The best personal development books

I have a passion for helping people realize being better through sharing my thoughts and experiences to guide them on their path. My curiosity of understanding “why people do what they do?” started when I was 13. The search for this questions evolving answer led me on an educational, career, and personal journey that authored a unique perspective to move people forward. Working with people for over 25 years through clinical therapy, personal coaching, and now through my company Rhodes Smith Consulting, I see patterns in the struggle to transform. Books offer me new perspectives or reinforce old ones in expanding my knowledge and helping people master their own intentions. Enjoy!

I'm a Professor of Finance who specialises in purposeful business and purposeful living. My work on the former shows how companies driven by purpose are ultimately more successful than those driven by profit alone. My interest in the latter stems partly from the former, but also from 20 years of teaching MBA students at MIT, Wharton, and London Business School. While my day job is to teach finance equations, often even more important to my students’ career success and life happiness is living with purpose. There are many self-proclaimed gurus on this topic who shoot from the hip, so I am particularly interested in books based on scientific research.

My main goal and purpose in life is to make a difference in people’s lives by helping you overcome obstacles that hold you back, so you can make more money, work less, and enjoy having even better work-life balance. Helping you realize how you can get around roadblocks that hold you back from achieving what you truly want in life gets me excited. I think many people make business and life so much harder than it needs to be and I like to share powerful books and resources that help you focus on how you can more easily realize your potential, accelerate your results, and fulfill what's truly important to you in life.

I am a post-exit entrepreneur who writes books and articles about entrepreneur psychology and how to run a business without it running you. At 22, I started an agency that I ran for ten years before selling it in 2021. During that time I made countless mistakes, learned from them, and figured out how to run a successful business while living an extraordinary life. I write about how other entrepreneurs can do the same. I refuse to believe you have to compromise between work and life. I think you can do work that you love while traveling the world, prioritizing health, and having a great time. 

I am the recognized expert on work-life balance, harmony, and integrative issues, and since 2009, hold the registered trademark from the USPTO as the “Work-Life Balance Expert®." My books have been featured in 68 of the top 75 American newspapers and, in two instances, advertised in Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. In all, 16 of my books are published in Chinese, among them Simpler Living, appearing as a 3-volume set, Everyday Project Management, The 60 Second Innovator, The 60 Second Organizer, The 60 Second Self-Starter, Ten Minute Guide to Time Management, and Ten Minute Guide to Project Management. I also have 13 books published in Arabic.

At the very beginning of my studies, I asked myself a question that still accompanies me today: “Why are some people successful and others not?” I've always been interested in people who are successful through their own efforts instead of building on the success of previous generations through their heritage. In my search for what distinguishes successful from less successful people, I began to read a variety of relevant books and attend seminars. These books and seminars dealt with the topics of success, personality development, marketing and sales, rhetoric, psychology, and management as well as self-management and personal productivity. To date, I've read several hundred books on these topics and attended a number of seminars.

I have been motivated to be the best version of myself for as long as I can remember and that has included reading a ton of books, pushing my own limits on what I was capable of (Ironman triathlons and a cross-country bicycle ride), tapping into my own creativity as well as taking it to the next step and sharing what I have learned through my own books and TEDx presentation. I believe we have so much more inside of us than we realize and I love to share and see others reach their goals and dreams.  

Many degree holders experience career and financial challenges they aren't prepared to handle. I know this first hand because after completing my Ph.D., I faced joblessness and massive student loan debt, and after becoming a professor, I saw my students encounter similar situations. This prompted me to write, Dump Your Degree: How to Repurpose Your Education, Control Your Career, and Gain Financial Freedom. My mission is to provide tangible solutions to students and early career professionals so that they stop solely relying on their degrees but instead learn how to use the sum of their knowledge, skills, and talents in unique ways to create meaningful, viable careers.

Will Edwards is a graduate of the University of Birmingham and an accomplished professional with extensive experience in the design and delivery of Technical, ITIL, Management, Soft Skills, and Professional Development training. Outside of the workplace, he has been actively involved in various voluntary organizations working with young people, the mentally handicapped, and the elderly. In his spare time, he enjoys writing books, both fiction and non-fiction under a variety of pen names.

I’ve been studying and reading tarot for more than 50 years—starting when I was a teenager. I feel called to do this work—I think of it as holy work, because every reading is an inner journey for my client, I merely serve as a guide for them to discover the insights and wisdom that already exists hidden within them. Over the years I’ve studied with some of today’s top tarot teachers, I’ve studied Kabbalah with respected rabbis. I’ve studied psychological principles with leading therapists. And I’ve studied storytelling with world-famous performers. Tarot brings all these disciplines together in a way that makes every reading an encounter with the Divine that lives within each of us.  

