The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential


Leo Babauta - 2008
    The Power of Less demonstrates how to streamline your life by identifying the essential and eliminating the unnecessary freeing you from everyday clutter and allowing you to focus on accomplishing the goals that can change your life for the better.The Power of Less will show you how to: Break any goal down into manageable tasksFocus on only a few tasks at a timeCreate new and productive habitsHone your focusIncrease your efficiency By setting limits for yourself and making the most of the resources you already have, youll finally be able work less, work smarter, and focus on living the life that you deserve.

The Unexpected Joy of Being Single


Catherine Gray - 2018
    With the single camp growing at ten times the rate of the actual population, it is now the norm to be single well into our thirties - the average marriage age for women is 35 and 37 for men. But nobody seems to have told society, romcom makers, songwriters, marriage-hungry mothers, 'tick-tock' uncles, our mates or us that.Cue: single anxiety. Love addiction. Spending hours scrolling through dating apps. Being inconsolable when he/she doesn't text. Humming 'Here Comes the Bride' when they do.Catherine Gray went through all of this. And then some. She took a whole year off dating to get her love-hooked head straight. How do we chill our boots about our single status? Detach from 'all the good ones are gone!' panic? And de-programme from urgent, red, heart-shaped societal pressure to find your 'other half*'? We know intellectually that single is far preferable to panic-settling, yet we forget that almost constantly. Why? Psychologists and neuroscientists tell us? Let's start the reverse-brainwash and locate our happily-single sanity, for good. Are you in?*Spoiler: you're already a whole person.

The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life


Janice Kaplan - 2015
    Her pioneering reseach was praised in People and Vanity Fair and hailed on TV shows including Today, The O’Reilly Factor, and CBS’s The Talk. On New Year’s Eve, journalist and former Parade Editor-in-Chief Janice Kaplan makes a promise to be grateful and look on the bright side of whatever happens. She realizes that how she feels over the next months will have less to do with the events that occur than her own attitude and perspective. Getting advice at every turn from psychologists, academics, doctors, and philosophers, she brings readers on a smart and witty journey to discover the value of appreciating what you have. Relying on both amusing personal experiences and extensive research, Kaplan explores how gratitude can transform every aspect of life including marriage and friendship, money and ambition, and health and fitness. She learns how appreciating your spouse changes the neurons of your brain and why saying thanks helps CEOs succeed. Through extensive interviews with experts and lively conversations with real people including celebrities like Matt Damon, Daniel Craig, and Jerry Seinfeld, Kaplan discovers the role of gratitude in everything from our sense of fulfillment to our children’s happiness.   With warmth, humor, and appealing insight, Janice’s journey will empower readers to think positively and start living their own best year ever.

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World


Desmond Tutu - 2013
    If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one's story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu's wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.

The Science of Getting Rich


Wallace D. Wattles - 1910
    Wattles spent a lifetime considering the laws of success as he found them in the work of the world’s great philosophers. He then turned his life effort into this simple, slender book – a volume that he vowed could replace libraries of philosophy, spirituality, and self-help for the purpose of attaining one definite goal: a life of prosperity. Wattles describes a definite science of wealth attraction, built on the foundation of one commanding idea: “There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made…A thought, in this substance, produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.” In his seventeen short, straight-to-the-point chapters, Wattles shows how to use this idea, how to overcome barriers to its application, and how work with very direct methods that awaken it in your life. He further explains how creation and not competition is the hidden key to wealth attraction, and how your power to get rich uplifts everyone around you. The Science of Getting Rich concludes with Wattle’s rare essay “How to Get Want You Want” – a brilliant refresher of his laws of wealth creation.

A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough


Wayne Muller - 2010
    Our culture obsessively promotes the pursuit of money, success and self-improvement. At the end of each activity-jammed day, though, we collapse into bed discouraged by everything we have not checked off on our to-do lists, in despair that whatever we have accomplished is never enough. Worse still, when our dreams become derailed by the inherent tragedies of life—job loss, financial peril, sickness, or the death of a loved one—we feel devastated by the pain and injustice of it all.  Nationally renowned author, therapist, and minister Wayne Muller offers healing for the perpetually stressed in A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough. By learning compassion and mercy for ourselves and by recognizing what is most profoundly true about who we are and what we need, we can gain the self-acceptance so that whatever we choose to do, in this moment, it is wholly enough. Muller mixes the writings of great spiritual and political leaders with inspirational anecdotes from his own life, inviting us to derive more satisfaction from less and pull gratitude out of the ashes of grief. The answer to what he describes as "authentic happiness" lies not in seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty. In reality, he writes, the glass is always half full and half empty. The world is neither broken nor whole, but eternally engaged in rhythms between joy and sorrow. With Muller's guidance, we may find ourselves on the most courageous spiritual pilgrimage of our lives.

Tao of Jeet Kune Do


Bruce Lee - 1975
    His doctors ordered him to discontinue the practice of martial arts and to remain in bed to allow his back heal. This was probably the most trying and dispiriting time in Bruce's life. He stayed in bed, virtually flat on his back for six months, but he couldn't keep his mind from working - the result of which is this book." Linda Lee "Jeet Kune Do, you see, has no definite lines or boundaries - only those you make yourself." Gilbert L Johnson

Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment


Robert Wright - 2017
    The mind is designed to often delude us, he argued, about ourselves and about the world. And it is designed to make happiness hard to sustain. But if we know our minds are rigged for anxiety, depression, anger, and greed, what do we do? Wright locates the answer in Buddhism, which figured out thousands of years ago what scientists are only discovering now. Buddhism holds that human suffering is a result of not seeing the world clearly—and proposes that seeing the world more clearly, through meditation, will make us better, happier people. In Why Buddhism is True, Wright leads readers on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age. At once excitingly ambitious and wittily accessible, this is the first book to combine evolutionary psychology with cutting-edge neuroscience to defend the radical claims at the heart of Buddhist philosophy. With bracing honesty and fierce wisdom, it will persuade you not just that Buddhism is true—which is to say, a way out of our delusion—but that it can ultimately save us from ourselves, as individuals and as a species.

