I read a lot. I buy too many books (but am getting better). I give away a lot of my favorite books over and over again. I'm working on putting together a list of my bookshelf favorites soon - see the beginnings below.
In the meantime, join us on at the "The Internal Adventure Book Club" on Facebook. Or connect with me on Goodreads.
One Book At A Time
As A Man Thinketh by James Allen.
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer is an incredible book that will change your life. Read it. Read it again & study it. Look inside yourself and discover the key to personal freedom & perspective shift. My massage therapist gave me this book, and since, have given it to a handful of people...it's truly one of those life-changing books. Do yourself a favor and read it!
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran has woven its way in and out of my life for many years. I came across it again recently and have found myself devouring this book over and over. The prophet, Almustafa, is about to board a ship home when the people of Orphalese stop him and ask him to discuss topics of the human condition - including love, marriage, children, giving, eating & drinking, pain, sorrow, freedom, passions, beauty, religion, etc...read this. It's short, easily dividable into short digestible little self-contained nuggets of poetic wisdom & truth.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is the tale of ancient Toltec wisdom covering four short, practical agreements you can make with yourself that will drastically re-condition and re-shape the world you live in. While many of these may seem simple in principle, application of them is an on-going continuously growing process that will flourish with repetition & practice. This is a book I give out to many friends as it's done so much for me.
Perhaps no book that I've read lately has been more impactful in how I view thing's than McKeown's Essentialism. It's about the disciplined pursuit of less, so that there's more room for the best of the best, what most fulfills and energizes. It's about things, relationships, commitments and so much more; it's about clearing out the good for the great.
David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity changed everything about how I work. It awoke in me an insight into the inner-working of my mind and how to get everything into a safe, captured location (paper or digital) that I can trust, that allows my mind to be free of constant 'pinging' me with things I need to do. I capture, collect, analyze, act with every project, to-do or task in my life. If I don't, I start to feel overwhelmed by the totality of everything. You might want to try it.
I'm currently reading Thomas Moore's A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born To Do: and Care of the Soul: A Guide For Cultivating Depth and Sacredness In Everyday Life. I First came across Thomas Moore (psychotherapist, former buddhist monk) while listening to Rob Bell's Robcast - when i get finished up with them, I'll update a little more.
Get The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And read it. Move beyond your upper limit, take the next step to become what your life could be.
The author of Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller decided he'd had enough after decades of failed relationships and painful drama. Impressing people wasn't helping him connect with anyone. He'd built a life of public isolation, yet he dreamed of meaningful relationships. So at forty years old he made a scary decision: to be himself no matter what it cost. Check out Scary Close by Donald Miller.