We all have that stack of books, maybe on the nightstand by the bed, or the shelf in the living room, that mysteriously grows instead of shrinks.

You’ll find any number of books-you-should-read lists and what I’ve noticed is that they start to sound the same when you’re thinking about productivity or self-betterment.

I’m here to dish up five books that are probably not in your reading stack or list.

Burn out is the ultimate form of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. It’s associated with stress, particularly from an unbalanced work or personal obligation load. Too much of anything becomes a bad thing and I had been relentlessly pursuing the general notion of betterment for years through courses, books, articles, communities, and newsletters. I learned the hard way that an overly aggressive development path on a near constant basis - essentially addiction to improvement - can also cause burnout.

Wander around enough productivity articles and you’ll be told to eat a frog.

This is a prime way to devote your energy up front to tackling something you identify as challenging. However, for some like myself, this process may be ineffective. Some of us need to accomplish smaller, less-challenging tasks in order to get in the zone. Simply put, sometimes you can’t eat the frog until you’ve generated some productivity confidence.

If this resonates with you, let’s spit the frog out and instead snowball our way to a productive state.

In video games, the Non-Playable Character (NPC) is an extremely valuable resource. They point you in the right direction, give you bits of info that turn into full-blown quests, sell you the goods you need to keep going, and bring deeper world immersion.

When you’re the Hero 24/7, the one always in the spotlight showcasing your skills and saving kingdoms left and right in the business world, you burn out. Call it self-care, call it balance, call it inner zen, but when I’m staring burnout right in the face, I have to switch to my inner NPC mode. In a global workplace that focuses on constant, continuous improvement, rampant innovation, and aggressive evolution, that inner NPC mode helps me conserve mental and emotional energy to keep going.

In video games, your party balance keeps you alive when the bosses get tougher, it ensures you as the strategist are equipped to meet ever-shifting challenges, and it allows you to appreciate the skills of your party members.

In your career, the people you partner up with will garner you a ton of valuable experience. When you have a balanced party in your career, you are able to get diverse perspectives on problems, draw on skills you don’t have to solve them, and grow your network.

Mentors in games are a mechanism to guide you when you need to map your literal path, to teach you the controls, and take a deliberate role in shaping your Hero’s Journey. In the business world, a mentor is a person who helps you along your career path.