Hacker News Books

The Unicorn Project,
The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey,
Permanent Record,
Turn the ship around,
The Checklist Manifesto,

These are good ones!

The book the 48 laws of power is about manipulation which I don't like. I consider Carnegie's book, The 7 habits of highly effective people excellent books to learn how to help other people through win-win situations.

The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.

If you have never read it, do yourself a favor and do so.

I am reminded of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I recommend it to everyone who has not read it.

Also:

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", by Stephen Covey

She has one favorite book and it is "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"?

I think I'll pass. Good luck to her though.

Straight from her profile:

"Favorite books: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Richards Covey"

Lists of books like this always reminds me of a friend who asked on seeing a copy of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, whether the first one was not wasting your time reading books like that.

Its not new. Its called a covey chart and is used in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" from 1989, a highly popular self help book. (not sure if it was used in any prior work)

You are wrong here. "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is by Steven Covey. However, she said her favorite writer of management books is Peter Drucker, who described "Seven Sources of Innovation" http://snakecoffee.wordpress.com/2006/04/30/peter-druckers-s..., praising Japanese companies

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey- Particularly for Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood chapter

Slightly off topic, but you can get the audiobook version of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" for free right now: http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/17691/Free-Stephen-R--Coveys...

It's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and it's one of Paul Graham's recommended books (see http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html ), along with the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

There's also "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", which is often recommended in the same breath.

For anyone who wants to read more on the difference between productivity and effectiveness you highlighted, I recommend Stephen Covey's classic "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effec...

You seem to be having trouble setting priorities. Shall I:

a. Purchase "The 7 habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey?

b. Purchase "Getting Things Done" by David Allen?

Money talks...even if it is BS, the world is full of it.

Before you downvote this, keep in mind that the founder comes from a Mormon background - perfect upbringing to be trained as a salesman

Another example of selling snake-oil ideas comes from the author of the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People":

"According to Clayton Christensen, The Seven Habits was a secular distillation of Latter-day Saint values."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Covey

"This is the most important slide in the entire talk. So, if you want to leave after this slide, I will not be offended, because it is all downhill from here."

https://youtu.be/oTugjssqOT0?t=1256 (Timestamped link of the "Time Management" talk by Randy Pausch, which is what the OP PDF is from)

That part in the talk is about the "Eisenhower Matrix", popularized by Steven Covey in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", on the importance of prioritizing important, non-urgent tasks over urgent, unimportant tasks.

You can read about it here as well, but I haven't seen it put as well as Randy Pausch did in his talk. https://evernote.com/blog/work-effectively-with-the-eisenhow...

PS If you haven't seen his "Last Lecture", it's also fantastic. I watch it about once a year to re-center myself, and remember to focus on the truly important things in life. https://youtu.be/ji5_MqicxSo

Do you need a book for that?
Why not just be nice and trustworthy to your existing friends and strangers?

The books like How to Win Friends and Influence People: Dale Carnegie and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Stephen Covey show you how to be nice.

In Covey's book, he explain about habits 4, 5, 6 which are think win-win, seek first to understand, than to be understood, and synergize. These are interpersonal habits that can be applied to most of common situations.

Work on your health. Having physical energy and mental clarity is rooted in physical well being and both of them add to productivity.

Read books like "The 7 habits of highly effective people".

Good luck.

It's so difficult to launch your OWN product and I enjoyed reading about your experience and goals on your blog. I'm reading (again, this time to completion) "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and a phrase in it really applies to this situation: "Begin with the end in mind" - and it looks like you've done just this. Congrats and I wish you the best in your goals!

It's true that experience is harder to get than knowledge from reading. But I still think reading offers a huge amount of benefit that you cannot get from experience.

One thing is that it opens up a world that is broader to your own. Another thing is that it can provide clear mental models that you probably won't figure out yourself, and that you can observe only after you know the theory.

Let me give you a clear example.

Early in my career I had to manage a junior. At the time I was reading The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. I applied the "stewardship delegation" from that book to the letter. It worked perfect. In my 19 year career, I apply it all the time, with great success (it also works on your kids :D).

But nobody I know knows about it. I could have never learned one of the most important things, from experience alone.

Even when you look at people like Bill Gates for example, they also still seem to get great value out of reading.

