21 All Time Best Classic Success Books (2023)
Jay Gallagher
This is my personal list of the All Time Best Classic Success Books that I read to grow as a person.
I’m sharing this list to help you achieve success, happiness, better relationships and wealth.
This list will show you:
- Which books you need, to learn how to become successful today.
- How to develop the mindset needed to be successful.
- How to change the patterns of thought, beliefs and actions that prevent you from finding success.
- Which book is right for you today based on the challenges you face
So What are the All Time Best Classic Success Books?
1. Think and Grow Rich!
The Must Read Success Classic
Andrew Carnegie convinced Napoleon Hill to devote over 20 years of his life to interview over 500 of the most successful men in the world to uncover their secrets that made them wealthy, powerful and successful.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
The book started an entire new category of books, the self-help genre. This is the book that brought concepts like Affirmations, Creating a Burning Desire, MasterMind Groups and so much more to the public. The language and references are a bit dated but the ideas are timeless. Don’t just read this book, reread it, mark it up, do the exercises to incorporate it’s ideas into your life and watch it change.
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People
People suck, this will help
This book is the classic primer on interpersonal relationships. It teaches:
- 6 ways to get people to like you
- 12 ways to win people over to your way of thinking
- 9 ways to get people to change without resentment.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
If Think And Grow Rich is the best success book, this one is a very close second. This book continues to sell year after year.
Warren Buffet read this book as a teenager and credits it with improving his interpersonal skills at an important age. I gave this book to each of my kids in middle school to help them get the soft skills everyone needs to be successful.
3. The Power of Positive Thinking
If Mr. Rogers Wrote a Self-Help Book...
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale teaches you:
- How to eliminate self doubt
- How to live free from worry, stress and resentment
- How to eliminate negative thoughts that keep you from achieving success and happiness.
- How to visualize solutions to your problems and then attain them
- Simple prayerful exercises to reinforce your new-found habit of happiness
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, like Mr. Rogers, was an ordained minister, who in this book, mixes spirituality with some simple techniques to create a more peaceful mind. A wonderful soothing book to read that really helps.
4. GOALS!
The book GOALS is ...goals!
Why do some achieve their goals while others simply dream of a better life? Brian Tracy presents a simple, powerful, and effective system for setting and achieving goals—a method to achieve extraordinary things.
He outlines 21 strategies to accomplish any goal, no matter how big. You’ll learn how to determine your own strengths, how to build self esteem and self confidence.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
This classic contains some of the same ideas as the older books on this list but in a more updated package. Simple, straight to the point and easy to understand and implement into your life.
5. As a Man Thinketh
As a Man Thinketh in His Heart, So Is He.
Proverbs 23:7
Beautiful poetic essay that deals with how the power of thought holds the key to every condition, good or bad, that enters into your life and that by working patiently and intelligently upon your thoughts you can remake your life and transform your circumstances.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
A short sweet essay that shows how your thoughts create your emotions, actions and life. Do yourself a favor, grab your favorite beverage, sink into a comfy chair and read this poetic work in one sitting.
6. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Meditations of a Stoic
Written by the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, solely for his own meditations as he struggled to understand himself and his place in the universe. Marcus goes from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation as he questions the meaning of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and the values of leadership.
Marcus, in his personal attempt to understand himself, created one of the greatest works of philosophy: a series of wise aphorisms that’ve been studied by statesmen, thinkers and ordinary readers for two thousand years.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Stoicism is needed just as much today as it was when this book was written. Marcus may not have all the answers but he struggled with the same questions that you do.
7. Man's Search for Meaning
Find Meaning in Your Life
Viktor Frankl’s riveting exploration of the human will as he attempts to find meaning while suffering in a Nazi concentration camp has offered guidance and solace since it was first published in 1946. At the heart of Frankl’s theory is a belief that the primary human drive is not, as Freud insisted pleasure, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what the individual finds meaningful.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
As the world becomes ever more complex and uncertain, this book will inspire you to find significance by the very act of living in spite of all obstacles.
8. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography
Ben Franklin on Virtue, Wealth and Civic Responsibility
Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography explores Franklin’s ideas on virtue, wealth and explains his motivations in pursuing a long life of active civic participation during the formation of the emerging American nation.
It provides not only the story of Franklin’s own remarkably influential career, but maps out a strategy for self-made success. This work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Ben Franklin remains one of the wittiest, most approachable of the American founding fathers.
Ben Franklin is literally a self-made man.
Ben identified the virtues he wished to possess and established a step by step process to incorporate these virtues into his character.
He is still so beloved because the strength of his remarkable character echoes across the centuries.
9. The Richest Man in Babylon
Timeless Principles of Wealth
The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason, is a parable set in ancient Babylon that explains timeless principles of personal finance and building wealth.
Clason’s dynamic story transports you to the Babylon empire at it’s apex where we learn the secrets to acquiring, protecting and growing wealth. He teaches why some people amass riches while others become slaves to their impulses.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Some of the best ideas are the simplest. This book explains the simple truths about people, money and the reason’s some people gather wealth but money slips through the fingers of others.
10. Rich Dad Poor Dad
Think Like a Boss, Literally
Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert Kiyosaki’s story of growing up with two “dads”. He was influenced both by his real father, his poor dad and the father of his best friend, his rich dad. Robert explains the two radically different ways his two dads thought about education, careers, money and investing. The book explodes the myths of going to school to get a job with a high income as the best way to be rich and explains the difference between working for your money and having your money go to work for you.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
People forget the absolute sensation this book caused when first published. The people in control of the modern world don’t want you to understand the concepts of this book. They want you to be a debt slave, living a meaningless life on a treadmill they create to make THEM wealthy. Piss off the 1% by reading this book and becoming one of them.
11. Cashflow Quadrant
Now Act Like an Investor
Cashflow Quadrant reveals how some people work less, earn more, pay less in taxes. This book will change the way you see yourself and how you think about jobs, careers, owning your own business and investing and teach you how to become financially free.
It will inspire you to learn the rules of money that the wealthy use so you can move beyond just job security and enter the world of financial freedom.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Rich Dad’s 2nd book, Cashflow Quadrant picks up where Rich Dad Poor Dad left off. This book goes into detail about how the different groups, Employees, Self-Employed, Business Owners and Investors think about money and how you can move up the food chain as your mindset and strategies evolve.
12. The Total Money Makeover
Get Out of Debt
Dave Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money and debt. He not only shows the path to being debt free but he gives you the hope you need to make the changes needed to take the journey to financial health.
Dave debunks the myths of money and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of trying to “keep up with the Joneses”, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
The Total Money Makeover isn’t just a theory. It’s the game plan to get out of debt and this time, stay out of debt. It works because it’s simple. It works because it gets to the heart of the money problems: you.
13. Who Moved my Cheese?
For When Life Throws You a Curveball
A timeless business parable, Who Moved My Cheese? is about mice in a maze who are fearful of change…just like most people.
Cheese is a metaphor for the things you need and want in life, things like a good job, relationships, money, possessions, health and spiritual peace of mind.
This story shows how to anticipate, accept and deal with change so that you can enjoy less stress and more success in your work and in your life.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
When life doesn’t go as you planned, reach for this book. Change can be hard but this book shows you how to think about the inevitable changes in your life so you can move on and adapt so you can thrive.
14. Awaken the Giant Within
Take Control of Your Life
Tony Robbins is the expert in the psychology of change. In this book, he gives the blueprint on self-mastery. Tony teaches the most successful people in the world how to find their true purpose, take control of their lives and harness the forces inside themselves to take control of their destinies.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
I admit that I used to be skeptical of Tony Robbins, probably because he launched on the scene doing late night informercials but this book written in the early 1990’s has proven to contain simple truths about how the human mind operates.
His messages like Success Leaves Tracks, Taking Massive Action and Changing Your State resonate so much that Presidents, Billionaires and CEOs call Tony when they need help.
