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My Top 10 Books on Personal Finance & Personal Development

Picture of Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.

My Top 10 Books on Personal Finance & Personal Development

  [caption id="attachment_2721" align="alignnone" width="740"] My Top 10 Books on Personal Finance & Personal Development My Top 10 Books on Personal Finance & Personal Development for the 30-Day Read & Run Challenge[/caption]   Here are my top 10 books on personal finance & personal development for the 30-Day Read and Run Challenge. Hopefully, you have made the decision to participate in the 30-Day Read & Run challenge sponsored by The Visionetics Institute and Master Fitness 21. You are designed to function in harmony with yourself—mind, body, emotions, and spirit. This is what becoming one with yourself means — being in absolute equilibrium with the totality of who you are. When any part of you falls out of alignment with the rest of your existence, you will experience dis-ease, which is where the word disease comes from. There is a wealth of pragmatic and empirical evidence that supports the fact that your mind directly impacts your body — something that is known as psychosomatics. It works the same way in reverse. Understanding this powerful dynamic makes it imperative that we do everything in our power to strengthen our minds and bodies. The 30-Day Read & Run challenge is designed to help you develop the habit of effectively training your mind and body to not only perform optimally but to operate in sync with one another, creating a synergistic force that has the capacity to accomplish anything you put your mind to. The key is not only reading but reading things that will inspire, encourage and empower you. Your mental diet is just as important as your physical diet. Below you will find my top books in the areas of personal finance & wealth building, as well as personal development and personal empowerment. I have literally read hundreds of books in each category and those on this list have had the greatest impact in shaping my life. I have learned that while the average person reads two to three books per year, highly successful people read three to four books per month. Well, it’s time for you to get started. Personal Finance & Wealth-Building
  1. The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles
  2. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  4. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
  5. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
  6. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
  7. The Money Book for the Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman
  8. Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins
  9. Total Money Makeover Dave Ramsey
  10. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
I have read hundreds more, but these are the top ten that I still revisit to this very day. Some of them have been around forever and others are more recent, but all the books that I have read have certain things in common, which is also true for the list of personal growth books. One thing I learned is that there are many strategies and paths to wealth — some slow and others faster — but the mentality and psychology of wealth-building always trump the style of investing or the business strategy being used. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if your psychology does not align itself with the strategy, you will consistently self-sabotage your efforts. For instance, T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind goes straight to the heart of the matter when it comes to developing the capacity to build wealth — pointing out that wealth is the result of a mental state of mind. “The vast Majority of people simply do not have the internal capacity to create and hold on to large amounts of money and the increased challenges that go with more money and success.” T. Harv Eker Eker also points out that poor people make matters worse by programming their children to be poor — through presenting them with a worldview that makes wealth accumulation impossible. I see this all of the time. One such worldview is the one that supports the idea that the accumulation of things translates into wealth, creating youth who become consumer-minded instead of investor-minded. Consumerism is one of the most destructive forces there is when it comes to attempting to build wealth. Yes, you need to understand how to make money, but more importantly, you must understand what to do with the money you do have. I know multitudinous poor people who are perpetually poor and yet they will not sacrifice even a little of what they believe are comforts and rights that they have earned for the sake of advancing themselves and their families to a point in which those same comforts would be second nature and no longer considered luxuries. Many people remain in a state of poverty because they are determined to use the money they earn (regardless of the amount) to sustain their current lifestyle. In fact, any increases in earning potential are immediately spent on raising their current standard of living. The idea of temporarily lowering their standards in order to invest in their future never crosses their mind, and if someone mentions it, they immediately dismiss it or find some way to discredit the messenger. This is why the person who makes $30k a year and the person who makes $150k a year are both less than three months away from being homeless should they lose their current job. Many people who have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki forget that his poor day (biological father) actually had a six-figure income and was the director of the board of education for the state of Hawaii. If you don’t get the mentality right, the amount of money you generate will not matter. Yes, you might get more toys, but at the end of the day, you will likely be passing on debt instead of an inheritance when you die. My Top 10 Personal Empowerment Books Some books are transcendent — meaning that they offer guidance in more that one area of life. Therefore, you will find a couple of books from the finance book list on this list. You will also notice that my upcoming book, Critical Mass: The Phenomenon of Living Life at the Level of Your Design is in the number one spot. While the confidence I have in myself to help others achieve massive results in redesigning their futures plays a role in placing my book on this list, that is not the only reason its there. I believe the book is one of the most comprehensive resources on how to completely create the person you want to become in every area of life. It is my 20 th book, and I leave no stone unturned. I take you through all of the disciplines, techniques, and steps I use with my clients. Whether you are looking to improve your performance in your marriage, grow your business exponentially, or increase your capacity to build wealth, you will find something in this book to help you. The books that follow the number one spot are the books that have most emphatically impacted my life.
  1. Critical Mass: The Phenomenon of Living Life at the Level of Your Design
  2. Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, M.D.
  3. The Power of Intention by Wayne W. Dyer
  4. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
  5. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
  6. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vicent Peale
  7. The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
  8. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
  9. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
  10. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Bonus listing:
  1. The Answer by John Assaraf & Murray Smith
  2. Awaken the Sleeping Giant by Tony Robbins
  3. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
  4. The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
  5. Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
  6. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
  7. Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne W. Dyer
Super Bonus
  1. The Unseen Essential by James P. Gills (…an inspirational novel of the power of faith—an absolute must-read.)
I have read even more personal development books than books on finance. I have provided you with an additional eight books to get you off and to the races. When I began studying the distinctions between people who were extremely successful and those who were not, I quickly learned that there were distinct patterns associated with success, and to my surprise, there were distinct patterns associated with failure. If you are a person who has struggled with mediocrity and perpetual failure, if you are able to identify the patterns that contribute to your struggles, disrupt them and replace them with patterns being used by people who are successful, you will experience a drastic change in your life and the results that you consistently get. Nothing in life happens inside of a vacuum, the Law of Cause & Effect is always at play. Although the world around you may appear to be in absolute chaos, the truth is that underneath the surface is “absolute-order” that is governed by seven universal laws that govern all activity in the universe. When you gain an understanding of the seven universal laws, you will be able to better understand yourself and the world around you. You will learn that life has not been happening to you, but it has been responding to you — meaning that you are absolutely in control of your destiny. One pattern of highly successful people that I quickly identified when I first begin to study them is that successful people read far more than people who perform poorly or those who are considered average. The average person reads approximately two to three books a year while highly successful people read about four books per month (an average of a book per week). You are probably saying that there is no way that you can read a book per week, and I will tell you that it is more than possible. There are techniques that will help you increase the speed at which you read as well tools to help you remain focused so that you retain more. Between 2004 and 2011, I made the commitment to read 100 books per year (an idea I got from the revivalist, John Wesley). During that period, my lowest book count was 115 books. It is amazing what we have the capacity to do when we set our minds to it. Did I mention that I was pursuing my doctorate in systematic theology at the time? Your brain is like a physical muscle, the more you use it, the better it performs. Hopefully, you have made the decision to participate in the 30-Day Read and Run challenge to initiate a cycle of change that will lead to astronomical growth is record-setting time. Remember, it all begins with making a decision and committing to seeing it through to the end. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.