
Top 10 Books Every Coach Should Read on Coaching Certifications
Top 10 Books Every Coach Should Read on Coaching Certifications
Becoming a coach is a journey that takes a lot of effort and training. You will have to go through a phase of personal reflection to become a real mentor.
Coaches have to pass a certification course to become a coach, but many other great resources can help you in this journey.

You can grow and develop your coaching skills by reading books on coaching certifications. Here are the ten essential books on coaching that all aspiring coaches should read.
In Brief: Top 10 Books Every Coach Should Read On Coaching Certifications
- Barking Up The Right Tree By Eric Barker -"Barking Up The Right Tree" by Eric Barker explores success secrets, work-life balance, and self-love, offering scientific insights and tips for achieving success.
- You’re It By Alan Watts -"You’re It" by Alan Watts delves into self-discovery through meditation, emphasizing the importance of finding one's true nature and exploring spiritual practices.
- Co-Active Coaching By Kimsey-House, Sandahl, Whitworth - "Co-Active Coaching" by Kimsey-House, Sandahl, and Whitworth provides valuable guidance for new coaches, delving into the philosophy of coaching, emphasizing listening, intuition, and curiosity.
- The Will Power Instinct By Kelly McGonigal - "The Will Power Instinct" by Kelly McGonigal explains the science behind self-control, offering insights into self-improvement and productivity through willpower.
- 10% Happier By Dan Harris - "10% Happier" by Dan Harris discusses the benefits of meditation, self-discovery, and listening to one's inner voice, promoting a happier and more productive life.
- Making Habits, Breaking Habits By Jeremy Dean - "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" by Jeremy Dean explores habit formation and change, offering insights into behavioral psychology and self-improvement.
- The Life Coaching Handbook By Curly Martin - "The Life Coaching Handbook" by Curly Martin provides guidance for life coaches, incorporating NLP-based techniques and practical advice for coaching and self-improvement.
- Coaching For Performance By Sir John Whitmore - "Coaching For Performance" by Sir John Whitmore emphasizes the "Grow Model" and meaningful coaching culture to enhance productivity and leadership.
- Effective Coaching By Myles Downey - "Effective Coaching" by Myles Downey focuses on workplace coaching, respecting team choices, and achieving the best results through innovative ideas.
- Art Of Coaching By Jenny Bird - "Art Of Coaching" by Jenny Bird offers new insights into coaching, emphasizing leadership, supervision, and creative approaches to enhance coaching skills.
Top 10 Books Every Coach Should Read on Coaching Certifications
Becoming a coach is a journey that takes a lot of effort and training. You will have to go through a phase of personal reflection to become a real mentor.
Coaches have to pass a certification course to become a coach, but many other great resources can help you in this journey.
You can grow and develop your coaching skills by reading books on coaching certifications. Here are the ten essential books on coaching that all aspiring coaches should read.
1. Barking up the right tree by Eric Barker
Barking Up the Right Tree by Eric Barker throws light on the secrets to success. It teaches the readers how to achieve success and balance in different areas of life.
The latest in the book highlights the scientific research and guides readers to achieve success using those methods. His book is focused on how to "find work-life balance using the strategy of Genghis Khan.
A wide portion of the book is also focused on the errors of Albert Einstein. The readers can also get a little lesson from Spider-Man" by reading this book.
The book also guides you to lower your stress level and become more focused on your work. If you lack self-love, you will not be able to achieve success.
The book teaches that you should increase the level of self-love in yourself. You will be able to grow in life and move towards the path of success and happiness by following the tips given in this book.
Mr. Barkers also teaches that improving themselves through entertaining sources can help them focus on their work with all their heart and soul.
This book is recommended to all people who want to become successful in life. The book will be helpful for the coaches who want to improve their skills as a coach. People aged 16 and above will enjoy this book a lot.
2. You’re It by Alan Watts
The book teaches us that the Universe is playing hide and seek with us. We have to discover our paths to gain success in life.
The book takes us to a fantasy land where we climb a path that will lead us to paradise. Now you have to get the answer to all questions, and we find a mirror when we reach the top.
After reaching the top, we get involved in a cosmic game and discover our authentic selves. Alan Watts reveals that everything that we are seeking can be achieved by self-meditation.
We can achieve self–improvement by adopting spiritual practices. The legendary philosopher talks about the drama that exists in our life.
We must keep a clear mind to add joy and happiness to our lives. It would be best if you had a mirror to see your face, and in this same way, you must reflect on yourself to find your true nature.
You must hold the spiritual-looking glass and penetrate inside your mind. You should find out the truths in your life and discover the great wisdom that will light up your life. The Universe is always expressing the delightful mystery in your life.
The book highlights modern myths and explores Japanese poetry's subtle beauty. Alan Watts gives an important lesson to all the readers about living their lives in perfection.
3. Co-Active Coaching by Kimsey-House, Sandahl, Whitworth
Co-Active Coaching is one of the best books for all coaches. It is a guiding light for all the new coaches who are looking forward to becoming great teachers in the future.
The book includes all the valuable information from the past three decades and lists down all the tricks to become an expert coach.
Coaching has evolved in the past years. The book authors are the core thought-leaders and have helped coaches to walk through the path of light. The book is a backbone for all the coaches enrolled in coaching studies.
This book is described as “the bible of coaching guides”. The book Co-Active Coaching digs deep into the deep philosophy of becoming a skilled coach.
It teaches all the coaches that becoming a coach is a vital process, and you need to have a holistic approach. The book includes exercises to improve skills as a coach.
