Check out my favorite business books.
My favorite business books are listed below. I’m an avid reader and learn tons of great things for my business through reading.
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Reading is one of my main methods of growth. I set a lofty goal last year for reading books. I did not hit it, but I’m going to keep it where it is, and I’m going to try again. It’s 60 books, and it’s all sorts of things. It’s not just business books. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, so I read a lot of sci-fi and space opera books. But for this purpose, I’m going to talk about some of my favorite, favorite, favorite business books. I was running a business book club last year for the first half of the year, and it helped me churn through some of the ones sitting on my nightstand. I’ve meant to get to them, and I never did, and it gave me the kick in the pants to get it done.
So some of those books were actually from that book club. Some of them are on my list to do in the future. I have a pretty good plan, and I can share it. It’s long. It’s probably more books than I can get to, but one of the things I love to use is Goodreads. So if you’re not on good reads, get on there. It’s a great resource to find new books, to see what other people are reading. I try to filter recommendations using Goodreads, because if somebody says, “Oh, this book is great,” and it’s only like, I don’t know, three stars, I don’t know that I’m going to bother to read it, because I don’t have that much time. And I want to make sure what I’m spending my time on is valuable.
So in no particular order, some of my absolute favorite books. Good to Great. OMG, fantastic book. If you’ve never read it, you need to read it. Listening to books also counts as reading, so that’s one valid method, is you can listen to them, especially if you drive around a lot. I would say that is a good one. What do I love about that book? The concept of getting the right people on the bus and in the right seat, meaning hire great people and move them around and give them opportunities to work for you until you find where they belong. Because if you see someone right, you need to figure out how to utilize them best. So that was my favorite, with Good to Great.
Influence. Holy cow, when you read that book, you realize how much all that Facebook marketing you see is affecting you. You don’t know it until you read that, and it opens your eyes to how subliminal messages target you. And it’s not that they stop appealing to you; it’d that you see through it. Once you know what those tactics are, you can easily spot those tactics in every targeted ad.
The Go-Giver. The Go-Giver is a fantastic book. It’s super short, and it shows you that you can still be a moral person and be in business, that you can operate in any industry from a place of wanting to help, from service, from just being a nice person. You don’t have to be a shark just because you’re in business. That one’s fantastic, too, and it’s a quick read.
Willpower Doesn’t Work. It wasn’t exactly a business book, but it changes how you think about many things you do in life. Instead of relying on your willpower, you need to create an environment that is helpful for you. So how could it apply to business? Well, if you work at a computer and you’re distracted by the internet all day long like I am, you can find those apps that limit the amount of time you spend on Facebook or Instagram or whatever your social media drug of choice is. And it’s really about engineering your life to help you fulfill your goals. So I liked that book. It was fantastic.
Oh, Start With Why. Wow, Start With Why is a fantastic book. It changes how you approach what you say when you talk about your business and why you do what you do. And for a lot of these books, it’s not just about your business. It can affect other parts of your life. If you’re involved in nonprofits, if you have things you’re passionate about or places you’re in leadership positions at, they’re perfect. So those are only a few.
If you’ve read those, you’d have a fantastic 2020 (Note: article did this on January 9, 2020). But yeah, we should have a whole wonderful year with lots of reading and learning. So feel free. Reach out. Let me know what you thought. Let me know what you think about other books. If there are some great books out there I haven’t read yet, they might not be on my to-be-read list, but let me know what they are. I love reading and learning a lot that way.
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