Four Business Lessons from Books I Read Last Year

Building a business is a balancing act of long- and short-term interests. There’s the immediate need to chase money—keeping food on the table and a roof over the heads of the people who rely on you—and then the long-term need to build something with a sustainable future. I discovered that for myself last year when I plunged headlong into my own businesses of ghostwriting, podcasting, and owning a record label.?

At the start of this new year, I looked back at some of the books I read in 2024, searching for some applicable lessons. I found four.

The best thing you can do is begin

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.” That’s an earth-shaking line from Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and there’s plenty more to follow. Get yourself a copy and read it every six months.?

Lesser known than his How to Win Friends and Influence People, this is the better of the two books. Carnegie reminds us that the only thing we control is today. Dwelling on past mistakes or being paralyzed by imagined fears of future misfortunes prevents us from doing today the things that will actually improve our lives.?

So stop worrying, and go start the damn thing. Or, as Carnegie puts it, start living.

Embrace the growth opportunities of wild uncertainty

Sometimes, falling off your comfortable ocean liner into the raging uncertainty of a wild ocean is the best thing that can happen to you. That’s the big takeaway from my favorite fiction from last year: Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous (1897). The book also taught me that my maritime vocabulary is pitiful. If you don’t know a foc’sle from a gurry-butt, be sure to have a copy of Webster’s handy for this one.

Kipling says what you really need is to do hard things and learn real skills in fellowship with others. It’s okay if the hard thing feels scary. Embrace the growth potential in uncertainty. You’ll like who you are when you emerge on the other side.?

And to ensure you come out better than when you began, keep in mind the next lesson:

Aim high

If you can imagine an alternate universe where a more actualized version of you is running around and making your dreams come true, then you’ve got some work to do.

In Become Who You Are (2024), Ryan A Bush makes the point that in order to be happy, you need to (often slowly) develop yourself into a person you can admire. Bush wants you to have a very high-level target in mind—eudaemonia, or flourishing—and then take the short-term actions that will help you climb that mountain.

Failing to do that can be disastrous. This point is hammered home in a couple more fiction books: The Maltese Falcon (1929) and To Have and Have Not (1937). Hemingway’s and Hammett’s characters (Sam Spade excluded) run around without ideals, only short-term ambitions, becoming the worst versions of themselves. Don’t be like that!

Act like who you want to be. Become who you are.

Be efficient

The last lesson is a quick one: spending more time does not necessarily equal more results. So says Steve Dalton in his 2-hour Job Search (2020). Energy better directed—especially through making meaningful connections—is more effective than running around emailing resumes like an unemployed chicken with its head cut off. (I may be stretching the metaphor.)?

Noah Kagan ’s Million Dollar Weekend (2024) makes a similar point: if you can’t launch a good business in one weekend, you might need to look for other ideas.

That’s it! Four is enough! I wish for your 2025 that you efficiently embrace the scariest growth opportunities, so long as they can move you toward your highest potential. Start today.