Self-help books and corporate lessons (IANS Books This Weekend)

Be confident, learn tricks of the trade and plan your business smartly. The IANS bookshelf this week offers insights and suggestions from the strategists and tips to tackle self-doubt and insecurities. Take a look:

1. Book: Confidence: Overcoming Low Self-Esteem, Insecurity and Self-Doubt; Author: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic; Publisher: Hachette; Pages: 258; Price: Rs. 375

We are always told that the key to success in life, love and business is confidence: believe in yourself and the world is your oyster. But supreme self-belief is nothing without cast-iron competence. No one whose success is put down to confidence - not Donald Trump, not Muhammad Ali - could have achieved their goals without the skills to back it up.

This leading psychologist argues in this myth-busting, eye-opening rethink of the value of self-belief, confidence is at best just a mask for our insecurities; at worst. It's a dangerous self-delusion.

2. Book: Ordinary to Extra Ordinary; Author: Minocher Patel; Publisher: Jaico; Pages: 140; Price: Rs. 225

This isn't just another self-improvement book on success and happiness. It's a roadmap for India's aspiring generations through the obstacles and struggles of life, through their fears and insecurities, to the invaluable wisdom and awareness that comes from treading the path. With the fundamental belief that if you are successful but not happy, you are not truly successful. This self-help book will deal with issues that bother you the most.

3. Book: The One Thing; Author: Gary Keller with Jay Papasan; Publisher: Hachette; Pages: 240; Price: Rs. 299

You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what's the cost?

If you want more productivity from your work, more income for a better lifestyle, and want more satisfaction from life, this best seller will help you prioritise your life, work, and family.

4. Book: A Never-Before World; Author: Rama Bijapurkar; Publisher: Penguin; Pages: 354; Price: Rs. 699

The author starts with the point that emerging markets - the queen of which is India - are a never-before world, and businesses approaching them need to understand the environment in which their consumers live, how they think, how heterogeneous they are, and how they are changing. All of these have key implications for correctly evaluating business opportunity and determining market strategy.

India has entered the third decade after liberalisation, buffeted by changes on all fronts. Consumption structures and consumer behaviour are changing, and consumers' needs and desires are growing faster than incomes. The real war for the consumer rupee begins now - the trick is to understand, without prejudice or preconceived notions, the new world of Consumer India.

This book explores widely, yet sharply everything that businesses need to know and think about to win in the crucial Indian market.