The 12 Best Self Help Books

Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life.

This book provides proven principles for, mindset, motivation, and methods to help you learn better. It provides practical tips to read quicker and remember more of what you read. A great book to boost your self help journey.

Book references: The human mind is the ultimate superpower... Understanding lifestyle factors, like nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management are crucial for brain health.

Harness the power of the #1 predictor of success.

This book provides proven principles to, be more aware of your emotions and the emotions of other people in social settings, and better manage your emotions and influence other people.

Book references: Your brain has a difficult time understanding the difference from what you see with your eyes and what you visualize in your mind... Approaching everyone you meet as thought they have something of value to teach you, is the best way to remain flexible, open-minded, and less stressed... What most people don't realize is how critical exercise and other relaxing and recharging activities are to the mind... The body communicates nonstop. 

How to make better choices in life and work.

This book provides proven principles to widen your options, reality-test assumptions, attain distance before deciding, and prepare to be wrong (think of the possibility of being wrong).  

Book references: The four villains of decision making are narrow framing, confirmation bias, short-term emotion, and overconfidence... Consider "this AND that" rather than "this OR that"... Consider how you will think about the decision in 10 minutes, and in 10 months, and in 10 years. 

How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it.

This book provides proven principles to increase your willpower and follow through on those good decisions you make. Based on scientific studies.

Book references: Many factors can boost our willpower including unprocessed food and good sleep, not being too positive or feeling too bad or guilty, sense the craving and reminding yourself what you really want. There is one way to immediately boost willpower: Slow your breathing dow to four to six breaths per minute.

How to change your mind and your life.

This book provides proven principles to increase your optimism. Including a three step formula to build a better outlook, and avoid learned helplessness.

Book references... Literally hundreds of studies show that pessimists give up more easily and get depressed more often... Define your adversity, and your belief about it, objectively. Then consider the consequences of the belief emotionally, and know you can change your belief, which can change the consequence. 

The natural way to better health for life.

This book provides proven principles to improve your health, including chapters on water, sleep, living food, exercise, detoxification, nutritional supplements, and coping with stress. 

Book references: It is an established fact that the more fruits and vegetables you eat, the lower your chance of heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems... I can't say it enough - brisk walking is one of the best exercises I can recommend, and it's virtually free. Studies show, even a few ten-minute bursts of activity a day can have beneficial effects on the body and mind. 

Tiny changes, remarkable results. An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones.

This book provides proven principles about how small habits can have a big impact over time. It digs into the details on how to make it obvious, make it easy, and make it satisfying. 

Book references: What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results... Goals are good for setting a direction but systems are best for making progress. You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

30th Anniversary Edition. Powerful lessons in personal change.

This book provides proven principles to be more proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win/win, and seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Book references: Shortly after World War I the view of success shifted from the character ethic to the personality ethic. The character ethic, with values like integrity, humility, and temperance, needs to be primary to success... Human relationships have an emotional bank account and the currency is trust... Communication is the most important skill in life. Communication experts claim it is about 60 percent body language, 30 percent sounds or tone, and 10 percent words..

The first - and still the best - book of its kind - to lead you to success.

This book provides proven principles to help you better manage and strengthen your relationships. It is based on the author's self-study and hiring of a professional researcher for one and a half years. 

Book references: About 85 percent of a person's financial success is due to their relationship skills... The truth is almost everyone you meet feels superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their heart is to sincerely recognize their importance.

The psychology of persuasion.

This book provides proven principles to make it more probable that people will like you, and how reciprocity, consistency, social proof, authority, and scarcity influence people.

Book references: We naturally like people who we feel associated with, have repeated contact with, and who give us sincere compliments... To be influential, authority figures should be both, knowledgable in a topic and trustworthy. 

Tools for talking when stakes are high.

This book has proven ways to help you have emotional conversations. It helps you to carefully choose your topic, start with the heart, master your stories, learn to look, and make it safe.

Book references: Skilled people begin high risk conversations with the right motives, and they stay focused... If a conversation starts turning unhealthy and people feel unsafe, they get silent or try forcing their views. When this happens consider building mutual purpose... The stories we tell ourselves need to be actively managed because they can cause troublesome emotions. Focus on facts of behavior, and don't assume intent... Paraphrase their perspective to show you understand.

How to build a well-lived, joyful life.

This book provides proven ways to assess your situation, understand what you want, get unstuck, design and prototype your life, choose happiness, build failure immunity, and build a team.

Book references: Deciding on which problems to work on may be one of your most important decisions, and if it's not actionable it's not a problem, it's a situation... You want to design a coherent life that clearly connects who you are with what you believe and what you are doing... Work is fun when you are leaning into your strengths and deeply engaged and energized... Prototyping your life is about asking good questions, outing hidden biases and assumptions, iterating rapidly, and creating momentum for a path you want to try out.