The Blog For Entrepreneurs

So here are some of my top picks when it comes to great uplifting and educational reads for the entrepreneur. Please be aware these are just books I found very useful or entertaining and that have helped me along the way. I know there are loads more books I could have added. Please leave a comment with your favourites.

1. Unlimited Power – Anthony Robbins

I read this when I was twenty years old and it literally changed my life. Robbins opened up possibilities to me me I never thought possible. If you have not read it yet, then this is a must for you.

2. Awaken The Giant Within – Anthony Robbins

Do you see a theme here? Actually, maybe this one should have been first. Oddly it was the second book in the series but it will probably appeal more to those who do not want to many technical details. I found this to be a kind of ‘better expalined’ version of Unlimited Power.

3. The One Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard

If you have a team or employees this is a great book. I read it before I got anywhere near management and found it useful for just me!

4. The Lazy Mans Way To Riches – Joe Karbo

Before anyone had heard of the Internet or anyone making millions selling eBooks, Jo Karbo was killing it as the King of direct marketing. This book sold in its millions from the ads that, in themselves, become famous.

The book is Joe’s philosophy on life, and it’s pricey at $30. There are better reads out there, but if you are an Internet Marketer selling eBooks maybe the guy who kicked it all off could have something to teach you.

5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey

Published in 1989 this one has become a classic for entrepreneurs to read. Virtually everyone you ever meet in the performance industry will tell you read this book. I am reading it again at this moment. I find it quite technical, heavily laden with psychological theory, so if you are not into this, then it might not be for you. Don’t think of this as a book, it is more like an instruction manual for life.

6. The Billionaire – Ivan Fallon

Not a self-help book this one but a fantastic read for the entrepreneur. It is out of print now, but I think you can get some old copies on Amazon (I have linked the title to it). Tells the story of this swash buckling billionaire, through his bad times and good. Awesome read.

7. Losing my Virginity – Richard Branson

The autobiography of the billionaire music mogul, airline mogul, adventurer and philanthropist. Branson has always struck me as an strange combination of hippy and ruthless businessman. No matter what ‘nice-guy’ front Branson puts up, you don’t get to where he is without having some serious skills.

8. Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill

A book published in 1937 during the Great Depression. In 70 years it has sold over 30 million copies and is based on Hill’s own work ‘The Law of Success’, the result of more than twenty years of research based on Hill’s close association with a large number of successful individuals.

9. Freakonomics – Steven D Levitt & Steven J Dubner

Another one outside of the self-help genre but a must read. Why? I here you say. Well as entrepreneurs we often look to statistics and data to help us look at how we are performing or how we can increase performance. We tend to look at that data in a manner that we have been taught. Freakonomics is a book which turns a lot of previous results from data on its head. One that sticks out in my mind is where a reduction in crime across America was deemed to be as a result of stricter policing, the Freakonomic guys show how the legalisation of Abortion may have had a bigger effect.

Hey! I said it was a good book… I didn’t say it was not controversial!

10. The Trap & The Response – Sir James Goldsmith

“If we do not learn from the past, we are destined to repeat it”. Take a look at Goldsmiths two books, where he slices apart globalisation and pretty much predicts the mess we have been in for the last eighteen months. This is the guy who predicted the 1987 crash. Predicting two crashes… pretty good average. This one is for the deep thinkers… those looking at guidelines as to how to predict business future.

It is not necessarily the words of Goldsmith in these books that is inspiring (even more now with the benefit of hindsight), it is the amazing ability of the man to think on a massive global scale, to contemplate the very future of whole nations and the planet itself. Cracking stuff.

If you are a globalisation fan… probably not the best read for you.

11. Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking

A Brief History of Time attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader. Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusual for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics. The author notes that an editor warned him that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E = mc². In addition to Hawking’s abstinence from equations, the book also simplifies matters by means of illustrations throughout the text, depicting complex models and diagrams.

I admit, I took the above description from wikipedia because not only did I find it hard to read, I found it hard to describe what it was about here!

What I got from the book, from an entrepreneurial standpoint is that we are small blips in time and so are our problems, nothing matters when you compare it to the vastness of time and space, so you might as well go for it and enjoy yourself! Not the conclusion Mr hawking was hoping for I guess, but that is what I got!

