Here are 100 books that Emotional Intelligence fans have personally recommended if you like
Emotional Intelligence.
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As an author, executive coach, and neurodiversity advocate, I’ve spent years helping individuals unlock their unique potential—especially those who think differently from the norm. My passion stems from personal experience navigating life as a neurodivergent individual while building systems that empower others. Through my work in leadership development and personal growth (Be Your Own Commander-in-Chief), I’ve seen firsthand how embracing diverse perspectives leads to innovation and success. This list reflects books that have inspired me on my journey.
Range resonated deeply with me because it celebrates the power of diverse experiences—something I’ve always valued in my own life and work.
Epstein’s argument that generalists thrive in complex, unpredictable environments felt like a validation of my own neurodiverse strengths. I loved how he used real-world examples to show that breadth often beats depth when solving problems or innovating. This book encouraged me to lean into my varied interests instead of feeling pressured to specialize narrowly.
'Fascinating . . . If you're a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you' - Bill Gates
The instant Sunday Times Top Ten and New York Times bestseller Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A Financial Times Essential Reads
A powerful argument for how to succeed in any field: develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize.
From the '10,000 hours rule' to the power of Tiger parenting, we have been taught that success in any field requires early specialization and many…
Reduce stress, ease anxiety, and increase inner peace—one day at a time—with a year of easy-to-follow mindfulness meditation techniques.
Certified mindfulness teacher, bestselling author, ultramarathoner, wife, and dog-mom Nita Sweeney shares mindfulness meditation practices to help anyone break free from worry and self-judgment.
What other topic brings together human behavior, culture, business, the media, and more? And what other career allows you to use that understanding to produce compelling, entertaining, and persuasive communications across broadcast, streaming, social, outdoor, in-store, new product development, and other channels? That’s why I’m passionate about it. And that’s the passion I want to instill in my students, readers, and clients. So, who am I? I’m a professor and marketing consultant (copywritnig, creative direction, and marketing strategy) with large and small clients, and nearly 10 books on the topic. Read these books and I think you’ll become passionate about this topic too!
By now, you might have noticed a theme: if I don’t enjoy reading a book, I don’t trudge through it for the deep insights or how-to information. The storytelling needs to be as strong as the concepts are useful.
Just like The Copy Workshop Workbook, I read an earlier edition of this book when I was just starting out – and it formed the basis for some of my thinking around how to influence – i.e., persuade – consumers and the role psychology and behavioral economics play in crafting effective marketing and brand development programs.
I also recommend this book if you are a consumer, too (who isn’t), because it will help keep you from falling into many of the traps that Cialdini identified.
The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion-a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold-now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini-New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion-explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don't have…
I am the principal of Guttman Development Strategies (GDS), an organization development firm that works with senior executives and their teams in major corporations globally to build horizontal, high-performance teams, provide leadership coaching, and develop leadership skills. I am a speaker and author of three acclaimed management books and dozens of articles in business publications.
We all make ourselves. How well we do it is our choice!
This book has had a profound impact on my approach to executive coaching and organizational change, where a key difficulty that compromises performance centers on self-limiting and misguided beliefs. Drs. Ellis and Harper focus on self-management techniques that shift the focus from “them” to “you.” We can change negative emotions and behaviors that stem from our own thinking. It’s our choice as to what we think and emote.
This book, based on clinical research, provides readers with insights and techniques to permanently shift their game.
Direct, get-to-the-heart-of-the-problem methods to teach you what you do to needless upset yourself and make yourself emotionally stronger by the creators of the most popular forms of therapy in the world.
From the foreword by publisher Melvin Powers: Years ago, after two decades of burning the midnight oil, reading manuscripts which professed to have all the virtues this one actually possesses, I found the original New Guide to Rational Living—a gem that has become a classic in the field of psychology.
Since then, I am delighted to say, I have sold 1.5 million copies of this book in previous editions.…
Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coach Practice
by
Kymberly Dakin-Neal,
This NABA award-winning book explores intentional listening as an essential skill for adults, introducing the Head, Heart, and Hands Listening model to amplify effective listening in personal and professional interactions. It’s a vital resource for coaches, psychologists, HR professionals, teachers, counselors, salespeople and others who listen for a living. Listening…
It is shocking how many leaders suffer from imposter syndrome, and how little practical advice is out there about how to help. It’s been my mission to identify not only precisely what leaders need to be able to do well, but also how can they learn these things in the most efficient and durable way. Leadersmithing sets out a practical path to mastery and provides the toolkit leaders will really need. After I wrote it, I took on some senior leadership roles of my own. Even before Covid I had stress-tested the wisdom of this book, and post-covid I am even more confident that this leadership book really helps.
