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You are here: Home / 2016 Reading / 10 Business Books That Grew My Mind and Business

10 Business Books That Grew My Mind and Business

December 23, 2016

Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money

1. Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money (Pat Flynn)

Daniel and I had a bit of a rocky start into adulthood, having our identity wrapped up in who we would be as mission workers. We sort of accidentally stumbled into business and self-employment; and even then, we operated by many narrow and restrictive mindsets. One of them was that it was wrong to plan our ideal lifestyle or day. (The alternative? Just do whatever is the hardest thing, work as hard as you can, be content, and push through.) This book was helpful in motivating us to do just that.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

2. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (Michael E. Gerber)

Why do businesses often fail? Not because they don’t achieve success, but because they fail to plan for success. You’d never guess it from the title alone, but this is an important business book for many business owners. I’ve had several occasions of discussing this book with business relations, only to have them (or me) say, “wait…have you read The E-Myth Revisited?”

Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling

3. Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling (Michael Port)

Book Yourself Solid is a comprehensive guide to networking and marketing through focusing on relationships and giving value. This has some great ideas for both online and offline marketing.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

4. Essentialism: The Discipline Pursuit of Less (Greg McKeown)

Do you have ADHD (or “entrepreneurial ADHD”)? Focus is not just important for business owners, but for any aspect of life. That just so happens to be the focus of this book.

The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

5. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure (Grant Cardone)

I love the motivation in this book, but if you don’t like heavy-hitting, hard-pushing books, this might not be the one for you. I personally benefit from holding myself to these standards, but don’t necessarily advocate for holding and pushing others with this type of tone, as it tends to overlook the role of privilege in reaching success.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

6. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Sheryl Sandberg)

It’s been an evolution of sorts for me to recognize that the role of women is not as limited as the narrow set of options I’d grown up believing (i.e., motherhood or missions only). Along with Hannah Anderson’s Made for More, this book was helpful in expanding my understanding of the wide set of options we as women have in pursuing our callings and using our gifts. It can be difficult to deconstruct long-held beliefs that have become a way of living, but in the desire to go along with the saying “Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them,” exploring this construct and all its implications is something I owe each of my children.

The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy

7. The Energy Bus (Jon Gordon)

When I first began this book, I have to admit that it annoyed me. But as I continued on, it grew on me; and I realized that storytelling done well is a powerful way to get someone to remember the key themes and ideas of a book. Recent years have taught me that managing my energy is an important key to success, and this book holds a number of insights on how to do it well.

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success

8. Smartcuts: The Breakthrough Power of Lateral Thinking (Shane Snow)

Want to know a secret to getting to your goals, and getting there quickly? It’s a lot about hacking your way through life. As the Goodreads summary of this book puts it, “These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical ‘smartcuts’ that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum.”

Life Leverage: How to Get More Done in Less Time, Outsource Everything & Create Your Ideal Mobile Lifestyle

9. Life Leverage: How to Get More Done in Less Time, Outsource Everything & Create Your Ideal Mobile Lifestyle (Rob Moore)

I was first drawn to this book because of the author’s writing on real estate. But his writing quickly turned into something much more comprehensive. As business owners who want to travel while we work, learning to create a mobile lifestyle is essential to meeting that goal. This book has a number of helpful idea on how to do so; and it happens that it does a great job explaining how to make it work as a real estate investoer.

10. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time (Brian Tracy)

This book and the title concept possibly seem inanely cliché, but there is a lot of wisdom packed into this short little book. Even if you come away with one thought stuck in your brain forever (such as “eat that frog,”) it may be just the truism needed to make substantial change.

 

Bonus Books:

  • The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results (Gary Keller, Jay Papasan)
  • What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: And Two Other Short Guides to Achieving More at Work and at Home (Laura Vanderkam)
  • Creativity, Inc.
  • Steal Like an Artist
  • Extreme Ownership
  • Investing in Real Estate

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  1. My Top 10 Reads in 2016 - Keren Threlfall says:
    December 25, 2016 at 7:24 am

    […] 10 Business Books That Grew My Mind and Business […]

  • If you’ve ever wanted to stay in a hot pink hotel, Peña de Bernal is the place for you! 👍☺️ ⁣
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#penadebernal #peñadebernal #peñadebernalqueretaro #queretero #womenwhotravel #pueblomagico #beautifulbuildings #architecturelove
  • We’ve told our kids to go play on the roof before, but here we also tell them, “go ride the scooter on the roof.” 😂👍☺️ We’ve loved all the houses we’ve stayed at that have rooftop living spaces. Though sometimes the process of getting up or staying up is a little scary for the acrophobic amongst us. (Me! 😜) ⁣
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#travelwithkids #rooftopviews #queretero #queretaromexico #trekarooing #wanderlust #locationindependentfamily #worldschooling
  • Between a rock and an agave, at Peña de Bernal. I came here for the first time in 2018, but this time I saw the monolith — the tallest in the world — from the other side. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site, though by this point I’ve lost track of how many UNESCO sites we’ve visited. The tiny town built nearby is stunning, and one of Queretero state’s six “Pueblos Magicos.” ______________
#penadebernal #peñadebernal #peñadebernalqueretaro #queretero #womenwhotravel #maguey #agave #monolith #pueblomagico
  • Once you begin to see the magic of Mexico, you can never unsee it. It’s a magic that is filled with many layers — the collision of phenomena of culture and civilizations that have filled this space from ancient times until modernity. Every time I peel back a layer, I find there are a thousand more. 
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#travelwithkids #worldschooling #queretaromexico #queretaro #queretarotravel #plazadearmas #unescoworldheritagesite #unescosite #mexicomagico #aztecstatue #plazadearmasqueretaro #plazadearmasquerétaro #querétaro  #locationindependentfamily
  • Happy Thanksgiving from Querétaro, Mexico! I thought I’d finally nail a family pic because I bought a Bluetooth remote. But it didn’t work unless I was right next to the phone. So we went with this and then went to eat some turkey. 😂😂 🦃 We missed being with friends and family today, but are thankful for recent and upcoming get togethers and are thankful to be back in Mexico, staying in a new city for us! Also...we had to move the cacti so no one was injured in the making of this photo. 
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#queretaro #mexico #quereterowithkids #locationindependentfamily #remotework #homeexchange #happythanksgivingday #mexicowithkids #queretarocentro
  • Last sun-streaked Oslo sky before the first November snowfalls. We’ve been sick our entire time here so far, so haven’t seen much. But our window views and brief ventures out are definitely filled with hygge. Today’s sky has fed us snow; last night’s gave us a sunset. 
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#dontgettheflu #hyggescandinavia #osloinnovember #oslo #visitnorway #travelwithkids #sankthanshaugen

Original 📷 by @danielthrelfall
  • Checking out the year-round pool at @twahotel.
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#travelwithkids #twaairport #jfkairport #wildandfreekids
  • 🎶 Welcome to New York! 🎶 Who remembers TWA Airlines?! I’m just old enough to remember! The first airline I flew was actually Virgin Atlantic, and there was not the type of security there is today. I was 15 years old and coming back from a mission trip to Madagascar...when I somehow got on the wrong plane! 😜😂 Even though I was a very shy teen and ended up needing to stay with a stranger (because I was a minor), I was hooked! Tonight we are staying at the old TWA JFK terminal, which is far more awesome than this picture depicts. Tomorrow, we head to Norway, though I’m feeling pretty rough. 
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#twahotel #newyorkcity #nyctwa #travelwithkids #gianttwister

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