Jagler: Gain some knowledge on your spring break

For the executives among us who are fortunate enough to be plotting a spring break trip to somewhere warm, this week’s column is for you.

Airlines for America, the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, expects an all-time high of 150.7 million passengers — 2.47 million per day — to fly globally on U.S. airlines between March 1 and April 30, a 4% increase from 145 million passengers in the spring of 2017. To prepare for the expected increase, which averages 94,000 additional passengers per day, airlines are adding 114,000 seats per day across their networks.

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A note to the fortunate who will be taking to the skies this spring: While the rest of us worker bees are keeping the lights on back home, the least you can do is return with some new enlightenment to share.

For that, we turn to Sally Haldorson, general manager of 800-CEO-READ, an understated company in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood that specializes in promoting, recommending and selling business books to business people.

We asked Haldorson to recommend 10 topical titles that would add value to the leisure time on this year's spring break.

True to form, she came back with 12 of them:

1. “Soon: An Overdue History of Procrastination, from Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me” by Andrew Santella. Of note: The author cites the theories of psychologists, philosophers and priests. But don’t delay. Buy this one right away before you leave.
2.  “Work: The Last 1,000 Years” by Andrea Komlosy. Of note: The author examines how the definitions and parameters of labor have changed across the globe over several centuries.
3. “Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet” by Vice reporter and Yacht lead singer Claire L. Evans. Of note: The author makes the point that women have been at the forefront of every significant technology wave in history.
4. “3 Kings: Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and Hip-Hop’s Multibillion-Dollar Rise” by Zack O’Malley Greenburg. Of note: The author traces the careers of hip-hop’s three most dynamic stars.
5. “The Deals That Made the World: Reckless Ambition, Backroom Negotiations, and the Hidden Truths of Business” by Jacques Peretti. Of note: The author breaks down a dozen groundbreaking business deals that have transformed our society.
6. “Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley” by Emily Chang. Of note: The author reveals how male-dominated Silicon Valley became sexist, despite its utopian ideals and decades of companies claiming the moral high ground on so many other issues.
7. “Story Driven: You Don’t Need to Compete When You Know Who You Are” by Bernadette Jiwa. Of note: The author says successful people have a powerful sense of identity. The book, “gives you a framework to help you consistently articulate, live and lead with your story,” 800-CEO-Read says.
8. “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink. Of note: You know the old saying, “Timing is everything.” This book says that’s true.
9. “Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness” by Melissa Dahl. Of note: The author asks, what if the moments that make us feel most awkward are actually valuable? Awkward moments can unite us in our common humanity, the author contends.
10. “This Could Hurt” by Jillian Medoff. Of note: A novel about five colleagues in human resources trying to balance ambition, hope and fear as their small company is rocked by economic forces that threaten to upend them.
11. “Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Of note: The author shows how the willingness to accept one’s own risks is an essential attribute of heroes.
12. “Janesville: An American Story” by Amy Goldstein. Of note: This was 800-CEO-READ’s pick for the Best Business Book of 2017. The book “is a masterfully told story of what happens in one Wisconsin town when the most economically important element of a community closes its doors,” Haldorson said.

Have a restorative and productive journey.

Steve Jagler is the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. C-Level stands for high-ranking executives, typically those with “chief” in their titles. Send C-Level column ideas to him at steve.jagler@journalsentinel.com.

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Sally Haldorson

Title: General manager

Company: 800-CEO-READ in Milwaukee

Expertise: Organization-wide management and the history of business books

Hometown: Austin, Minn.

Education: Bachelor of arts degree in English literature and creative writing at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.; and a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Family: Husband, Mark; son, Noah; and dog, Jackson

Best advice ever received: “All the good advice I’ve ever received can be boiled down to ‘be brave,’ which I remind myself of every day because we only get one chance at this one life.”

Favorite movie: “Lost in Translation”

Favorite band: “It’s always changing; currently listening to SZA’s 'Control' on repeat.”

Favorite Wisconsin restaurant: Norske Nook, Osseo. “Because ... pie.”

Extra chapter: “I write about life as a special needs mom, cancer survivor’s wife and all my selves in between at https://sallyehaldorson.com.”