2026 Awards – Inspiration

Goody Business Book Awards Winners and Finalists for 2026 Banner for Self-Help Inspiration

2026 best book awarded to authors on the subject of Inspiration.

Displaying 1 - 5 of 5

Results

Winner

INNOVATOR: 10 simple steps to innovate with speed, scale and confidence

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Author:

Tom Pullen

HOW is this book helping people?

Innovation has the power to solve the world’s most important problems. INNOVATOR helps more people do exactly that by giving them the confidence and practical skills to innovate successfully. Its 10-step INNOVATOR Way® makes innovation accessible beyond visionaries and specialists, helping leaders and team members identify genuine customer needs, develop stronger ideas, test them quickly, reduce wasted time and resources, and turn the best solutions into reality. The book is deliberately action-oriented, equipping readers with practical tools, power questions and action steps they can apply immediately to real-life projects. The methodology at the heart of the book is already trusted by business leaders and managers in 40+ countries, including at leading companies such as Toyota, LVMH, Rexel and Danone. INNOVATOR’s ultimate aim is simple: help organizations grow by enabling more people to create products, services and solutions that truly improve people's lives.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

Winner

Driven by Desire: The Path to Unstoppable Success

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Author:

JW Radford

HOW is this book helping people?

Driven by Desire: The Path to Unstoppable Success helps people turn ambition into meaningful action. It shows readers how to identify what they truly want, develop the mindset and discipline needed to pursue it, and keep moving forward despite setbacks, fear, or failure. Drawing on real-life lessons of adversity, resilience, and achievement, the book emphasizes personal accountability, intentional decision-making, and consistent action. Rather than defining success only by money or status, Driven by Desire challenges readers to create their own definition of success and build a practical path toward it. Ultimately, the book delivers a powerful message: your circumstances may influence where you start, but your desire, choices, and determination can change where you finish.

Book available for purchase.

a.co

Finalist

Unfinished Business: Stop Waiting, Start Living The Most Meaningful Years of Your Life

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Author:

Kenneth Carnesi, Sr

HOW is this book helping people?

The whole book is built on one core idea. The time you have left is not a consolation prize. It's not the leftover scraps after real life was lived. It's an opportunity. A real, specific, powerful opportunity to do the things that matter most. To say what needs to be said. To heal what can still be healed. To become, even now, more fully the person you were always meant to be. That idea sounds simple. But if you let it sink all the way in, if you really let yourself believe it, it changes everything about how you wake up tomorrow morning. And the morning after that. And every morning that comes after. The unfinished business in your life is not a list of failures. It's a map.

Book available for purchase.

books.by

Finalist

CORE Leadership: A Four-Step Framework to Lead Yourself, Grow Your Influence, and Amplify Your Impact

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Author:

Miki Feldman Simon

HOW is this book helping people?

Most leadership approaches focus on how to lead others. CORE Leadership starts from a different premise: leadership starts with leading yourself. It helps leaders create a clear vision of the person and leader they want to be and gives them practical tools to put that vision into action. Through the four-step CORE framework, readers clarify what matters to them, translate it into everyday behaviors, recognize where they have choice, and evaluate the impact they are having. Readers have shared how the framework has helped them clarify their purpose, become more aware of their impact, see choices they hadn’t previously recognized, and make intentional changes in how they lead and live. As leaders become more intentional and exercise greater agency over how they show up, the impact extends beyond them, strengthening relationships, creating healthier teams and workplaces, and positively affecting the people they lead, work with, and live with.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

Finalist

Space to Exhale: A Handbook for Curating a Soft, Centered, Serene Life

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Author:

Lisa Hurley

HOW is this book helping people?

Space To Exhale: A Handbook for Curating a Soft, Centered, Serene Life responds to one of the defining challenges of modern life: burnout normalized as success. Lisa Hurley introduces readers to her Exhalation Point framework—Know Yourself, Love Yourself, Be Yourself—a human-centered model for restoring balance without abandoning ambition. Through this framework, readers are guided to develop self-awareness, practice self-compassion, and make aligned choices that support mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Rather than offering productivity hacks, the book emphasizes sustainable self-care habits and redefines success in ways that honor one’s capacity.

Grounded in lived experience and cultural insights, Space To Exhale supports meaningful shifts in how readers engage with work and life. Its real-world impact has been recognized with a Gold Anthem Award, underscoring the book’s relevance as a timely and actionable resource for cultivating enduring work-life balance.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com