A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted


Will Bowen - 2007
    Big words? Yes, but this is a plan that has already proven itself with millions of people around the world. Pastor Will Bowen developed the life-changing A Complaint Free World plan based on the simple idea that good things will happen for you in abundance if you can just leave your grumbling behind. In a Sunday-morning sermon, Will told his congregation he wanted to make the world a complaint-free zone and, to prove he was serious, he passed out purple bracelets to each church member and offered them a challenge. "If you catch yourself complaining, take the bracelet and move it to the other wrist." Now, less than a year later, more than six million people have taken up the challenge, trying to go twenty-one consecutive days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, and in so doing, forming a new, positive habit. By changing your words, you can change your thoughts and then begin to create your life by design. People have shared stories with Will of chronic pain relieved, relationships healed, careers improved, and becoming an overall happier person. Less pain, improved health, satisfying relationships, a better job, being more serene and joyous—sound good? It’s not only possible, it’s probable. Consciously striving to reformat your mental hard drive is not easy, but you can start now by using the steps Bowen presents here. In this book, you can learn what constitutes a complaint, why we complain, what benefits we think we receive from complaining, how complaining is destructive to our lives, and how we can get others around us to stop complaining. You will learn the steps to eradicating this poisonous form of expression from your life. If you stay with it, you will find that not only will you not complain, but others around you will cease to do so as well. In a short period of time, you can have the life you’ve always dreamed of having.

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything


Joshua Foer - 2011
    From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind


Judson Brewer - 2021
    Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad


Robert T. Kiyosaki - 1997
    The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.

Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies for Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt, and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries


Guy Winch - 2013
    But, as Guy Winch, Ph.D., points out, these kinds of emotional injuries often get worse when left untreated and can significantly impact our quality of life. In this fascinating and highly practical book he provides the emotional first aid treatments we have been lacking. Explaining the long-term fallout that can result from seemingly minor emotional and psychological injuries, Dr. Winch offers concrete, easy-to-use exercises backed up by hard cutting-edge science to aid in recovery. He uses relatable anecdotes about real patients he has treated over the years and often gives us a much needed dose of humor as well. Prescriptive, programmatic, and unique, this first-aid kit for battered emotions will appeal to readers of Unstuck by James S. Gordon and Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff.

The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth


M. Scott Peck - 1978
    "Psychotherapy is all things to all people in this mega-selling pop-psychology watershed, which features a new introduction by the author in this 25th anniversary edition. His agenda in this tome, which was first published in 1978 but didn't become a bestseller until 1983, is to reconcile the psychoanalytic tradition with the conflicting cultural currents roiling the 70s. In the spirit of Me-Decade individualism and libertinism, he celebrates self-actualization as life's highest purpose and flirts with the notions of open marriage and therapeutic sex between patient and analyst. But because he is attuned to the nascent conservative backlash against the therapeutic worldview, Peck also cites Gospel passages, recruits psychotherapy to the cause of traditional religion (he even convinces a patient to sign up for divinity school) and insists that problems must be overcome through suffering, discipline and hard work (with a therapist.) Often departing from the cerebral and rationalistic bent of Freudian discourse for a mystical, Jungian tone more compatible with New Age spirituality, Peck writes of psychotherapy as an exercise in "love" and "spiritual growth," asserts that "our unconscious is God" and affirms his belief in miracles, reincarnation and telepathy. Peck's synthesis of such clashing elements (he even throws in a little thermodynamics) is held together by a warm and lucid discussion of psychiatric principles and moving accounts of his own patients' struggles and breakthroughs. Harmonizing psychoanalysis and spirituality, Christ and Buddha, Calvinist work ethic and interminable talking cures, this book is a touchstone of our contemporary religio-therapeutic culture." -- Publishers WeeklyKeywords: MIND & BODY PSYCHOLOGY SOCIOLOGY RELIGION

The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success


Darren Hardy - 2010
    No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, presents The Compound Effect, a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want.

How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job


Sally Helgesen - 2018
    But a few years ago, he realized that while some of the habits he outlined in What Got You Here apply to both men and women, women face specific, and different, challenges as they seek to advance in their careers.So he partnered with his longtime colleague, women’s leadership expert Sally Helgesen, to create this invaluable handbook for women trying to take the next step in their careers. They realized that for women in particular, the very skills and habits that made them successful early in their careers could actually be holding them back as they advance to the next stage of their working lives. Women in particular struggle with habits like:1. Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements2. Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Hard Work3. Overvaluing Expertise4. Building Rather than Leveraging Relationships5. Failing to Enlist Allies from Day One6. Putting Your Job Before Your Career7. The Disease to Please8. The Perfection Trap9. Minimizing10. Too Much11. Ruminating12. Letting Your Radar Distract YouLike the original What Got You Here, this new book will help women identify specific behaviors that keep them from realizing their full potential, no matter what stage they are in their career. It will also help them identify why what worked for them in the past will not necessarily get them where they want to go in the future–and how to finally shed those behaviors so they can advance to the next level, whatever that may be.

Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done


Jon Acuff - 2017
    I’ve started a million things, but I never finish them. Why can’t I finish?According to studies, 92 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail. You’ve practically got a better shot at getting into Juilliard to become a ballerina than you do at finishing your goals. For years, I thought my problem was that I didn’t try hard enough. So I started getting up earlier. I drank enough energy drinks to kill a horse. I hired a life coach and ate more superfoods. Nothing worked, although I did develop a pretty nice eyelid tremor from all the caffeine. It was like my eye was waving at you, very, very quickly. Then, while leading a thirty-day online course to help people work on their goals, I learned something surprising: The most effective exercises were not those that pushed people to work harder. The ones that got people to the finish line did just the opposite— they took the pressure off. Why? Because the sneakiest obstacle to meeting your goals is not laziness, but perfectionism. We’re our own worst critics, and if it looks like we’re not going to do something right, we prefer not to do it at all. That’s why we’re most likely to quit on day two, “the day after perfect”—when our results almost always underper­form our aspirations. The strategies in this book are counterintuitive and might feel like cheating. But they’re based on studies conducted by a university researcher with hundreds of participants. You might not guess that having more fun, eliminating your secret rules, and choosing something to bomb intentionally works. But the data says otherwise. People who have fun are 43 percent more successful! Imagine if your diet, guitar playing, or small business was 43 percent more suc­cessful just by following a few simple principles. If you’re tired of being a chronic starter and want to become a consistent finisher, you have two options: You can continue to beat yourself up and try harder, since this time that will work. Or you can give yourself the gift of done.

The Road to Character


David Brooks - 2015
    NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)


Barbara Oakley - 2014
    Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life. In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to effectively learning math and science—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn math. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. A Mind for Numbers shows us that we all have what it takes to excel in math, and learning it is not as painful as some might think!

What to Say When You Talk to Yourself


Shad Helmstetter - 1986
    Any amount of inspirational reading will only provide us with techniques that could work if put into practice. This book explains the principles of self-talk - a unique way of reversing negativity, optimizing outlook, focusing plans and achieving success. The key is in affirming, telling yourself the right things which then reflect in a more positive lifestyle.

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work


Steven Kotler - 2017
    Over the past decade, Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk, Special Operators like the Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, and maverick scientists like Sasha Shulgin and Amy Cuddy have turned everything we thought we knew about high performance upside down. Instead of grit, better habits, or 10,000 hours, these trailblazers have found a surprising short cut. They're harnessing rare and controversial states of consciousness to solve critical challenges and outperform the competition.New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler and high performance expert Jamie Wheal spent four years investigating the leading edges of this revolution—from the home of SEAL Team Six to the Googleplex, the Burning Man festival, Richard Branson’s Necker Island, Red Bull’s training center, Nike’s innovation team, and the United Nations’ Headquarters. And what they learned was stunning: In their own ways, with differing languages, techniques, and applications, every one of these groups has been quietly seeking the same thing: the boost in information and inspiration that altered states provide.Today, this revolution is spreading to the mainstream, fueling a trillion dollar underground economy and forcing us to rethink how we can all lead richer, more productive, more satisfying lives. Driven by four accelerating forces—psychology, neurobiology, technology and pharmacology—we are gaining access to and insights about some of the most contested and misunderstood terrain in history. Stealing Fire is a provocative examination of what’s actually possible; a guidebook for anyone who wants to radically upgrade their life.

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence


Gavin de Becker - 1996
    The new nanny gives a mother an uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers unsolicited help. The threat of violence surrounds us every day. But we can protect ourselves, by learning to trust—and act on—our gut instincts.In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the man Oprah Winfrey calls the nation's leading expert on violent behavior, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger—before it's too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love, including how to act when approached by a stranger, when you should fear someone close to you, what to do if you are being stalked, how to uncover the source of anonymous threats or phone calls, the biggest mistake you can make with a threatening person, and more. Learn to spot the danger signals others miss. It might just save your life.

Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less


Tiffany Dufu - 2017
    Like so many driven and talented women who have been brought up to believe that to have it all, they must do it all, Dufu began to feel that achieving her career and personal goals was an impossibility. Eventually, she discovered the solution: letting go. In Drop the Ball, Dufu recounts how she learned to reevaluate expectations, shrink her to-do list, and meaningfully engage the assistance of others--freeing the space she needed to flourish at work and to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships at home.Even though women are half the workforce, they still represent only eighteen per cent of the highest level leaders. The reasons are obvious: just as women reach middle management they are also starting families. Mounting responsibilities at work and home leave them with no bandwidth to do what will most lead to their success. Offering new perspective on why the women's leadership movement has stalled, and packed with actionable advice, Tiffany Dufu's Drop the Ball urges women to embrace imperfection, to expect less of themselves and more from others--only then can they focus on what they truly care about, devote the necessary energy to achieving their real goals, and create the type of rich, rewarding life we all desire.