FREE Self-Audit Quizzes:
- What’s Your Enneagram Type?
- What’s Your Personality Type?
- What Strengths Do You Possess?
- What Dragons Are Making You Upset?
- What’s Your Life Snapshot? Quiz
- What’s Your Happiness Style? Quiz
Reads That Grow Your Personal Power:
Your Brain is Always Listening, Dr. Daniel G. Amen
13 dragons from the past | 9 Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) driving depression, hopelessness, irritability | 10 Bad habit dragons | 4 Tactics to overcome them.
How to Do The Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal From Your Past + Create Your Self, Dr. Nicole LePera
Mind-body healing practices | The power of belief | Meet your inner child | Ego stories | Emotional maturity
Stillness Is the Key, Ryan Holiday
Become present | Slow down, think deeply | Start journaling | Cultivate silence | Heal the inner child | Beware desire | Conquer your anger | Say no | Build a routine | Get rid of your stuff | Beware escapism | Act bravely
“Wrestle with big questions. Wrestle with big ideas. Treat your brain like the muscle that it is. Get stronger through resistance and exposure and training.” ~Ryan Holiday
Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters & How to Harness It, Ethan Kross
Why we talk to ourselves | When talking to ourselves backfires | Zooming out | The power and peril of other people | Mind magic
Your inner voice is indispensable.
Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, Mark Manson
Thinking Brain vs. Feeling Brain | Why we need hope | Emotional regulation | Narcissism | Our identity | Our values change through experience | Avoiding pain makes us fragile | Suffering is a choice
“Every problem of self-control is not a problem of information or discipline or reason but, rather, of emotion. This sucks, because emotional problems are much harder to deal with than logical ones. Emotional problems can only have emotional solutions.” ~Mark Manson
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Dan & Chip Heath
Point to the destination | Build habits | Be a solution seeker, not a problem seeker | Celebrate your small wins | Shrink the change | Develop a Growth Mindset | Change isn’t an event, it’s a journey
Small targets lead to small victories, and small victories often trigger a positive spiral of behavior. Big changes come from a succession of small changes. Don’t ask a couple to stop fighting; ask the husband to give his wife a simple good morning kiss.
The Happiness Dare,
Jennifer Dukes Lee
Stalking happiness | The holy pursuit of happiness | Find your happiness style | The Principle of Small Daily Gains | The Principle of Good Enough | The Principle of Putting Up Your Dukes | The Principle of Head-to-Foot Alleluia
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, James Clear
The best way to start a new habit | Motivation is overrated | The secret to self-control | The law of least effort | The cardinal rule of behavior change | Find and fix the causes of your bad habits
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. A proven framework for getting 1% better every day. Compounding power!
Magnificent Mind at Any Age: Natural Ways to Unleash Your Brain’s Maximum Potential, Dr. Daniel G. Amen
Are you wired for success or failure? | Natural ways to heal anxiety, depression, memory disorders, insomnia, and pain | Enhance your brain’s ability to change and adapt | Cultivate a resilient brain
Dr. Amen explains how many of the traditional approaches to overcoming our mind-centered challenges — try harder, work longer, find the sheer willpower — don’t work or make our problems worse. Life is so much easier with a healthy brain.
Boundaries, Dr. Henry Cloud & John Townsend
When to say yes | How to say no to take control of your life. Even more than the book, I HIGHLY recommend Dr. Cloud’s online Boundaries video library (low $ monthly fee to access) to learn to identify safe/unsafe people, improve your communication, and other critical life skills.
The Bible, inspired writers
Boundaries | Relationships | Strength | Ethics | Emotional maturity | Wise choices
A belief in God isn’t a requirement for gaining wisdom/life tips from this historical book. Try reading a Proverb a day and see if you don’t start thinking differently about your habits and actions.
Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, Kristin Neff, Ph.D.
Why self-compassion | Be kind to ourselves | Emotional resilience | Opting out of the self-esteem game | Compassion for others | The butterfly emerges | Self-appreciation
We must work on our internal model of self, our attachment style, and our default habits of self-acceptance and grace.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, Nedra Glover Tawwab
The cost of not having healthy boundaries | Trauma and boundaries | Six types of boundaries | Communicate your boundaries | Self-assessment quiz
Techniques to help identify and express our needs clearly and without apology — and unravel a root problem behind our burnout, co-dependency, power struggles, and anxiety.
Crucial Conversations, Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler
Mastering crucial conversations | Start with heart | Learn to look | Make it safe | State my path | Explore others’ paths | Move to action
A conversation moves to crucial when someone feels unsafe and reacts with “silence or violence.” Use these tools so your emotions and triggers no longer sabotage your conversations!
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers, Ph.D.
Dynamic techniques for turning fear, indecision, and anger into power, action, and love.
At the bottom of every one of our fears is simply the fear that we can’t handle whatever life may bring us.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain
The extrovert ideal | Your biology, your self? | How to love, how to work
This book taught me to value my introverted bits. The ability to deeply listen is a superpower!
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile
Understand the nine Enneagram types (Challenger, Peacemaker, Perfectionist, Helper, Performer, Romantic, Investigator, Loyalist, and Enthusiast) through a Christian lens.
Discover yourself in a new way on this Enneagram journey, paving the way to the wiser, more compassionate person you want to become.
Powerful TED Talks Articles/Videos:
- The Lost Art of Listening: Adam Grant
- Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are: Amy Cuddy
- The Power of Vulnerability: Brené Brown
- How to Be Kinder to Yourself: Susan David
- 3 Steps to Having Difficult — But Necessary — Conversations: Daryl Chen
- 5 Effective Exercises to Help You Stop Believing Your Unwanted Automatic Thoughts: Steven Hayes, PhD
- Why We Should Say No to Positivity — And Yes to Our Negative Emotions: Daryl Chen
Listen & Gain Wisdom Interviews:
- Brené Brown — Striving Versus Self-Acceptance, Saving Marriages, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show
- Brené Brown — The Quest For True Belonging | Chase Jarvis
- Hal Elrod — If You Can’t Change Your Emotions, Do This Instead | Impact Theory