Femininely Motivated

Reading List

78 Books to Fuel Your Self-Growth Journey

Must Reads For when you’re ready to change your life & take the red pill.

Atomic Habits | James Clear

Productivity, Personal Development & Habit Setting

Favourite Ideas:

Small habits make a difference.

Big things come from small beginnings.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”

Thinking Fast & Slow | Daniel Kahnman

Psychology, Decision Making & Rationality

Favourite Ideas:

We’ve all had moments where we were blind to the obvious. This book suggests
we’re usually blind to this blindness.

Why does 90% fat-free feel better than 10% fat? The way markers frames it.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness | Eric

Jorgenson

Wealth, Meaning of Life & Happiness

Favourite Ideas:

“Escape competition with authenticity”

Competition comes from copying others; if you feel like you’re competing, start
differentiating yourself.

Your time is the only thing you have.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen Covey

Mindset, Life-Design, Success & Critical Thinking

Favourite Ideas:

“Your mind is like a pair of glasses; it affects how you see the entire world.”

You can’t solve problems on the same level they were created. How you see the
problem is the problem.

Essentialism | Greg McKeown

Productivity, Happiness & Life- Design

Favourite Ideas:

Getting more things done doesn’t mean you’re being more productive.

Identifying where you create the most value and finding ways to do this effortlessly is
true productivity. Less is better.

Dark Psychology If you’re not using it, the people around you probably are.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended On It | Chris Voss

Productivity, Happiness & Life- Design

Favourite Ideas:
There are so many key takeaways from this book, but my favourite is a behavioural
economic concept called loss aversion- the tendency for humans to feel more
sensitive to losing and to take greater risks to avoid it compared to gaining
something of the same value.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

| Dale Carnegie

Interpersonal Skills, Communication & A Hint of Dark Psychology

Favourite Ideas:

“You can’t win an argument. If you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.”

Power Vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaviour | David Hawkins

Human Behaviour, Psychology & A Hint of Spirituality

Favourite Ideas:

Force is not the same as power.

Force is needed in small doses to get things started and to gain momentum.
The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of
the Brain | James Fallon

Neuroscience, Mental Health, Psychopathology & Nature vs. Nurture

Favourite Ideas:

More of an interesting read as opposed to applicable concepts for your self-growth

journey but this book will leave you critically questioning yourself and humanity.

Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and Predict People’s
Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors | Patrick King

Human Behaviour, Psychology & Communication

Favourite Ideas:

We tend to judge another’s character based on our own ideas and biases, rather
than the context of the situation.

“We become great people-readers when we understand ourselves”

Stoicism For reminding you that this path is not as easy one.

The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity Into Advantage |
Ryan Holiday

Stoicism, Inspiration, Resilience & Responsibility

Favourite Ideas:

What stands in the way of your goal becomes the way to get there.

There is always a countermove, always something to learn and grow from.

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius |
Donald Robertson

Stoicism, History & A Hint of Psychology

Favourite Ideas:

Your life is about constant improvement- yourself, your relationships, your business.

There will always be things you can’t control so it’s best to make peace with these
and move on to the ones you can control and improve.

How to Be Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life | Massimo Pigliucci

Stoicism, Life-Design & Philosophical Thinking

Favourite Ideas:

This book is particularly good at revisiting the concept that not everything is under
our control. And the behaviours we think we have under conscious control, we don’t.

Usually people don’t do wrong on purpose. One’s actions are justified in their mind.

The Art of Resilience: Strategies For An Unbreakable Mind and Body

| Ross Edgley

Stoicism, Sports & Inspiration

Favourite Ideas:

“Be naïve enough to start and stubborn enough to finish.”

With big ambitions, you have to be slightly delusional knowing how much work it will
take to accomplish them.

Leadership & Crowd Influencing

For when you are the CEO of a company.

Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success |

John Eades

Leadership, Management & Mindset

Favourite Ideas:

If you only look at results, the people you are managing may cut corners to get these
results.

To be successful, you need to dig deeper than what is shown on paper and make a
commitment to developing the skills you need to consistently get the results you
want.

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen | Dan Heath

Leadership, Productivity & Problem Solving

Favourite Ideas:

“If you want the outcome to change, you have to change the system”

Radical changes in leadership approaches are needed as we move away from

traditional leader-follower dynamics.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t | Jim Collins

Leadership, Business & Wealth

Favourite Ideas:

The hedgehog concept.

