After 70 years: What books can I recommend for Personal Development?

When I had my 70th birthday it was the first time in my life, I hesitated to tell my age. In my mind I feared I would be defined as old and useless… After a while, because I am an incredibly positive person, I said to myself: I am 7 – 0.

It sounds better! Then a younger colleague of me said: You are not 7 – 0. You are 7.0, i.e. a more powerful person of yourself than before. I was pleased to hear that. Therefore, I have decided to have an extra procedure, when I have my birthdays from now on. I ask myself the question: Have I developed since last year? If so, then I update the version, so now I am 7.1 (2017) and proud of that;-)

Moreover, I have now improved this process… I don’t decide, if I can upgrade. My two sons do. They will not be polite, because they are trained to be honest and straight-forward;-)

Of course I must verify this with friends, who are honest and straight-forward. To be concrete I have e.g. 2016 

• started a cooperation with a consultant company abroad
• got my first customer in USA. They were recommended to use the HumanGuide concept from their parent company in Brazil, who had evaluated the market of personality tests and decided that HumanGuide was the best alternative for their needs
• developed my HumanGuide concept in many ways

If I look around at people, who have decided to be pensioner, then slowly – in my opinion, they step by step become a kind of “zombie”. Not everyone, but some and then I feel sorry for them. But an important part of personal development is to have free choices. I am thinking like this, the principle for the braincells, use them or lose them… If you compare with a long vacation of many weeks. It is refreshing, BUT it is a problem to start with the job again, because you have forgotten a lot of useful routine, etc.

When people ask me, when I should be a “normal” human being and be a pensioner, then I answer: I have written the book Let the Personality Bloom and I like to walk my talk. Therefore, I will never be a pensioner. If I dig deeper in this, then I have realised that most people, who likes to be a pensioner – they like to have more freedom. They have been employed, but I have had my own business since 1981, so I have in a way been a pensioner since then…

Anyhow, when you have lived many years and always been interested in your personal development, then you have a lot of experience of – what works and what doesn’t work, at least for me;-) Therefore I like to give a kind of recipe from the most useful books for my personal development. Amazingly a lot of them are still fresh in my mind. Perhaps depending on my memory brings them up often…

I will take the books in a logical order, but you don’t need to read them in that order. And some you don’t need to read, if you already believe in the book’s main idea.

However, today a lot of people are in a hurry, so I will only comment them very short. The books are
1. Drive, by Daniel Pink
2. Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
3. Let the Personality Bloom, by Rolf Kenmo, me;-)
4. Recycling Behavioural Waste, by Graham Williams & Victor Newman
5. Good to Great, by Jim Collins
6. PowerGoals, by Christina Skytt
7. Grit, by Angela Duckworth

Hmmm. Now 2023 I like to add two books
• Build, by Tony Fadell. He was responsible for the development of Apple’s iPod. Today he works as an advisor and investor focused on startups. In the book you can read about his extensive experiences, if you run or like to start a company
• Broad, by David Epstein. His opinion is that generalists are today more successful than specialists. That difference is accelerating!

Drive, by Daniel Pink

This book is about motivation. What is the recipe of maximum motivation based on research and according to Daniel. One surprise in the book is that money gives no motivation. Money is only interesting for the consequences of the money. The best motivation recipe is that you

• are in control of what you are doing, so the assembly line is not the ultimate condition
• can act according to the strengths of your skills, personality and values
• do something, which is meaningful – a good purpose!

If you believe in this recipe, as I do, then you don’t need to read the book. You need only to follow the recipe and get a good life;-)

Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This book can be good to read, so you get a clear picture of a good vision – something to strive for. It is a condition, when you are absorbed about what you are doing – the time doesn’t exist. It is smart to observe, why that happen for you, so you know what circumstances you should strive for.

I will also talk about flow, when I comment my own book Let the personality Bloom. There I use the expression jackpot-activity, i.e. something you are doing and using all your strengths at the same time.

Let the Personality Bloom, by Rolf Kenmo

The objective here is to find your strengths based on the personality theory Eight boxes, which is a simplified version of Leopold Szondi’s personality theory. There are many personality theories and personality tests, so why use the Eight boxes and the test HumanGuide? One of the strong motives is that the theory is based on eight factors, which is more than three, four (Marston e.g. DISC) or five (Big five, e.g. NEO-PI-R) what is the most common theories. Eight factors give more precision without being too complicated as when you use e.g. 30 subfactors in a test based on Big five.

When you have found your strongest factors – your strengths, then you should put them together in a so-called jackpot-activity. That means that you describe in a sentence what you do in principle, when you apply your jackpot-activity. My own is To solve complex problems, which is good for society. That is based on the following strengths in value order: Imagination, Structure, Quality and Power (four from the Eight boxes).

