Book picks similar to
Be Your Own Life Coach by Fiona Harrold
self-help
coaching
psychology
non-fiction
Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life
Gary John Bishop - 2016
The truth is, most of it fails to capture what it truly takes to overcome our greatest barrier to a greater life…ourselves. What if everything you ever wanted resided in you like a well of potential, waiting to be expressed? Unfu*k Yourself is the handbook for the resigned and defeated, a manifesto for real life change and unleashing your own greatness.
Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health
Caroline Leaf - 2007
Caroline's revelation will change the way you think.
This book is the owner's manual for how our brains work."--Matthew and Laurie Crouch, Trinity Broadcasting Network"Caroline Leaf has given us a real jewel, translating modern brain science into language accessible to everyone."--David I. Levy, MD, neurosurgeon, author of Gray Matter"[Caroline] explains how our choices work scientifically, but in a practical way that makes something that is really hard to do much easier and more tangible."--Christine Caine, founder of the A21 Campaign; director of Equip and Empower Ministries; author of Undaunted"We encourage you to act on the wisdom found in Switch On Your Brain and begin the incredible journey of thinking God's way."--Robert and Debbie Morris, pastors of Gateway Church; authors of The Blessed Life, The Blessed Marriage, and The Blessed Woman"Dr. Leaf's teaching is not only life changing but life saving as it makes the renewing of the mind so real. I am so very grateful for the wisdom contained within these pages."--Darlene Zschech, singer-songwriter; author of The Art of Mentoring"Each of us is full of untapped potential when it comes to our ability to think and process our way through life. I pray that Caroline's years of research and passion in this realm of unfolding science will be a blessing to you."--Bobbie Houston, senior pastor, Hillsong Church
The Strangest Secret
Earl Nightingale - 1956
Live this new way, and the floodgates of abundance will open and pour over you more riches than you may have dreamed existed.Money? Yes, lots of it. But what's more important, you'll have peace. You'll be in that wonderful minority who lead calm, cheerful, successful lives. Start today. You have nothing to lose, but you have a life to win.
Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It
Ethan Kross - 2021
Tell a stranger that you talk to yourself, and you're likely to get written off as eccentric. But the truth is that we all have a voice in our head. When we talk to ourselves, we often hope to tap into our inner coach but find our inner critic instead. When we're facing a tough task, our inner coach can buoy us up: Focus--you can do this. But, just as often, our inner critic sinks us entirely: I'm going to fail. They'll all laugh at me. What's the use?In Chatter, acclaimed psychologist Ethan Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves. Interweaving groundbreaking behavioral and brain research from his own lab with real-world case studies--from a pitcher who forgets how to pitch, to a Harvard undergrad negotiating her double life as a spy--Kross explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships. He warns that giving in to negative and disorienting self-talk--what he calls "chatter"--can tank our health, sink our moods, strain our social connections, and cause us to fold under pressure.But the good news is that we're already equipped with the tools we need to make our inner voice work in our favor. These tools are often hidden in plain sight--in the words we use to think about ourselves, the technologies we embrace, the diaries we keep in our drawers, the conversations we have with our loved ones, and the cultures we create in our schools and workplaces.Brilliantly argued, expertly researched, and filled with compelling stories, Chatter gives us the power to change the most important conversation we have each day: the one we have with ourselves.
