Top Books for Mastering Leadership, Relationships & Emotional Strength

Psychotherapy (Shame, Anxiety, Depression, etc.)

1. Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
2. Richard C. Schwartz & Martha Sweezy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition
3. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
4. Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
5. John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame That Binds You
6. Manuel J. Smith, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty
7. Susan Forward, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life
8. Ann Weiser Cornell, The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life
9. Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
10. Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
11. Eric Berne, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
12. Albert J. Bernstein, Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry

Psychoanalysis & the Founding Fathers of Psychotherapy

13. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
14. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
15. Carl G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
16. Carl G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Relationship Therapy

17. Richard C. Schwartz, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For
18. Harville Hendrix, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples
19. Terrence Real, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship
20. Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
21. John Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
22. Cheri Huber, Be the Person You Want to Find

Parenting Psychology

23. Dr. Becky Kennedy, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be
24. Daniel J. Siegel & Mary Hartzell, Parenting from the Inside Out
25. Susan Forward, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life

Psychology of Masculinity

26. Terrence Real, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
27. Robert Moore & Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover
28. David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man

Evolutionary Psychology

29. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
30. Daniel Bergner, What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire
31. David Buss, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

Social Psychology, Behavioral Economics, & Neuroscience

32. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
33. Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
34. Robert Cialdini, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade
35. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
36. Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
37. Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, Nudge
38. Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference
39. Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
40. Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Dating Skills & Mindsets

41. Mark Manson, Models: Attract Women Through Honesty
42. Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction
43. David Tian, Online Programs & Courses 🙂

Death Anxiety & the Meaning of Life

44. Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
45. Irvin D. Yalom & Marilyn Yalom, A Matter of Death and Life
46. Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
47. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
48. Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
49. Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
50. Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
51. Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
52. Bill Perkins, Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life
53. Oliver Burkeman, 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
54. Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
55. Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
56. Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
57. Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy
58. Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Good, Evil, & Moral Philosophy

59. Frans de Waal, The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society
60. Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
61. Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
62. Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
63. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
64. Roy F. Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty
65. Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved

Peak Performance, Learning, & Success

66. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
67. Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity
68. Adam Robinson, What Smart Students Know
69. Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
70. Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.
71. W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
72. Peter Attia, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity
73. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
74. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
75. Adam Grant, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
76. Adam Grant, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Leadership, Purpose, & Creativity

77. Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman & Kaley Warner Klemp, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
78. Gay Hendricks, The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity
79. Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
80. Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
81. 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

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!