Books To Help You on Your Entrepreneurial Journey

One of the gifts of quarantine has been time. I’ve found myself with the bandwidth to get through more books in the last few months than I’ve ever read before. Mostly I’ve been walking to audiobooks which gives me the benefit of exercise and education at the same time. I find that I absorb more when I listen to a book than I do when I try to read a hard copy.

Here’s a list of my latest finds:

One of my favorite ‘tell it like it is’ and back it with facts writers is Simon Sinek. He is one of the great thought leaders of today. He rose to fame with his book about purpose (“Finding Your Why”). In this book, he talks about leading with empathy.

Although this book is a bit dated, his analysis of what it takes to be a good leader and why, is second to none. He gives concrete examples of where leadership failed and why as well as, how good leadership helped lead companies out of hard times and become sustainable for the long term.

A fellow life coach recommended this book. I’d never heard of Gay Hendricks and I’m glad I finally did. Do you find that you have a ‘disaster mentality’? As soon as things are going well, you just know that something bad is going to happen to ruin it. As Gay observes, every period of prosperity is followed by a downturn, good times are followed by war, achieving the ‘pinnacle’ of your success inevitably leads to some misery befalling you.

In this book, Mr. Hendricks argues that we are our own worst enemies and that if we can extend our upper limits to our zone of ‘we won’t have to fear the negative and will live happier, more fulfilled lives.

In his latest book, Organizational Psychologist, Adam Grant writes about how we can open our minds to new ways of thinking which will lead us to all communicate better and not be so divisive. There are several examples of how situations and perspectives were changed with the right approach to the conversation. You’ll be amazed how some simple changes in the way we have conversations can help us all become better listeners and not view every opposing opinion as an assault on us but rather food for thought.

Have you ever talked yourself out of being able to do something you are perfectly capable of doing? Does your inner critic follow you around feeding you lies and prevent you from moving forward? The good news is that the inner voice can be an asset to us if we learn to tame the critic and distance ourselves from what it’s saying to us.

Ethan Kross makes it easy to understand why we have the voice, how it harms us and helps us and what we can do to use it to our advantage.

Was there ever a world that existed without Nike sneakers? Phil Knight is one of the greatest entrepreneurs alive. The evolution of his running shoe company into what it is today is far from a simple one. From a quest for the perfect running shoe to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, Nike is a symbol of America. It’s hard to imagine all the trials and tribulations that lead the company to what it is today and the industry to where it is and what it has become as a result of Phil Knight’s far from overnight success!! This is one of my favorite books. This book demonstrates that having tenacity and resilience really do result in success!