Top 5 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read To Be Successful

Top 5 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read To Be Successful

As an entrepreneur, you accept the fact that you will be learning for the rest of your life.

It's impossible to be successful as an entrepreneur and give up on learning.

The business world moves too fast for us to sit down and stay comfortable with where we're at.

Even reaching a certain level of success, you're still obligated to keep learning, or else everything you have can be gone faster than you will realise.

Entrepreneurs like?Bill Gates?still manage to read one book every week whilst running multiple businesses,?one being Microsoft?valued at over $2 trillion.

When I?initially started my business journey, I made a promise that I will try to read one book every month.

Until now,?I've read almost 20 books?(pretty good and on track with the one a month) and don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

Books provide a wealth of knowledge that nothing else can provide.

It's like decoding one person's life and picking out the parts that you really like and want to apply to your life.

From the books I've read so far, there have been some amazing books that I can recommend to anyone looking to get into entrepreneurship.

There has also been a lot of books that are not worth the hassle or the rather low price tag too.

I'm previously mentioned?my favorite book?in another article - 'The Millionaire Fastlane' and so I'm not going to restate it here.

Until now, there has not been another book that has had such a powerful impact on my mindset than 'The Millionaire Fastlane.'

So what are the top 5 books that I have read so far which I believe every entrepreneur must also read?

Book #5

The first book was a book that I read later in 2020.

Written by T. Harv Eker, 'Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind' is a book that talks about the sort of mindset shift necessary to start thinking and living like a millionaire.

He mentions how whatever we're taught from a young age, drives our financial mindset in the future.

If we're taught that money is the root of all evil, we'll simply grow up hating the rich and wanting nothing to do with money.

T. Harv Eker?mentions how our parent's actions towards money become instilled within us.

Children are like sponges - whatever they see, they will replicate. This holds true for many things.

If you act a certain way in front of your children, they'll most likely try to replicate it.

If you're always worrying or stressing about finances, your children will also grow up to do the same.

He mentions that in order to break free of your inherent beliefs,?you must rewire your brain?and money internal money blueprint.

You must take responsibility for your own actions and confront them as your own without throwing blame upon others - even your parents.

A final thing I want to mention is that T. Harv Eker is not afraid to tell us to think big.

Lots of 'gurus' will talk about invest and play it safe, but the books that I really enjoy are those that challenge you to break free of your mental shackles.

I recommend 'Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind' to anyone who wants to change their mindset and beliefs around money.

Book #4

I've used lessons from this book previously in some of my articles.

This has been another book that led to a massive pivot in my life.

During my sales job, our manager would tell us all about this '1-hour long book.'

On the last day before I quit the sales job, I decided to sit in a park and listen to the book on Audible.

After listening to the book, I decided to finally do what I thought will get me where I want in life.

The book is none other than 'Who Moved My Cheese' by Dr. Spencer Johnson.

'Who Moved My Cheese' is a short yet powerful parable around two mice called Sniff and Scurry, and two little people called Hem and Haw.

The story talks about how they all found a large station of cheese one day and then starts to show us how each group reacted differently to their newfound 'cheese.'

Cheese is a metaphor for anything you may desire in life - for example, wealth.

Whilst the cheese depleted, we see how the mice, small-brained, observed this and kept a close eye on the level of cheese left.

The little people, however, supposed to replicate us humans, got complacent.

Once the cheese disappeared, the mice quickly set out to find more whilst the little people sat down and complained about their situation, blaming everything other than themselves.

Eventually, Haw came to his senses and set out to find cheese after realising his situation won't change unless he does.

'Who Moved My Cheese' is a great book about adapting to change and how failing to do so can be detrimental.

If you're afraid of change, I highly recommend reading this short book.

There's a lot more to this book than this short summary, so I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

Book #3

Starting my most recent venture -?Condesnr?- led me to the discovery of 'The Lean Startup' methodology.

Written by?Eric Ries, co-founder of?IMVU, 'The Lean Startup' is a book that teaches startup founders how speed and iteration are crucial to the success of a startup business.

