Books like The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life

01

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Carol S. Dweck · Psychology

Carol Dweck's central claim is simple but far-reaching: people hold one of two basic beliefs about their own abilities.

A kindred psychology read.

02

Stumbling on Happiness

Daniel Gilbert · Psychology

Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist whose central finding, after decades of studying affective forecasting, is that humans are systematically wrong about what will make them happy.

A kindred psychology read.

03

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred psychology read.

04

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

A kindred psychology read.

05

The Happiness Advantage

Shawn Achor · Psychology

Shawn Achor's core claim inverts a common assumption about success and happiness.

Both dig into mindset.

06

When Prophecy Fails

Leon Festinger · Psychology

When Prophecy Fails is the account of an observational study Leon Festinger and his colleagues conducted by infiltrating a small doomsday cult in the American Midwest in the early 1950s.

Both dig into belief.

07

Discipline Equals Freedom

Jocko Willink · Self-help

Discipline Equals Freedom is Jocko Willink's compressed manifesto on the relationship between self-discipline and freedom — his central argument being that the two are not opposites but the same thing.

Both dig into mindset.

08

Everything Is Figureoutable

Marie Forleo · Self-help

Everything Is Figureoutable is Marie Forleo's argument that almost any problem — personal, professional, creative — becomes solvable once you adopt a foundational belief that a solution exists and that you're capable of finding it.

Both dig into mindset.

09

Limitless

Jim Kwik · Self-help

Limitless is Jim Kwik's account of how he overcame a childhood brain injury and learning difficulties to become a professional memory coach and reading accelerator, and what he learned about cognition along the way.

Both dig into mindset.

10

Never Finished

David Goggins · Memoir

Never Finished is David Goggins' follow-up to Can't Hurt Me, continuing his story and philosophy of mental toughness beyond the point where the first book left off.

Both dig into mindset.

11

The 10X Rule

Grant Cardone · Business

The 10X Rule is Grant Cardone's argument that most people fail to achieve their goals because they set them too low and take too little action — and that the fix is to multiply both by a factor of ten.

Both dig into mindset.

12

The Biology of Belief

Bruce H. Lipton · Health

The Biology of Belief is Bruce Lipton's argument that cells are controlled by signals from their environment rather than by genetic programs, and that human beings, as collections of cells, are therefore more powerfully shaped by their beliefs and perceptions than by their DNA.

Both dig into belief.