The hedgehog has a simple defense for any attack, he will curl up and become
untouchable. His reaction is always the same and he comes out on top every time.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action | Simon Sinek

Leadership, Productivity & Problem Solving

Favourite Ideas:

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Most of us charge into situations with emotions, this is the first thing we think about
and the first thing we tell people about.

Modern day wealth is built with purpose, with a carefully thought out “why.”

Health For learning how to take care of your most important asset.

The Wim Hof Method: Activate Your Full Potential | Wim Hoff

Cold Water Therapy, Dopamine & A Hint of Biology

Favourite Ideas:

As a lifelong lover of hot showers, this book convinced me to start taking cold ones
about a year ago and now they are what I look forward to after a workout.

Read this book to learn how to hold your breath for 2+ minutes.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams | Matthew Walker

Sleep & Optimal Health

Favourite Idea:

The relationship between sleep and lifespan is as follows: the shorter you sleep, the
shorter you live.
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence | Ann Lembke

Brain Health, Dopamine & A Hint of Neuroscience

Favourite Ideas:

Chemicals in the brain (dopamine) can either be the reason there is a problem or
part of the solution to the problem.

You don’t need a major life restructure like other health books might suggest, you
can work with what you have right now in your brain.

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex, and
Becoming Superhuman | Tim Ferriss

Biohacking, Performance & Efficiency

Favourite Ideas: The Minimum Effective Dose is a concept this author describes as
the smallest dose that produces the desired outcome that leads to optimal health.

Productivity Because we all want to get more work done.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free-Productivity | David Allen

Productivity, Time Management & Focus

Favourite Ideas:

You need to be mentally productive, not just physically.

Stress-free productivity is a concept that allows you to be productive in the moment

by considering your time, your space, and the tools used to organize your schedule.

Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More

Meaningful Things | Darius Foroux

Procrastination, Focus, Habits & Productivity

Favourite Ideas:

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

It is best to do what you can do today, instead of hoping you’ll do it tomorrow.

Effortless: Make it Easier to Do What Matters Most | Greg McKeown

Productivity, Life-Design, Minimalist & Essentialism

Favourite Ideas:

“Do not do more today than you can completely recover from by tomorrow.”

This mindset shift is a game changer. Burnout is prevented by avoiding doing too
much, too soon.

Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done | Laura Vanderkam

Life-Design, Productivity & Time Management

Favourite Ideas:

You need to know where your time goes and what you spend it on to eliminate the
feeling that you never have enough.

Being busy is overrated. And being busy doesn't always mean being productive.

Indistractiable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

| Nir Eyal

Productivity, Focus & Performance

Favourite Ideas:

Distractions are within.

An external stimulus may trigger your reaction, but an internal trigger always comes
after which influences your next choice or action.

Experiment Without Limits: Personal Experiments for Peak Performance and

Productivity | Chris Sparks

Productivity, Goal Setting & Life- Design

A summary-type workbook with insights into almost everything there is to know

about productivity, peak performance, and life optimization. Full of practical
exercises you can use on yourself to increase your productivity and tips for designing
optimal routines and work systems. A great comprehensive workbook for anyone
looking to implement these strategies into their everyday life but not ideal for a deep
dive into each topic specifically.
The Art of the Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer | Steven Kotler

Productivity, Flow State, Performance & A Hint of Neuroscience

Favourite Ideas:

Those who accomplish the impossible cannot do it without being in a flow state.

Learn how to induce the flow state with this book.

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World | Carl Newport

Productivity, Optimization & A Hint of Neuroscience

Favourite Ideas:

The concept of practicing deep work.

If you routinely work in distracting environments with limited focus, you reduce your
brain’s capacity to for deep concentration.

The Little Book of Life Skills: How to Deal With Dinner, Manage Your Emails and 152
Other Expert Tricks for Getting Your Life In Order | Erin Zammett Ruddy

Productivity, Life-Design & Fundamentals

This book is like Google but with the important information condensed. The author’s
idea behind this book was to eliminate the constant browsing of the internet when
you need to know how to do something. Anything from organizing your closet to
getting a promotion, this book covers a range of topics and provides expert advice
on actions to take to carry out these tasks correctly. Mostly fit for those in their 20s
and may cover things you already know if you’re informed about a specific topic.
Another one of those books you can set down and pick up again at any time, perfect
if you’re trying to make the habit of reading but don’t want to read scientific ones.