Epictetus is the Stoic who inspired the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism is the intellectual origin of cognitive behavioral therapy and a way for leaders to train themselves to focus on the things they can change, rather than breaking their hearts over things over which they have no control. The Enchiridion has the virtue of being much shorter than Aurelius’ Meditations, and contains pithy observations and advice like ‘it is not events that disturb people, it is their judgment concerning them,’ and ‘don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.’ Leaders need to be good at detachment, and Stoicism can provide valuable tools to help.
Although he was born into slavery and endured a permanent physical disability, Epictetus (ca. 50–ca. 130 CE) maintained that all people are free to control their lives and live in harmony with nature. We will always be happy, he argued, if we learn to desire that things should be exactly as they are. After attaining his freedom, Epictetus spent his career teaching philosophy and advising a daily regimen of self-examination. His pupil Arrian later collected and published the master's lecture notes; the Enchiridion, or Manual, is a distillation of Epictetus's teachings and an instruction manual for a tranquil life. Full…
As a child, I often wondered why people behave as they do, think and believe in certain ways, and/or rationalize away their behavior, ranging from the criminal to the bizarre. I have researched and studied the mind for nearly fifty years now. I have written or co-authored more than twenty books on the subject.
My new book, Mind Training, co-authored with my wife and student of over thirty years, is the culmination of everything we’ve learned. In reality, it's a story that crosses over many disciplines, cites over 200 studies, offers multiple tools for empowerment in every chapter, and does so in the personable and friendly manner that my co-author is so very good at doing.
Daniel Kahneman’s book is a must read for all who desire to understand their mind/brains and thereby maximize the use of the mind’s power over our lives.
In clear language, Daniel Kahneman illustrated the heuristic shortcuts that often limit our understanding and predispose our actions. We all hold onto outdated psychological mechanisms that create self-imposed limitations, and in doing so, we can find ourselves living out self-limiting lives.
Kahneman does an excellent job at showing us how we think we understand what we really don’t. His transparent and careful treatment of his subject has the potential to change how we think, not just about thinking, but about how we live our lives.
The phenomenal international bestseller - 2 million copies sold - that will change the way you make decisions
'A lifetime's worth of wisdom' Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics 'There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Thinking, Fast and Slow' Financial Times
Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast,…
The world of entrepreneurship has been my driving passion for decades. Why? It is entrepreneurs, despite their many quirks, who make the world a better place. It’s entrepreneurs who create jobs in a world where jobs in many places are in short supply. It’s entrepreneurs who wake up every day with a passion to forge their own path with the freedom to do so. And it’s why I embarked at mid-life on a second career as a business-school professor. It’s why I teach and why I write. The books I suggest here will give you a fighting chance to deal effectively with the challenges you’ll surely find along your entrepreneurial journey.
Jim Collins’ best book is the most pragmatic and most useful business book I’ve ever read. Period. From “getting the right people on the bus” to “the hedgehog concept” and more, the fundamentals entailed in creating a truly great business are all here. What more need I say?
________________________________ Can a good company become a great one? If so, how?
After a five-year research project, Jim Collins concludes that good to great can and does happen. In this book, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organisation to make the leap from good to great while other organisations remain only good. Rigorously supported by evidence, his findings are surprising - at times even shocking - to the modern mind.
Good to Great achieves a rare distinction: a management book full of vital ideas that reads as well as a fast-paced novel. It is widely regarded…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I am, first and foremost, someone who cares deeply about the world, people, and learning. I have been passionate about ideas, curiosity, and innovation since I was a child and since starting our company and writing four books, have had the privilege of helping over 400 organizations and 700,000 people to unlock their genius by not being experts but by being curious about the world around them and other people. I am also a teacher, speaker, and community volunteer who is keen to help people find their own unique brilliance.
I love this book because it is all about how we show up each day and how we engage the world.
