According to NatWest Group’s data, there was a jump of 12% from 2022 in new companies.
According to statistics, 2-3 tech startups are born daily in India. Over time, Startups have become the new culture, and TV shows like Shark Tank further encourage people to get into them.
So today, we will discuss Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read. Following is the list of Non-Fiction Books for Entrepreneurs:
- The Element by Ken Robinson
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- The Seed by Jon Gordon
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tollee
- Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
- Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Deep Work by Cal Newport
- Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Element by Ken Robinson
Who is Ken Robinson– Ken was a British writer and a speaker whose theory was that school’s curriculum should be amended as per students abilities, talents and interests rather making them go through common subjects.
The book tells the importance of discovering and developing our unique passions and talents to achieve personal and professional success.
The author says that everyone has that natural talent but it is like natural resources buried beneath the surface, there have to be conditions that’ll bring them up and then you’ve to remind and cultivate those talents.
It takes a lot to get them on the surface and the people who we see and think that they’re born talented its just then worked and found their inner talent.
One can be good at something and still hate it and being good isn’t enough to spend all your life doing it because as Mark Twain said
Do something you love and you’ll never work
The book teaches how essential it is for personal fulfillment and finding your truth, how you really are and what you’re capable of and the things that make you feel that you’re most authentic.
The author says that we there are 2 worlds:
- The one started before we existed and will continue even after our existence.
- The world that started with us and will end with us or till the time our perception doesn’t change on that topic.
And we see the 1st world (outer world) from our 2nd (inner world) reason being everyone sees the world in a different way and finding your talents is a journey in the inner world and people fail to find their talent is because they do not really know themselves.
If you don’t put yourself under different conditions and won’t experience new things you will never be able to find new things about yourself.
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Who is Simon Sinek? Simon is a British-American author and motivational speaker who has written many mind-boggling books. His 2009 TED Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” is one of the most viewed TED Talks.
This book delves into the importance of understanding the “why” behind what we do, providing valuable insights for entrepreneurs looking to align their business goals with their core values and purpose.
Simon Sinek explains the Why, How, and What golden circle is. He starts by giving the examples of Apple, the Wright Brothers, and Martin Luther King.
Everyone knows “WHAT” they are doing, and a few people know “HOW” they do that, but the ones who know the purpose, the “WHY”, are able to find the path to success. Moreover, majority of the people move from “WHAT” to “HOW” to “WHY” but great leaders start with the purpose from “WHY” to “HOW” to “WHAT”.
No one would buy your statement by what you do but by why you do it. Apple is a computer company but everyone was willing to buy mp3 from them even Dell created mp3 with same technically sound stuff and technology but no one bought the difference was of the approach and how the commercials were structured.
Businesses need to make people believe what they believe and if the will do then they won’t do it for you but for themselves.
If you hire people who believe what you/ your company believes they will put their sweat and blood for the company otherwise they will work for their paycheck.
The Seed by Jon Gordon
Who is Jon Gordon- Jon is an American writer, and a motivational speaker. His books and speeches are around his areas of interests like leadership, personal development and team work.
The book offers an inspiring story about overcoming obstacles and moving forward in pursuit of entrepreneurial dreams.
It offers an inspiring story about overcoming obstacles and moving forward in pursuit of entrepreneurial dreams.
The book talks about one’s purpose in life, which everyone should ask themselves because research shows that people are more energized when they are moving and working towards a bigger purpose than just themselves.
Everyone has a bigger purpose than we think for their work. So, read this book and see how Josh finds the right place to plant the seed of his success and purpose in life.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Who is Eckhart Tolle- Eckhart is a German Teacher, whose core values are: Living in the moment, self-awareness and consciousness.
Although not specifically about entrepreneurship, this book teaches living in the present moment, freeing us from fear and worry, which can be crucial for taking the leap new opportunities.
The book talks and revolves around the following topics:
- You’re not your mind
- The Present Moment is all we will ever have
- Acceptance of what is
You’re not your mind—We think that the mind and its stream of thoughts are who we are, but we are way more than that.
We constantly keep on thinking, and the author asks if you can be free of your mind whenever you want to. Do you have an off button to it? And if the answer is no, you’re unconsciously identified with the mind.
The Present Moment is all we will ever have. We constantly worry about either the past or the future, and that makes us struggle to stay in the present.
We don’t realize it, but most of the time, we are thinking of repetitive things. We should rather focus on now because we should do things considering the future, but it shouldn’t be occupying enough to take away our now.
