Top 25 Personal Development and Self Improvement Books For Success
Success Leaves Clues
What is one thing that all successful people have in common - they read.
When it comes to developing yourself, be it increasing your knowledge, learning a new skill-set or developing your mindset, there is no substitute for reading.
Books are fountains of knowledge which encapsulate many years of experience or research from the author, that you can absorb, dissect and digest - generally in a matter of hours.
Of course not all books are equal - some books are designed to entertain you, and others to inform you around a particular event or topic, but the books you should be focused on if you are looking to develop yourself for success, are the ones you will find in the non-fiction category that provide you with practical instructions and guidance on improving yourself.
Each of these books often have 1-3 key points within them that you should look to extract and add to your success arsenal, to create an unstoppable machine on the road to greatness!
Which Personal Development Books Should You Start With?
Below are 25 books that I would highly recommend that you read as you begin to work on your development. These books are written by successful people in their own areas and as they say - success leaves clues. It's your job to scan the pages and identify the key lessons from each book, extract them and put them to work in your own life.
1) Think and Grow Rich
- Think And Grow Rich is the classic in the personal development and success world. Written by Napoleon Hill in 1937 after a 25 year study of the worlds most successful people, initiated by the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the book defines the 13 common key principle of success displayed by the subjects of the study - such as Andrew Carnegie himself, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Emerson, and so on.
- Although the book is old, there is a reason why it keeps getting republished. Definitely one to read for anyone looking to discover how successful people think.
- Rich Dad Poor Dad is another classic, in the world of financial education. It aims to teach you how the rich manage their money, and how the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor, by telling the story of the author - Robert Kiyosaki, who grew up learning about money from 2 different points of view, his 'rich dad' and his 'poor dad'.
- His poor dad was his actual father - a very highly educated man with a phd who was in an advanced position in his career, but not financially stable. Then there is his rich dad, who is actually his friends dad, who wasn't the most academically educated person, but he understood money - how to make it an how to leverage it.
- Robert grew up learning from both points of view and could see the results of the 2 different mind sets, and so choose to follow the advice of his rich dad and became a multi-deca millionaire and now shares his story for you to learn from.
- The Richest Man In Babylon is a great book that teaches the concept of managing your financial affairs through a series of stories set in the historical city of Babylon.
- The stories are told from the perspective of a poor scribe called Arkad, who observes the behaviours and seeks advice from some of the wealthiest people around. This advice is based around paying yourself first, how to generate money and wealth, how to protect and invest your wealth, living within your means and investing in what you know, to name a few.
- An interesting read with some great concepts that can be transposed to your life.
- The Compound effect shares some interesting thoughts on how even the smallest decisions acted on each day can change your life drastically in the future. Rather than taking some seemably drastic action to change the direction of your life, just making small, almost insignificant changes, consistently over time, will compound into a much greater change down the line.
- The Chimp Paradox addresses those little voices that we all have in our heads, and shares the theory that the brain actually has 3 parts to it, the human, the computer and the chimp.
- Each of these parts has its own function - even personality, and it about realising which part of our brains are speaking at any given moment. It focuses on understanding and controlling your own mind in order to get the best out of a situation and other people.
How To Win Friends And Influence People teaches you countless principles to become a likable person, handle your relationships well, win others over and help them change their behavior without being intrusive.
- Never Split The Difference explains why you should never compromise and how to negotiate like a pro in your everyday life. It is a practical manual full of tips and techniques from the author who is an ex FBI interrogator.
- In the age of information overload, traditional time management techniques simply don't cut it when it comes to overflowing inboxes, ever-expanding to-do lists and endless pointless meetings. Thankfully there is a better way: the way of the productivity ninja. Using techniques including ruthlessness, mindfulness, Zenlike calm and stealth and camouflage, you will get your inbox down to zero, make the most of your attention, beat procrastination and learn to work smarter, not harder. Written by one of the UK's foremost productivity experts, How to be a Productivity Ninja is a fun, accessible and practical guide to staying cool, calm and collected, getting more done and learning to love your work again.
