Top Books for Mastering Leadership, Relationships & Emotional Strength

- Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
- Richard C. Schwartz & Martha Sweezy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition
- Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
- John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame That Binds You
- Manuel J. Smith, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty
- Susan Forward, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life
- Ann Weiser Cornell, The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life
- Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
- Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
- Eric Berne, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
- Albert J. Bernstein, Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry
- Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
- Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
- Carl G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- Carl G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
- Richard C. Schwartz, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For
- Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples
- Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
- Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
- John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
- Cheri Huber, Be the Person You Want to Find
Psychotherapy (Shame, Anxiety, Depression, etc.)
Psychoanalysis & the Founding Fathers of Psychotherapy
Relationship Therapy
- Dr. Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
- Daniel J. Siegel & Mary Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out
- Susan Forward, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life
- Terrence Real, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
- Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
- David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
- Daniel Bergner, What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire
- David Buss, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind
- Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
- Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
- Robert Cialdini, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
- Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, Nudge
- Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference
- Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
- Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
Parenting Psychology
Psychology of Masculinity
Evolutionary Psychology
Social Psychology, Behavioral Economics, & Neuroscience
Dating Skills & Mindsets
- Mark Manson, Models: Attract Women Through Honesty
- Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction
- David Tian, Online Programs & Courses 🙂
Death Anxiety & the Meaning of Life
- Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
- Irvin D. Yalom & Marilyn Yalom, A Matter of Death and Life
- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
- Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
- Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
- Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
- Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
- Bill Perkins, Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life
- Oliver Burkeman, 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
- Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
- Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
- Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
- Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
- Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Good, Evil, & Moral Philosophy
- Frans de Waal, The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society
- Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
- Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
- Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
- Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
- Roy F. Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty
- Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
Peak Performance, Learning, & Success
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
- Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity
- Adam Robinson, What Smart Students Know
- Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
- Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.
- W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
- Peter Attia, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
- Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
- Adam Grant, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Leadership, Purpose, & Creativity
- Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman & Kaley Warner Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
- Gay Hendricks, The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity
- Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
- Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
- Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work
Honourable Mentions
Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation
Philip J. Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming
Russ Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, 6th edition
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
Listen to this Beyond Success podcast episode devoted to this Reading List:
For the Show Notes and the full Transcription, go here:
https://davidtianphd.com/beyond-success/books-stop-proving-myself-start-living-real-37/
Last updated May 2025
Happy Reading!