Summer is a great time to catch up on recreational reading.  It’s also the perfect time to make progress toward life goals with books that nurture your inner coach.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, by Dr. Martin Seligman.  He provides tools to help break habits like giving up too easily and build skills that will make you happier, boost your immune system and develop your potential.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind & Create A New One, by Dr. Joe Dispenza, taps into the science of who we are and gives us the knowledge needed to change any aspect of our lives.  His book provides a step-by-step tool that can lead to measurable change.

Live Your Joy, by my friend Bonnie St. John.  Find inspiration in her personal journey as an amputee and Olympian who has learned to love, feel compassion in painful situations and live more fully and joyfully.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, by Martin Goldsmith and Mark Reiter.  Find out what behaviors you need to unlearn to reach the next rung on your career or life ladder.

My book, LIES That Limit: Uncover the Truth Of Who You Really Are, is designed to help you uncover the hidden forces that keep you from achieving your goals.  Overcome the labels, illusions, excuses and stories that play out in your daily decision-making.  If you’re on the verge of personal transformation, this book will get you to the next level.

If brushing up on leadership skills is something you’d like to do while relaxing at the beach or by the pool, here are some of the books I recommend to the emerging and existing leaders I work with every day.

Tom Rath and Barry Conchie’s Strengths Based Leadership:  Great Leaders, Teams And Why People Follow builds on their bestseller, “Strengths Finder.”  Rooted in extensive research, the book identifies three keys to being an effective leader.

Two books by Barry Oshry,  “Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life” and “Leading Systems,” look at the impact of human behavior on our ability to achieve organizational, community and family goals.  Both books are informed by Oshry’s extensive research and immersive Power & Systems workshops.  As a facilitator for this program, I’ve seen first hand how it transforms the way people think and act.

The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off, by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan, provides data and the deliverables needed to create an inclusive workplace.

Leading From the Emerging Future: From the Ego-System to the Eco-System Economies, by Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer.  This book is for you if you want to learn more about how to lead in this age of disruption.  The book includes real-world examples and proven practices that are already at work building a more resilient, intentional, inclusive and aware economy.

When you’re ready to reward yourself with recreational reading choices, WorkingMother.com offers 15 Hot New Summer Beach Reads that will transport you to another place – even if you’re just taking a staycation.

For links to these personal growth and leadership books, as well as others, visit my Spirit of Purpose bookstore on my website spiritofpurpose.com.