If you’re a fan of personal development books like me, you’ve probably already read a few. Take a look at my post “entrepreneurship development free ebook download” for some of my favorites. I’ve always been a fan of personal development and have read many books over the years on self help. Here are just a few of my favorites.
Personal Development Books
The Teachings Of Don Carlos
One of the first books which comes to mind is The Teachings Of Don Carlos by Victor Sanchez which is based on the books of Carlos Castaneda.
- What were thinking?
- What are you doing?
- Do you want this?
This is an incredibly powerful exercise and very insightful to help you learn about your inner mind, direction and thoughts. For anyone wanting some major transformations in their life I highly recommend this book as a starting point.
The Slight Edge
The Sli
ght Edge by Jeff Olson is another of my favorites which I have recently found. I had some major eye opening moments while reading this book, especially concerning habits and behaviors concerning money and career. Jeff outlines principles and strategies for creating daily disciplines which over time create massive success in life. Simply daily habits, which when repeated over a long enough time span, bring certainty to success in life.
Just like poor habits and lack of discipline bring their fruits, small daily changes to your regime can have a massive impact over time. The timeline showing success, survival and failure was particularly interesting.
It points out that many people slide from success back down to failure through the ‘survival’ line. An ‘away from’ motivation keeps people in the survival to failure curve, rather than from survival to success and upwards. Once a reasonable level of survival is achieved, people stop striving and slide back down the curve until survival is threatened, then pursue success until they reach survival level again.
David Bach The Automatic Millionaire
A similar book to The Slight Edge is David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire. In it he outlines principles for long term financial success by following some simply principles and strategies:
- Remove debt as soon as possible. He outlines the order which do eliminate debt from your life, how to stay out of it and lower payments and interest on your debt.
- Set up a ‘pay yourself first’ system of payment from your wages.
- Live below your means
- Pay down mortgage early by over paying, when possible
- Don’t be ‘big hat no cattle’! Owning a Ferrari buy having no money for petrol, for example!
- Set up pension payments. A pensions means money going out of your wages isn’t taxed if removed at source. You save twice because you also live below your means and build a ‘pot’ for the future.
- Learn about your ‘Latte Factor’. How much do you justify spending on a daily basis? A simple habit of buying a daily latte could be costing you hundreds or even thousands over time. $4 x 365 = $1460 a year on a $4 latte each day!
Personal Development Books by Napoleon Hill
Two of my favorite personal development books have been written by Napoleon Hill. The most famous is his book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ which was first published in 1937. In it he talks about the conversations we have in our inner mind, and how this reflects back to us through our subconscious mind. A process he refers to as autosuggestion. Â It is definitely one of the best books ever written on the subject of success and achievement and the process of our self creating thoughts.
You can get the think and grow rich pdf or buy a copy from Amazon here.
Outwitting The Devil
His other book is slightly more controversial. Hidden for over seventy years, Outwitting The Devil is the resulting manuscript of Napoleon Hill’s conversations with The Devil. Hill reveals that he broke the Devil’s code and forced him to confess his secrets.
Hill reveals that it is the hidden adversary in our inner minds which ultimately controls us and either leads to victory or our own demise. Fear, procrastination, anger and jealousy are hidden methods used to control our minds by the Devil himself, Hill reveals. Whatever you believe about this book, you can’t fail to be moved by its contents.
“Q: Yes. Go on and describe these two doors by which you enter and control the minds of human beings.Â
A: As I have stated, I help to bring people into your world with weak brains by giving to them, before birth, as many as possible of the weaknesses of their ancestors. You call this principle “physical heredity”. After people are born I make use of what you earthbound call “environment” as a means of controlling them. This is where the principle of habit enters. The mind is nothing more than the sum total of one’s habits! One by one I enter the mind and establish habits, which lead finally to my absolute domination of the mind. “
The 10 X Rule
For the last of the personal development books in this post I want to include Grant Cardone’s “The 10 X Rule”. In it he discusses some of the limited attitudes which may have held you back from success, being a victim and beliefs which hold you from the life you deserve.
“Success is your duty”, he says. Learn how to focus harder on what creates success. It is our underlying attitudes towards success which can stand in the way of our creating it for ourselves. Each chapter is followed by a series of questions which will help you to:
- Get clear on what success means
- Help you to resolve inhibited thinking patterns
- Take control of your life and your successes
- Step away from patterns of victim hood and self perpetuated lies
- Look into how your environment has affected your beliefs and choices
You can also download and see more personal development books in my post “entrepreneurship development free ebook download“.