Cut Through the Minefield of Self Development Literature With 15 Years of Reading Compiled into Ten Must-Read Books
In my …ahem… years on the planet, I have read over 200 self-development books, and most of them are drivel.
For example, ‘Pig Wrestling – The brilliantly simple way to solve any problem’ – except how to understand this book! Not a great read. Plus, there are no pigs, or wrestlers (Unlike Clarkson’s ‘Diddly Squat’ – a great read for entertainment, or Adam Kay’s ‘This is Going to Hurt’ – to which I laughed out loud in a coffee shop.)
Let me explain why it is not worth wasting your time on 99% of these ‘self development’ books…
We have a saying in the Learning & Development world,
‘Information without application is just entertainment’.
In other words, unless you actually do something with that one-day training course when you get back to the office, you may as well have gone and seen Cirque du Soleil instead (excellent, by the way). Books are the same.
Each self-development book is about 60,000 words. Given an average reading speed of 225 words per minute, a book will take just under 5 hours to read. If you started at 9 am, stopped for an hour for lunch, and had a couple of short breaks, you’d finish at 3.30pm. That’s a large chunk of the day. If you are reading for entertainment, then I suggest Michael Caine’s biography or Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Bomber Mafia’ about how World War 2 was won by knowing that ball bearings were key – I’ll leave you to discover why. If you are reading to be a better version of yourself, then few books will actually change behaviours.
These are my top 10 recommendations for self development books because they actually improve what you do at work:
- Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy: Second to none in the time management stakes of being more productive. A short book that changed my life 20+ years ago.
- Made to Stick by Chip and Dan: Understand why some things get traction and some don’t. It will improve how you influence people at work.
- The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters: “You are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp, but you are responsible for managing it”.
- Mindstore: Jack Black (Not the actor) delivered one of the most inspiring speeches at a Sainsbury’s conference in about 2000. He was the reason I left corporate life to start my own business.
- 78 Persuasion Techniques: A shameless plug of my own book. Sorry! (Available on Amazon for 99p).
- Peaks and Valleys by Spencer Johnson: This will help you to navigate your mental health.
- Bare Knuckle Negotiating: Simon Hazeldine tells us how it is really done.
- Managing with Carrots by Chester Elton: How to be a much better people manager and be able to motivate your team.
- Fairness for All: Lord Mark Price, the ex-Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, is all about happiness, and his business measures it in companies. Fascinating. A wonderful guy, too.
- 60 Minute Manager: Great insights into how to be a better people manager.
If you’re looking for self development, books are much better than trawling through hundreds of articles online. They give you the opportunity to dive into a specific subject and truly learn. The key is to choose the right ones, much like online articles, there are too many for them all to be the best.
The above list has been curated from an ever-growing bookshelf of (currently) about 200 self development books I have read in the last 20 years. I hope you find them as insightful as I have.
This article was written by Darren A. Smith for The Grocer. View the original article.
