Jonny and I are always searching for the next best books to read to support us in our business, life and relationship. And we are constantly recommending great books to our clients.
This year, we have created a reading list of the top 15 books that we read in 2018 around money, personal development, and some we read just for fun (it can’t all be work and no play, right?).
This list includes books that helped us make more money, grow our coaching practice, understand death, move through resistance, laugh a lot, and more.
See below for the complete list!
Enjoy!
Top 5 Money Books:
- You are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth – Jen Sincero
- I loved this no-nonsense approach to a positive money mindset. Complete with money affirmations and easy action steps, it was a quick and fun read about money.
- The Prosperous Coach – Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler
- While this book isn’t directly about money – it is a book that any coach needs to read if they want to make money in their coaching practice. It is the #1 book that I recommend to all coaches wanting to grow their practice. So, if you are a coach and want to grow your biz, you need to click on this link and order one ASAP if you haven’t read it already.
- Overcoming Underearning: Overcome Your Money Fears and Earn What You Deserve – Barbara Stanny
- Within reading the first 2 chapters of this book, I already started making more money, because I realized how many places in my life I was showing up as an underearner. Jonny also read it and saw a 50% increase in his income within 2 months. If you want to make more money, this book is a must (and not just reading it, but participating in the journaling too!).
- The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
- This book provides the foundational principles of wealth accumulation. One of the oldest, most widely read books that offers the practical, time-tested advice on building wealth. It’s a real gem!
- Money: A Love Story – Kate Northrup
- I am a huge Kate Northrup fan and love this book. So much so that I’ve read it twice. It really helped me dig into my money story and how to look at my bills as “blessings already received” instead of looking at them as “oh crap, we have to pay this bill again…”.
Top 5 Personal Development Books
- Girl Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be – Rachel Hollis
- I didn’t think this book had any ground-breaking information in it, but I loved it mainly because of how open and honest the author, Rachel Hollis, is about her life. She is charming, vulnerable, funny and inspired me to take care of myself, share authentically, and wash my face more…
- The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle – Steven Pressfield
- If you are experiencing resistance towards a project, your business, your health, or anything really, then this is a great book for you. It is short, super easy to read, and so powerful that I’ve read it a few times. The theme of this book is “resistance shows you the things that you need to do most” and then it gives you easy ways to break through the resistance and start taking action in your life.
- Who Dies: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying – Stephen Levine
- While this book is largely about death, it’s actually entirely about life, and how to live life to the fullest. This book teaches us to use death as an opportunity to extract the blessings available to us in life, and let go of the things that keep us in suffering. It’s a beautiful, powerful, transformational book that helped Jonny through our miscarriage and opened his eyes to life in a new way. After finishing this book he said it was one of the best books he has ever read.
- Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead – Brene Brown
- Jonny and I love this book because it’s one of the reasons we started talking again after our breakup 6 years ago. It opened us up to the understanding that in order to be vulnerable, we had to be super courageous in our vulnerability with one another. I use the teachings from this book every day in my career, life and relationships. It is one of my favorites for sure.
- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear – Elizabeth Gilbert
- I recommend this book to my clients all the time. If you are in any type of creative career, or if you want to be more creative but aren’t doing anything about it, then this book is a must.
Top 5 Books to read just for Fun:
- Born a Crime – Stories from South Africa – Trevor Noah
- We are big Trevor Noah and Daily Show fans in our house so naturally loved this book. But beyond that, it is one hell of a story of what it was like to grow up in South Africa during apartheid. I recommend listening to this one because it is so fun to hear Trevor do the accents and different voices of his family – it is such an entertaining listen!
- Becoming – Michele Obama
- I can’t stop talking about this book – it is so good. I read it while we were in Puerto Rico and loved the insight into the life of the Obamas, and what it was like for Michele to grow up as young, black female in Chicago.
- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
- This was a book club selection this year and was such a fun and charming book to read. If you are looking for an easy, heartwarming book – this is a great one.
- The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
- Barbara Kingsolver is hands down my favorite author ever. I first read The Poisonwood Bible when I was in high school and just read it again this year for book club. It is an incredible book about a missionary family who moves to Africa and what their life in the Congo is like.
- Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts
- This is one of Jonny’s favorites. It’s an incredible, semi-auto-biographical story that brings the reader on a wild ride through the colorful, intense country of India. Not only is the story fascinating, but the author’s ability to describe India in a way in which you can feel like you’re actually there is breathtaking.