Personal Improvement Development

Leadership isn't something you're born with or gifted as a reward for an abundance of charisma; true leadership stems from core skills that can be learned. Get more of the leadership ideas you want, from the authors you trust, with HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (Vol. 2). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

After eight books, many of them best sellers, A Game Plan for Life is the one closest to John Woodens heart: a moving and inspirational guide to the power of mentorship. The first half focuses on the people who helped foster the values that carried Wooden through an incredibly successful and famously principled career, including his college coach, his wife, Abraham Lincoln, and Mother Teresa.

Today, burnout and depression are at record levels, driven by a combination of intense workplace competition, oppressively ubiquitous social media encouraging comparisons with others, the quest for elite credentials, and helicopter parenting. Society continually broadcasts the need to want more, and to be perfect. Gathering a wide range of contemporary evidence, Curran calls for both introspection and broader, societal change. He shows what we can do as individuals to resist the modern-day pressure to be perfect, and in so doing, win for ourselves a more purposeful and contented life.

Originally published in 1928, this is the book that began Napoleon Hill's self-help odyssey. Hill queried dozens of people about the keys to their prosperity and organized his findings into 16 principles. Each principle marks a chapter of this book, forming a methodology for employing untapped "mind-power" that leads to success.

What if the best way to grow your network isn't by introducing yourself to strangers at cocktail parties, handing out business cards, or signing up for the latest online tool, but by developing a better understanding of the existing network that's already around you? We know that it's essential to reach out and build your network. But did you know that it's actually your weaker or former contacts who will be the most helpful to you? Or that many of our best efforts at meeting new people simply serve up the same old opportunities we already have?

Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life is a Wall Street Journal number-one best seller that isn't afraid to tell you it's time to change. From motivational speaker Larry Winget, also known as "The Pit-bull of Personal Development" and "The World's Only Irritational Speaker", comes a not-so-typical self-help book. Winget's hilarious and in-your-face observations about the sometimes ugly truth of life will kick you in the butt and encourage you to change your life for the better.

While climbing the corporate ladder, Carla Harris sought career advice from her mentors and superiors but found some of the counsel too nonspecific. As Carla's career advanced, she discovered the key survival tools to business success and vowed that when she reached senior management and people came to her for advice she would provide them with specific, play-by-play answers about what they needed to do to fulfill their career potential.

Author Scott Alexander wants you to wake up tomorrow morning as a full-grown, 6,000-pound rhinoceros! Rhinos have purpose. Rhinos have dreams. And rhinos put everything they've got into everything they do. If you have ever thought I can do better, if you have ever felt the stirrings of rhino blood in your veins and your heart quicken at the scent of success, then you are ready. Listen to Rhinoceros Success and get charging!

Great managing, great leading, career success - Marcus Buckingham draws on a wealth of examples to reveal the single controlling insight that lies at the heart of each. Lose sight of this "one thing", and even your best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it.

You work hard. You put in the hours. Yet, you feel like you are constantly treading water with "good work" that keeps you going but never quite moves you ahead. Or worse, you are mired in "bad work" - endless meetings and energy-draining bureaucratic traps. Do More Great Work gets to the heart of the problem: Even the best performers are spending less than a fraction of their time doing "great work" - the kind of innovative work that pushes us forward, stretches our creativity, and truly satisfies us.

Don’t let fear hold you back from the personal and professional success you were meant to enjoy. It’s time to master your fears and increase your resilience so that you can regain control of your life and achieve your vision of success. Fear is one of the greatest obstacles to your success, happiness, and fulfillment, and it is one of the most difficult to combat. It roots itself deep in the subconscious and darkens your dominating thoughts, coloring your perceptions and, in turn, your actions.

Finally break free from insecurity and fear, and gain the confidence to be who you really are in any relationship. Do you overanalyze every text or missed call from your partner, wondering if it means they're losing interest? Do you find yourself wanting to please your family at all costs, even if it means neglecting your own needs and boundaries? If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Millions struggle with an anxious attachment style that leaves them feeling needy, insecure, and exhausted in their relationships.

The Science Of Being Great is the third book in the The Science Of... series. In this book, Wattles rounds out the trilogy with his unique perspective on how you can attain greatness and tap in to the Principle of Power to unleash your inner genius and become what you want to be.

The research is definitive and sobering: rich people who win the lottery stay rich. That's their normal state. Middle-class people who win the lottery soon end up back in the middle class, because that's their normal state. And those who are broke and win the lottery quickly return to being broke. The amount of money you have (or don't have) reflects who you are. If you think broke, you'll always come back to being broke. And if you think wealthy, you'll always return to wealth.

In 2015, Arlan Hamilton was on food stamps and sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport, with nothing but an old laptop and a dream of breaking into the venture capital business. She couldn’t understand why people starting companies all looked the same (white and male), and she wanted the chance to invest in the ideas and people who didn’t conform to this image of how a founder is supposed to look. Hamilton had no contacts or network in Silicon Valley, no background in finance - not even a college degree. What she did have was fierce determination and the will to succeed.

For the first time, sporting legend Dan Carter distils his two decades at the frontiers of high-performance into his 'perfect ten' lessons. You won't find conventional wisdom here, but hard-learned truths. Honest, surprising and inspiring, The Art of Winning converts a legendary career into timeless lessons for listeners in any walk of life. Step inside the unique culture of the All Blacks - and inside the mind of a legend.

A step-by-step guide to reinventing youAre you where you want to be professionally? Whether you want to advance faster at your present company, change jobs, or make the jump to a new field entirely, the goal is clear: to build a career that thrives on your unique passions and talents. But to achieve this in today’s competitive job market, it’s almost certain that at some point you’ll need to reinvent yourself professionally.

A healthy brain is the key to staying vibrant and alive for a long time, and in Use Your Brain to Change Your Age, bestselling author and brain expert Dr. Daniel G. Amen shares ten simple steps to boost your brain to help you live longer, look younger, and dramatically decrease your risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

I'd like to take you with me on such a voyage of the mind. One that was charted for me many years ago by an obscure, 19th-century English editor and poet named James Allen. His most popular book, As a Man Thinketh, speaks poetically to some mystic quality of each of us, a quality that discerns truth.

From a novice translator to CEO of the champagne house Veuve Clicquot North America, Mireille Guiliano shares her insights and experiences on how to work well. Whether it's balancing career and personal life, the pros and cons of risk taking, qualities of leadership, mentoring, the undervalued art of communicating, passion, etiquette, or style, Guiliano gives us a refreshing guide filled with advice that every working woman will need in today's economic climate.