3 Self-Improvement Books Every Student Should Read

1. How To Win Friends and Influence People

The title says it all.

If you are an introvert ( like me ) who has trouble opening up to people or feel uncomfortable with social interactions, you should definitely read this book. And if you are an extrovert, you would gain more insights into the human mindset. This book truly in its essence helps groom your personality.

This is the book which I started reading a few years back.  My sister had got this as a prize, I borrowed it from her.

Started reading it and Guess what!!

I got glued to it.  It was so addicting to read that I would just literally want to finish all my household/college chores quickly just to spend time reading this book. Sometimes I even skipped my work!

What makes this book so addicting is the fact that the author ” Dale Carnegie has dedicated his entire life studying, researching, teaching people all around the world his techniques on how to influence people”.  This book is the compilation of all his research.

Added to the fact, that every concept within this book is described beautifully with examples from “Real life”. 

There are 30 chapters which are segmented into 4 parts.  It teaches you to:

  • Improve your conversation skills
  • Avoid arguments and Win people over.
  • Make friends easily.
  • Become a people person.

A very beautiful book indeed. If you search on the internet for ” Top 10 personal development books”, undoubtedly you would find it.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People”  was first published in 1937.
Even though it was published in 1937, the principles are still applicable today. It will be applicable 10 years, 20 years, 50 years down the line.
That’s how evergreen its content is.

2. Outliers

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is an exceptional book.  First published in November 2008.

He writes about the ” story of success”.

Why do some people achieve so much more than others?  Can they lie so far out of the ordinary?

The book includes 11 plus case studies converting them skillfully into his writing tackling the above question.

In his provocative and inspiring book, Malcolm Gladwell looks at everyone from rock stars to professional athletes, software billionaires to scientific geniuses, to show that the story of success is far more surprising and more fascinating than we could ever have imagined.

A fair bit of warning though: If you are not a regular reader. If you don’t have a habit of reading, this book isn’t for you.

The reason is that the actual profundity of the book arises on reaching  “Chapter 2: The 10,000-hour rule”. Till then, if you aren’t a serious reader probably you would get bored and put the book away. It would be better for you to go online and watch a video summary of the book.

But  once you keep reading it, here are some things you might come across:

  • The 10,000- hour  rule of world-class expertise
  • The ethnic theory of plane crashes and How Korea, changed their traditional cultural beliefs, leading  to decreased airplane crashes
  • The trouble with geniuses

etc among others

Outliers will change the way you think about your own life story, and about what makes us all unique

3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Unlike the other two mentioned here, this is an Inspirational novel. Published in 1970 authored by Richard Bach.

This book delivers profound Life-lessons.  If you read this story, you can see a story unfolding within it which has an immensely powerful spiritual message.

I came across this book last year when I had nothing new to read.

As soon as I started reading, the story gripped me!  It took me about 4-6 hours to finish this book.

Well, it’s really not that hard to complete this book. It has almost 125-130 pages of which half of them are Illustrated ( images).

The story revolves around a Seagull, named Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the journey taken by a special seagull, who wants to be able to fly faster and higher than any other seagull. This journey becomes spiritual when Jonathan is banished from his Flock because he tries to be different, flying high and fast while the Flock sticks to the beaches and the fishing boats.

Something you will learn from it:

  • You are perfect and unlimited.
  • Never stop learning and practicing and striving to understand more of the perfect, invincible principle of all life.
  • Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body.
  • You have to practice to see the real person, the good in everyone and to help them see it in themselves. That’s love. It’s fun when you get the knack of it.
  • Look with understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.

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