Smart Change: Five Tools to Create New and Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others


Art Markman - 2014
    Smart Change explores the psychological mechanisms that form and maintain habits in individuals and groups and offers real, accessible and actionable advice for changing habits. In an engaging narrative, Markman covers a wide range of habits, from individual behaviors like eating better and exercising regularly to work-related behaviors such as learning effectively and influencing customers’ purchases. He proposes that there are five effective tools to help individuals change behavior and to help people influence the habits of the people around them:1. Tame the “Go” system: Identify the triggers of habits, replace old behaviors with new ones and generate specific plans to deal with obstacles.2. Harness the “Stop” system: Learn to deal with stress and other factors that hinder the development of new and positive habits.3. Optimize your goals. Determine the course of behavior change and how to successfully incorporate those changes for the long term.4. Manage your environment: Change your surroundings to dramatically reduce poor behavior and habits.5. Engage your Neighbors: To affect other people’s behavior, understand the shared culture that creates a mutual dependency, and allows neighbors and colleagues to have a profound positive influence on the behavior of other members of their community.

Secrets of Productive People: 50 Techniques To Get Things Done: Teach Yourself


Mark Forster - 2015
    Each chapter outlines one of the 50 ideas and gives three strategies for putting it into practice. Some ideas will surprise you, all will inspire you. Put these simple strategies together and you have a recipe for a better life, a formula that will unlock a more productive you. Whether you want to improve your efficiency, clear your desk, or be on top of your work, this book provides the tools and techniques you need to be more productive. With dedicated sections on having a productive attitude, managing specific projects, aids to productivity and productivity in action, it gives you everything you need to know.

Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry


Albert J. Bernstein - 2000
    With advice and psychological perspective, it gives you a range of defense strategies against such creatures.

Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery


Don Richard Riso - 1987
    No matter from which point of view we approach it, we discover fresh conjunctions of new and old ideas." So writes Don Riso in this expanded edition of his classic interpretation of the Enneagram, the ancient psychological system used to understand the human personality. In addition to updating the descriptions of the nine personality types, Personality Types, Revised greatly expands the accompanying guidelines and, for the first time, uncovers the Core Dynamics, or Levels of Development, within each type. This skeletal system provides far more information about the inner tension and movements of the nine personalities than has previously been published. This increased specificity will allow therapists, social workers, personnel managers, students of the Enneagram, and general readers alike to use it with much greater precision as they unlock the secrets of self-understanding, and thus self-transformation.

Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling


Matthew Dicks - 2018
    

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World


Timothy Ferriss - 2017
    From iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors, their short profiles can help you answer life's most challenging questions, achieve extraordinary results, and transform your life.From the author: In 2017, several of my close friends died in rapid succession. It was a very hard year, as it was for many people. It was also a stark reminder that time is our scarcest, non-renewable resource. With a renewed sense of urgency, I began asking myself many questions: Were my goals my own, or simply what I thought I should want? How much of life had I missed from underplanning or overplanning? How could I be kinder to myself? How could I better say “no” to the trivial many to better say “yes” to the critical few? How could I best reassess my priorities and my purpose in this world? To find answers, I reached out to the most impressive world-class performers in the world, ranging from wunderkinds in their 20s to icons in their 70s and 80s. No stone was left unturned. This book contains their answers—practical and tactical advice from mentors who have found solutions. Whether you want to 10x your results, get unstuck, or reinvent yourself, someone else has traveled a similar path and taken notes. This book, Tribe of Mentors, includes many of the people I grew up viewing as idols or demi-gods. Less than 10% have been on my podcast (The Tim Ferriss Show, more than 200 million downloads), making this a brand-new playbook of playbooks. No matter your challenge or opportunity, something in these pages can help. Among other things, you will learn: • More than 50 morning routines—both for the early riser and those who struggle to get out of bed. • How TED curator Chris Anderson realized that the best way to get things done is to let go. • The best purchases of $100 or less (you'll never have to think about the right gift again). • How to overcome failure and bounce back towards success. • Why Humans of New York creator Brandon Stanton believes that the best art will always be the riskiest. • How to meditate and be more mindful (and not just for those that find it easy). • Why tennis champion Maria Sharapova believe that “losing makes you think in ways victories can’t.” • How to truly achieve work-life balance (and why most people tell you it isn’t realistic). • How billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz transformed the way he engages with difficult situations to reduce suffering. • Ways to thrive (and survive) the overwhelming amount of information you process every day. • How to achieve clarity on your purpose and assess your priorities. • And much more. This reference book, which I wrote for myself, has already changed my life. I certainly hope the same for you. I wish you luck as you forge your own path. All the best, Tim Ferriss