15. The Miracle Morning
Create a Morning Ritual
The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod, shows you how to develop a morning ritual that creates the mindset you need to be successful. Hal has taken the “best practices”–developed over centuries of human spiritual and consciousness development–and condensed the “best of the best” into a daily morning ritual which could perhaps be the simplest approach to creating the life you’ve always wanted.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
It seems that every CEO and Billionaire that talks about their work habits, they all have a morning ritual they use to propel them to success. Hal shows you how to create the perfect morning ritual that covers all the bases of personal development.
16. Start With Why
Do You Know Your WHY?
In the book, Start With Why, Simon Sinek explains how all great leaders like Steve Jobs, the Wright Brothers and Martin Luther King Jr constantly communicate WHY first which attracts and inspires the people around them.
He calls this idea, “The Golden Circle” which can be used as the framework to build an company, an organization or even a movement to inspire people and create lasting change in the world.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Leaders understand something most people don’t think about too much; the importance of WHY. Why did you get out of bed this morning. Why are you working here? Why are we doing this? When you can get people to coalesce around a common why, then true change is inevitable.
17. Getting Things Done
Join The GTD Cult
This classic book on how to organize your tasks and streamline your workflow to massively increase your productivity has been rewritten from beginning to end. This rewrite has kept the book fresh and relevant for today’s increasingly online and remote world. This book has spawned a devotion among its fans that is remarkable for a self help book.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
David Allen changed the way we think about our work. This book represents a whole new way of thinking that for some people can be overwhelming. Even if you just implement a few of his suggestions, you’ll improve your productivity. Many people reread this book yearly to improve their implementation of his ideas and each time they see their levels of productivity improve.
18. Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus
Learn To Speak Their Language
Dr. John Gray spent years counseling couples and helping them realize how their totally different styles of communication reflect their fundamentally different emotional needs. He teaches why we have two different ways of acting in a relationship and shows how to communicate without conflict which will allow the relationship to flourish as intimacy grows.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
What you heard your partner say and what they really meant are two totally different things. When you understand what the other person expects from you when they tell you something, it clears away the built in misunderstandings we all face. Read it and try to have your partner read it too!
19. The 4-Hour Workweek
Join The New Rich
The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint on freeing yourself from the old school ways of thinking about jobs, careers, money and retirement.
He teaches how to Define what you want out of life. How to Eliminate 80% of the things that waste your time. How to Automate your income and finally, how to enjoy your newfound Liberation.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Looking back, Timothy Ferriss looks like a modern day Nostradamus for the workers of the world. This book is even more relevant than when it was written because the Covid Lockdowns accelerated the trend towards remote work by at least 10 years. His ideas, that were cutting edge in 2006, are now widely accepted. It’s remarkable how much the world has evolved to fit this book’s ideas.
20. The E-Myth
Create A Business Not A Job
The E-Myth explains that most people who start a business are really just having an “Entrepreneurial Seizure” and created a job not a business. He shows how to work ON your business and not IN your business. He shows how Ray Kroc created the perfect business model when he built McDonalds and how you can create a business like Ray did.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
Many small business people hate this book when they are first exposed to it because they realize after reading the E-Myth that they didn’t create a business but a trap that will consume their life. The good news is that Michael Gerber shows the way to build a business that serves your life instead of the self built prison that most small businesses really are.
21. Mindset
Develop a Growth Mindset
Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, PhD, demonstrates how our perceptions of our skills and talents may have a significant impact on our chances of success in virtually every aspect of human effort, including job, school, sports, the arts, and the arts. People with a growth mindset—those who think that abilities can be developed—are more likely to succeed than those with a fixed mindset, which holds that abilities are fixed. Mindset explains how excellent parents, teachers, managers, and athletes may apply this concept to promote exceptional achievement.
Why it's an All Time Best Classic Success Book
How we think and talk to ourselves, our children and everyone around us can create a static fixed mindset that prevents us from growing and developing our natural abilites. This book will help you develop a healthier mindset that encourages you and the people around to grow.
