2026 Awards – Spiritual Wellness

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

2026 best book awarded to authors on the subject of Spiritual Wellness.

Displaying 1 - 2 of 2

Results

Winner

The Grace In The Grind: A faithful path to building a business without losing your soul, your family, or your purpose

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Author:

Amber Renee Terschluse

HOW is this book helping people?

The Grace in the Grind helps readers build meaningful success without sacrificing their faith, family, health, or purpose. Through real-life lessons from entrepreneurship, leadership, marriage, and personal growth, the book teaches readers how to navigate stress, uncertainty, and responsibility with resilience and grace. It encourages better decision-making, stronger leadership, healthier priorities, and a long-term perspective that can lead to greater personal and professional success. The book helps business owners avoid costly mistakes driven by burnout, fear, or misplaced priorities, while teaching stewardship, integrity, and sustainable growth. Readers learn how to manage pressure, protect relationships, and develop habits that support emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. Ultimately, The Grace in the Grind demonstrates that true success is not measured solely by profit or achievement, but by becoming the person God created you to be.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

Finalist

Echoes of the Timeless

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Author:

Catia Batalha

HOW is this book helping people?

Echoes of the Timeless offers readers a transformative journey of healing and self-discovery. By blending storytelling with insights from yoga, psychology, shamanism, and indigenous wisdom, it provides practical tools for personal growth. The narrative encourages introspection, helping individuals reconnect with their inner selves and navigate life's challenges with greater clarity and purpose. This book serves as a gentle guide for those seeking balance and deeper understanding in their lives.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

2026 Awards – Relationships

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

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

Displaying 1 - 3 of 3

Results

Winner

Heal Childhood Trauma: The Self-Nurturing Therapy Approach to Better Adult Relationships

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Author:

Dr. Julie Gowthorpe

HOW is this book helping people?

Childhood trauma can reappear as relationship struggles. Dr. Julie Gowthorpe’s Heal Childhood Trauma shares her Self-Nurturing Therapy framework, combining Cognitive-Based Mindfulness and Attachment to repair self-esteem. As a leading psychotherapist and coach, Julie Gowthorpe, PhD, bridges the gap between the wounded child and the struggling adult to repair damaged self-esteem and forge healthier, happier relationships. Research-backed and clinically proven, Gowthorpe’s methods stem from her Self-Nurturing Therapy techniques and her own practice, helping you move beyond the events of your childhood to a happier, healthier life with strong and fulfilling relationships. Heal Childhood Trauma is the next step on your journey moving from emotionally surviving to optimally thriving.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.ca

Winner

The Connector's Compass: Navigate Your Way to Meaningful Relationships

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Author:

Joe Koufman

HOW is this book helping people?

"The Connector's Compass" helps people build relationships that actually matter, both at work and in life. Most professionals dread networking: the awkward small talk, the business card exchanges, the transactional feeling. Joe Koufman argues that networking isn't the secret to success, rather connection is. Drawing on more than 1,300 introductions through his firm, Setup, and three marriages that began with his introductions, Joe shows how anyone, even introverts, can become a skilled connector through curiosity, vulnerability, and authenticity. Readers learn to ask questions that spark meaningful conversations, build trust, make introductions that create lasting value, and maintain relationships that compound over decades.

They come away with more confidence and a clearer path to building friendships, professional ties, and a support system that lasts. The book also encourages readers to make introductions for others, so the benefit extends beyond themselves.

Book available for purchase.

ripples.media

Winner

Why You Felt Crazy: What Gaslighting Does to You, Why Leaving Is Hard, and How to Find Your Way Out — From Someone Who Is Still Trying

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Author:

Quinn Morgan

HOW is this book helping people?

Why You Felt Crazy helps readers do one specific thing: recognize emotional abuse while it's happening, not years later. Most people in psychologically abusive relationships don't know they're in one. They think they're too sensitive, too forgetful, too difficult. This book names the patterns (gaslighting, coercive control, trauma bonding) in plain language, from inside the experience rather than from clinical distance. One reviewer wrote: "I didn't even realize I was doing it until Quinn named it." Another said a friend who shared the book "might have saved me some years of confusion." That is the measurable benefit: shortening the distance between confusion and clarity, which can mean leaving a harmful relationship years sooner, protecting mental health, finances, and safety. The book also serves readers after they leave, when healing feels slower than expected. You cannot escape what you cannot name. This book names it.

Book available for purchase.

amzn.to

2026 Awards – Personal Success

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

2026 best book awarded to authors on the subject of Personal Success.

Displaying 1 - 4 of 4

Results

Winner

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

Winner

Cue the Lifeboat: A Choose-Your-Current Guide to Get Your Ship Together

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Author:

Christiane Palpant

HOW is this book helping people?

