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