The book defines that to become a real coach, you have to focus on listening, intuition, and curiosity. It will help you to delve into the principles of becoming a successful coach.
4. The Will Power Instinct By Kelly McGonigal
The Will Power Instinct by Kelly McGonigal explains the science behind self-control. He also describes how this self-control leads to health and happiness.
It can enhance the productivity of the coach in a lot of ways. Kelly is a health psychologist and has years of experience with her students. They struggled to make the right choices and didn’t have sufficient willpower to grow.
According to her, many students believe that willpower brings them down. However, she is open to talking about what science says about willpower. Thinking about all these things, she created a book called the will power Instinct.
This book continues to be a part of the course at the University of Stanford. Since the time of release, this course has become a hit.
The willpower instinct lays a good foundation and insights from various popular subjects. It has got some inspiration from Psychology, medicine, and even neuroscience.
When you read the book, it is easy to realize what is will power? Or how it can impact our life? Why does it matter? There are no doubt readers that understand a lot from it.
It is easy to have a happy and productive life when you have self-control. Will power is action from the mind and doesn’t have to be a virtue.
It is a brain function that humans can control if they wish to. You are the only one who can control your emotions and actions. However, it doesn’t mean you can overdo it, as excess willpower is terrible too.
5. 10% Happier by Dan Harris
10% happier by Dan Harris is an inspirational course for the coaches. He has brilliantly explained the benefits of meditation and how it awakens the soul.
When he had a panic attack, Dan realized it was about time to accept new changes. As he has been a non-believer nearly all his life, he took time to become a part of a bizarre adventure.
His life has been a combination of a self-guru, brain scientist, and pastor. Additionally, he could realize that his happiness lies within what he wants to do or what could be his asset. It has been a source of problems and challenges to deal with everything in his life.
At some point, he made some foolish decisions, but he could understand what he wanted in life at another time. Finally, he understood how essential listening to the inner voice is.
There are many ways in which you can meditate and push your life for the better. It all made him believe that nothing is impossible or useless.
Meditation is a tool that can help you do better, whether it is your health or anything else. 10% happier is a book that will make you realize how meditation can improve your daily life.
You can take a ride and reach out for the neuroscience and spiritual scene. It will give a proper idea of how to live your life successfully without any burdens. Jeff Warren, who is a teacher and a friend of Dan, made it clear how meditation can make your life smooth. The myths around why you shouldn’t meditate also became clear.
6. Making Habits, Breaking Habits By Jeremy Dean
Do you want to incorporate a new habit in your life? Is it going to the gym or reading a book? Or is it how you want a new musical instrument?
Whenever you start something new, you don’t need to force yourself. Instead, there must be a passion for trying something new automatically. If you want to find answers to everything, start reading ‘Making Habits, Breaking Habits.
It gives a comprehensive idea of how you need to make your mind a lot more powerful than before.
Even though we all believe that everything is in our control, it is not like that. There are many things that we do without any decision-making.
Psychologist Jeremy Dean has put his life and soul into finding the true answer. Why is it so hard for us to eat an apple a day and break our hold habit?
It is challenging to take charge of your mind and start doing something you don’t want to do naturally.
Making Habits, Breaking Habits is written in a witty manner and helps us grasp many things. Behavior is complex, and people cannot control themselves in this matter.
There is no way to bend your old habits and go for the new ones instantly. It is not easy to bend your rules, thoughts, and activities in daily life. Such books are a gem and will help you reflect on your life and how it can turn out to be better.
Readers can get fascinating information on how they can change their habits. Jeremy has put in all the ingredients in this complex subject and convinces us innovatively.
7. The Life Coaching Handbook by Curly Martin
The Life coaching handbook By Curly Martin reveals what coaching life is all about. No matter how many coaching certifications you have, it is important to have some good coaching experience.
Once you read this complete guide, you can understand how to coach yourself and others better. It also sheds light on how you can attain easy practice for coaching. The life coaching Handbook is a gem that is rare to find.
This book covers an NLP-Based technique that consists of many topics. You will not be surprised to know that it is a complete book for the coaches.
It is also an excellent book for NLP practitioners, managers, and professionals if this isn't enough. The councilors and others can learn a lot from it.
Curly Martin is a professional coach and author. She is a trainer and an NLP master practitioner. The way she has written this book gives us an idea about her experience with coaching.
As he has been coaching for around twenty years, many people look up to him. Celebrities, CEO, and directors have been her clients. You can use this book to have a good introduction to life coaching.
It is easy to paint a comprehensive and clear picture and gain some theory along with it. This book covers a wide range of coaching experiences that everyone can learn from.
If you want to learn what life coaching is or plan to become one yourself, this book has it all. If you're going to build a life coaching business, there is a lot you can learn from this complete book.
8. Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore
By Sir John Whitmore, Coaching for performance is the ultimate book for coaches and leaders. It is also helpful for leaders, professionals, and managers.
Reading this book will be beneficial whenever you think about being productive at work. This book has become an international seller, and its popularity will only increase in the future.
It features an influential ‘Grow Model’ and has become essential for coaching professionals. You need to bring the best within yourself, as this is the only thing that leads to success.
This book emphasizes how you need to grow and drive productivity. The coaching culture has to be meaningful to grow at a wide range at the right time.
If we talk about a meaningful coaching culture, it is all about having a good relationship among employees and companies. Both need to work together and pave the way to success.
Sir John Whitmore is a pioneer of coaching and the epitome of success. He is an inspiration for consultants and market leaders in coaching. This book is comprehensive and puts in all the effort to talk about