Cue the Lifeboat is the “Choose-Your-Current” guide for navigating career uncertainty instead of avoiding it. Christiane Palpant spent two decades as a Fortune 500 executive and now teaches university students navigating their first career chapters. Her book is for anyone standing at the edge, unsure where to go but certain they can't stay put: recent graduates, career pivoters, anyone facing a "now what?" moment. Readers become the main character in real adventures, from midnight sailing regattas in Hawaii to business deals in Buenos Aires. At the end of every chapter, they decide which adventure comes next based on what they need most: finding their voice, dealing with setbacks, or changing course. Each story closes with a Propeller Plan of reflection prompts and action steps that turn the adventure into momentum. Readers gain the confidence to navigate uncertainty one choice at a time and chart a course that's truly their own.

Book available for purchase.

ripples.media

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

Route 116 to Sonoma: How Your Skills, Knowledge, & Behaviours Can Determine Your Journey to Success

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Author:

Ross McWilliam

HOW is this book helping people?

Route 116 To Sonoma is a compassionate and essential roadmap for navigating the various stages of life and career. It offers insights for those starting their journey, those facing burnout or anyone seeking a renewed sense of purpose. Using a blend of narrative questioning, metrics and video methods, this transformational journey provides key insights into a wide range of knowledge, skills and behaviours, that will enable you to leverage the best version of yourself, converting your aspirational dreams and hopes into reality.

If you engage honestly and authentically with Route 116 To Sonoma, you may thrive and reach your own haven, your Sonoma. Beyond this, you may well find yourself laying the foundations for a personal living legacy that extends far beyond the present moment. Since its publication in 2025, the book has been the catalyst for further engagement via face to face / online keynotes and seminars, creating a significant impact across people and organizations.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.co.uk

2026 Awards – Personal Transformation

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

2026 best book awarded to authors on the subject of Personal Transformation.

Displaying 1 - 3 of 3

Results

Winner

Artificial Death of a Career: A tale of professional obsolescence and how to avoid it

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Author:

David R Oxley

Co-Author Names

Helmut Schuster

HOW is this book helping people?

Artificial Death of a Career helps people become better and more successful by showing them how to adapt, grow, and lead in a world reshaped by AI. Through the story of Shey Sinope’s professional upheaval, the book turns abstract disruption into a practical, human guide for reinvention. Readers learn how to recognize early signs of career stagnation, proactively reskill, and shift their mindset from fear to opportunity. Grounded in behavioral science and real-world leadership experience, the authors provide clear strategies for continuous learning, resilience, and confidence amid rapid change. The book emphasizes building a future-ready identity—one rooted in authenticity, adaptability, and inclusion—so professionals remain valuable even as roles evolve. By blending insight, humor, and actionable advice, it empowers readers to take control of their careers, redefine success on their own terms, and thrive rather than merely survive in the age of AI.

Book available for purchase.

a.co

Finalist

The Kind Way: The Life-Changing Metric for Leadership, Success and the Human Spirit

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Author:

Sophie Bretag

HOW is this book helping people?

The Kind Way helps people create a more fulfilling and sustainable way to live, work and succeed, without constantly sacrificing themselves in the process. It challenges the idea that happiness sits on the other side of achieving more, doing more or pushing harder. Instead, it helps readers reconnect with themselves, understand what truly matters, protect their energy and capacity and make more conscious choices about how they live and lead. Drawing on neuroscience, positive psychology, emotional intelligence and almost two decades of HR and leadership experience, the book provides practical tools to build self-awareness, set healthier boundaries, strengthen relationships and bring greater kindness into everyday life. It helps people redefine success beyond achievement alone, creating more space for connection, meaning, wellbeing and joy. It shows that self-kindness isn't stepping away from ambition. It's a way of pursuing a successful life without losing yourself along the way.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com.au

Finalist

The Light Behind The Wall: From Challenge Through Your Body To Purpose

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Author:

Sonja Frey

HOW is this book helping people?

The Light Behind the Wall helps people who feel stuck, overwhelmed, disconnected, or uncertain about their direction understand what may be keeping them from moving forward—and discover practical ways to change. The book teaches readers to recognize survival-mode patterns, listen to their body’s signals, calm overwhelm, and reconnect with their own inner guidance. Through simple somatic practices, reflection exercises, nervous-system awareness, and intuitive tools, readers gain ways to move through fear, break repetitive patterns, and make clearer, more conscious choices.

