MB CHOICES : 10 BOOKS THAT WILL MAKE YOU THINK BETTER.
It wasn’t easy but we chose 10 of our favorite books to recommend that helped us build a better mindset. The below books all have incredibly powerful, and transformational insights into human high performance. They are listed in no particular order.
If you aren’t on the audiobook train yet, we highly recommend it. Listening to books while running is one of our favorite hacks. We like audible. Audible options included in the product link.
1. HIGH PERFORMANCE HABITS by Brendon Burchard.
High Performance Habits is a science-backed, heart-centered plan to living a better quality of life. Best of all, you can measure your progress.
This book outlines the 6 daily habits that can help us achieve long-term success and vibrant well-being no matter our age, career, strengths, or personality (the HP6). To become a high performer, we must seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and demonstrate courage. This book taught us the art and science of how to practice these proven habits.
Pair with: The world's most effective planner for reaching high performance.
We are in the process of developing the ‘Move Better Planner’ but until it’s released, this planner is the most comprehensive option available. It was built upon Brendon Burchard’s qualitative work as the world’s leading high performance coach. Whether you are a stay at home parent, a start-up entrepreneur, a Fortune 50 CEO, an Olympian, mechanic, Youtube celebrity… Using this planner every day will help you be more strategic and intentional about your day. You will feel happier, more focused, engaged and successful in your daily life, while also maintaining well-being and positive relationships.
2. ATOMIC HABITS by James Clear.
Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. This is a #noexcuses book packed with evidence-based self-improvement strategies. Atomic Habits taught us how small changes can transform our habits, and deliver remarkable results. The aggregation of marginal gains is powerful. 1% better is all we need to succeed.
3. 6 ATTRIBUTES OF A LEADERSHIP MINDSET by Joe Britto.
In this insightful handbook, Joe Britto shines a spotlight on the qualities and behaviours that embody a leadership mindset and inspires leaders to step out of their comfort zone as they take on the challenges faced by their teams and organizations.
With the help of engaging stories, practical challenges, and an acute sense of humour, Joe guides you through six key attributes of leadership – flexibility of mind, mindfulness, resilience, genuine curiosity, creating leaders, and enterprise thinking – and explores how you can bring them to life both within and beyond the workplace.
Joe does this by breaking down what the six attributes are and how they work, and by considering and suggesting ways around the barriers we may inadvertently put up that inhibit the development of our leadership capacities. From there he delves into the behaviours of each attribute – for example, asking “What if?” and demonstrating generosity of spirit under the attribute of genuine curiosity – and presents a range of exercises you can use in order to cultivate them.
In doing so, he reveals the real gift of a leadership mindset: that as we grow our mindset and develop positive behaviours, we can lead ourselves and our teams to better outcomes and nurture the leadership capacities of others.
4. ESSENTIALISM by Greg Mckweon
The disciplined pursuit of less.
This book teaches us the importance of discerning the essential few from the trivial many. Essentialism shows a new way of thinking about productivity and life. It’s a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies.
Productivity isn’t about getting more things done, but getting the right things done. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. When it comes to essentialism, it’s a ‘Hell Yes!’ or its a no.
5. THE INFINITE GAME by Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek explores the concept of Infinite games. In the infinite game, the players come and go, the rules are constantly changings and the end point isn’t defined. The goal is not to win or lose, it is to keep playing. Leaders who play with an infinite mindset, can build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations
6. THE BRAVE ATHLETE by Simon Marshall, Lesley Patterson
Calm the F–k Down and Rise to the Occasion
The Brave Athlete solves the 13 most common mental conundrums athletes face in their everyday training and in races. You don’t have one brain – you have three; your ancient Chimp brain that keeps you alive, your modern Professor brain that navigates the civilized world, and your Computer brain that accesses your memories and runs your habits (good and bad). They fight for control all the time and that’s when bad things happen; you get crazy nervous before a race, you choke under pressure, you quit when the going gets tough, you make dumb mistakes, you worry about how you look.
What if you could stop the thoughts and feelings you don’t want? What if you could feel confident, suffer like a hero, and handle any stress? You can.The Brave Athlete from Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson will help you take control of your brain so you can train harder, race faster, and better enjoy your sport.
7. STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS by Daniel Gilbert
Daniel Gilbert provides an insightful understanding into our ability to anticipate and create our own happiness. Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person we are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people that’ve ever been. Our perspective about what will bring us joy completely changes when we begin to see that the one constant in our lives is change.
This book taught me how to (easily) create my own happiness. -Sylvie
8. START WITH WHY by Simon Sinek
It’s an easy read and it’s packed with gems! Simon Sinek is a captivating author, with an incredible ability to tie together personal experience, scientific evidence and storytelling into one book. Sinek pushes you to dig deep and really find your WHY. From here, he builds on that foundation and teaches you first-hand how to inspire everyone. This is not just for the business leader. This is for anyone who wants to live out their most authentic self, live with purpose and make a difference in the lives of others.
9. THINKING FAST & SLOW by Daniel Kahneman
“It’s dense and it’s deep. Daniel Kahneman explains our two systems of decisions making. System 1 makes fast, reactive decisions with minimal cognitive processing, while System 2 is slower and more analytical. They both have their purpose. Understand these systems of thinking, their strengths and weaknesses, what influences them, cognitive traps and much more. This book has changed the way I think every single day, since the day I started reading it”. -Mitch
10. A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle
This is a heavy one. It completely challenged the way we look at the world. Tolle challenges us to live our lives in the present moment and to create happiness for ourselves without emphasizing material possessions. Tolle’s intent is to change the way human beings think. He envisions a world population that is increasingly humble, enlightened and pure. According to Tolle, the book’s purpose “is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness”
I’ve read a couple of these and have a couple more on my “to read list”.
I’ve also heard very good things about Mindset – The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. Will let you know my thoughts once I finally get around to reading it 🙂
Nice. It’s on our list too! Many of the principles in these books make reference to Carol Dweck’s work. Specifically, the fixed vs growth mindset 😉