FOCUS ON NOW BECAUSE YOU CAN ALWAYS HANDLE THE PRESENT MOMENT.
Acceptance of what it is– Accept the moment as it is now when you resist what is, you ultimately create pain for yourself because always there’s a difference between reality and our expectations and that is where resistance is.
Always acknowledge the resistance and see if you can change, improve or remove yourself from the situation and then act accordingly.
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
The book discusses leadership, team management, teamwork, and creating an empathetic and supportive environment in an organization.
Leadership should be empathetic towards their employees; if you don’t understand their problems, you’ll end up treating them like robots, making them leave the job because of dissatisfaction with the job. Being a good leader, you’ve to listen, mentor them, and if required, take their stand too.
A leader is like a parent who puts their children’s wishes and requests before themselves and helps them grow and thrive in the environment. If you do well, they will give more to the company, helping you and your company grow.
To be a great leader, you must also understand human biology. Depending upon how we’re feeling, different types of hormones are released, which can greatly impact how we respond. Being aware of human biology can help you manage situations in a better manner.
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Who is Brené Brown– An American researcher and an author best known for her work on shame, courage and empathy. She spent 20 years understanding humans and how we see ourselves.
Her TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” went viral in 2010.
As per Brené, true leadership also requires values, vulnerability, trust and resilience.
Widespread vulnerability is associated with weakness, but it is a sign of courage. But she says that vulnerability is the only path to courage, which further gives birth to innovation, creativity, and trust.
She says that there can’t be any situation in which, without uncertainty, risk and emotions, one could show confidence. And confidence is as contagious as fear.
The author says that one thing that every leader should change is that they think that not saying or avoiding a difficult conversation is kind, but “Clear is kind, unclear is unkind.”
The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.
To build and sustain healthy relationships, abide by the acronym “BRAVING”
- Boundary Setting: Clarifying and respecting each other’s boundaries is crucial
- Reliability
- Accountability
- Vault Closing: Safeguard each other’s confidentiality
- Integrity: Never compromise with your core values
- Non-Judgment
- Generosity: Always keep room between your expectations and your interpretation
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Who is Peter Thiel– One of the outsider investors in Facebook, Co-founder of PayPal, is a billionaire entrepreneur and a political thinker who wrote an amazing book “Zero to One”
The book is a compilation of the lectures he gave at Stanford University.
As per Peter Thiel, if your business’s foundation covers the following pointers, then you’re on the path to success:
- Bet on a contrarian truth: Look for truths that many people agree with. There might be a truth that you can see soon happening, but not your peers. Working on such truths keeps you away from attention, which helps you get ahead of the competition, and by the time they start observing, you’ll be way ahead of everyone.
- Start by dominating a small market: Focus on covering a small niche because then you’ll be certain about the cash flow from the dominated sector. After that, start expanding into other industries and markets. It’s always better to capture 80% of a million-dollar market rather than 1% of a billion-dollar market.
- Aim for monopoly: Strive for monopoly in your sector as it ensures that you have the market and your business ain’t going anywhere and no one can take your profit.
Aiming for anything less than a monopoly is like digging a pit for your business.
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Who are W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne? W. Chan and Renee Mauborgne are professors in strategy and management. They work as professors in a business school named INSEAD.
The authors talk about blue and red ocean strategies. The read ocean refers to the known and established industries like the fast food and automobile industries. On the other hand, blue ocean refers to the untapped industry where it is easy to dominate and capture a bigger % of the market.
The book tells that we can tap into the blue ocean market by:
Look at the frustrations of customers in a particular industry and see the industry leaders in the market, and ask yourself 4 things:
- What can I eliminate, what can I reduce, what can I raise, and what can I incorporate to create something new?
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Who is James Clear? He is a productivity expert, author and speaker. His expertise is in habits and decision-making. Over time, he has become one of the most influential personal development voices.
As per James Clear, you need not make big changes to your life or to your routine to get great results, just a 1% change can make you 37.37% better/annum.
The majority of the world stops working hard/ towards their goal because they don’t see results as soon as they start, as they expect the trajectory to be linear, but Rome was not built in a day.
Law 1: Make it obvious
- It is difficult to get rid of bad habits until you’re fully aware of them, and you can do it by creating a habit scorecard. From the moment you open your eyes till you close them at night, pen down everything you do and score them on +ve, -ve and neutral because till the time you won’t realise what you’re doing intentionally/ unintentionally, you can’t change anything in your routine and life.