I’ve been studying and reading tarot for more than 50 years—starting when I was a teenager. I feel called to do this work—I think of it as holy work, because every reading is an inner journey for my client, I merely serve as a guide for them to discover the insights and wisdom that already exists hidden within them. Over the years I’ve studied with some of today’s top tarot teachers, I’ve studied Kabbalah with respected rabbis. I’ve studied psychological principles with leading therapists. And I’ve studied storytelling with world-famous performers. Tarot brings all these disciplines together in a way that makes every reading an encounter with the Divine that lives within each of us.  

I have a passion for helping people realize being better through sharing my thoughts and experiences to guide them on their path. My curiosity of understanding “why people do what they do?” started when I was 13. The search for this questions evolving answer led me on an educational, career, and personal journey that authored a unique perspective to move people forward. Working with people for over 25 years through clinical therapy, personal coaching, and now through my company Rhodes Smith Consulting, I see patterns in the struggle to transform. Books offer me new perspectives or reinforce old ones in expanding my knowledge and helping people master their own intentions. Enjoy!

I’ve been studying and reading tarot for more than 50 years—starting when I was a teenager. I feel called to do this work—I think of it as holy work, because every reading is an inner journey for my client, I merely serve as a guide for them to discover the insights and wisdom that already exists hidden within them. Over the years I’ve studied with some of today’s top tarot teachers, I’ve studied Kabbalah with respected rabbis. I’ve studied psychological principles with leading therapists. And I’ve studied storytelling with world-famous performers. Tarot brings all these disciplines together in a way that makes every reading an encounter with the Divine that lives within each of us.  

I’ve been studying and reading tarot for more than 50 years—starting when I was a teenager. I feel called to do this work—I think of it as holy work, because every reading is an inner journey for my client, I merely serve as a guide for them to discover the insights and wisdom that already exists hidden within them. Over the years I’ve studied with some of today’s top tarot teachers, I’ve studied Kabbalah with respected rabbis. I’ve studied psychological principles with leading therapists. And I’ve studied storytelling with world-famous performers. Tarot brings all these disciplines together in a way that makes every reading an encounter with the Divine that lives within each of us.  

I’ve been in the digital space for 30 years and my breakthrough book was Socialnomics. In this book, I encouraged individuals and organizations to lean into social media and digital, both personally and professionally; emphasizing that this shift wasn’t just for teenagers, that it would change the world more than anything in our lifetime. That it would become a powerful force around business, politics, gaming, and beyond. And, unfortunately, it did. It was even more powerful than I could have imagined. What I didn’t comprehend was that we would lean in too much. I realized I needed to give the anti-venom to Socialnomics. We needed as a society to return to focusing on what matters most.

I have been motivated to be the best version of myself for as long as I can remember and that has included reading a ton of books, pushing my own limits on what I was capable of (Ironman triathlons and a cross-country bicycle ride), tapping into my own creativity as well as taking it to the next step and sharing what I have learned through my own books and TEDx presentation. I believe we have so much more inside of us than we realize and I love to share and see others reach their goals and dreams.  

Kurt Mortensen is an international authority on charisma, negotiation, and influence. Kurt has spent over 20 years researching influence, leadership, sales, persuasive presentations, and he teaches at the university level. Kurt is the author of Persuasion IQ, Laws of Charisma, and the best-selling book Maximum Influence. His books have been translated into 28 languages. He is also the host of the popular podcast Maximize Your Influence. Mortensen teaches that professional success, personal relationships, and leadership all depend on the ability to persuade, influence, and motivate others. The key is to get others to want to do, what you want them to do and like doing it. 

Sandy is a writer, traveller, and hopeful romantic with a lengthy bucket list, and many of her travel adventures have found homes in her novels. She’s also an avid reader, a film buff, a wine lover, and a coffee snob. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her partner, Ben, who she met while travelling in Greece. Their real-life love story inspired Sandy’s debut novel One Summer in Santorini, the first in the five-book Holiday Romance series. The series continues in Paris, Sydney, Bali, and Tuscany. Sandy's standalone novel The Christmas Swap celebrates her favourite time of the year, and her rom-com, The Dating Game, is set in the world of Reality TV.

Coaching is a wonderful technology that can help people be a force for change… and is often wrapped up in mystic and woo-woo and privilege that makes it inaccessible and/or unattractive to too many. I want being more coach-like—by which I mean staying curious a little longer, and rushing to action and advice-giving—to be an everyday way of being with one another. Driven by this, I’ve written the best-selling book on coaching this century (The Coaching Habit) and have created training that’s been used around the world by more than a quarter of a million people. I’m on a mission to unweird coaching.

Will Edwards is a graduate of the University of Birmingham and an accomplished professional with extensive experience in the design and delivery of Technical, ITIL, Management, Soft Skills, and Professional Development training. Outside of the workplace, he has been actively involved in various voluntary organizations working with young people, the mentally handicapped, and the elderly. In his spare time, he enjoys writing books, both fiction and non-fiction under a variety of pen names.