What I Learned from an EPIC Business Failure
You are starving for answers in business and life
Hungry to know timeless secrets of success.
Despite a voracious appetite to improve yourself as a person, you’re somewhat jaded by what you see from the professional development industry and don’t know where to turn or who to trust.
You are wary, perhaps a little cynical.
With good reason.
After all, there is no shortage of so-called “experts” clamoring for your time and attention; flooding your inbox and social media platforms trying to sell you their latest book, tapes or coaching programs. Book stores are jammed and crammed with self-styled gurus claiming to possess literary magic bullets you just need to slam into your chamber and pull the trigger.
But, you have next to no time for re-cycled, re-heated, drive-thru advice and are smart enough to know that one wrong move and you could be wasting a metric ton of time, money and energy that you will never get back.
And still be hungry.
You want insights that will apply to you and work in the real world.
Your world.
From where you sit, it is VITAL that any so-called “expert” you consult with, read, watch or listen to have valuable intellectual morsels to offer. In other words, they know their stuff and their stuff is good for you.
They save you precious time and provide great direction and focus.
With utmost respect to the scarcity of your time and the need to absorb ideas that are not only relevant today, but into the next century as well, here are the Ten Business Books You Can Take to the Bank.
These are resources that I have leaned on and consumed both personally and professionally; authors that have helped me beat the odds and not only survive early start-up years, but thrive as our business continues to grow and prosper.
As someone who experienced an EPIC failure at his first attempt in business back in 1990 and learned a valuable lesson the second time around in 1999, it is my hope that if these books and authors are not already considered as your go-to books in your business library, they soon will be.
I was absolutely clueless during the business crash and burn of the early 90’s. Had no idea that readers are leaders. No clue that the failure of our venture was directly linked to the fact that neither my partners nor myself had ever bothered to pick up a business book and begin to study a craft called entrepreneurship.
My partners and I paid a heavy price for our ignorance. and the valuable lesson that the more you learn, the more you earn.
I’ll say it again in a most emphatic fashion … READERS ARE LEADERS!
If we don’t read, we can’t grow – and neither can our companies.
And if our businesses can’t grow, they can’t survive, let alone thrive.
Reading is the best way to gain experience without having been there yourself. As Warren Buffett’s business partner Charlie Munger once said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. Warren reads all the time and so do I.”
With the sting of the early 90’s bankruptcy still seared in my soul, I approached business books very differently the second time around. It is in that spirit, that I share the Ten Business Books You Can Take to the Bank.
Because these were the ones that kept my banker happy.
They are also the books that offered insights that met my criteria of being relevant not only today, but tomorrow as well. In other words, the ideas within these pages will still matter to you and your business a hundred years from now. The vast majority of books are just like their authors. They are born to die. Only a few books will cheat death and continue to live as their authors leave an enduring legacy of influencing lives forever.
#10. E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (1985)
The monumental best-seller from Michael Gerber is still the bible of small business; challenging any owner to ask him or herself questions that only he or she can answer:
- Do I want to own a business or own a job?
- Do I want to own the business or have the business own me?
- Will I work IN the business or work ON the business?
What separates Gerber from the business book pack is that his masterpiece is written in the form of a novel that any business owner can readily identify with. In other words, you become the main character and get to see how your entrepreneurial movie will end, depending on the decisions you make.And you will vividly see the three people who live inside any business – even if it’s just a one-man show.
What You Will Learn: The life of a business is entirely predictable from infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to maturation as the owner begins to recognize why systems are the solution. A mature or a great business doesn’t just happen by accident. It happens with seeds planted early that allow maturation and greatness to flourish.
#9. Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads: Turning Paupers into Princes and Lead into Gold (1999)
Discovered on a hockey road trip on a 5-hour bus ride to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia this is the gem that introduced me to the idea that the words we choose create the worlds in which we live. Written by marketing guru Roy H. Williams, his entire Wizard of Ads trilogy takes the reader far beyond the scope of advertising and instead explore timeless truths about human persuasion that impact all aspects of our lives and the art we create. The founder of a 21st century business school located outside of Austin, TX, Williams and his Wizard Academy cohorts continue to push the envelope when it comes to helping students master the visual and auditory communication arts; demonstrating step by step how to do consciously what gifted people do unconsciously.
What You Will Learn: Why most marketing efforts are wasted efforts and how persuasion as an art form allows you to see what works, what doesn’t, and why. Would you rather convince 100% of your audience 10% of the way or 10% of your audience 100% of the way? Discover the hidden treasures that reside within the Broca area of your customer’s brain and how your enterprise can unearth that gold in a way that has both you and your audience doing the happy dance.
#8. The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable (2003)
This distinctive, disruptive yet powerful read packs a timeless, universal punch when it comes to the value of being different. To stand out from whatever crowded, competitive category you find yourself in. As Seth Godin articulated so well, being “remarkable” will never go out of style and as the world speeds up and markets become more congested, The Purple Cow is likely more relevant now than it was when it was first released in 2003. Marketing an invisible business will only get tougher and Godin clarifies in an elegant manner, a simple, yet very important idea that most business owners overlook.
What You Will Learn: The category marked “boring” in your space (and others) is already beyond overcrowded. Being boring is in all likelihood the riskiest business strategy of them all.
#7. Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (2009)
It started with a YouTube video and some guy with glasses in front of a flip chart that outlined three circles. Watching it for the first time, I remember thinking “this guy should write a book about this idea of the “Golden Circle”.