Mindset

You are what you think about.

The Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed By The Dearly Departing |
Bronnie Ware

Death, Life Meaning & Inspiration

Favourite Idea:

A perfect reality check, reminding us that we’re here temporarily.

The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success | Darren
Hardy

Fundamentals, Habits & Life-Design

Favourite Ideas:

Choosing poorly may take you back to square one, usually where you’re faced with
new, harder choices.

Deciding not to choose at all is the choice to live a passive life on default.

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? | Julie Smith

Psychology, Mindset, Mental Health, & Behaviour Change

Favourite Ideas:

This book is like a giant therapy session.

So many key learning points here but one that stands out is this author’s statement
about how we perceive our thoughts as concrete facts despite them being a mixture
of our past experiences, current moods, and memories.

Who Will Cry When You Die? Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari |
Robin Sharma

Inspiration, Intentional Living & Life-Design

Favourite Idea:

“The best version of you is surely the one that will be missed by others.”

Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential | Carol Dweck

Mindset, Fundamentals, Psychology & Motivation

Favourite Ideas:

Being good at something doesn’t guarantee success.

Success is guaranteed, however, when we are bad at something but determined to

get better.

You are not static, you can always learn something new.
When Smart People Fail: Rebuilding Yourself For Success | Carole Hyatt & Linda
Gottlieb

Productivity, Personal Development & Habit Setting

Favourite Ideas:

Intelligence will only take you so far.

You will fail at some point, like every successful person does.

You can’t win every time, but you can always learn.

Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy The Odds | David Goggins

Inspiration, Mindset & Resilience

Favourite Ideas:

The comfort zone- the worst place to be in if you have big life aspirations.

The comfort zone will never bring you anything but complacency and life on default.

The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to
Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness | Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga

Happiness, Mindset & Psychology

Favourite Ideas:

We are not determined by our experiences, but by the meaning we give them is self-
determining.”

The Five Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday
Courage | Mel Robbins

Productivity, Mental Health & Mindset

Favourite Ideas:

The right time will never come.

If you wait until you are ready, you are likely never going to do something.
Quick Reads When you want to read an entire a book in just a few days.

Free Speech and Why it Matters | Andrew Doyle

Modernity, Politics & Culture

Favourite Ideas:

If there is no free speech, how can there be an exchange of ideas and expression of
different perspectives?

On Confidence | The School Of Life

Interpersonal Skills, Life-Design & Fundamentals

Favourite Ideas:

Confidence is a skill, a trainable one.

And one that grows as you do.

People remain stuck at the level of confidence when they fail to put themselves in
the position to develop this skill.

Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and
in Your Life | Spencer Johnson

Change, Inspiration & Mindset

Favourite Ideas:

Great for critical thinking about the rat race- we're all just mice looking for cheese
until we realize it’s not the only thing we should be looking for.
Understanding Yourself & Others A place to start.

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

| Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles

Meaning of Life, Passions & Life-Design

Favourite Ideas:

There is happiness in simplicity.

“Life is not a problem to be solved.”

“There is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures as long as they do not take
control of your life as you enjoy them.”

Don’t Believe Everything you Think: Why Your Thinking is the Beginning and End of
Your Suffering | Joseph Nguyen

Psychology, Mindset & Inspiration

Favourite Ideas:

Pain is inevitable in life.

There are always going to be events we don’t expect to happen.

Suffering from them, however, is a choice.

The Happiness Hypothesis: Ten Ways to Find Happiness and Meaning in Life |
Jonathan Haidt

Psychology, Happiness & Rationality

Favourite Ideas:

For finding happiness:

“Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and
a connection to something larger.”
The Mountain is You | Brianna Wiest

Mindset, Life-Design, Inspiration & Empowerment

Favourite Ideas:

Growth is a continuous reinvention of the current version of you, a reinvention that

requires you to break down and rebuild parts of yourself repeatedly to get to where
you want to be.

The only thing holding you back from doing this is yourself.