Superhuman Social Skills: A Guide to Being Likeable, Winning Friends, and Building Your Social Circle


Tynan - 2015
    What would happen if you treated social skills as though they were indeed skills, and became proactive about your social life? Superhuman Social Skills is a transformative book which analyzes and explains how to be likeable, how to converse, how to tell stories, how to make friends, and how to combine those friends to create an incredible social circle. If you ever feel socially awkward, don't know what to say, or wish you had more or better friends, Superhuman Social Skills is for you.

How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving


David RichoDavid Richo - 2002
    Drawing on the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, How to Be an Adult in Relationships explores five hallmarks of mindful loving and how they play a key role in our relationships throughout life:    1.  Attention to the present moment; observing, listening, and noticing all the feelings at play in our relationships.    2.  Acceptance of ourselves and others just as we are.    3.  Appreciation of all our gifts, our limits, our longings, and our poignant human predicament.    4.  Affection shown through holding and touching in respectful ways.    5.  Allowing life and love to be just as they are, with all their ecstasy and ache, without trying to take control. When deeply understood and applied, these five simple concepts—what Richo calls the five A's—form the basis of mature love. They help us to move away from judgment, fear, and blame to a position of openness, compassion, and realism about life and relationships. By giving and receiving these five A's, relationships become deeper and more meaningful, and they become a ground for personal transformation.

The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less


Tonya Dalton - 2019
    It’s an eye-opener to the fact that we don’t have to do a million things to be productive (or successful). And it’s a coach that helps us trim the fat, get real with our purpose, and start living more intentionally-Goop Dalton helps readers by teaching us to focus on the most important things and create our own operating systems that are exclusive to our lives as individuals. By doing this, we can simplify and make life even better- San Francisco Book ReviewDalton’s ground-up approach to productivity teaches readers to identify their real priorities and, in doing so, cut their massive to-do lists down to size by learning to say no to the tasks that pull them away from their North Star-GratefulOverwhelmed. Do you wake up in the morning already feeling behind? Does the pressure of keeping it all together make you feel anxious and irritable?Tanya Dalton, CEO and productivity expert, offers you a liberating shift in perspective: feeling overwhelmed isn't the result of having too much to do -- it's from not knowing where to start.Doing less might seem counterintuitive, but doing less is more productive, because you’re concentrating on the work you actually want to be doing. Through this book, you can learn how to:Identify what is important to you and clarify your priorities.Develop ways to streamline your specific workflow.Discover your purpose.Named Top 10 Business Book of the Year by Fortune magazine, The Joy of Missing Out is chock-full of resources and printables. This is a legitimate action plan for change. Once you reject the pressure to do more, something amazing happens: you discover you can finally live a guilt-free, abundant life.

The Angry Therapist: A No BS Guide to Finding and Living Your Own Truth


John Kim - 2017
    His radical new approach, that he sometimes calls self-help in a shot glass is easy, real, and to the point. He helps people make changes to their lives so that personal growth happens organically, just by living. Let s face it, therapy is a luxury. Few of us have the time or money to devote to going to an office every week. With anecdotes illustrating principles in action (in relatable and sometimes irreverent fashion) and stand-alone practices and exercises, Kim gives readers the tools and directions to focus on what's right with them instead of what's wrong. When John Kim was going through the end of a relationship, he began blogging as The Angry Therapist, documenting his personal journey post-divorce. Traditional therapists avoid transparency, but Kim preferred the language of "me too" as opposed to "you should." He blogged about his own shortcomings, revelations, views on relationships, and the world. He spoke a different therapeutic language open, raw, and at times subversive and people responded. The Angry Therapist blog, that inspired this book, has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly and on NPR."

Radical Honesty : How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth


Brad Blanton - 1994
    It was a shocker! In it, Dr. Brad Blanton, a psychotherapist and expert on stress management, explored the myths, superstitions and lies by which we all live. And this newly revised edition is even worse! Blanton shows us how stress comes not from the environment, but from the self-built jail of the mind. What keeps us in our self-built jails is lying."We all lie like hell," Dr. Blanton says. "It wears us out...it is the major source of all human stress. It kills us." Not telling our friends, lovers, spouses, or bosses about what we do, feel, or think keeps us locked in that mind jail. The way out is to get good at telling the truth, and Dr. Blanton provides the tools we can use to escape from that jail of the mind. This book is the cake with the file in it.In Radical Honesty, Dr. Blanton coaches us on how to have lives that work, how to have relationships that are alive and passionate, and how to create intimacy where none exists. As we have been taught by the philosophical and spiritual sources of our culture for thousands of years, from Plato to Nietzsche, from the Bible to Emerson, the truth shall set you free.