Eric talks about their early mistakes building businesses like IMVU and the sort of shifts they had to adopt in order to start seeing success and turning IMVU into one of the biggest games in the world.

Originally adopted from the Japanese carmaker -?Toyota, the lean methodology is designed to save businesses and startups from one fatal problem:

Building something that nobody wants.

Meaning building a business that there is no real demand for.

Instead, 'The Lean Startup' talks about how building something called an MVP (minimum viable product) then using it to test the market demand is the 'leanest' way to build a business.

After all, you don't know what customers really want - only they do.

By building an MVP you save risking hours or even days on building something that will not benefit the end-user.

Building an MVP, which is the least amount of features necessary for users to use your product, will allow?early adopters?to help you steer the business in the right direction.

Eric Ries claims that anyone who brings about innovation is an entrepreneur. Even employees in an organization can be entrepreneurs.

He also mentions how startups have an upper hand on large organizations when it comes to innovating.

Whilst a large organization has to go through many levels and departments to make change happen, startups can easily scrap an idea and build out a new one.

So if you're interested in building a startup the cost-effective and fast way, without making common errors along the way then 'The Lean Startup' is the book for you.

Book #2

In the early 1900s,?Napoleon Hill?set out to talk to as many wealthy individuals as possible to come up with common trends and practices.

Later in 1937, one of the world's top 10 self-help books 'Think And Grow Rich' was born.

'Think And Grow Rich' is a book that summarises all of the findings about the commonalities of millionaires and other wealthy people from Napoleon Hill's research.

One of the lessons he talks about in his book is that in order to be successful, you need a burning desire to win.

A burning desire so strong, that it will keep you going past all the setbacks, failures and hard times you'll face on your journey.

I always believed that if you don't have a plan, you're planning to fail.

Napoleon Hill reinforces this by saying that you must outline a plan to turn your desire into action.

This requires that you clearly define your goal and where you want to be in life.

Then you must sit down and think of the necessary steps you need to take action on immediately.

Similar to the 'Secrets Of The Millionaire Mind,' Napoleon Hill also talks about how your mind can be a massive barrier to your success.

This is why you must convince your mind and subconscious that success is inevitable.

You must build up incredible self-confidence that will influence your beliefs and behavior leading to what we know as a?self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've talked about what it truly takes to be successful, much of what I said aligns with the lessons in 'Think And Grow Rich'.

Book #1

Many people have mixed opinions on the author of this book,?Grant Cardone.

Whether you like him or you don't, you have to give the man respect for what he does.

His book, 'The 10X Rule,' is an amazing book that is very similar to my favorite book 'The Millionaire Fastlane.'

Although I do recommend reading both.

'The 10X Rule' talks about how you must start to think 10X.

This means multiplying the goals that you want to achieve in life by a factor of 10.

When I first read the book, I had a goal of making between $10,000 to $100,000 per month.

Once I read the book, I realised how small I was thinking and the reality of getting to absurd numbers like $1m to $10m per month is actually a lot more possible than I thought.

I was having dinner with two of my friends from secondary school, and they were telling me about their life goals.

They told me that within 4 years, they should be making at least six figures.

That's when I turned to them and let them know how small they were thinking.

We don't realise that our minds are the only limits that humans have.

Anything you can physically imagine is possible to do in the real world.?

'The 10X Rule' claims that you should always put 10X more effort in whatever you do.

When things get difficult, that is when it is time to take the most action possible. You're not going to be able to predict events, so 'just do it' is the lesson.

Grant Cardone also says that whatever you want in life, you must dedicate everything possible to getting it.

This means channeling all your time and energy to achieving that goal.

Grant mentions how he takes time before bed and when he gets up in the morning to write down his goals.

When life gets tough, he also takes some time to write his goals and remind himself what he's doing all of this for.

He makes a strong claim that you're not selfish if you choose to be rich - you're selfish if you choose to stay in your current situation.

This is because there are people who depend on you to make it happen. Family, children, friends etc.

'The 10X Rule' is an amazing book that will make you realise how small you've been thinking, motivating you to do more and get more.

Did you enjoy this list of books?

Have you read any of them? If so which?

Let me know below.

Till next time,

Mohamad