9) Unshakable
- Unshakeable distills the essence of world class investors down into four core principles you should follow while investing, giving you simple rules and actionable steps to follow to make sure your finances flourish.
10) Can't Hurt Me
- Can't Hurt Me is the story of David Goggins, who went from being overweight and depressed to becoming a record-breaking athlete, inspiring military leader, and world-class personal trainer. Goggins' story demonstrates the power of having the right mindset.
11) Sell Or Be Sold
- In Sell or Be Sold, Cardone breaks down the techniques and approaches necessary to master the art of selling in any avenue. You will learn how to handle rejection, turn around negative situations, shorten sales cycles, and guarantee yourself greatness.
12) Crushing It
- Crushing It is Gary Vaynerchuk’s follow-up to his personal branding manifesto Crush It, in which he reiterates the importance of a personal brand and shows you the endless possibilities that come with building one today.
- The 4-Hour Workweek is the step-by-step blueprint to free yourself from the shackles of a corporate job, create a business to fund the lifestyle of your dreams, and live life like a millionaire, without actually having to be one.
14) Eat That Frog
- Eat That Frog is a classic that provides 21 techniques and strategies to stop procrastinating and get more done. You may have heard a lot of the methods within now, since it was written back in 2001, but it is still worth a read if you are looking to be more productive.
- The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People teaches you both personal and professional effectiveness by changing your view of how the world works and giving you 7 habits, which, if adopted well, will lead you to immense success.
- T. Harv's Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind suggests our financial success is predetermined from birth and shows us what to do to break through mental barriers and acquire the habits and thinking of the rich.
17) Good to Great
- Good To Great examines what it takes for ordinary companies to become great and outperform their competitors by analyzing 28 companies over 30 years, who managed to make the transition or fell prey to their bad habits.
18) 10X
- The 10X Rule breaks down the anatomy of extraordinary success by first pointing out what’s wrong with shooting for average, why you should for ten times more when tackling your goals and how to back up your new, bold targets with the right actions.
- The Magic of Thinking Big gives you several starting points to develop and strengthen the most important trait of successful people: believing in yourself.
- Who Moved My Cheese tells a parable, which you can directly apply to your own life, in order to stop fearing what lies ahead and instead thrive in an environment of change and uncertainty.
The Power Of Positive Thinking will show you that the roots of success lie in the mind and teach you how to believe in yourself, break the habit of worrying, and take control of your life by taking control of your thoughts and changing your attitude.
22) The Success Principles
23) Unlimited Power
- The Success Principles condenses 64 lessons Jack Canfield learned on his journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur, author, coach and speaker into 6 sections, which will help you transform your mindset and take responsibility and control of your own life, so you can get from where you are to where you want to be.
Unlimited Power is a self-help classic, which breaks down how Tony Robbins has helped top performers achieve at their highest level and how you can use the same mental and physical tactics to accomplish your biggest goals in life.
24) The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success
- The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success brings together the spiritual calmness and mindful behavior of Eastern religions with Western striving for achieving internal and external success, showing you seven specific ways to let both come to you.
- This book is about breaking through the barriers that keep us from experiencing our true nature as light. It presents inspiring science and philosophy in a way that is completely accessible to anyone, to reveal and explore the universal laws and principles that underlie our very existence. THE BREAKTHROUGH EXPERIENCE is an extremely real and practical manual for understanding why we live the way we do, and how to transform our lives into our highest vision.
How To Read Faster
That's a lot of reading!
It Sure is, but time spent reading these books is time invested wisely!
Just be sure to take the time to read the books and understand them properly - don't just skim through them for the sake of saying you have read them, then stick them back on the shelf without implementing the lessons within - that is what we call 'shelf help books' - and they are no good to anyone!
If you prefer, another good option is to use audio books - my personal recommendation would be to use Amazon's Audible service. These can often be more convenient as you can listen on your travels or as you go about your daily activities. Also, you can turn up the speed so you can consume the book faster, just be sure not to turn it up so fast that you don't have time to register it properly!
Comments