Our Top 10 Books For Entrepreneurs

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We love to read books and learn new things and different or new perspectives. With the fall coming up (our favorite reading season), we’re already updating our to-be-read lists with some new non-fiction books for entrepreneurs.

Why Reading Is So Important For Business Success

As an entrepreneur, you are constantly learning. Or, at least, you should be. By reading a lot, you will learn many new, important things and stay informed on latest trends, methods and technologies that can help you become a better entrepreneur. Maybe you’ll even find new business ideas or opportunities while you read or learn from other people’s mistakes so you won’t have to make them. This can save you A LOT of time. It’s not for nothing that a lot of successful entrepreneurs are avid readers.

In short, good business books can be a source on inspiration, can help us develop skills and provide us with useful tips, tools and strategies that we can implement in our own businesses.

However, it’s important to pick the right books to read and be selective on the ones you spend your valuable time on.

To help you out in that department, here are our current top ten books for entrepreneurs to read:

1. How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

   You might already be familiar with this book. However, it definitely couldn’t miss from our top ten books for entrepreneurs list. This book is all about how you can be more likeable and more convincing. I think this is a must read for everyone who works with people. This book will help you strengthen the (business) relationships you have and help you build strong new ones.

2. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

   This amazing book will teach you that you shouldn’t focus on external rewards and other people’s opinions. By focusing on the present, being mindful and fully immersing yourself in your interests you can find enjoyment in your life and work. Flow will make you forget the time because you are so focused on what you are doing. After all, time flies when you’re having fun…

3. The $100 Start-Up by Chris Guillebeau

   In the $100 Start-Up you will learn that leaving your 9-to-5 and starting your own (micro)business takes a lot less than what you’d probably think. It’s key to look at your passions and skills and see how they can solve a customer’s problem or fulfill a need. It’s important to provide value in both your offering and marketing and to just start doing. This book will show you what it takes to get your business off the ground.

4. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

   Tim Ferriss teaches us how to “live the dream” of making enough passive income to work for only a few hours a week and make enough money to sustain ourselves (and more). It’s all about effectiveness and focusing your efforts on the 20% of our tasks that are the most impactful. The book will also help you create a dream plan to help you figure out how much money you need to make to attain your dream life so you have your target in place. Very interesting and inspiring read.

   

5. So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

   For anyone who knows a bit about us and Life’s Work Lab, you probably know we love to talk about passion. We think it’s great to have passion(s) in life and we also believe that finding a way to incorporate your passion into your work is important. So when I got this book for my birthday that said: “why following your passion is bad career advice” I was intrigued. Cal Newport advocates the craftsman mindset of developing skills and offers practical solutions to finding satisfaction in your work.

6. The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey

   I used to be so afraid of failure. This book completely changed my perspective on that matter. I now think of failure as a good thing and a great learning opportunity. The book teaches parents to let their kids fail in order to become self-sufficient and driven in life. I definitely recommend this to anyone who has the same fear of failure I had. Because occasionally failing at something is inevitable and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it.

7. Lead With a Story by Paul Smith

   Storytelling is a fantastic way to motivate a change in behavior or to impart knowledge on others. That makes is a vital tool for successful leadership. Good storytelling plays on people’s emotions, piques their interest and memory and inspires. It’s comprised of only three ingredients: context, action and a result. But, most importantly, storytelling can help you improve almost all aspects of your business.

8. Peak Performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

   Improving your performance isn’t simply about working as hard as you can. In order to be as productive as we can (and avoid burning out in the process), you have to take care of yourself, focus on one thing at a time and identify your purpose. This book will help you be the best you can be by inspiring you with success stories and providing you with case studies and practical advice.

9. Contagious by Jonah Berger

   This book will help you create a contagious product that people will want to share with others. It teaches us the STEPPS formula: make sharing your product a form of social currency for people, use triggers and arouse emotions to get them to share consistently and frequently, make your product publicly visible and practically valuable and build a compelling story around it.

10. The Confidence Code by Katie Kay and Claire Shipman

    Unfortunately, a lot of (starting) entrepreneurs struggle with confidence or even suffer from imposter syndrome. I do too sometimes, that’s why I picked up The Confidence Code. This book tells us why confidence is important, especially in the workplace and how you can achieve it. By taking another look at your competence and by thinking less and acting more, for instance. A very good read for people struggling with insecurity.

Why Book Depository?

As you might have noticed, we placed links to the books we listed here on Book Depository.

We love Book Depository because their books are really affordable and they offer free worldwide shipping. They have 19 million books on offer, so you can (almost) always find what you are looking for.

I hope you found some new books to add to your reading list here. These ten books for entrepreneurs are all great sources of inspiration and motivation for us. What book should we definitely add to our lists?

Cheers,
Maud & Mark