Thanks for the conversation, and sorry for my snarky remark, I admit I was wrong judging you :)

This is revised and updated from my original post nearly 4 years ago on Hacker News:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2246457

I've now compiled this into a book of 82 letters showing my progression from ages 14 through 30. I started with classic self-help books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (great book) and Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (not-so-great), but eventually got into what I believe is the ultimate self-improvement: meditation.

I'm learning how to level up my more fundamental life skills: nutrition, exercise, and character. Character I'm learning through the study of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which I'm working through with a friend. For exercise, I'm enjoying learning a safe kettlebell program with the book Simple and Sinister. With nutrition, I'm just trying to cook/prepare all my own meals while keeping the ingredients healthy.

I've spent so much time studying skills more directly related to my work as a software engineer, or hobbies like photography, that this shift is both challenging and refreshing. I think it'll make a huge difference in the long run.

1. Get enough sleep.

2. Exercise and eat right.

3. Set goals. People with goals vastly outperform those without.

4. Track your progress. This will involve determining the right metrics. "What gets measured gets done."

5. Look for more efficient ways to do things.

6. Read the book "The 7 habits of highly effective people."

7. Learn some time management techniques.

8. Read up on how to plan things backwards: Start with where you want to be and figure out the step before that and the step before that, etc. Otherwise, you may be "climbing a ladder leaned against the wrong wall."

>First, read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people.”

Already done. I am currently reading "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". How to Win Friends majorly influenced me already.

Do you believe the methods explained in How to Win Friends are sufficient? They have absolutely helped already but I am not sure if it is just a matter continuing to apply or if there is another that could help level me up more.

EDIT: Also on the reading list is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I've heard good things about it and the first ~20 pages were pretty good.

* The Bhagavad Gita http://amzn.com/1586380192

* On Managing Yourself http://amzn.com/1422157997

* The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams http://amzn.com/0887308589

* The Peter Principle by by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull http://amzn.com/0062092065

* How to Manage Your Boss by Christopher Hegarty http://amzn.com/034531817X

* Time Management by Veronica Hurst http://amzn.com/1537560700

* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey http://amzn.com/1451639619

* The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo http://amzn.com/1607747308

* The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle http://amzn.com/0553328255

* Alistair MacLean's best novels:

++ Night Without End http://amzn.com/0006161227

++ Fear Is the Key http://amzn.com/0006159915

++ The Dark Crusader or The Black Shrike http://amzn.com/0006165435

++ The Golden Rendezvous http://amzn.com/0006162592

++ The Satan Bug http://amzn.com/B002RI9DAQ

++ Ice Station Zebra http://amzn.com/B0046A9MO0

Man, I've been there.

It seems your fundamental challenge is you aren't getting things done. If you can't accomplish things, this indicates you are missing critical, learnable skills that can change your life for the better.

Don't worry so much about the immediate details of your situation and take steps to address your ability to accomplish what you set out to do.

Perhaps you have untreated ADHD or mild depression. Perhaps you don't actually enjoy coding, but just think you do.

Or if not, very likely you have counterproductive habits, which will take time to change but luckily there are fantastic resources out there.

I would recommend you read all of these:

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big - Scott Adams

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey

12 Rules For Life - Jordan Peterson

The War Of Art - Steven Pressfield

So Good They Can't Ignore You - Cal Newport

and if those don't help, you might have ADHD:

Driven to Distraction - Edward M. Hallowell

Meanwhile, make as much human connection as feasible, so you remember there's more to life than your career.

Changing how you operate to be more effective and aligned with your goals isn't an overnight project, but it is totally possible and you will get there.

--
edited for grammar and formatting

Brushing up on some social skills. Been reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I'd be curious if anyone on here has good recommendations for this area.