Why is it smart to describe your jackpot-activity? Well, you can see it as you program your unconscious. Then your unconscious works almost 24-7-365 to see possibilities to apply your jackpot-activity. Moreover, it is easier for you to get the experience of flow, so you have easier to find flow again, because you have the memory of it;-) Then suddenly you can feel that you very often have luck… It is not luck! It is that you have a clear direction in life. Much easier to make choices. People trusts you quicker, because you be more predictable, easier to understand. But, of course, if you have a value-based self-esteem (more about that in the next commented book Recycling…) and follow your jackpot-activity, then you can be seen as goal-searching robot. That is very efficient, so you can e.g. cause jealousy. Another type of obstacle, so remember to be humble is wise…

I recommend you read my book. There are many tips and examples. And, of course, a lot about the “Eight boxes” personality theory. Yes, I know, I praise myself and wrote in the last paragraph – wise to be humble, but I could not resist, because I like to help you to get a good life.

Recycling Behavioural Waste, by Graham Williams & Victor Newman

Some years ago I read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. This book is about a very simple idea, BUT the idea has very powerful impact on personal development. The idea is that there are two basic attitudes to personal development – fixed mindset and growth mindset.

The fixed mindset means that you have the attitude I am like this. Period! With such a mindset it is not so easy to grow. You need to change this attitude to develop yourself. Another consequence is that you avoid doing things near to your peak level, because there is a risk that you fail and then the self-esteem will be hurt. However, this is valid only for people with a performance-based self-esteem. If your self-esteem is based on the value “it is OK that I exist in the world”, then you are not so easy to be hurt in this way.

The growth mindset means that you are open to grow. To be developed. Unfortunately, this attitude is not so common. Therefore, you understand why personal development is slow. However, the society development accelerates – especially technical development. Can you now understand why a lot of people are stressed…

Another insight from the mindset idea is that it is smart not only praise people’s performance. It is also wise to praise people’s development, so you stimulate the growth…

The mindset idea is confirmed by prof. Carol Dweck’s research.

The mindset idea has now been developed further… Graham and Victor prefer to talk about three basic attitudes to grow – I can’t do, I won’t do, and I can do.

A can’t-do-person has lack of self-confidence. They say: I can’t do that, because… and then they describe an obstacle. Of course it happens that the obstacle is a real one, but most often it is not.

A won’t-do-person likes to be in control, so they only develop, when they have the control.

A can-do-person is open to grow, if they found it interesting. If they have motivation.

This idea is called to be mindfit. So when you see obstacle to grow, then it is wise to investigate the attitudes behind the obstacles. They need to be identified and change, before growth is possible!

Good to Great, by Jim Collins

This book is based on five years of research from successful companies in USA. 11 companies were identified as reaching the criteria to be best in their line of business during 15 years, because that could not be a coincidence. It has to be based on good skills and attitudes among the employees in that company.

When the research team tried to figure out the reasons behind the success, they noted one “recipe” – the fable The Fox and the Hedgehog. The idea is that you can’t be good in many things – only one thing. Or the fox knows many things and the hedgehog knows one big thing as the Greek poet Archilochus said.

This principle of being focused can of course be used for people too – not only companies. Therefore, it is important to find your strengths, because there you have the best possibility to be good – a talent. There is your motivation highest. Other interest you can do, but see that more as hobbies… As I mentioned above from my own book: Figure out your jackpot-activity and then apply it in a good way in a job or business!

Power Goals, by Christina Skytt

This book is a very solid one for setting and reaching goals. So if you need to improve that ability, then read this book.

Moreover, I like to point out a very precious principle in the book. It is to have three Powergoals. Three real challenges. I have followed that principle, since I met Christina and read the book. This means from 2015. Why is it smart? Well, if you have only one Powergoal, then your life will be to narrow. Two goals is better, but also fairly narrow. Four, five, six are too many – no focus. Three is an optimum. As we say in Sweden: All good things are three;-) With three you have focus and also rather good variety, if you make a good composition of your three powergoals. I have two powergoals for my business and one is a private powergoal.

In my case I don’t primarily need goals to reach them. I need them mostly, because my strongest strength – the corefactor - is Imagination (one of the factors in the Eight boxes theory). Why? Because the corefactor is easiest to exaggerate, so you need something to govern that factor. Then is the Powergoal outstanding for that purpose. So, when e.g. someone propose something to do for me, I can check with my Powergoals, which one (or two or three…) will be happy, if I do it. If none, then it’s probably easier for me to say No.

Grit, by Angela Duckworth

This book tells that talent’s origin is basically from motivation. Of course if you have a biological advantage as seeing well and similar, that is relevant to call a talent. Or if you are long or short, etc. However, when it comes to a skill it is primarily a matter of training and then you need to be motivated for that training. E.g. the Swedish tennis player Björn Borg he trained many, many hours in front of a garage door. I shiver only by thinking of that…

The Swedish psychologist K Anders Ericsson at the Florida State University has found in his research that you need to deliberately train around 10,000 hours in order to be outstanding in a skill. If that should be reality it also means that you have to do this in a deliberate way with the purpose to develop. Therefore, you can’t do something in one hour and then repeat that 10,000 times.

If you believe this research, then you don’t need to read the book… Well, you can gain from the book, if you read about all examples of success - based on motivation.