Quit Like a Women: The Radical Choice Not to Drink in a Culture Obsessed with
Alcohol | Holly Whitaker

Inspiration, Mindset & Resilience

Favourite Ideas:

This book left me with lots of questions: Why may females face more social
repercussions when coming out as an alcoholic compared to males? Why does
Alcoholics Anonymous seem to fit the needs of white males more than the rest of the
population?

Surrounded By Idiots | Thomas Erickson

Human Behaviour, Psychology, Interpersonal Skills & Communication

Favourite Ideas:

Communication happens on the listener’s terms, not the person speaking.

This means we must adapt what we say and how we say it to increase the likelihood
that it is perceived as intended. You can’t win every time, but you can always learn.

The Lonely Century: A Call to Reconnect | Noreena Hertz

Health, Depression, Loneliness & Psychology

Favourite Ideas:

According to this book, loneliness costs the economy millions of dollars each year.
The Science of Sin: Why We Do the Things We Know We Shouldn’t | Jack Lewis

Neuroscience, Psychology & Human Behaviour

Favourite Ideas:

The seven sins are motivated by a natural desire to reduce personal suffering.

For example, don’t we all engage in vanity to reduce feelings of low esteem and
social isolation?

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life | Robin Hansen

Psychology, Human Behaviour and A Hint of Evolutionary Biology

Favourite Ideas:

Pre-made excuses are great for dealing with situations where your true motive may
be socially unacceptable- “I’m not drinking because I’m driving tonight” is less
questionable than “I’m not drinking because I don’t want to.”

Attitude is your Superpower: How to Create Incredible Life-Changing Success |

Eduardo Clemente

Confidence, Inspiration, Responsibility & Positivity

Favourite Ideas:

Attitude is a choice.

Although immediate reactions and thoughts may arise in situations, once you have
the time to rationally think, these thoughts and attitudes become malleable and can
be shaped however you want them to be.

The School of Life: An Emotional Education | Alain De Botton

Emotional Intelligence, Interpersonal Skills & Mindset

Favourite Ideas:

The first solutions that come to mind when dealing with a situation are often the
worst ones.

These end up having the opposite impact as we intended.

Rational, carefully thought-out decisions take time to develop.

Critical Thinking To stimulate your mind and make your small talk less boring.

The Order of Time | Carlo Rovelli

Social Construction, Philosophy, Physics & Time

Favourite Ideas:

This book brings up so many critical points to think about:

Is there really a distinction between past, present, and future? Can humans really
live in the present if our present is only a bubble around us that does not extend into
the universe or the lives of others who are in their own bubble?

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil | Philip Zimbardo

Psychology, Good vs. Bad, Power & Social Construction

Favourite Ideas:

A big concept in this book is the rephrasing of the idea of “a bad apple” into “a bad
barrel”, suggesting that situational circumstances can influence someone more than
we think.

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels | Alex Epstein

Fossil Fuels, Modernity & Global Warming

The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More | Barry Schwartz

Happiness, Psychology, Decision- making & Consumer Behaviour

Favourite Ideas:

Less is better. Good enough is best.

The more options you have, the more unhappy you are, regardless of your final
choice.

You will always feel like you are missing out at some point in modern society.

The School of Life: An Emotional Education | Ernest Becker

Social Construction, Death & Psychology

Favourite Ideas: This author suggests that it is often those who are considered
outliers that can see the world for the illusion that is it, refusing to believe or take part
in other's fake reality.
Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and Watching | Adam
Alter

Social Media, Phone Addiction & Human Psychology

Favourite Ideas:

Scientists are paid to design features that break down your self-regulation and get
you addicted.

The neurological research on drug addictions is being applied to smartphones by

targeting human emotions.

Lost Connection: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression- and the Unexpected
Solutions | Johann Hari

Mental Health, Depression, Human Psychology & A Hint of Neurobiology

Favourite Ideas:

Most of us are disconnected from nature.

Those who live close to green spaces have reduced rates of depression and mental
illnesses, increased happiness, and life longer.

Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From and What Makes us Happy

| William Van Hipple

Blend of Social Sciences, Evolution, & A Hint of Neurobiology

Favourite Ideas:

The most interesting concept was the notion that humans have evolved to produce
more value than they cost- this is perhaps why humans love to learn new things and
why our school system is structured the way it is.

