Best Success Books

[lukeprog]

I'm looking for success book recommendations.

I've read dozens of success books recently. Nearly all of them are crap. The gurus pretend to unleash the "secrets" of success that, if applied, guarantee life transformation. They like to organize their secrets in a special "system" that is "unique." Their alliterative advice keys often leave out really important topics like how to choose good goals (not just how to achieve them) or how to pick a spouse wisely or how to succeed in certain specific situations.

One of my favorites so far that bucked the trend was John T. Reed's "Succeeding", a no-nonsense breakdown of success principles for all the important areas of life.

What success books are actually worth my time?

[Xin]

David Burnet - The Business Renovator - Coaching and Investing

Have fun. =]

(It's the Laws of Success, of Napoleon Hill fame -> T&GR)

[Kaspian]

Originally Posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Their alliterative advice keys often leave out really important topics like how to choose good goals (not just how to achieve them) or how to pick a spouse wisely or how to succeed in certain specific situations.

If you look through Steve's archives, you'll find some excellent posts on choosing good goals by basing them on your life's purpose. He also talks about finding your purpose, of course. Erin has a great post on Attracting the Relationship of Your Dreams. As for specific situations, well, you'll have to be more specific!

[Sunnybayes]

Invent your own system. Learn to think for yourself. I made my own system, based on what I could relate to. Its the link in my signature. Its the progress that I made over the course of a couple of months. I reread it weekly. I read other books, and they say the same things, all in their own unique language.

There are so many systems, because each author discovered it himself, could not relate to anyone elses, and therefore thinks his way is unique, and so writes yet another book about the subject.

[Zukin]

Here's a list of books recommended by Steve:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/personal...ment-books.htm

I would also recommend that you see if the author has accomplished the results that you want, and whether or not those results are replicable for you. Those two principles will help you cut through the worthless books and find the best books on success.

[Jason S]

I find the best books aren't the biz books/self-help books per se, they are the stories that we can relate to and from which we can pull out important life lessons. For a combination of stories and a small handful of top drawer "how to's", my booklist can be found here.

This is the same list I share with my grad students when I teach leadership.

[jencoach]

Recently I was very pleased with Amazing Success by Douglas Vermeeren. I have heard him speak in person and bought the book on amazon. Very enjoyable and good information.