50 Powerful Books on Personal & Professional Development

Very often I am asked either what book am I currently reading or doI have a book to recommend to another individual or client. The truth is, there are so many books currently available for a myriad of purposes that to pair down any list would be doing a disservice to the incredible work that has been written over the past one hundred plus years. 

The list below is simply a smidgen of what I have found to support my life both personally and professionally in achieving my goals and supporting others in achieving theirs. I have purposely included books on: Personal and Professional Development, Organizational Development, Coaching, Time Management, Productivity and Philosophy to name a few.

Contrary to what some might say, I do believe a book can have it’s purpose in supporting an individual without having to read it from front to back. That said, certain books do require you to start at the beginning and end on the last page. The books I have listed below contain a mixture of each. 

1. Drive – Daniel H. Pink 
2. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
3. The Truth About Leadership – James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner
4. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t – Jim Collins
5. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven R. Covey
6. Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh
7. Tribes – Seth Godin 
8. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving & Thriving at Work, Home, and School – John Medina
9. Zen To Done – Leo Babauta
10. The 5th Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization – Peter M. Senge
11. Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman
12. The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Heidt
13. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
14. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
15. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
16. Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull.
17. Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes - William Bridges
18. Decisive – Chip and Dan Heath
19. Purple Cow – Seth godin
20. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less –
    Richard Koch
21. Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills –
    Tony Stoltzfus
22. The 48 Laws of Power – Robert Greene
23. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time – Brian Tracy
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant – W. Chan Kim
25. The First 90 Days – Michael Watkins
26. The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein
27. The One Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard
28. Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization –
    John Wooden
29. Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter –
    Cass R. Sunstein
30. Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
31. The Paleo Manifesto – John Durant
32. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful – Marshall Goldsmith
33. Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation –
    Daniel J. Siegel
34. The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
35. The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch
36. Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
37. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
38. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape
    Our Decisions – Dan Ariely
39. Awaken The Giant Within – Tony Robbins
40. Workrules – Lazslo Bock
41. The Emperor’s Handbook – Marcus Aurelius
42. Think Like da Vinci: 7 Easy Steps to Boosting Your Everyday Genius – Michael Gelb
43. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get It – Kelly McGonigal
44. The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
45. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done – Peter Drucker
46. Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Richard Kiyosaki
47. The 4-Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss
48. The Success Principles – Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer
49. Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success – John C. Maxwell
50. A Return To Love – Marianne Williamson

The floor is yours. What's your favorite book for personal and/or professional development?