Your Brain is Playing Tricks on You: How the Brain Shapes Opinions and
Perceptions | Albert Moukheiber

Psychology, Social Construction & A Hint of Behavioural Economics

Favourite Ideas:

The brain uses stereotypes to take shortcuts.

Most people are cognitively inclined to use stereotypes since they are easier to
process than individual categories.
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding
the Opposite Sex | John Gray

Gender Differences, Society & Culture

Favourite Ideas:

Lots of interesting insights into sex differences but a point that stood out was when
the author discussed how men tend to look for solutions to problems whereas
women tend to communicate their problems and feel heard.

The Female Brain | Louann Brizendine

Femininity, Human Behaviour & Neuroscience

Favourite Ideas:

The science behind why women may be more emotional compared to men is
explained by the increased neuronal connection within the female brain that occurs
during the teenage years that is not experienced in the male brain.

Behavioural Economics & Business

For when you want sell your product or make a sales pitch.

Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains

| Matt Johnson & Prince Ghuman

Consumer Behaviour, Advertising & Neuromarketing

Favourite Ideas:

We all think of ourselves as independent and in control of our own decisions, don’t
we?

This book has convinced me that this is anything but the truth.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference | Malcom Gladwell

Consumer Behaviour, Psychology & Modernity

Favourite Ideas:

External circumstances have much more of an effect on human behaviour than

would like to think.

The tiniest change can significantly impact human behaviour and thought processes.
Alchemy: The Magic of Original Thinking in a World Full of Mind-Numbing
Conformity | Rory Sutherland

Behavioural Psychology, Advertising & Consumer Behaviour

Favourite Ideas:

So many marketing takeaways from this one:

1.Products should be luxuries or bargains, anything inbetween is not exciting.

2.People hate uncertainty, they like to know exact numbers and times.
3.Unpopular opinions get better deals.

The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness |

Morgan Housel

Wealth, Psychology & Investing

Favourite Ideas:

Most of us are overconfident about our knowledge about money, especially

investing.

The biggest value of money is that it allows you to gain control over your time and
life.

Fooled By Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in The Markets

| Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Capitalism, Behaviour Economics & Wealth

Favourite Ideas:

Humans are bad at understanding the rare events.

Some people are just in the right place at the right time.

Enjoy the harmless randomness of life and use resilience and determination for the
harmful kind that comes about.

Fiction

For when you need a break from personal development.

All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr

War, Death, Life Meaning & Resilience

Favourite Idea:

“Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your
hands forever.”

AI 20479: Ten Visions For Our Future | Chen Qiufen & Kai-Fu Lee

Artificial Intelligence, Existential Crisis & The Future

Favourite Ideas:

An interesting story in this book suggests how individual AI characters grow with a
newborn child and fully adapt to personalize their learning and communication
preferences.

Life Of Pi | Yann Martel

War, Death, Life Meaning & Resilience

Favourite Ideas:

The world is just the way it is and the way it is depends on how we understand it.

You bring what you want to life and understand it in the way that you choose to.

Alan Turning: The Enigma | Andrew Hodges

War, Motivation & Resilience

Favourite Ideas:

“Is there intelligence without life? Is there mind without communication? Is there
language without living? Is there thought without experience?”

The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho

Love, Spirituality &The Universe

Favourite Ideas:

“Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

You take out of situations what you choose to put in.

Ignoring the blessings and focusing on the bad parts of situations will lead you to be
unhappy and feel lost.
Man’s Search for Meaning: The Classic Tribute of Hope from the Holocaust

| Victor Frankl

Resilience, War & Meaning of Life

Favourite Ideas:

There are so many key takeaways from this one but my favourite is that meaning
can be found in even the most unusual places.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the human freedom to choose
one’s attitude in any situation.”

When Breath Becomes Air | Paul Kalanithi

Self- Reflection, Meaning of Life, & A Huge Reality Check

Favourite Ideas:

Life is not about avoiding suffering.

Often the people who suffer the most experience life changing resilience and
gratitude.

Experience everything possible, even what is termed ‘bad’ emotions.

The Seeker of Nothing: A Fabel of Owning your Own Life | Kabir Munjal

Inspiration, Mindset & Self-Reflection

Favourite Ideas:

An eye-opening concept here was how much of an emphasis we put on treating

external wounds, which could eventually kill us if neglected, while inner wounds are
left untreated in most.

The only place to go for healing is within.