reading good books develops personal and professional aspects

Very often I am asked either what book am I currently reading or doI have a book to recommend to another individual or client. The truth is, there are so many books currently available for a myriad of purposes that to pair down any list would be doing a disservice to the incredible work that has been written over the past one hundred plus years.

The list below is simply a smidgen of what I have found to support my life both personally and professionally in achieving my goals and supporting others in achieving theirs. I have purposely included books on: Personal and Professional Development, Organizational Development, Coaching, Time Management, Productivity and Philosophy to name a few.

Contrary to what some might say, I do believe a book can have it’s purpose in supporting an individual without having to read it from front to back. That said, certain books do require you to start at the beginning and end on the last page. The books I have listed below contain a mixture of each.

  1. Drive – Daniel H. Pink
  2. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
  3. The Truth About Leadership – James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner
  4. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t – Jim Collins
  5. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven R. Covey
  6. Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh
  7. Tribes – Seth Godin
  8. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving & Thriving at Work, Home, and School – John Medina
  9. Zen To Done – Leo Babauta
  10. The 5th Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization – Peter M. Senge
  11. Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman
  12. The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Heidt
  13. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
  14. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
  15. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
  16. Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull.
  17. Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes – William Bridges
  18. Decisive – Chip and Dan Heath
  19. Purple Cow – Seth godin
  20. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less –
    Richard Koch
  21. Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills –
    Tony Stoltzfus
  22. The 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
  23. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time – Brian Tracy
  24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant – W. Chan Kim
  25. The First 90 Days – Michael Watkins
  26. The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein
  27. The One Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard
  28. Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization –
    John Wooden
  29. Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter –
    Cass R. Sunstein
  30. Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
  31. The Paleo Manifesto – John Durant
  32. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful – Marshall Goldsmith
  33. Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation –
    Daniel J. Siegel
  34. The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
  35. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
  36. Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  37. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
  38. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape 
    Our Decisions – Dan Ariely
  39. Awaken The Giant Within – Tony Robbins
  40. Workrules – Lazslo Bock
  41. The Emperor’s Handbook – Marcus Aurelius
  42. Think Like da Vinci: 7 Easy Steps to Boosting Your Everyday Genius – Michael Gelb
  43. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get It – Kelly McGonigal
  44. The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
  45. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done – Peter Drucker
  46. Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Richard Kiyosaki
  47. The 4-Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss
  48. The Success Principles – Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer
  49. Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success – John C. Maxwell
  50. A Return To Love – Marianne Williamson

The floor is yours. What’s your favorite book for personal and/or professional development?