12. The Junk Bond Revolution – Fenton Bailey

The story of how, in the 1980’s one Michael Milken dominated his market, the junk bond market. He was so successful at completely squeezing out everyone else, then ended up putting him in jail.

13. Psycho – Cybernetics – Maxwell Maltz

If you are a fan of Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP) then this is a good read.

Psycho-Cybernetics is a classic self-help book, written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960 and published by the non-profit Psycho-Cybernetics Foundation. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz.

Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept developed by Prescott Lecky with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.

I read this book many, many years ago but still remember it to this day, it is a great read if you are fascinated by the technical psychological side of improving your mind.

14. The Celestine Prophecy – James Redfield

The Celestine Prophecy is a 1993 novel by James Redfield that discusses various psychological and spiritual ideas which are rooted in many ancient Eastern Traditions and New Age Spirituality. The main character of the novel undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual insights on an ancient manuscript in Peru. The book is a first-person narrative of the narrator’s spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.

I have a philosophy of never putting down a book once I start it. IN my life there have only been two books I could not read any further because they were tosh; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy – a super bestseller and for me massively condescending to the reader and one book about ninjas whose name escapes me. Because of this I have read some awful books from beginning to end, but I have also been able to read books that didn’t start so well. This is one of them.

Those who are not spiritual at all may find this one a little over the top.

15. Who Moved My Cheese – Spencer Johnson

Allegorically, Who Moved My Cheese? features four characters; two mice, “Sniff” and “Scurry,” and two little people, miniature humans in essence, “Hem” and “Haw.” They live in a maze, a representation of one’s environment, and look for cheese, representative of happiness and success. Initially without cheese, each group, the mice and humans, paired off and traveled the lengthy corridor searching for cheese.

A great little book. It is nice to read something that is not so ‘heavy’ sometimes.

16. The Art of War For Executives – Donald G Krause (and Sun Tzu, of course)

If you haven’t read ‘The Art of War’ then you should, if only to know what everyone goes on about at entrepreneur’s seminars! The great thing about this book is that it spells out and translates what the great Chinese warrior said in term of business. Sun Tzu has become a little cheesy as a seminar gig, but the teachings translate very well into business.

17. Giant Steps – Anthony Robbins

A distillation of his books into 365 daily things you can do to change your life. I like this one and recommend it to my students because it is a simple instruction manual. If you do one thing a day, it will be a good year.

18. Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a book by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. It advocates financial independence through investing, real estate, owning businesses, and the use of finance protection tactics.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is written in an anecdotal manner and is aimed at creating public interest in finance.Kiyosaki and Lechter stress the advocacy of owning the system or means of production, rather than being an employee as a recurring theme in the book’s chapters.

A good one to put on the shelf.

19. The Power of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking is by far his most widely read work. First published in 1952, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks, and according to the publisher, Simon and Schuster, the book has sold around 5 million copies.

The fact that the book has sold 5 million copies is printed on the cover of the current edition in both paperback and hard cover, and directly contradicts exaggerated claims that the book has sold more than 20 million copies… Positive thinking , I guess?

20. How To Start a Conversation and Make Friends – Don Gabor

I am blushing putting this on the list. It is not something you readily admit, that you are shy. Having been a smart arse, ex military sports jock many people assume I would be outgoing. I was painfully shy. I can’t say this book cured me, it was more age and experience and some other books on this list, but it kicked off the process of banishing my shyness.

21. Ziglar on Selling: The Ultimate Handbook For The Complete Sales Professional – Zig Ziglar

I couldn’t have a list of great books to motivate entrepreneurs without including Zig Ziglar. I have listened to so many of his tapes I cannot find one that I could not repeat off by heart.

His laid back style lulls you into believing everything he says and I can vouch for this book. Before I read it I sucked, after applying the principals of Zig and other like him, I didn’t.. simple formula right!

I hope you liked this list, I could have carried on writing all day, but it is a blog post not a book in itself! Please let me know if there is something you would like to add, perhaps you can leave a comment with the book title, author and short description of it.

It would be fantastic for my readers and also for me – I love getting recommendations of books to read. Of course you get link love!

Regards
David
@TheMarketMaker