On the tech side I'm going to try to develop my python skills a little more. Expand my DevOps knowledge in my current professional stack which will mean Azure DevOps. Perhaps sprinkle in some LeetCode. I don't really want to grind it, but I would like to move someone warm like Florida, and it'll probably be a good idea to study a bit.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'll throw in several more favorites that have changed the way I think over the years, in no particular order:

* The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

* The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

* The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

* Getting Things Done - David Allen

* The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card

* The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

* The 5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman

* The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey

     > To be honest I always thought that these kind of books
     > (i.e personal growth / motivational) were BS 

I feel I've had a huge amount in my life out of self-help books, on a real variety of subjects. There's a lot of obvious bullshit out there (like The Secret), but also plenty of gold. Scanning through my notes, and in no particular order, I have extensive notes from (and thus enjoyed):

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

* Beyond Chocolate

* Driven From Within (Michael Jordan biography)

* Get Altitude

* How To Make Friends and Influence People

* Iron John (Robert Bly)

* Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

* Never Eat Lunch Alone

* Psychocybernetics

* Pulling Your Own Strings

* Ready For Anything (same author as GTD)

* The Dip

* Ten Days to Self Discipline

* The Power of Now

* Personal Power (Tony Robbins)

* Warrior King Magician Lover

Some were easier reads than others, and I suspect I am unusual in that I have a pretty rigorous system for making sure I regularly review my notes, and implement exercises and ideas in the books, but I feel I'd be a very different person for the worse without the value these books have added to my life.

I watched it just after reading "7 habits of highly effective people".
The entire time I watched I was critiquing the characters

1. They all lied, all the time, in different ways
2. There is zero trust between anyone.
3. I don't recall any female nudity (perhaps I've become more numb to it?) There was male nudity.
4. Even the "good guys" are terrible people. No one likes them, they are just as big of jerks as the "Heros". Main Character has PTSD from Episode One and it only gets worse (due to his own choices and actions).

It goes to the opposite extreme running the a basic premise of "everyone is a person", everyone has faults, everyone has needs.

The "best moral character" is perhaps Starlight, and she's abused, co-dependent on her mother, and struggling to come to terms with her new job requirements asking her to lie and confronting childhood beliefs and cultures (homophobia, premarital sex).
In the show thus far: no one has dealt with their baggage. No one's trying to in a health way (The Deep might be an exception as he's seen talking with a Therapist, but he's far from "good").

Without having read the comics: I'm not sure the "good" guys win. The protagonist wins. The "factually right" guy wins. But even that has yet to happen in the show.

I may have overstated my point a bit, because everyone has a different base level of anxiety and tolerance for disorder, and everyone will also go through unavoidable periods of stress. I recommend (re-)reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Getting Things Done, and Deep Work if you haven't already.

I'm afraid my advice is not very original, but beyond a few common principles, getting organized is a very individual kind of thing.

Burnout is real. It is dangerous. I try to address burnout by doing other activities, such as acting/long boarding/creating web comics (toblender.com).

A friend told me that Henry Ford was the one who established the 40 hour week. This was not because he was kind, it was because anything over 8 hours a day produces diminishing returns.

I think I'm in a bout of burnout right now. I've opted to work a full time contract, to fund my startup, while burning midnight and weekend oils for my startup. I think a vacation, of simply doing NOTHING would be a good idea.

They bring up this point in the book "7 habits of highly effective people", you have to take time to sharpen the saw. Or you'll be wasting a lot of effort hacking away with a dull blade.

Spend more time getting and staying fit. Beyond functioning better, it really does change how people treat you and think of you.

Realize that business and political acumen is a learnable skill: read the classic business/interpersonal books like Crucial Conversations, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and others. Most business books are pure fluff, but there are truly great works out there.

You will probably stay at your first job too long. It feels safe and has some nice benefits, but you won't really grow unless you experience different workplaces.

I cut out reading (24 hour) news this year. I no longer read bbc news, my local papers etc. I figured (and it's true) important things tend to get mentioned (either on HN, or just in conversation etc.)

There's also the idea of the "circle of influence" (i.e. worry / do something with the things you can _actually_ influence, forget about the rest - slightly comes back to the 24 hour news thing for me). Perhaps you might enjoy reading "The 7 Habits of Highly effective people"

Good luck :) You're certainly not alone.

You have already received couple of strong suggestions, excellent advise there you should try to incorporate.However, both of them are extrinsic rewards focused. When faced with external challenges (things outside of your mind or physiology) changing your outlook, circumstances or expectations in order to adapt to your situation is certainly a good way to handle it. I would only offer one suggestion - if this is an internal struggle by any chance. That would be to find your core empathy for yourself and your colleague, which means be compassionate to yourself and understand why is it bothering you so much. And be compassionate to the other person and try to determine what is driving their behavior. These are both hard things to do. I can't tell you how exactly to do that - but try reading a few books like "Dare to Lead" by Brene Brown or "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey. Good luck!

