Yesterday I received a call from my Alma Mater, Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL. The call was from my friend Rob Tate who was an English teacher there when I was a student. While I never had Rob as a professor, we became friends and have kept in occasional touch through the years. Rob now works in the development department and asked me to sign a letter to be sent out to my classmates who graduated with me. The purpose of the letter is to ask for donations to buy books for the library. I haven’t written the letter yet but in thinking about it, I was reminded of some of the most important books I read during my college years. I probably won’t tell Rob that the books I read that had the biggest impact on me, weren’t any of the books I checked out or borrowed from the library - those books helped me earn my degree in Business Administration. The books that helped shape my life, had nothing to do with reference books or text books like economics, business, finance, accounting, calculus, biology, etc. The books that helped shape my life taught life skills and were read not during the semester but over the summer or right after graduation and included How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, The Magic of Thinking Big by David Swartz, and The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandio (which Rob gave me for my graduation gift). While I would add other books to that list today, those are books that I read around my college years that had an impact on me.

Someday, I envision a shelf, room, or perhaps even an entire floor in my college library (and colleges and universities throughout the world) with books donated by alumni. These books won’t help students write term papers on their required courses but instead will be books that inspired new thinking, books that helped people make a difference and books that changed the life of the reader as well as those the reader touched in their lifetime.

Imagine you have been given the task to create such a place. What books should go there? How did a book change you, your life, career, etc.  Create a short best seller list and post it here.

Inspirational speaker Tim Richardson speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com