Secrets of the Vine: Breaking Through to Abundance


Bruce H. Wilkinson - 2001
    Bruce Wilkinson explores John 15 to show readers how to make maximum impact for God. Dr. Wilkinson demonstrates how Jesus is the Vine of life, discusses four levels of "fruit bearing" (doing the good work of God), and reveals three life-changing truths that will lead readers to new joy and effectiveness in His kingdom. Secrets of the Vine opens readers' eyes to the Lord's hand in their lives and uncovers surprising insights that will point them toward a new path of consequence for God's glory.

Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges


Amy Cuddy - 2015
    Too often we approach our lives' biggest hurdles with dread, execute them with anxiety, and leave them with regret.By accessing our personal power, we can achieve "presence," the state in which we stop worrying about the impression we're making on others and instead adjust the impression we've been making on ourselves. As Harvard professor Amy Cuddy's revolutionary book reveals, we don't need to embark on a grand spiritual quest or complete an inner transformation to harness the power of presence. Instead, we need to nudge ourselves, moment by moment, by tweaking our body language, behavior, and mind-set in our day-to-day lives.Amy Cuddy has galvanized tens of millions of viewers around the world with her TED talk about "power poses." Now she presents the enthralling science underlying these and many other fascinating body-mind effects, and teaches us how to use simple techniques to liberate ourselves from fear in high-pressure moments, perform at our best, and connect with and empower others to do the same.Brilliantly researched, impassioned, and accessible, Presence is filled with stories of individuals who learned how to flourish during the stressful moments that once terrified them. Every reader will learn how to approach their biggest challenges with confidence instead of dread, and to leave them with satisfaction instead of regret."Presence feels at once concrete and inspiring, simple but ambitious — above all, truly powerful." —New York Times Book Review

Shift Happens: How to Live an Inspired Life...Starting Right Now!


Robert Holden - 2010
    One caterpillar said to the other, “You will never get me up in one of those things.”     Shift Happens! is about personal alchemy and inner transformation. Some people “go” through life; and other people “grow” through life. Shift Happens! ­celebrates your unlimited potential to grow, blossom, and evolve—in spite of everything. It is a book of hope.     The term personal alchemy describes the ability to take a piece of dirt, roll it around a few times, and fashion it into a pearl. This is what an oyster does. Personal alchemy is what your grandmother called turning lemons into lemonade. It is what old wizards described as turning straw into gold.     Shift Happens! is about staying open all hours for miracles. Success, love, and happiness are only ever one thought away at most. One new perception, one fresh thought, one act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever.

Simple Taoism: A Guide to Living in Balance


C. Alexander Simpkins - 1999
    Divided into three parts, the book outlines:A clear explanation of Taoism and how to apply its best aspects to your daily life.Simple instructions for exercises to lead a fuller life—meditation, breathing, chi kung, and tai chi chuan.An informative discussion of key Taoist concepts, including wu-wei (nonaction), yin and yang, and Te (power virtue, life).

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Lykke / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living


Hector Garcia Puigcerver - 2018
    And according to the residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa – the world’s longest-living people – finding it is the key to a longer and more fulfilled life. Inspiring and comforting, this book will give you the life-changing tools to uncover your personal ikigai. It will show you how to leave urgency behind, find your purpose, nurture friendships and throw yourself into your passions. The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well The Danish word hygge is one of those beautiful words that doesn't directly translate into English, but it more or less means comfort, warmth or togetherness. Hygge is the feeling you get when you are cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, in warm knitted socks, in front of the fire, when it is dark, cold and stormy outside. It that feeling when you are sharing good, comfort food with your closest friends, by candle light and exchanging easy conversation. It is those cold, crisp blue sky mornings when the light through your window is just right. Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living Step aside Hygge. Lagom is the new Scandi lifestyle trend taking the world by storm. This delightfully illustrated book gives you the lowdown on this transformative approach to life and examines how the lagom ethos has helped boost Sweden to the No.10 ranking in 2017's World Happiness Report. Lagom (pronounced 'lah-gom') has no equivalent in the English language but is loosely translated as 'not too little, not too much, just right'. It is widely believed that the word comes from the Viking term 'laget om', for when a mug of mead was passed around a circle and there was just enough for everyone to get a sip.

How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living


Rob Bell - 2016
    Whether it’s writing the next great American novel, starting a business, or joining a band, Rob Bell wants to help us make those dreams become reality. Our path is ours and ours alone to pursue, he reminds us, and in doing so, we derive great joy because we are living our passions.How to Be Here lays out concrete steps we can use to define and follow our dreams, interweaving engaging stories, lessons from biblical figures, insights gleaned from Rob’s personal experience, and practical advice. Rob gives you the support and insight you need to silence your critics, move from idea to action, take the first step, find joy in the work, persevere through hard times, and surrender to the outcome.Like Stephen Pressfield’s classic The War of Art, How to Be Here will inspire readers to seek the lives they were created to lead.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less


Greg McKeown - 2011
    It’s about getting only the right things done.  It is not  a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.  By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything. A must-read for any leader, manager, or individual who wants to learn who to do less, but better, in every area of their lives, Essentialism  is a movement whose time has come.