I am particularly keen on the idea that we can choose to be open to learning new things, meeting new people, and making a difference…in other words, we can choose to “grow” …or we can choose to stand still.
And I hope that I will never stop wanting to know more, read more, learn, and try to make a difference.
From the renowned psychologist who introduced the world to “growth mindset” comes this updated edition of the million-copy bestseller—featuring transformative insights into redefining success, building lifelong resilience, and supercharging self-improvement.
“Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes
“It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this…
After receiving my doctorate in Social Anthropology at Oxford University, I worked in the Nixon Administration until I was fired for publishing a study, Work in America, that garnered front-page attention and accolades in the New York Times (and condemnation in Wall Street Journal editorials). Unemployed and with a family to support, I was rescued by the Aspen Institute, which hired me to direct a program on workplace issues. There, I met philosopher Mortimer Adler, the management guru Peter Drucker, and the father of leadership studies, Warren Bennis. They became my mentors, and through them, I received the education I didn’t get in seven years of formal higher education!
This bible of Realpolitik is another how-not-to-lead classic.
Although Big Mac believed he was offering sound advice to his generic “prince,” his prescription was famously amoral and situational and offered to those who had only one interest: to gain and maintain power at all costs. Since those ends justify any means to their attainment, the prince is advised to use such tactics as flattery, lying, bullying, threatening, and “confusing men’s minds.” Do anything that works.
The prince uses his subject to achieve his ends, not theirs. He is all about himself. Sound familiar?
Here is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince . . . a king . . . a president. When, in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in his beloved Florence, he resolved to set down a treatise on leadership that was practical, not idealistic. In The Prince he envisioned would be unencumbered by ordinary ethical and moral values; his prince would be man and beast, fox and lion. Today, this small…
My childhood was marred by change and a search for meaning. Born in the UK to an English mother and Iraqi father, moving to Iraq as a toddler and then back to the UK as a 14-year-old, I was exposed to the dramatic differences in the unwritten rules of how we are meant to behave and experience the world. It was probably inevitable that after training as a doctor, I would eventually end up as a child and adolescent psychiatrist grappling with big questions about life and its struggles. These are the books that opened my mind to re-imagining these dilemmas. I hope they help to open yours, too.
I first read this book in 1987, when I was a fourth-year medical student. This is the book that really sparked my interest in psychiatry.
It opened my eyes to the possibility that even those in the most disturbed state of mind experience meaningful and understandable human dilemmas. It’s as fresh and relevant today as it was when it was first published six decades ago. A deeply humane text that humanizes the most disenfranchised and lost of our human family.
Presenting case studies of schizophrenic patients, Laing aims to make madness and the process of going mad comprehensible. He also offers an existential analysis of personal alienation.
Anatomy of Embodied Education
by
E. Timothy Burns,
The vast mysterious terrain explored in this book encompasses the embodied human brain, the processes through which humans grow, develop, and learn, and the mystery of consciousness itself. We authors offer this guidebook to assist you in entering and exploring that terrain.
From a young age, I was captivated by art, music, film, and literature—constantly craving more from these creative mediums. Growing up in a lower-income, working-class home, I was surrounded by blue-collar workers, many of whom couldn’t attend college due to financial limitations. I learned early on that the richest education comes not just from books but from the stories of others and the world around us. Always feeling I had my own story to tell, I transitioned from steel worker to talent agent in Hollywood. But despite my success promoting others, something was missing—my own narrative. After a tragic loss, I reevaluated my path and chose to become a psychotherapist and author.
When I finished this book, I finally felt like a grown-up. It felt like I had just read a business classic—and I had. This book taught me more than any other about the vital role communication plays in relationships and the profound impact it can have.
It was the first time I truly understood how to build rapport and cultivate meaningful connections. I learned that it’s not about manipulating people but about influencing them, resolving conflicts, and earning their trust through kindness, respect, and integrity.
Millions of people around the world have - and continue to - improve their lives based on the teachings of Dale Carnegie. In How to Win Friends and Influence People Carnegie offers practical advice and techniques, in his exuberant and conversational style, for how to get out of a mental rut and make life more rewarding.
His advice has stood the test of time and will teach you how to: - make friends quickly and easily - increase your popularity - win people to your way of thinking - enable you to win new clients and customers - become a…
