narrow mindset
9:06
binary thinking when it comes to
9:07
decision-m it's super important another
9:10
idea in the book that I thought was a
9:11
awesome is the 10 1010 now thinking
9:15
about a decision what are you going to
9:16
feel like in 10 minutes 10 months and 10
9:20
years that's a great way to look at
9:22
decisions and even sometimes slow down
9:24
the emotions a lot of times that I get
9:26
really excited about something and I
9:28
want to jump in and make a decision but
9:30
if I look at it like okay well I think
9:31
about in 10 minutes or more importantly
9:33
in 10 years it makes you really stop
9:36
slow down and look at those decisions um
9:38
I'm doing this a little bit out of order
9:40
but reality test your assumptions you
9:42
know the R and the RAP formula that's
9:44
all about confirmation bias now we
9:46
talked about that earlier in a team of
9:48
rivals but if you have diverse opinions
9:52
and you're not looking for yes men and
9:54
women to give you answers or what you're
9:55
looking for in this book Decisive they
9:58
really dive deep into uh better
The 10/10/10 rule for cooling emotional decisions
10:01
understanding what confirmation biases
10:03
are and how to reality test your
10:05
assumptions super super important i just
10:08
think it's a fantastic book and if
10:09
you're looking for another book around
10:11
decision-making you got to check out my
10:12
book Good Decisions Equal Success which
10:14
I did with my great business partner
10:17
Candace Porter and until we move on to
10:19
the fourth book I just want to say once
10:20
again decision-making is so important go
10:23
out pick up Decisive it's a great easy
10:26
read and practical advice that will help
10:28
you become a better decision maker the
10:31
fourth book is Never Lead Alone by Keith
10:33
Ferzy i got my copy of it right here and
10:37
now Keith spent 20 plus years studying
10:40
high performing teams and what he
10:42
realized is they moved away from
10:44
traditional leadership which is you know
The trap of confirmation bias—and how to escape it
10:47
hierarchy you know leaders up here and
10:49
all the teams down here to what he calls
10:51
teamship that's elevating everybody else
10:53
in your team good leaders have their
10:55
team's back great teams have each
10:58
other's back and so in his book what he
11:01
talks about are 10 shifts that teams can
11:03
make to go from traditional leadership
11:05
to teamship the most important shift for
11:07
all of these is going from conflict
11:09
avoidance having difficult conversations
11:11
to open cander where you eliminate those
11:14
water cooler conversations or behind
Bonus: Damon’s book Good Decisions = Success
11:17
people's backs conversations and you're
11:19
able to eliminate these types of
11:21
conversations and have open cander when
11:23
people on your team know that you care
11:25
about them and you trust them and you
11:26
want them to be successful you're not
11:28
going to let them fail i mean this is an
11:30
awesome book it's a thin book it's not a
11:33
It's not a difficult read and you can
11:35
even implement it like Learnit's doing
11:37
our team it's like popcorn you pick the
11:39
shifts that you want to go for there's
11:41
diagnostics in the book that can help
11:42
you rate where your team's at and where
Book #4: Never Lead Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
11:45
you can be moving forward and um there
11:47
are so many great learning lessons in
11:49
there one of the shifts I think is great
11:51
is breaking down um silos and being more
11:55
collaborative another great shift that
11:58
he speaks about is 21st century
12:00
collaboration where instead of having
12:02
meeting after meeting that we all know
12:04
there's too many meetings that you're
12:06
able to do asynchronous work in between
12:09
so never lead alone is perfect for any
12:11
organization that wants to go from the
12:14
traditional leadership where the leaders
12:16
up above which by the way that gets
12:17
lonely up there sometimes at the top to
12:19
where you have great teams that learn to
12:22
work through teamship where everybody
12:23
learns to hold each other accountable
12:25
give each other feedback and has each
12:28
other's back i highly recommend Never
Teamship vs. traditional leadership
12:30
Lead Alone all right we're at book
12:32
number five AIdriven Leader by Jeff
12:34
Woods i'd have to say this is the number
12:36
one book I've recommended to people in
12:38
2025 jeff's book is a guide to learn how
12:41
to leverage AI strategically here's what
12:43
I love most about this book a lot of
12:45
leaders they don't know where to start
12:47
when it comes to using AI and the ones
12:49
who do they treat it like a tool instead
12:51
of a mindset shift in Jeff's book he
12:54
talks about how important it is to look
12:56
at things like how do I do this better
12:58
leveraging AI how do I make better
13:01
decisions using AI and to use AI as a
13:04
think partner instead of just a task
13:07
rabbit tool or even especially not a
13:09
thought leader now the difference
Why open candor beats conflict avoidance
13:11
between a thought partner and a thought
13:13
leader is if you go and you trust AI
13:16
100% you go out and you write a blog or
13:18
something and you just throw it out
13:19
there that's not what you do what he
13:21
talks about is using AI as a thought
13:23
partner and I'm going to give you an
13:24
example exactly how I've used it so
13:26
earlier in this year I built new comp
13:29
plans for my sales team and typically
13:31
what I would do is maybe I'd run it by
13:33
somebody else in the organization or I
13:35
just send it out i took the comp plan
13:37
that I built i threw it into the chat
