As lonely and overwhelming as the entrepreneurial journey is, reading provides the solace of knowing you are not alone. You may not have someone in your immediate environment who understands your grind, but through books, articles, and blogs, you will realize that those feelings of doubt and fear are also experienced by others. By reading the success stories and journey of others, it fuels you to stay the course. And more importantly, best books for entrepreneurs provide you the priceless access to thousands and thousands of mentors.
While there are hundreds of books I think every entrepreneur should read, I do have my top 5 that I would recommend to anyone. These are the books I find myself referring to over and over again. Through these books, I think an early stage entrepreneur will be fortified to tackle both the mental and technical challenges of running their ventures.
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The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
The full title of the book is The Success Principles: How to Get from where you are to Where You Want to be. And the book really does cover it all. I consider this book, the Modern version of Think & Grow Rich byNapoleon Hill. (I didn’t put this book on this list because I think this is foundation reading and everyone must read it. But I also think if I had to pick between that and Jack Canfield’s book for any audience, I would pick The Success Principles, as it’s an easier read and more relatable. What I love about this book the most is the sheer amount of time Jack spends on mindset and vision. I think sometimes as entrepreneurs we forget the foundation stage of understanding our “why” and omitting the introspective work that often needs to take place so we can get out of our own way. This book provides both life and business guidance. The ultimate lesson from this book for me: Take 100% responsibility for what happens in your life. Good, bad, and all in between.
Also, read how to become an expert in your niche.
2. The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
Tim Ferris is known as the master simplifier. The 4-hour Work Week emphasizes the need to truncate, eliminate and declutter the time spent on non-important matters. Tim’s mantra: Minimize your work day so you can spend more time doing what you love. Isn’t this why we want to be entrepreneurs? to have more control over our time and how we spend it? Yes, we grind in the beginning, and we grind because we love the grind, but we don’t want to create a life where we are always forced to grind. The 4-Hour Work Week offers systems and strategies to manage our lives and time better.
3. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
The book basically sets out to explore, what makes successful people successful. For Gladwell, success is not simply personality, intelligence, hard work, community support, and meaningful opportunity but rather a combination of all. Depending on the situation and environment one aspect may have more impact than another. Gladwell explores various individuals such as Bill Gates, Bill joy and even his Jamaican mother in his analysis. I always love reading Gladwell (check out The Tipping Point if you haven’t read it) because his case studies read like a biography, while the data still reads like true research. And, I hate when people say things like, “She is only successful because…” I believe it is never a good thing to demean someone’s success. Gladwell’s analysis of all the various factors that plays into success, proves once again that it’s a combination of everything coming together. Even when someone receives a hand up through “opportunity”, let’s remember someone still had to do the work to bring about that opportunity.
4. The Purple Cow by Seth Godin
In this book, master marketer, Seth Godin, challenges entrepreneurs, innovators, business people to create a product that is different. Hence, the purple cow. Brown cows or black and white cows are often time left unnoticed because we see them over and over again. What happens after we’ve seen the same thing over and over, we start not noticing it. But imagine if we saw a purple cow. We’d notice. We would stop and look. In the days of social media when it can seem there’s a million coaches, a million hat makers, a million makeup artists, a million graphic designers, how are you going to create a product that is different? Godin argues it’s the only way to survive and thrive. Read this one of best books for entrepreneurs.
5. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
One of my favorite books ever, the 48 Laws of Power focuses on three different aspects of power. Observing power in others, gaining power for yourself, and defending yourself from power plays/moves of the opponent. I read this book in college and re-read it again a few years later and loved it each and everytime. The historical examples and stories are superbly told. Many people have problems with this book because they believe it glorifies unethical practices especially in dealing with other people. However, I think this book provides an up close and personal look of a subject we are not too comfortable discussing.
The power dynamics that exist in society are not always pretty. Greene simply highlights them to provide awareness. In all that we do (activities and interactions) we are dealing with others. It is important to understand the psychology of those we interact with so we can create and formulate the proper sales, marketing and strategic plans. While your mission may not to be to gain power, I think understanding how others utilize power will serve anyone, both in business and in life.
Make sure you make time to read these best books for entrepreneurs.