I think, from direct personal experience, you might get the best results from really focusing on making yourself better, and this will to some extent make you feel better.

Develop skills to a new level, really figure out if you live according to an ethical system you believe in, keep seeing how much you can accomplish in the direction of goals YOU find meaningful.

Again from personal experience you could try reading a bunch of Jordan Peterson, and maybe try his self authoring course.

His insight in to these topics has been very helpful to me.

I also have gotten a metric ton of great results from exercise. Either lifting weights and/or a skill based exercise (like martial arts or whatever) in these domains you get the mental health benefits of exercise, and the psychological benefits of measurable increase in capacity over time.

I also have gotten amazing results from meditating, specifically the Waking Up app by Sam Harris, which has helped me see my thoughts a little more dispassionately, so I can start to see how they affect me.

I have gotten good insight from the work of Scott Adams, I think it was “how to fail at almost everything and still win big” which presents his moist robot framing for how to help yourself feel differently.

Also 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by I think Steven Covey.

Also How to Win Friends and Influence People which is an old and amazing book that reframe interpersonal interaction, which influenced my self esteem dramatically.

Feel free to message me directly if you want more tailored opinions to your situation.

I can absolutely recommend the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, too.

StartUp by Gimlet on the other hand while entertaining doesn't provide a whole lot of valuable insight in my opinion.

Personally, I'd recommend these podcasts:

- Sales for Nerds: https://www.salesfornerds.io/ Pragmatic sales tips for people with a technical background.

- $100k Freelancing: http://www.100kfreelancing.com/ Advice on how to grow a freelancing or consulting business.

While the following technically aren't about startups or business in general they deal with a lot of - sometimes related - matters and insights that can help with becoming an overall better person:

- The Tim Ferriss Show: https://tim.blog/podcast/ General advice as to how to become better at many things in life, including business.

- 99% Invisible: https://99percentinvisible.org/ Interesting, groundbreaking, sometimes quirky, pieces of design from around the world.

- Design Matters: http://www.debbiemillman.com/designmatters/ Interviews with designers, artists and people from related backgrounds.

A list of the books, with ISBN-10/13:
Book Title
ISBN-10
ISBN-13 (if available)

  #1. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
  0470929839
  978-0470929834

  #2. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany
  0982743602
  N/A

  #3. Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
  0470929820
  978-0470929827

  #4. Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People 2nd Edition
  0143036971
  978-0143036975

  #4. The Four Steps to the Epiphany
  0976470705
  978-0976470700

  #5. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
  0307887898
  978-0307887894

  #6. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  0743269519
  978-0743269513

  #7. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap)
  1430210788
  978-1430210788

  #8. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
  0470876417
  978-0470876411

Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina, because it made me a better father; Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, because it taught me of the importance of something that I’d occasionally dismiss as a nuisance; Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC by Pete Egoscue, because it completely changed the way I understood posture, pain, and how repetition influences my body; and Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, because it taught me how despite big changes in technology and society and way of living, very little changes when it comes to our personal struggles and concerns; Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, because it helped me realize that in any situation, my attitude is what I always have control over; and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey because it greatly contributed to my mental framework for how to be productive and for this quote, which is probably my favorite of the past decade:

“In the space between stimulus (what happens) and how we respond, lies our freedom to choose. Ultimately, this power to choose is what defines us as human beings. We may have limited choices but we can always choose. We can choose our thoughts, emotions, moods, our words, our actions; we can choose our values and live by principles. It is the choice of acting or being acted upon.”

A friend once said of "The 7 habits of highly effective people" that the first habit was not wasting time reading self help books.

In a similar vein I suspect one of the key behaviors driving productivity might be not spending much time writing about productivity on the internet.

Irony of posting this understood obv, but then I make no claims to productivity, quite the opposite.

There is a good video that underlines your second point[0], specifically mentioning that compassion is increasingly being replaced by moral superiority, that dialogue is often reactionary instead of responsive, and that the system we live in is often trying to group us based on these very differences, not unlike what happens in a high school cafeteria. She's primarily talking about online and big media discussions I think. She goes on to say that "a lot of us are seeing people who remind us of our former selves and we're attacking that", reminding me that "the biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand -- we listen to reply" (Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author).