The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connections and Courage
Brené Brown - 2013
Brené Brown, “we associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame, and uncertainty. Yet we too often lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love.” On The Power of Vulnerability, Dr. Brown offers an invitation and a promise - that when we dare to drop the armor that protects us from feeling vulnerable, we open ourselves to the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Here she dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and reveals that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.“The Power of Vulnerability is a very personal project for me,” Brené explains. “This is the first place that all of my work comes together. This audio course draws from all three of my books - it’s the culmination of everything I’ve learned over the past twelve years. I'm very excited to weave it all into a truly comprehensive form that shows what these findings and insights can mean in our lives.”Guidance and Insights for Wholehearted LivingOver the past twelve years, Dr. Brené Brown has interviewed hundreds of people as part of an ongoing study of vulnerability. “The research shows that we try to ward disappointment with a shield of cynicism, disarm shame by numbing ourselves against joy, and circumvent grief by shutting off our willingness to love,” explains Dr. Brown. When we become aware of these patterns, she teaches, we begin to become conscious of how much we sacrifice in the name of self-defense -and how much richer our lives become when we open ourselves to vulnerability.“In my research,” Dr. Brown says, “the word I use to describe people who can live from a place of vulnerability is wholehearted.” Being wholehearted is a practice—one that we can choose to cultivate through empathy, gratitude, and awareness of our vulnerability armor. Join this engaging and heartfelt teacher on The Power of Vulnerability as she offers profound insights on leaning into the full spectrum of emotions—so we can show up, let ourselves be seen, and truly be all in.HIGHLIGHTSCultivating shame resilience—the key to developing a sense of worth and belonging.Vulnerability as the origin point for innovation, adaptability, accountability, and visionary leadership.Our emotional armory - how we use perfectionism, numbing, and other tactics to avoid feeling vulnerable.The myths of vulnerability - common misconceptions about weakness, trust, and self-sufficiency.Discovering your vulnerability armor - recognizing what makes us shut down, and how we can change.The 10 guideposts of wholehearted living - essential skills for becoming fully engaged in life.Six hours of stories, warm humor, and transformative insights for living a life of courage, authenticity, and compassion from Dr. Brené Brown.
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
Winifred Gallagher - 2009
Gallagher grapples with provocative questions—Can we train our focus? What’s different about the way creative people pay attention? Why do we often zero in on the wrong factors when making big decisions, like where to move?—driving us to reconsider what we think we know about attention. Gallagher looks beyond sound bites on our proliferating BlackBerries and the increased incidence of ADD in children to the discoveries of neuroscience and psychology and the wisdom of home truths, profoundly altering and expanding the contemporary conversation on attention and its power. Science’s major contribution to the study of attention has been the discovery that its basic mechanism is an either/or process of selection. That we focus may be a biological necessity— research now proves we can process only a little information at a time, or about 173 billion bits over an average life—but the good news is that we have much more control over our focus than we think, which gives us a remarkable yet underappreciated capacity to influence our experience. As suggested by the expression “pay attention,” this cognitive currency is a finite resource that we must learn to spend wisely. In Rapt, Gallagher introduces us to a diverse cast of characters—artists and ranchers, birders and scientists—who have learned to do just that and whose stories are profound lessons in the art of living the interested life. No matter what your quotient of wealth, looks, brains, or fame, increasing your satisfaction means focusing more on what really interests you and less on what doesn’t. In asserting its groundbreaking thesis—the wise investment of your attention is the single most important thing you can do to improve your well-being—Rapt yields fresh insights into the nature of reality and what it means to be fully alive.
Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life
James Kerr - 2013
Legacy is a unique, inspiring handbook for leaders in all fields, and asks: What are the secrets of success – sustained success? How do you achieve world-class standards, day after day, week after week, year after year? How do you handle pressure? How do you train to win at the highest level? What do you leave behind you after you’re gone?What will be your legacy?
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.
How to Get Sh*t Done: Why Women Need to Stop Doing Everything so They Can Achieve Anything
Erin Falconer - 2018
If we’re not climbing the corporate ladder, building our side hustle, preparing home-cooked meals, tucking the kids in at night, meditating daily, and scheduling playdates, date nights, and girls’ nights every week, we feel like we’re not living our best lives. Yet traditional productivity books—written by men—barely touch the tangle of cultural pressures that women feel when facing down a to-do list. Finally, in the first productivity book by a woman in a decade, Erin Falconer will show you how to do less—a lot less. In fact, How to Get Sh*t Done will teach you how to zero in on the three areas of your life where you want to excel, and then it will show you how to off-load, outsource, or just stop giving a damn about the rest. As the founder of two technology start-ups and one of Refinery29’s Top 10 Women Changing the Digital Landscape for Good, Erin has seen what happens when women chase an outdated, patriarchal model of productivity, and in How to Get Sh*t Done she shows how even the most perfectionistic among us can tap into our inner free spirit and learn to feel like badasses, rather than drudges. Packed with real-life advice, honest stories from Erin’s successful career, and dozens of actionable resources, How to Get Sh*t Done will forever reframe productivity so that you can stop doing everything for everyone and start doing what matters to you.
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.
Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Marshall Goldsmith - 2015
Triggers shows us how to break that cycle and enact meaningful change.In Triggers, renown executive coach and psychologist Marshall Goldsmith discusses the emotional triggers that set off a reaction or a behavior in us that often works to our detriment. Do you find that at times you suddenly become defensive or enraged by an idle comment from a colleague? Or that your temper rises when another car cuts you off in traffic? Your reactions don’t occur in a vacuum. They are the result of emotional and psychological triggers that often happen only in specific settings—at meetings, or in competitive situations, or with a specific person who rubs you the wrong way, or when you feel under particular pressure. Being able to recognize those triggers and understand how the environment affects our behavior is key to controlling our responses and managing others at work and in life. Make no mistake—change is hard. And the starting point is the willingness to accept help, and the desire to change. This book will show you how.Over the course of this book, Marshall explores the power of active questions to get us to take responsibility for our actions—and our failure to act. Questions such as “Did I do my best to make progress toward my goal?” “Did I work hard at being fully engaged?” He discusses the importance of structure in effecting permanent change. Because, he points out, change is hard, and without a structure to keep us on track, we inevitably relapse and fall back.Filled with illuminating stories from Marshall’s work with some of the most accomplished executives and leaders in America, Triggers shows readers how to achieve meaningful and sustained change that will allow us to open our imaginations and escape the rigidity of binary thinking.
The Power of Writing It Down: A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life
Allison Fallon - 2021
This practice and pathway is free, it's readily available every day of your life, it takes just minutes of your time, and anyone can do it. Author, writing coach, and speaker Allison Fallon's life transformed when she discovered the power of a daily writing practice. As it turns out, using your words is one of the most powerful means you have for unlocking your life. The Power of Writing It Down is your guide to this transformative tool available to us all. In as little as five to twenty minutes a day, scientific research shows this daily practice can help you: Identify your ruts and create new neurological grooves toward better habitsFind fresh motivation and take ownership of your lifeHeal from past pain and traumaRelieve anxiety and depressionContextualize life's setbacks and minor frustrationsLive a more confident, balanced, and healthy life…and so much more Drawing from years of coaching hundreds through the writing process–from first-timers to New York Times bestselling authors–Allison shares tried and tested practices for getting started, staying inspired, and using this simple habit to shift how you feel and show up to your life. Pen and paper is simply the method, but the reward is the real magic: new depths of self-discovery, creativity, and intentionality for living.
Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong
Eric Barker - 2017
In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker reveals the extraordinary science behind what actually determines success and most importantly, how anyone can achieve it. You’ll learn:• Why valedictorians rarely become millionaires, and how your biggest weakness might actually be your greatest strength • Whether nice guys finish last and why the best lessons about cooperation come from gang members, pirates, and serial killers• Why trying to increase confidence fails and how Buddhist philosophy holds a superior solution• The secret ingredient to “grit” that Navy SEALs and disaster survivors leverage to keep going• How to find work-life balance using the strategy of Genghis Khan, the errors of Albert Einstein, and a little lesson from Spider-ManBy looking at what separates the extremely successful from the rest of us, we learn what we can do to be more like them—and find out in some cases why it’s good that we aren’t. Barking Up the Wrong Tree draws on startling statistics and surprising anecdotes to help you understand what works and what doesn’t so you can stop guessing at success and start living the life you want.
No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness
Michelle Segar - 2015
We're going to exercise more and get in shape! Then five days a week at the gym turns into two... then becomes none. We hit the snooze button and skip the morning run. We really do want to be healthy and fit, but we're over whelmed and overextended—and exercise feels like another chore to complete. Is it any wonder we don't stick with it? Behavior expert Michelle Segar has devoted her career to the science of motivation. In No Sweat, she reveals that while "better health" or "weight loss" sound like strong incentives, human beings are hardwired to choose immediate gratification over delayed benefits. In other words, we're not going to exercise unless it makes us happy right now. So what's the solution? To achieve lasting fitness, we have to change our minds—before we can change our bodies. In No Sweat, Segar shows us how. Translating twenty years of research on exercise and motivation into a simple four-point program, she helps readers broaden their definition of exercise, find pleasure in physical activity, and discover realistic ways to fit it into their lives. Activities we enjoy, we repeat--making this evidence-based system more sustainable in the long run than a regimen of intense workouts. Even if we don't sweat, we really benefit. The success of the clients Segar has coached testifies to the power of her program. Their stories punctuate the book, entertaining and emboldening readers to break the cycle of exercise failure once and for all. Complete with worksheets, tips, and techniques, getting in shape has never been so easy—or so much fun.