Successful people are said to read dozens of books per year.

Books are indeed fantastic sources of learning, as you can gain access to the summarized learnings of a person’s life experience or life’s work pretty much for the price of a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

I do my best to read several books per year, and this is a list of great books to read about success, mindset and strategy to help you achieve more in your life, business, health and relationships.

Note: As I read more I will continue to add great books to this post.

The Idiot Brain – Dean Burnett
(Buy on Amazon Here)

This book is a fascinating insight that explains how your brain works. It’s written by a neuroscientist and contains a lot of factual data, but it’s explained in a humorous and easy-to-read way so it’s not like you’ll get bored after the first chapter.

Understanding why your brain does certain things is crucial to being able to recognize self-sabotaging behaviour and taking steps to change that behaviour.

While we like to think we’re sophisticated, our brains don’t always have our own desires and dreams at heart. In fact, our brains are hard-wired to eliminate risk to ensure two things: survival and reproduction.

That’s cool, but it can really be a problem if you’re aiming to grow and become successful because your brain will actually sabotage you because it’s wired to keep you safe. Comfortable is safe. But comfort doesn’t allow for growth.

Really worth the read!
 

The Art Of Not Giving A F*ck – Mark Manson
(Buy on Amazon Here)

This book is a refreshing reminder to stop caring so much what people think.

It’s so easy to constantly be concerned about what others think of us. What do my parents think? What does my partner think? What do my colleagues think?

We’re so afraid of judgement and we’re so conditioned to get people to like us, that we’re often afraid to do the things we want to do or say the things we want to say. Often to the point where it makes us miserable.

This book will give you a completely fresh perspective and give you some actionable tips you can apply to your life to stop caring so much what others think of you.
 

Think & Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
(Buy on Amazon Here)

If you haven’t read this yet, stop what you’re doing, get the book and read it today.

Think and Grow Rich is a classic that everyone should read. Once again it shows the importance of mindset and how you think and how that relates to creating wealth and achieving success.

This book is a summary of the thinking and mindsets of the most successful business people the world has seen.
 

Win Friends & Influence People – Dale Carnegie
(Buy on Amazon Here)

Another classic that I think everyone should read (and probably read multiple times).

I would argue that the single best way to achieve success is to be able to make friends and influence people. The better you are at this, the faster and further you’ll be able to advance in life.

Sometimes all it takes is a single connection to completely turn your life or business around.

Being able to connect with others and influence people is a skill you can learn and something you can get better at. This book shares some amazing insights into strategies how to do just that.
 

Expert Secrets – Russel Brunson
(Get Free Here – Just Pay Shipping)

If you do anything related to marketing or you have your own business, you need to read this book.

Russel Brunson is a genius when it comes to sales and marketing and has generated literally hundreds of millions of dollars in sales with his offers. He is the founder and owner of Clickfunnels, a software that he created and took from 0 to over $100M in annual sales in just a few years.

Expert secrets shares his insights into marketing strategies you can apply to your own products or services and potentially dramatically increase your earnings.
 

Sell Or Be Sold – Grant Cardone
(Buy on Amazon Here)

Being able to sell is an important skill to have, and Grant Cardone is an excellent mentor to learn from.

Grant is arguably one of the more well-known sales coaches in the world and has closed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deals (if not in the billions).

When it comes to sales he is ruthless and his fielded-tested strategies and insights and incredibly valuable.
 

Finding Zero – Chris Lianos
(Buy on Amazon Here)

You’ve probably noticed that I like to read books that revolve around mindset and that’s because it’s such a crucial part of becoming successful. Not just in terms of money, but in all areas of your life.

I’m proud to be able to say that I know Chris personally and he’s incredibly knowledgable and skilled at NLP and helping people overcome their obstacles and limiting beliefs. I’ve attended a 5-day NLP workshop (The Wizard Arises) Chris hosts twice a year and I’ve had regular personal coaching sessions with Chris.

Finding Zero is a very good read to getting started with overcoming your limiting beliefs and creating the mindsets and thinking patterns that’ll allow you to manifest the abundance you wish to have in your life.

Highly recommended!
 

Never Split The Difference – Chris Voss
(Buy on Amazon Here)

Excellent insights by a former FBI hostage negotiator who took his skills and experience from the field and applied it to business.

In this book he shares 9 effective principles and counter-intuitive tactics and strategies that you could use to become more persuasive in your professional and personal life.

The ability to be persuasive is crucial to getting the best out of life.
 

How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big – Scott Adams
(Buy on Amazon Here)

This book made a big impact on me because it highlights the fact that you don’t need to win at everything you do in order to be successful.

In fact, you can lose more than you win and still come out ahead and become a big success. In this book, Scott shares very interesting insights into goal-setting and how setting goals is for “losers” but creating systems is for winners.

He also shares how to take the skills you have (even if they’re mediocre or worse) and make yourself surprisingly valuable to others, and how to manage your odds in a way that makes you look lucky to others.
 

Cashvertising – Drew Whitman
(Buy on Amazon Here)

Cashvertising is probably one of the best books I’ve ever read about advertising. If you do any sort of marketing or advertising this book is a must read.

It contains tons of practical examples, lists and tips that can can refer to whenever you want to create a killer advertising campaign to bring in the Benjamins.

There’s not much else that needs to be said. Get this book, and read it multiple times!
 

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To success,
Dirk “Diggy”

P.s. make sure to bookmark this page as I’ll update it over time and add more great books to read to the list.