The most popular books in business, entrepreneurship and personal development
Take a look at the top-selling personal development books of the past month, and you’ll see not all of them are new—that there are modern classics, like Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages, and all-time classics, like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. But others, like Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans, are brand-new and already making waves in the self-improvement world.
For your journey to your best self, we continue our monthly list of the best-selling personal development books with the top 10 for December 2016:
1. Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
By Tim Ferriss (December 2016; Houghton Mifflin; $27)
On his popular podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, Ferriss has interviewed top performers of every type. In this ultimate self-help book, he distills and tests the key insights from elite athletes, adventurers, entrepreneurs, executives, creative thinkers, researchers and more to help readers learn to become healthy, wealthy and wise.
2. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
By Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams (September 2016; Avery Publishing Group; $26)
Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question: How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering? This book offers a rare opportunity as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama spend a week exploring the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy (fear, stress, anger, grief, illness, death). Then they offer the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. This unique collaboration offers a reflection on real lives filled with pain and turmoil, in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, courage and joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.
3. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
By Jen Sincero (2013; Running Press; $16)
This refreshingly entertaining how-to guide serves up 27 bite-sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice and easy exercises, helping you to create a life you will love. Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want—create a life you love and make some damn money already!
4. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
By Gary Chapman (2015; Northfield Publishing; $15.99)
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge! How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts and just plain boredom of everyday life? Whether your relationship is failing or flourishing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love is as practical as it is insightful. The 5 Love Languages includes a “his and hers” personal profile assessment. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, the new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant and actionable wisdom.
5. Trump: The Art of the Deal
By Donald J. Trump and Tony Schwartz (2015; Ballantine Books; $16.99)
President-elect Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work, a firsthand account of the rise of America s foremost deal-maker. See Trump in action, how he runs his organization and life as he meets people, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies and challenges conventional thinking. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at an entrepreneur’s mind and a must-read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
6. The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
By Dave Ramsey (2013; Thomas Nelson; $24.99)
America's trusted voice on money and business provides a surefire way to whip your finances into shape with the simplest, most straightforward game plan for completely making over your money habits.
7. Jump: Take the Leap of Faith to Achieve Your Life of Abundance
By Steve Harvey (December 2016; Amistad Press; $25.99)
On January 13, 2016, at the close of taping an episode of Family Feud, Steve Harvey spontaneously began to speak. Not knowing that the cameras were still rolling, the $100 million host offered his studio audience insights into his own happiness and success. His staff, also moved by Steve’s words, shared the riveting six-minute video on social media. The clip immediately went viral, with more than 58 million views worldwide. His message is simple: You need to jump like your life depends on it, because it does if you truly want a life of peace and abundance.
8. StrengthsFinder 2.0
By Tom Rath (2007; Gallup Press; $29.99)
Do you do what you do best every day? Chances are you don’t. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths. Although you can read this book in one sitting, you’ll use it as a reference for decades. The redesigned StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website features a strengths community, a library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver and a program for creating display cards of your top five strength themes.
9. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
By Mark Manson (September 2016; HarperOne; $24.99)
For decades we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. In his wildly popular blog, Mark Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is in a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach the lemons better. Once we embrace our fears, faults and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity and forgiveness we seek.
10. How to Win Friends and Influence People
By Dale Carnegie (1998 edition, originally published in 1936; Pocket Books; $16)
Go after the job you want and get it! Take the job you have and improve it! Take any situation you’re in and make it work for you! Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 15 million copies. As relevant as ever, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the 12 ways to win people to your way of thinking and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.
SUCCESS analyzes a combination of sales data acquired from Nielsen BookScan—which gathers point-of-sale data from more than 16,000 locations across the U.S.—and from a variety of independently verified sources within the personal development industry. This list represents sales from Dec. 4, 2016, through Jan. 1, 2017.