Your first point does remind me of an early xkcd though[1], ironic in that it was about radically being yourself, come what may, and clearly identifying with what was then the underdog. It could be interpreted differently today, especially without an understanding of what the early 00s Internet was like.

[0]https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-problem-with-wokene..., also available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-WimRb2jXs but ironically censored

[1]https://xkcd.com/137/

I Would have to agree with Ryan on the "fixed pie" thinking. This isn't an allocation issue, its based on productivity.

In the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," Stephen Covey explains a great theory called the P/PC ratio (production to production capacity). In other words, take care of your physical and mental self, and you will produce far better results in your work related endeavors.

People don't realize that not exercising and not eating healthy will severely limit your ability to work productive 40-100 hour work weeks.

Here's my reading list so far:

1. Principles of Likability: Skills for a Memorable First Impression, Captivating Presence, and Instant Friendships

By Patrick King. I struggle with soft skills so I found it insightful without being shallow

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

By Stephen R. Covey. I think this predates the previous book, and it's not a "read once then forget" type of book; it's about continuous self-improvement. I got a lot from it, didn't enjoy the religious/spiritual overtones but I will come back to this one

3. The Algorithm Design Manual

By Steven S Skiena. I'm halfway through; I found the first chapter dense but the rest are very approachable (go figure). I don't have a CS degree so it helps to see problems classified into "this or that problem can be approached with X algo"; some of this stuff I've worked through already but now I have a name for a lot of these things. Definitely highly recommend this if like me you don't have a CS education and occasionally wonder what the gap is between you and CS graduates (IMO not much unless they really grok graphs). I wish I had read it the second year of my career, but better late than never

I have 4:

-Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography - you can download it for free

- Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell - A bit simplistic but it opens your eye to the fact that talent is a small part of being successful in whatever you want to achieve.

- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - You need people to succeed. Making enemies or just treating people indifferently is a bad move.

- 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey. People put it down because the advice seems to be common sense but it's only common sense if you know it but not everyone knows it.

- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius- this is a lifelong guide. Read it until the pages fall apart and then get another and do the same.

All these books can be read multiple times and you'll learn something new so get hard copies if you can.

The Now Habit, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy are several popular works in this area.

Now Habit and Feeling Good both address the feedback loop we create in our own mind. Not the external pressure of life, but the internal dialogue we create around it. 7 Habits is about action steps and asking yourself "What should I really be doing."

And, for a more "runway level" approach to borrow the phrase from the next one: Getting Things Done.

EDIT: I was just about to add CBT, but I see someone beat me to it. Feeling Good is by one of the early practitioners of CBT.

"7 Habits of Highly Effective People" [1] - I listened to the audio book and it was really an eye-opener. It changed my perspective on people and personality a lot. Highly recommended.
Same with the book "How To Win Friends And Influence People" [2]. It's written decades ago and still holds the principles true.
Another gem I found recently was : "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by the same author of [2]. It's really good if you are stressed with your lifestyle. Really gives practical advice.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey is a pretty seminal personal management book. It's my top recommendation in terms of "foundational" material. It's not got much in the way of practical tools, but the ideas are applicable everywhere.

I would recommend Drive by Dan Pink if you're interested in learning more about creative motivation. It's pretty short, and actually very well summarised here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister is very good programmer-specific management material. They cite a lot of work benchmarking the productivity of different workplaces, so it's very "x is good, x is bad".

Jim Collins' Good to Great is an examination of businesses that succeed vs fail, and the attributes that get them there, it's essentially an extended summary of a longitudinal study he and his team did of businesses that outperformed the stock market by a high factor over 10 years. It's more leadership than management, but still very useful.

One that I haven't read yet (damn my stupidly big reading list) but recommend on reputation alone is First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Here's a summary: http://www.slideshare.net/gregcrouch/executive-summary-first...

I share your frustration about blah-blah blog posts. With the exception of First, Break All The Rules (which I haven't read yet) and 7 Habits (which I forgive because it's so damn good), the books I mention are based on actual research which is cited in the book, not just some dude going "I think this because I know stuff". Because they're books for busy people, they have summaries and bolded sections and callout boxes too. :)

Overall, though, I would caution you to not put the cart before the horse. There are a thousand books on management that could teach you something new, but it will all just go on the big pile of irrelevant information unless you actually need it. You won't unless you're actively trying to manage. If you start by spending that time you'll be much better placed to contextualise the knowledge and, therefore, actually benefit from it.