- The biggest reason people fail is not a lack of motivation or discipline, but a lack of clarity. You can work on it by “I will [behaviour] at [time] in [xyz location]”
- Stacking habits together can be a good way to start good habits, club them with activities that you won’t miss, like going for a walk in the morning after you brush.
Law 2: Make it attractive
- Temptation bundling: Combining things that we wish to do and things that we should do. This will make you do things even when you don’t want to because you’ll be rewarded by something you were willing to do.
- Group influence: We usually end up not taking actions because of the fear of what people around us would think. Hence, surround yourself with people where your new habit is the norm.
- Reprogramming your mind: Rather than looking at the downside of difficult activities/behaviour, look at the positive sides that would make it look more attractive and appealing.
Law 3: Make it easy
- If you want to make behaviour a habit, you need to make it as frictionless as possible, and that is possible by doing more and more repititions.
- How to build a habit easily is by reducing friction between you and the habit so that you need no to do extra efforts and energy.
- Set things up in advance so that it becomes easier and you do not need to think hard, making it easier for you to do the task.
- Irrespective how good and religiously you’re working on it, you might not give your best that day but don’t remember showing up that day is also a win.
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Who is Cal Newport– Cal is an author, professor and a productivity expert and Cal’s expertise is in focus, deep work and digital minimalism.
The book revolves around that working distraction free pushes cognitive abilities to the limit making you work better than ever.
In today’s hyperconnected and socially active world, deep work has become rarer than ever increasing its value. Moreover, if you can produce something good that stands out, internet has the power to make you reach to every corner of the world.
Deep work has also become rare because we’re expected by our loved ones and employers to be active all the time and entertaining all the distractions right away.
Here are 3 ways that can help you do deep work:
- Schedule distraction breaks: If you had dedicated time and breaks for distractions, this would make you avoid distractions outside of that break. Creating friction and boundaries around distractions is important to work effectively.
- Deep work ritual: Creating deep work ritual everyday can bring you into habit of working distraction free and saving your mental energy to think when and where to start with, try to do early morning because outside request usually don’t come up.
- As per the author a person who starts working on deep work can hold themselves into that state for up to an hour and after practicing can reach up to 4 hours/day in intervals of 60-90 minutes.
- Evening shutdown: Once you’re done with the daily tasks or even if you’ve a few remaining tasks in the evening pendown all the tasks remaining which you would do in tomorrow’s deep work. Writing them down would take off the load from your head making you feel relaxed and on track because without proper rest you can’t do deep work the following day.
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
Who is Keith Ferrazzi? A leader in the field of networking and leadership who is also an author and entrepreneur. Apart from Never Eat Alone, he has written several other books: Who’s Got Your Back, Leading Without Authority and others.
The book talks on networking and explains how networking can change your life. According to the book, getting conversion through online ads is just 1/25 on the other hand through word of mouth or referral it increases to 2/3.
3 concepts from the book:
- The more you use the relationships, the stronger they get: People have that false perception that the number of times you’ve helped someone is the number of times you can ask for help but it doesn’t work that way. Asking people help gives them the sense that you trust them and they’re capable of helping you.
- Create your network way before you need it: Just like a seed takes time to germinate from the earth and blossom similarly if you want to see your relation blossom with someone and make it blossom like a flower you need to give it time and nurture it by understanding the person to deepen the relationship.
- Art of small talk has value to offer in each conversation: As per the author every conversation is an opportunity to make an impression, you can’t just be glued to the statement that every conversation that is not around business ain’t productive.
Giving value to someone in each conversation would build trust and credibility, which can make the other person ask for help/ can offer help, helping you create new connections.
How to Win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
Who is Dale Carnegie– He was an American writer, his work focused on public speaking, interpersonal skills, leadership and self-confidence.
If you’ve heard about networking, the first book that would strike your mind is “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Let’s see the takeaways from this book:
- Become Genuinely interested in other people: The author says that you can make more connections in 2 months than 2 years by being interested in them rather making them interested in you. Being interested in other person open ups the conversation and gives the space to develop the bond.
- Remember Names: Everyone is more interested in their name over all the other names put together. If someone forgets your name/mispronounces your name, you don’t feel good. On the other hand, if someone remembers your name, it makes you feel instinctively connected to that person.
- Always make the other person feel important: There is always something to learn from a person. If you make them feel important and see as superior the way you’ll perceive the person would change opening enormous possibilities to learn from that person.
Conclusion
These 12 books can change how you see and approach things on your entrepreneurial journey. I hope this blog brings value and helps you with some good books to start with.