Business books are a great source of knowledge from others that have been in the trenches building enterprises. I love classic texts that are used in MBA classes as well as modern “self-help” style books that help people solve their problems. I try to read at least one business book each month, rotating between the styles and formats. I even have a book club, Bette’s Business Book Club that meets monthly on Zoom, as we all read a business book and get together to discuss it. Even if you haven’t read the book, we’d love to have you join our video conference to ask questions of those of us that have.
Learning from the experiences of others is one of the best ways to advance your knowledge quickly. Many of us stop reading and learning when we are no longer in school, which causes us to stagnate. By learning from others, we gain some of the benefits of their experiences. There are many other avenues for acquiring this experience, including one-on-one coaching, seminars or webinars, conferences, audiobooks, podcasts or published interviews. However, I find the business book, either listened to as an audiobook or in the written form on paper or a kindle, is a fantastic way to acquire the knowledge quickly and easily.
I love to curl up on the couch on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and the lastest selection from my book club, often sitting there wish some sticky note tags to mark pages that I find inspirational. I love our monthly roundtable book club format, discussing the book with friends, clients, family, and people I’ve never met over the Internet.
I used to host book club in the coffee shop outside my Fort Lauderdale office, but during the COVID-19 shutdown, I moved it online to Zoom. It turned out to be more popular on Zoom, and the streaming to Facebook has been even more engaging. You can see our previous Book Club meetings on the website or Youtube, with our Business Book Club Playlist.
While the book club is a great accountability tool, I try to read other books that wouldn’t be as popular with my membership. We discuss our choices and recommendations in the Facebook Group, so if you’re interested please join us.