Essential skills in business you will learn from these books include:
Long-term thinking Being an artist Removing the non-essentials Focusing on only what you can do Automation and outsourcing How to be bold How to be a pro How to skip unnecessary steps How to create a culture of collaboration and innovation And how to build a brand and a following around your passions
Let’s begin:
1. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh
Long-term thinking is essential. When Tony was 23 years old, just six months after starting up Linkexchange, he was offered one million dollars. This blew him away. But he wasn’t impulsive. Five months later, he was offered 20 million. He held out. One year later, he sold the company for 265 million on his own terms.
2. The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin
Be completely transparent and vulnerable in your work and you will be richly compensated in this market. The higher you are willing to fly, the more pure your work will be. Don’t live between the lines of social conformity.
3. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins
If you start with the right people, management not only becomes easier, but the likelihood of success becomes greater.
4. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Say “no” to almost everything. Most of it is a waste of time. By doing so, you’ll be able to focus on the things that truly matter.
5. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
You can live a mobile lifestyle by using automation and outsourcing tools. All of the tools are available to create an automated income stream freeing you from the 9-5 drudgery. This skill is essential to create a life of freedom and to succeed in our increasingly freelance and mobile market.
6. Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Peter Diamandis an Steven Kotler
In order to become a billionaire, you need to help a billion people. Don’t focus on incremental growth, focus on exponential growth.
7. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
Either you are a pro or a fake. You get to decide. If you want to be professional at something, start doing it everyday like it’s your job. Eventually, it will be your job.
8. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow
Climbing ladders vertically is the slow way to the top. You’ll want to switch ladders laterally in order to skip unnecessary “dues paying steps.” Some examples are U.S. Presidents. Most of the best Presidents spent the least amount of time in politics. They laterally switched from other fields.
9. Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright
Culture is everything for an organization’s success. Most cultures compete within themselves. Amazing cultures compete with their competitors. Innovative cultures compete with no one.
10. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt
Content is king. Platform is queen. Your platform is the people that listen to and follow you. This book will teach you how to build a brand and a following around that brand. After reading, internalizing, and applying the concepts in these books, you will quickly find yourself a radical success. Featured photo credit: Vintage Books/Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon via flickr.com
