Hello guys, just wanna' share my humble experience since I've been practising daily reading and listening for a while and so far so good.

I don't know whether if TS looking specifically at motivational books, or any self-help and development books.

I've read The Secret, The Power and The Magic by Rhonda Byrne. They are good but lacks of something, understanding the law of attraction is a good thing, giving love and practising gratitude is all good which gives you a positive life; the books reveal the mental thought process but not really reveal any action steps which leads people to a little bit of wishful thinking. 'Knowledge is not power, it is only potential power until you decided to use them.'

Anyways, after reading books by Rhonda, I would recommend books like Anthony Robbins: Awaken the Giant Within! It contains 'the secret' (law of attraction) in the book. Yet, it gives a lot more detail in it and empowers you to take more action steps required to make a leap ahead.

Some personal experience reading self-development books
1. You wanna' keep reading and reading and reading even after finishing that particular book, you either re-read it once you feel unproductive or pick up another good book and keep reading. I used to think that reading once is enough, but its not. It's just like the piano, you need to keep on practising even after you get to a certain grade, nobody become a super pianist by just attending a few classes and stop from there.

2. Audiobook is more expensive, but it's more worth it. It's really expensive but its pretty hard to finish a book compared to an audiobook. I only read self-help books and business books (no story, non-fiction all those stuffs) and it takes me usually 1 to 3 months time to finish a book, depending on the thickness. However, I can finish an audiobook in less than a week (usually ranges around 3 to 10 hours) and I don't just stop there. I keep playing the CD over and over again for at least 5 times to really understand it. It still wins reading a book though, as listening to the same CD for 10 times maybe only takes about 1 month.

3. If Audiobook is not an option, set goals to read a little bit everyday. Back then, I gave up reading a lot of times on a single book until I finally finish it. Why? Most of the time, I try to finish a book in a few days and that's pretty difficult for me as my daily schedule is pretty tight. I learnt a technique to read maybe 5 to 10 pages a day. It's really easy as you can easily fork out 10 to 15 minutes a day to complete that goal. If your book is about 300pages, you can easily finish it by a month.

4. Always summarize the book after reading. Why? Maybe I'm more stupid compared to others. I tend to forgot some of the chapters and points upon finishing a book. That is why I started to summarize the book after finishing it by listing out the important points and principles that I wanna' apply. The next time I wanna' get inspired and motivated, I just go through those lists instead of the whole book.

5. Take action. Knowledge is not power. It is only potential power. Taking action is what makes the potential power becomes power. There was times I fed my brain with lots of knowledge but I still feel like shit because I didn't take the actions. Until I read some books which empowers me to take action, I feel that it's hard to stop. (some books called it momentum)

Hope it helps. Let's empower ourselves together
Btw, TS. this is a really good thread.

This post has been edited by PecoPeco: Oct 1 2014, 03:44 PM