At its heart, the book offers a new perspective on stuckness: instead of seeing it as failure or something being wrong with them, readers can begin to see it as information. This shift can help them regain a sense of agency, trust themselves again, and take meaningful steps toward greater purpose, alignment, and fulfillment in everyday life.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

2026 Awards – Motivation

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

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

Displaying 1 - 6 of 6

Results

Winner

The Changemaker's Toolkit: How to Power Social Change in a World That needs Hope

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Author:

Caroline Alonzo

HOW is this book helping people?

Burnout. Decreased funding. Structural barriers. A lack of hope. Social changemakers and non-profit leaders who want to make meaningful, measurable impact in their communities are struggling to see a brighter future for themselves, their teams, and the people they serve. Yet real change happens by believing in a better world and consistently taking the next step toward making it a reality. The Changemaker’s Toolkit explores why hope is fading in our rapidly changing world—yet also reveals how today’s conditions offer unprecedented opportunities for impact. To harness this potential, Alonzo provides a framework and four powerful tools—Vision, Action, Values, and Conviction— you can use throughout your changemaking career to move forward with purpose when optimism is under threat.

Book available for purchase.

a.co

Winner

The Point Is in the Purpose: How Going 10 for 10 Can Change Your Life

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Author:

Brent Rittersdorf

HOW is this book helping people?

Everyone talks about purpose. Few people actually know what theirs is. "The Point Is in the Purpose" helps readers define, identify, and achieve their greater purpose, and live more thoughtfully and intentionally. Drawing on the night he converted ten consecutive free throws in a state semifinal game, keynote speaker Brent Rittersdorf offers a proven 10-shot framework for achieving their greater purpose. Readers learn how to define their purpose using a simple leadership principle most people get wrong, discover the unexpected way to identify what they're truly meant to do, and understand the difference between working for money and working for purpose.

Written by an everyday person who has navigated career setbacks, family crises, unexpected wins, and crushing defeats, the book helps anyone, whether climbing the corporate ladder, starting a business, or simply trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with their life, trade surface-level success for real fulfillment.

Book available for purchase.

ripples.media

Winner

Cut to the Essence: What Remains When We Subtract

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Author:

Sneha Villalva

HOW is this book helping people?

What is the cost of carrying too much? Cut to the Essence challenges this belief: that more achievement, more productivity, and more striving make us more. Counterintuitively, it proposes this: intentional subtraction. Through stories of burnout and hard-won wisdom, Sneha Villalva shows readers that overload is about identity, not merely productivity. Through the CUT Method—Clarify your values, Uncover the essence, Treasure the time—readers learn to discern what matters, protect what is essential, and lead with greater depth, restraint, and intention. Cut to the Essence reframes saying no as advancement not retreat, and subtraction as strength not loss. Readers report rethinking success, setting healthier boundaries, examining their motives as leaders, and incorporating subtraction into their overcommitted lives, saying the principles are “surprisingly transferable” to leadership and decision-making. The book offers a different equation for life and leadership: We subtract to multiply.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com

Finalist

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

I Want M.O.R.E. : Why Your Job Still Matters

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Author:

Scott Schieman

HOW is this book helping people?

Have you ever found yourself considering what your life would be like in the absence of work? Would you feel a sense of loss past the finances? More people than ever before believe that a job is just a way of earning money – nothing more. While the popularity of this transactional mindset is understandable, I Want M.O.R.E. argues that it depletes our vision of our professional lives. Sociologist Scott Schieman has drawn upon decades of research to investigate what people think and feel about work. He has distilled the essence of that data to create M.O.R.E., which stands for Mooring, Opening, Relating, and Exceeding. Mooring navigates identity, structure, and purpose. Opening explores ability, agency, and creativity. Relating explains connection, support, and respect. And Exceeding focuses on recognition, reputation, and status. Helping readers harness their sense of self and better their quality of life, the M.O.R.E. framework catalogues each element, along with metrics to assess you

Book available for purchase.

a.co

Finalist

By Chance & Design: Mastering the Serendipity Cycle in an Accelerating Era of Change

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Author:

Eziah Syed

HOW is this book helping people?

By Chance & Design is a compelling exploration of how innovation truly happens, through curiosity, imagination, and a deliberate openness to chance. Drawing from the author’s entrepreneurial and corporate journey alongside historical breakthroughs and modern innovation frameworks, the book shows how serendipity can be intentionally cultivated and transformed into progress. Rather than chasing certainty, readers learn how to design environments that surface opportunity, connect ideas across disciplines, and turn moments of surprise into meaningful impact. For entrepreneurs, leaders, and creatives navigating an accelerating era of change, By Chance & Design offers a powerful new way to think about growth, resilience, and possibility.

Book available for purchase.

amazon.com