13:39
GBT and I use Jeff's approach his four
13:42
ingredients of high impact prompts and
A roadmap for building trust, feedback, and collaboration
13:45
so what that is is you got to read the
13:47
book to get it right but it's setting a
13:49
context setting a persona giving it a
13:52
task and then having it interview you so
13:55
what I did is I took my comp plan I put
13:57
it in the chat GBT and I said "I need
14:00
your help building a strategic comp plan
14:02
and I want you to review the one that I
14:04
have and I need you to be a senior sales
14:06
leader who's built thousands of comp
14:08
plans and then I want you to interview
14:10
me." That's the big part of Jeff's um
14:12
deal here i want you to interview me by
14:14
asking me five questions one at a time
14:16
and that's exactly what it did and it
14:19
got to a position where I knew what I
14:20
was looking for and it came up with
14:22
answers that blew my mind and I went
14:26
back and forth with chat GPT all based
14:29
on what I learned from AIdriven leader
Book #5: AI-Driven Leader by Jeff Woods
14:31
and it was incredible at the end of the
14:33
day it came up with a comp plan that
14:35
helped focus on the behaviors I'm
14:37
looking for my team to deliver on and I
14:39
sent it to our fractional CRO Bob Spina
14:42
and he's like "Man this is
14:44
unbelievable." Again I mentioned this
14:46
before it's really great for leaders who
14:47
are maybe just getting started with AI
14:49
or looking to take AI to the next level
14:52
in their organization again that's
14:53
AIdriven leader check it out i'm also
14:56
going to put a link in the show notes i
14:57
want you to watch the interview I did
14:59
with Jeff on the Learn It All podcast
15:01
that's a great start but go out and get
15:03
the book got it again right here
15:05
AIdriven Leader by Jeff Woods so those
15:09
are our five books now before I do a
15:11
recap I got a bonus book for you i can't
15:13
leave without recommending The Learn It
Why AI is a mindset shift—not just a tool
15:16
All Leader i really think that The Learn
15:18
It All Leader is a great book for
15:20
anybody who realizes that great leaders
15:23
aren't born or made they're always in
15:24
the making there's always room to grow
15:26
and evolve the first half of my book is
15:28
all about being it's the mindset going
15:32
allin being curious being humble and the
15:34
second half of the book is about doing
15:37
so the first half is being and then
15:38
doing and the second half of the book
15:40
has a lot of great practical advice and
15:42
great stories on decision-making
Damon’s example: building a comp plan using AI
15:45
coaching examples and it also gives you
15:47
an opportunity to learn about how we've
15:49
built great teams over the years so
15:52
let's recap and talk about the books
15:54
that I mentioned today there's a team of
15:56
rivals i mean the the number one
15:58
takeaway from a team of rivals for me is
16:01
just building a diverse team and getting
16:04
those different opinions out there then
16:06
we moved on to quiet the number one
16:08
takeaway for me when it comes to quiet
16:10
is that introverts can be amazing
16:12
leaders and also how to work with
16:15
introverts number three was decisive if
16:18
40% of our time is spent making
16:21
decisions we need some frameworks to
16:23
help us make better decisions number
16:25
four is never lead alone going from
16:28
traditional leadership to teamship and
The 4-part prompt framework for high-impact AI results
16:30
teamship is everybody elevating in an
16:33
organization keeping each other
16:34
accountable giving each other feedback
16:36
and having each other's spacks number
16:38
five is AIdriven leader there's nothing
16:40
more important these days than to get
16:42
involved and start leveraging AI i truly
16:44
believe that and the bonus book Learn It
16:48
All Leader Mindset Traits and Tools by
16:50
me Damon Lmby and what I want you to
16:52
think about is we talked about a lot of
16:54
the most important skills that you need
16:55
to be a great leader these days having
16:58
diverse opinions making decisions
Bonus Book: The Learn-It-All Leader by Damon Lembi
17:00
building trust challenging and also
17:03
having the back of your teammates and
17:06
adopting and leveraging AI throughout
17:07
your organization and before we close
17:10
out I want to go back to learning
17:12
without doing is treason remember when
17:16
you read read intentionally and figure
17:19
out what are you going to do to apply
17:21
the books that you read all right it's
17:23
not all about reading a hundred books
17:25
it's about applying what you read and I
17:27
also mentioned earlier read biographies
17:29
there's so many great things that you
Being vs. Doing: Two halves of the leadership equation
17:31
can learn from biographies what I'd like
17:33
you to do now if you haven't already is
17:35
please rate and review the Learn It All
17:37
podcast on your favorite uh podcast
17:39
platform that's a huge help for us to
17:41
get our message out and I also want you
17:42
to think about somebody who would
17:43
benefit from this episode the person I
17:45
want you to think about is somebody who
17:47
already understands that it's important
17:49
to continuously learn and grow and
17:51
evolve and could really benefit and get
17:54
a positive impact from some of the books
17:56
we discussed today so if you know
17:58
somebody who needs to get better at
17:59
decision-m needs to build diverse teams
Final thought: Apply what you read—or it doesn’t count
18:02
or learn how to leverage AI send this
18:04
episode to them and until next time
18:06
everybody stay curious keep learning and
18:09
have a great day