How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less


Nicholas Boothman - 1999
    Now that connection is infinitely easier to make through Nicholas Boothman's program of rapport by design.How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less is the work of a master of Neuro-Linguistic Programming whose career is teaching corporations and groups the secrets of successful face-to-face communication. Aimed at establishing rapport-that stage between meeting and communicating-How to Make People Like You focuses on the concept of synchrony. It shows how to synchronize attitude, synchronize body language, and synchronize voice tone so that you instantly and imperceptibly become someone the other person likes. Reinforcing these easy-to-learn skills is knowing how to read the other person's sensory preferences-most of us are visual, some are kinesthetic, and a minority are auditory. So when you say "I see what you mean" to a visual person, you're really speaking his language. Along the way the book covers attitude, nervousness, words that open a conversation and words that shut it down, compliments, eye cues, the magic of opposites attracting, and more. It's how to make the best of the most important 90 seconds in any relationship, business or personal.

Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life


Nir Eyal - 2019
    Later, as you're about to get back to work, a colleague taps you on the shoulder to chat. At home, screens get in the way of quality time with your family. Another day goes by, and once again, your most important personal and professional goals are put on hold.  What would be possible if you followed through on your best intentions? What could you accomplish if you could stay focused and overcome distractions? What if you had the power to become "indistractable"?  International best-selling author, former Stanford lecturer, and behavioral design expert, Nir Eyal, wrote Silicon Valley's handbook for making technology habit-forming. Five years after publishing Hooked, Eyal reveals distraction's Achilles' heel in his groundbreaking new book.  In Indistractable, Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving us to distraction. He describes why solving the problem is not as simple as swearing off our devices: Abstinence is impractical and often makes us want more.  Eyal lays bare the secret of finally doing what you say you will do with a four-step, research-backed model. Indistractable reveals the key to getting the best out of technology, without letting it get the best of us.  Inside, Eyal overturns conventional wisdom and reveals: Why distraction at work is a symptom of a dysfunctional company culture - and how to fix it  What really drives human behavior and why "time management is pain management"  Why your relationships (and your sex life) depend on you becoming indistractable  How to raise indistractable children in an increasingly distracting world Empowering and optimistic, Indistractable provides practical, novel techniques to control your time and attention - helping you live the life you really want.

The Slight Edge


Jeff Olson - 2005
    Learn why some people make dream after dream come true, while others just continue dreaming and spend their lives building dreams for someone else. It's not just another self-help motivation tool of methods you must learn in order to travel the path to success. It shows you how to create powerful results from the simple daily activities of your life, by using tools that are already within you.In this 8th anniversary edition you'll read not only the life-changing concepts of the original book, but also learn what author Jeff Olson discovered as he continued along the slight edge path: the Secret to Happiness and the Ripple Effect.This edition of The Slight Edge isn't just the story, but also how the story continues to create life-altering dynamics—how a way of thinking, a way of processing information, can impact daily choices that will lead you to the success and happiness you desire. The Slight Edge is "the key" that will make all the other how-to books and self-help information that you read, watch and hear actually work.

Becoming Bulletproof: Protect Yourself, Read People, Influence Situations, and Live Fearlessly


Evy Poumpouras - 2020
    Becoming Bulletproof means transforming yourself into a stronger, more confident, and more powerful person. Evy Poumpouras—former Secret Service agent to three presidents and one of only five women to receive the Medal of Valor—demonstrates how we can overcome our everyday fears, have difficult conversations, know who to trust and who might not have our best interests at heart, influence situations, and prepare for the unexpected. When you have become bulletproof, you are your best, most courageous, and most powerful version of you. Poumpouras shows us that ultimately true strength is found in the mind, not the body. Courage involves facing our fears, but it is also about resilience, grit, and having a built-in BS detector and knowing how to use it. In Becoming Bulletproof, Poumpouras demonstrates how to heighten our natural instincts to employ all these qualities and move from fear to fearlessness.