Author Guide · Psychology
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As a teenager in apartheid-era South Africa, Susan David watched her father die of cancer while she kept telling everyone she was fine. An English teacher handed her a blank notebook and told her to write what she was really feeling, as if no one would read it. That notebook is where her life’s work started. She trained as a psychologist, did postdoctoral research on emotion at Yale, and in 2013 wrote a Harvard Business Review article, “Emotional Agility”, that the magazine named a Management Idea of the Year. The book that grew out of it became a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, translated into 30 languages, and her TED talk on the same idea has been viewed more than ten million times. This guide covers her 3 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 3 key books · 2013–2016 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Susan David has published three books: Emotional Agility (2016), the only one she wrote alone, and two books she co-edited, The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013) and Beyond Goals (2013). Start with Emotional Agility; the two edited volumes are academic and professional books, and they show where her ideas about emotion and goals came from.
Where to Start with Susan David
If you want her own book
→ Emotional Agility (2016) — the four-step method for dealing with difficult thoughts and feelings.
If you want the research behind positive psychology
→ The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013) — a 1,136-page academic handbook.
If you coach or mentor people
→ Beyond Goals (2013) — a critical look at goal-setting in coaching.
If you want the idea in a quarter of an hour first
→ Emotional Agility (2016) — then watch her TED talk below.
3 Susan David Books, in Order
The Oxford Handbook of Happiness
An academic handbook edited by David with Ilona Boniwell and Amanda Conley Ayers, published by Oxford University Press in 1,136 pages. Its ten sections approach happiness from psychology, philosophy, evolution, economics and spirituality, and look at it in education, organisations and relationships, with chapters on topics such as resilience, flow, emotional intelligence and self-determination theory.
Beyond Goals
Co-edited with David Clutterbuck and David Megginson and published by Gower. The book questions whether the standard approach of setting SMART, challenging goals suits coaching and mentoring, and argues it can be inappropriate or even harmful when circumstances change fast. Contributors draw on psychology, neuroscience, chaos theory and social network theory.
Emotional Agility
Published by Avery and built on her 2013 Harvard Business Review article, the book describes how people get “hooked” by thoughts and feelings, as “bottlers” who push them down or “brooders” who go over them endlessly. Her alternative has four steps: showing up, stepping out, walking your why and moving on, with chapters on applying it at work and in parenting. It became a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller and won the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award and a Books for a Better Life Award.
In What Order to Read Susan David
The three books are not connected, so there is no order to follow. For most readers the answer is simply Emotional Agility: it is the only book she wrote alone, and the only one written for a general audience.
The two 2013 books are edited collections with many contributors, written for academics, coaches and HR professionals. Read them after Emotional Agility if you want the research context: the handbook for the science of well-being, Beyond Goals for her scepticism about rigid goal-setting, which returns in the book’s chapter on values.
A reading path
1. Her TED talk, “The gift and power of emotional courage” (2017)
2. Emotional Agility (2016)
3. Beyond Goals (2013)
4. The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013)
The years · 1970–2017
Quick facts about Susan David
- Known for
- Susan David is known for the idea of emotional agility: that people do better when they face difficult emotions with curiosity and act on their values, instead of suppressing those feelings or forcing themselves to be positive.
- 1970
- Born in South Africa
- 1999
- Founds Evidence Based Psychology
- 2017
- TED talk on emotional courage
- Born
- 1970, South Africa; grew up in the suburbs under apartheid
- Training
- Clinical psychologist; postdoctoral research on emotion at Yale
- Work
- Faculty at Harvard Medical School; co-founder of the Institute of Coaching (McLean Hospital)
- Company
- Founder and CEO of Evidence Based Psychology, since 1999
- Honours
- Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award (2017); named to the Thinkers50 list of management thinkers
- Lives
- Outside Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children
The red mark is 2016: Emotional Agility, the book that grew out of her 2013 Harvard Business Review article.
How Susan David Writes: Research with a Personal Frame
David writes as a research psychologist who also coaches executives, and Emotional Agility moves between the two: a study on emotion or values, then a client, a colleague or someone from her own family facing the same problem. She borrows openly from other researchers, using Daniel Kahneman’s fast and slow thinking to explain why people react before they reflect.
She likes to give a pattern a short, memorable name. People get “hooked”; they are “bottlers” or “brooders”; change happens through “tiny tweaks”. The method itself is four plain verbs: showing up, stepping out, walking your why, moving on. It is a structure that works on the page and on stage, which is why the book and the TED talk tell the same story.
Her main target is what she calls forced or toxic positivity: the pressure to look happy and strong. Against it she sets her own story, the teenager pretending to be fine after her father’s death, and the teacher’s notebook that let her say otherwise. For writers working on the same ground, see the guide to Brené Brown and the reading list of books on emotional intelligence below.
Watch
The gift and power of emotional courage
At TEDWomen 2017, David argues against forced positivity and explains emotional agility, starting from her father’s death when she was a teenager.
Frequently asked questions about Susan David’s books
How many books has Susan David written?
Three. She is the sole author of one, Emotional Agility (2016), and co-editor of two, The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013) and Beyond Goals (2013).
What are Susan David’s books in order?
The Oxford Handbook of Happiness (2013), Beyond Goals: Effective Strategies for Coaching and Mentoring (2013) and Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (2016).
Where should I start with Susan David?
With Emotional Agility. It is the only book she wrote alone and the only one aimed at general readers. If you want a short introduction first, watch her TED talk “The gift and power of emotional courage”.
What is Susan David’s most famous book?
Emotional Agility (2016). It became a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller and has been translated into 30 languages.
What is emotional agility?
Her term for being flexible with your thoughts and feelings: noticing them with curiosity, stepping back from them, and then acting on your values instead of being driven by the emotion. In the book she breaks it into four steps: showing up, stepping out, walking your why and moving on.
Where did the idea of emotional agility come from?
From a 2013 Harvard Business Review article, “Emotional Agility”, which David wrote with Christina Congleton. HBR named the concept a Management Idea of the Year, and David expanded it into the 2016 book.
Has Emotional Agility won any awards?
Yes. It won the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award and a Books for a Better Life Award, and it was an Axiom Business Book Award medalist.
Is Susan David’s TED talk based on her book?
Yes. “The gift and power of emotional courage”, given at TEDWomen in 2017, sets out the same argument against forced positivity and tells the story of her father’s death. On TED’s own site it has been played more than eleven million times.
Who is Susan David?
A South African-born psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, co-founder of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital and CEO of the consultancy Evidence Based Psychology. She was born in 1970 and lives outside Boston with her family.
Footnotes
- Susan David — Wikipedia
- Media kit — susandavid.com
- The gift and power of emotional courage — TED
- Susan David’s Required Reading — strategy+business, 2017
- Brené with Dr. Susan David on the dangers of toxic positivity — Dare to Lead, 2021
- Beyond Goals — WorldCat
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”
— Susan David, “The gift and power of emotional courage”, TEDWomen (2017)
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