Men are always busy but entrepreneurs are the busiest and often reading is perceived like a waste of precious business time. But the truth is that reading is a great way to get the perspective you want and the education you need and it is an invaluable tool to change the way you think and open your mind up to new solutions. So if you are a small business owner and you feel that you lack inspiration or creativity or that you need some tips that will help you through your entrepreneurial journey or some insights in order to be able to change your mindset, you don’t need to look any further, because we found the books for you.
The list below is designed to help you grow both in life and in business and it features ten (10) books any entrepreneur should read, so the only thing left for you to do, is decide the order in which you want to read them.
1. THE LEAN STARTUP by Eric Ries
Eric Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs – in companies of all sizes – a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late.
2. THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE by Stephen R. Covey
As the title of the book implies, Covey describes the seven habits of highly effective people and offers practical techniques for adopting these seven habits in our daily routine. In his opinion the most important habits of highly effective people are: being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking Win/Win, seeking first to understand, then to be understood, synergizing, sharpening the saw. Covey makes clear that an individual must make a paradigm shift before incorporating these habits into his/her own personal life, so if we want to make a change in our lives, we should probably first focus on our personal attitudes and behaviours.
3. THE RICHEST MAN IN BABYLON by George Samuel Clason
Countless readers have been helped by the famous “Babylonian parables”, considered to be one of the greatest inspirational works on the subject of thrift, financial planning, and personal wealth. This is the book that reveals the secret to personal wealth. Acclaimed as a modern-day classic, this celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of—and a solution to—your personal financial problems that will guide you through a lifetime. This is the book that holds the secrets not only for keeping the money you already have but also to making more.
4. THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK by Timothy Ferriss
Timothy Ferriss is an extraordinary young man on a mission who wrote a book considered to be a major game changer by many. The twenty-eight-year-old serial vagabond and successful entrepreneur has been teaching a wildly popular course at Princeton University for the past four years–a how-to and why-to guide to throwing out the old tools and methods for success and replacing them with a whole new way of living. Readers can lead a rich life by working only four hours a week, freeing up the rest of their time to spend it living the lives they want. Throughout the book Ferriss shows and explains what a lifestyle entrepreneur is, how to rethink and redesign your life, how to increase your productivity and how to DEAL: Define, Eliminate, Automate, and Liberate.
Related: Top 10 Ted Talks Every Entrepreneur Should Watch
5. THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR by Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham, the greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, taught and inspired people worldwide. The Intelligent Investor is a book for true investors and it received numerous praises: in Warren Buffett’s opinion it is “by far the best book on investing ever written” and Fortune wrote that
“If you read just one book on investing during your lifetime, make it this one”.
Graham’s philosophy of “value investing” — which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies — has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949 and Graham’s philosophy is focused not on profit maximization but on loss minimization.
6. MONEY MASTER THE GAME by Tony Robbins
Based on extensive research and one-on-one interviews with more than 50 of the most legendary financial experts in the world—from Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett, to Ray Dalio and Steve Forbes—Tony Robbins has created a simple 7-step blueprint that anyone can use for financial freedom. Robbins has a brilliant way of using metaphor and story to illustrate even the most complex financial concepts—making them simple and actionable and helping the readers to become financially free by creating a lifetime income plan.
7. THINK AND GROW RICH by Napoleon Hill
Think and Grow Rich has been called the “Granddaddy of All Motivational Literature”. It was the first book to boldly ask the question: “What makes a winner?” and it is the end result of two decades of research through which he interviewed over five hundred successful people including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, William Wrigley Jr. and Charles M. Schwab.
His work has been successful and Napoleon Hill is now counted in the top ranks of the world’s winners himself. The most famous of all teachers of success spent “a fortune and the better part of a lifetime of effort” to produce the “Law of Success” philosophy that forms the basis of his books and that is so powerfully summarized in this one.
8. THE $100 STARTUP by Chris Guillebeau
In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead a life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living. In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfilment.
9. GO PRO – 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional by Eric Worre
If you are interested in becoming a Network Marketing Professional, then Go Pro is definitely the book for you. In this definitive guidebook, you will learn to: find prospects, invite them to your product or opportunity, present your product, follow up with your prospects, help them become customers or distributors, help them get started right, grow your team by promoting events and much, much more.
10. THE COMPOUND EFFECT by Darren Hardy
The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, presents The Compound Effect, a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want.
These books and the wisdom in them can be of great value for any entrepreneur, so get these books and add them to your to-read list.
