by Case Lane

You have probably read that many successful people read.  The world’s movers and shakers, billionaires and influencers read books (and magazines and newspapers).  They read to stay informed, learn practices and strategies for success, and to continuously improve their minds. 

Part of your success strategy for transitioning your life to entrepreneurship, should include reading.

But where do you start? 

There are hundreds (probably thousands) of “best book” lists that you can Google and reference.  But how do you even choose which books to read from that list? 

One way to start is to think first about what you want to get out of the books.  What do you want books to teach you?  You want to be reading for implementable action, things you can do to improve yourself as you build your business.

Here are five categories of books to begin with:

The Definition of an Entrepreneur:  Read biographies, autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship to learn who entrepreneurs are, what they do and how they are formed.

Skills of Successful people:  Read personal development books to learn how to improve your success skills and yourself, so you can move more efficiently in the entrepreneurial world.

General business environment:  Read books about the business of business, the histories of specific industries and companies to learn how the broader global economy functions.

Think like a Billionaire: Read books about investing, the road to super-wealth to understand how markets work, and how entrepreneurs access private funds to fuel growth.

Life in Action:  Read fiction about successful people, business people and business-related ideas to see the big picture, and get background and inside information about how people function in a success-driven life.

Here are suggestions in each of these categories.  There are dozens of books in every category considered “the best” or “must-haves,” below are only some initial suggestions.  You can start in any order. 

If you find you would prefer to read books about your specific product or industry, of course add those ones as well.  The key is you want to understand which books to read, and why.  You want to be able to implement the learnings from the book into your lifestyle

DEFINITION OF AN ENTREPRENEUR

When you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur, and the only idea you have in your head the concept of starting a business, you might not be confident about what your vision will really mean. 

To develop a more specific idea of how entrepreneurs are formed and what entrepreneurs do, you can read biographies and autobiographies, and books about entrepreneurial ideas.  People often wonder: how did so-and-so get rich?  One of the best ways to find out is to read the biographies about rich people, and learn the facts for yourself.

You are looking for an in-depth accounting of the entrepreneur’s story – what were the actual steps this person took to become successful.  The best biographies tend to be those thick ones that take you back not only to the entrepreneur’s childhood, but also through his or her parents, or other significant influences.  This additional insight will help you realize the most successful entrepreneurs come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and have had an even wider variety of experiences on the road to success.

While industry and technology do change our economic landscape, the day-to-day realities of humans rarely change.  Everyone still must secure food, clothes and shelter to have a civilized life.  The actions taken by John D. Rockefeller in the 1800s – walking up and down the street to ask for a job – are still relevant today.  Despite all the online employment services, in the 21st century people still often find work by word-of-mouth.

Use biographies and autobiographies to help you understand how you can write your own story as you transition to entrepreneurship.  Look for the lessons that explain the idea of an entrepreneur.

Books in this category include: Biographies and Autobiographies

Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson

The Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

Shark Tales: How I Turned $1000 into a Billion Dollar Business by Barbara Corcoran

Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw

Morgan, American Financier by Jean Strouse

Entrepreneurship:

The Four-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-to-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss

The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffery Gitomer

Zero to One: Notes on Start-ups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

SKILLS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE

Most of us are not born ready to take on the world with our entrepreneurial ideas.  In fact, when you realize how big the personal development book market is, you realize that being an organized, attentive, polished, successful person takes information – ideas and strategies that you can learn and implement for yourself.

Successful people have a mix of skills, but they are not always the same.  If you learn some of the basic, timeless behaviors, you can use those attributes anywhere.  Personal development must be taught and practiced.  It is not enough to read the books, you also have to implement the ideas from the book.  And you must be consistent in applying the changes to your life. 

Perennial sellers like Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich have been around for decades, yet the number of people who stick to the advice is certainly not visible in today’s economy. If everyone who had bought or read Think and Grow Rich had applied all the activities, average incomes would likely be much higher.

You can be an exception.  You can use personal development books to actually make changes to the way you behave.  The advice exists (and continues to sell) because it works.  And it works because people like you make it happen.

Books in this category include: Personal Development:

Choose Yourself by James Altucher

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

As an entrepreneur, you want to be thinking about the global economy in which you run your business.  Even if you have a small enterprise, you are affected by global economic changes in the price of oil or the value of the dollar.  Having a more knowledgeable background on these issues can help you manage your business rationally.

You can muse about inflation or trade like the average person, or you can read books that explain current economic development and trends.  These books will provide you with an insight that you can use to develop your own business.  They tend to be interesting histories giving you the information you did not know, and helping to dispel certain fallacies about business, trade and investment. 

Although these reads can often be dense, they are well worth the effort to give you a broader grounding and overview of the business world that you now occupy.

Books in this category include: Business of Business:

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras

Guns, Germs, Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power by Daniel Yergin

THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE

As you read the biographies of entrepreneurs, you may notice a pattern – the big money, mega wealth, came from the stock market.  Either the entrepreneur became an investor or was invested in, when the company was taken public.  The real jump to billionaire wealth, comes from owning the factors of production, from owning capital.

You can begin to build your billionaire mindset by reading books about investing.  These are books that help you develop a money consciousness, to see money not just as the tool that pays the bills, but as a factor that can be transformed into changing your life for the long run.

Many people have a poor financial management and investing education.  Without these types of books, the situation would be even worse since this information is not taught in schools.  In fact, good investment advice is passed on from one generation to the next within the same family, but not transferred horizontally through a society.  This is information you are unlikely to hear. 

So your best bet for putting yourself in line to understand the business of money is through an investment in time spent learning more about how investment works in the global economy. Educate yourself before you become an investor.

Books in this category include: Investing and Financial Management:

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham

Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley

LIFE IN ACTION

As a bonus, fiction books featuring characters in business can give you a broader overview of the world you are entering.  By reading about fiction characters, you have a sense of day-to-day life, as well as the road to wealth.

Unlike a biographer, a fiction writer can tell you everything. You get inside the character’s head, and maybe even read words that resonate with you, and your entrepreneurial vision for yourself. You may even decide to emulate the behaviors and practices of business or success-oriented fiction characters who you feel connected to through the story. 

Books in this category include: Fiction

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The High Flyer by Susan Howatch

The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

If you are starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur and looking for guidance on how to face the entrepreneurial world, start by reading.  When you set aside, 15 minutes a day to work on your business, your time can be focused on reading, your research for creating the life you really want.

Many of the classic books now have e-reader versions and you can upload copies to your phone or tablet to read when you are standing in line or commuting on public transit. 

If you have no idea where you want to start, begin with a few books.  You will likely find yourself inspired to keep going until you have your business up and running, and you can begin to live your life on your terms.

NOTE: In future blogs, I will follow-up on each of these books and provide more detail about what you may be able to learn from each (especially the fiction) as you move forward on your entrepreneurial journey.

Disclosure: book links are affiliate links to Amazon.com which if used may result in compensation to the author to help support this business and future posts