Self-help, self development, personal development or self improvement. Call it whatever you like but there’s no doubt that this is a huge area with lots of ‘gurus’ out there teaching and preaching their beliefs. You can say it’s almost cult like. Either way, we all know how important reading is. So how do we separate the pretenders, block out the noise and find where the real value is? Who should you be following and which books should you read? It’s easy to get confused by all the hype surrounding books. Do you go for the best seller? A friend recommended the book? Or maybe you saw it on tv.
“Books showed me there were possibilities in life, that there were actually people like me living in a world I could not only aspire to but attain. Reading gave me hope. For me, it was the open door.” – Oprah Winfrey
This post will make your choice easier. We’ve compiled all these influencers and asked them this question. ‘What is the best self development book you’ve ever read and why is it different from the rest?’. I know that there’s no best book of all time. Different people go through different things and need a different push. Some relate to certain authors, writing styles or even niches. This post is here to give you a list of the number 1 book that has helped these influencers tremendously in their lives. Some books are best sellers, some you might hear for the first time. Some books are almost a hundred years old, some just written. But all the books listed are great in their own way.
How To use This List
I truly believe this list will bring a ton of value to you. My suggestion would be to bookmark this page and come back whenever you need a new book to read. The list is filled with hundreds of great books that each have their own special message.
Enjoy!
Please remember to share if you like it and comment below if you see your book or have one that is not listed!
Top Self-Help Books
Here is a list of the top books. It might not be a round number (eg. top 10, top 50, etc) because we go by what the influencers picked. These are books picked over and over again by different influencers and and it is clear why they picked these books! This list is arranged by the number of picks it got but that doesn’t mean that the top book is the best book of all time. There are over a hundred books in the whole post and here are the ones mentioned the most. I know for a fact that you can get as much value from book#11 as you can get from book #1.
We have a good diversity of books recommended from self help books for women and men, books about productivity, speaking, sales, psychology, autobiography, storybooks and lots more. I’m sure that if you’re looking for self-help books, you’ll find one that will have a massive impact on your life. Here are the top books as chosen by the influencers:
“How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
View 8 picks
“The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle
View 5 picks
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey
View 5 picks
“The Untethered Soul” by Michael A. Singer
View 5 picks
“The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz
View 5 picks
“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki
View 4 picks
“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho
View 4 picks
“You are a Badass” by Jen Sincero
View 4 picks
“The Compound Effect” By Darren Hardy
View 4 picks
“Essentialism” by Greg McKeown
View 4 picks
“Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Dr. Carol Dweck
View 4 picks
“Rising Strong” by Brené Brown
View 3 picks
“The 4-Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss
View 3 picks
“Mastery” by Robert Greene
View 3 picks
“The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron
View 3 picks
Bible
View 3 picks
The Contributors
We’ve worked hard to gather all these influencers who are successful in their own way. The one thing they have in common is that they all read and are always striving to get better. We’re happy to have some really big names on this list. We even have authors on this list that other influencers recommended on this list.