I've got a marketing related blog (http://www.volcanicmarketing.com/mp) that hasn't gained as much traction as I expected it to and I suspect it's been partially because it doesn't have a strong and consistent voice, like say Signal vs Noise does. Digging around online, I came across this interesting article by Steven Covey (author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) and posses some really interesting questions that I think can help people start towards refining their voice. If you've got other good resources on crafting/refining/identifying your voice, pls add in the comments.

I definitely have some advice. My social skills still aren't very good but they used to be terrible. I was able to at least improve them.

* Read How to Win Friends and Influence People

* Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

* Join Toastmasters (and, importantly, participate!)

* Make it a part of your life to continually study psychology and human nature

My life has also improved personally/professionally/socially since I got fired from my last job in 2013 and went freelance. Having to run my own business has forced me to develop social skills and freelancing has given me the opportunity to regularly change the group of people with whom I'm surrounded, which has allowed me to "collect" people I like along the way, which can happen at a regular job but much more slowly.

I got a lot out of some very practical books, like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Getting to Yes, The Tipping Point and The Peter Principle. I read a lot of good fiction in my youth, including books mentioned here, like Siddhartha, works by Heinlein and the Amber series.

There are a couple of books that had a big impact on me whose titles I long ago forgot. Periodically searching has not uncovered them.

One was a history of the deep south. Another was a book about about raising money for non profits.

I grew up in the deep south. Reading a history of it helped me understand my life and my country better. The second book had some pithy passages. One of my takeaways was "Don't say no for them." In other words, don't fail to ask because you assume the answer is no.

There were some other pithy, wise bits in the book that boil down to "If you really care about this project and the people it impacts, you need to get over being a thin skinned crybaby and keep at it in spite of repeatedly dealing with rejection, etc." I think the story was repeatedly told that someone would come to her all upset about something and she would say something like "I will put on my best therapist hat and tell you to get over it."

It was a surprising attitude to run into. The author was very practical. She also talked about the fact that she kept doing what she did because when things went well, there was no better feeling. I have done a lot of volunteer work in my life and there is a whole lot of touchy feely stuff that goes along with such work. This book was a breath of fresh air.

On my personal bookshelf, next to my Bible, are:

Sun Tzu's "Art of War" - a fundamental philosophical work for life management

Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - well-known, enough said.

Felix Dennis' "How to Get Rich" - the best book that I have ever read about how the world really works

Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" - a timeless classic.

At the first company I worked at after graduating, many of the supervisor and manager cubicles had little certificates on them saying that they completed some sort of "Who Moved My Cheese" seminar. I remember seeing copies of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" as well. Right before I left I saw someone with a copy of a book like "Love 'em or Lose 'em" a book about how to keep good employees. It's cover looked suspicious to me but I don't know much about it.

Honestly, though, most managers simply did not read, and those who did certainly didn't read anything about how to become a better manager, unless it was forced on them from corporate. Even those who took the initiative to read the bad books on that list will probably benefit.

Work on yourself. Influence has to come from something genuine: real competence, real respect for other people, etc. All that other stuff is merely manipulation and manipulation tends to come back to bite you at some point.

You might start with a book like "The 7 habits of highly effective people", which isn't at all about influencing others but is, instead, about getting things done.

For negotiation skills, which is entirely different from "persuasion" but can give you real power to influence outcomes, the only two I know of which are research-based are "Getting to Yes" and "The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator". Both of these were required texts for my class on "Negotiation and Conflict Management".

Rich Dad, Poor Dad opened my eyes to some commercial realities of the world. I realised the career I was training for wasn't going to give me the life I wanted, so I began focusing more time learning about money, investements, business etc.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a book I've never been able to get more than 1/3 of the way through, but its 'Circle of Control' framework made me a much happier and more content person.

I enjoyed Dale Carnegie, but took some of the lessons on board a little too much, which got me into trouble in some social situations where I didn't have awareness (eg, using mirroring or copying techniques to build rapport, and later discovering I was standing next to my girlfriend and flirting with other women!).