Arguably one of the most impactful business books of the last 5 years, Start With Why achieves what Good to Great failed to do from a leadership perspective. While Jim Collins served up safe, academic & research-driven, mom-and-apple pie observations that the North American CEO crowd fell in love with, Simon Sinek addressed many of the same issues, but in a much more compelling,, challenging, practical and relevant fashion. His TEDx Talk from Puget Sound became the 3rd most viewed video on TED.com as Sinek offers a powerful and penetrating exploration of what separates great companies and great leaders from the rest.
What You Will Learn: In a straightforward, uncomplicated way, Sinek helps the reader understand that customers, communities and team members don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
#6. The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness (2004)
Unless you can get someone to buy into your ideas, they won’t buy your product or service. They won’t fund your start up or want to join your team and become part of your quest. You may possess the greatest business idea or the newest and best mousetrap, but that does not mean the world will beat a path to your door unless you know how to sell.
If you can’t make a sale, you can’t own a business.
Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling has sold over 3 million copies and is a must have for anyone who recognizes that unless a sale is made, nothing else happens in a business. This book – served in bite-sized chunks – is equal parts, tactical, strategic and ethical, inspiring the reader to gets the wheels of his or her imagination turning on how to position oneself as an expert as opposed to a mere order-taker. It begins with a fundamental shift in thinking. Instead of asking “How do I sell”?, Gitomer forces the reader to answer a different question: “Why do people buy”?
What You Will Learn: Top sales reps don’t peddle; they solve problems and make customers enjoy the experience while providing a solution they genuinely need. If you want to be the best salesperson, first you must be the best person.
#5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (2002)
No matter the business model, the category you compete in or the products and services you sell, it will be impossible to move forward without a cohesive, unified team behind you. Few have broken down the essential elements of teamwork the way Patrick Lencioni has with Five Dysfunctions of a Team; insights that will have eternal application for any leader looking to achieve high levels of team spirit, loyalty and performance. According to Lencioni, the Five Dysfunctions begin with:
- Absence of trust—which leads to an unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group.
- Fear of conflict—which has people seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate.
- Which leads to the other three dysfunctions and their predictable impact on any team.
What You Will Learn: How a lack of “creative conflict” is a sure sign that an invisible, insidious poison called “artificial harmony” could be slowly killing your business.
#4. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006)
When someone discovers a truly groundbreaking idea – and has the research to back it up – it’s worth paying attention.
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck invested decades of her life researching achievement and success and wrote the definitive book on the subject. According to Dweck, it’s not just our talents and abilities that bring us success—but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. Through the pages of Mindset, you will see how individuals have implicit views of where ability comes from. Some believe talent is based on innate gifts; in other words a “fixed” theory of intelligence (fixed mindset). Others, who believe success is based on hard work, learning, training and sheer determination said to have an “incremental” theory of intelligence (growth mindset). Through the pages of Mindset you will wonder if you spend enough time with enough straight-talking people who challenge you to grow or if you are surrounded by a flock of chirping parrots who exist only to pump your self-esteem tires.
What You Will Learn: Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a negative statement on their basic abilities and worth. Growth mindset individuals don’t fear failure as much because they realize performance improves by learning through one’s mistakes. Not everyone can be Einstein or Hawking, but anyone and everyone can get a lot smarter if they work at it.
#3. Think and Grow Rich (1937)
It is the single best selling personal success book of all time.
If rock and roll has Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, and The Eagles Hotel California, the professional development industry has Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. In other words a must-read or a must-listen if you prefer the audio book.
Every chapter, every paragraph, every literary morsel outlines the basic success and wealth creation practices of over 500 top performers including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie that Hill studied for more than twenty years. The 13 principles identified by Hill are as relevant today as they were when his book was first published during the Great Depression. While title, Think and Grow Rich implies that this is a book about money-making, Hill explains that this philosophy can be used to help people succeed in all aspects of life. As he explains it, “both poverty and riches are offsprings of thought”.
What You Will Learn: What more than 70 million other readers have discovered; that the “secret” to success is really no secret at all. If you want to be like the best, you need to think like the best. If you want to be successful with your life, you need to study and learn from other successful people.
#2. The Alchemist (1988)
In the fall of 2009, I was tipped off about a book and an author that someone saw great value in and cared enough to share with me. Initially, I brushed off the messenger and her suggestion, feeling that I was “too busy” to be bothered exploring something that seemed so vague and non-business like. But, a quiet voice inside my head refused to stop whispering and something about this individual told me she was worth listening to and her gift was not something to be frivolously tossed aside.
So I made a mental note, “I really should look that guy up and see what his book is all about”
My life and business has never been the same since.
A year after making a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986, unknown author Paulo Coelho wrote The Alchemist. Initially published through a small Brazilian company, the first print run was for 900 copies and the company decided not to reprint. Backed by incredible word-of-mouth before the internet went wild, Coelho found himself in a situation where life was imitating his art. Refusing to abandon his dream, Coelho subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and The Alchemist went on to sell more than 30 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history. It has been translated into more than 67 languages, earning Coelho the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.
What You Will Learn: The majority of people you interact with on your journey sacrifice fulfillment for conformity. Only a select few will choose to follow roads that are there for the taking and dream without caution and as the old king tells Santiago, “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true”.
#1. The Little Engine That Could (1930)
The book that shaped the mindset of a 4-year old boy who took to heart every word his mother read to him.
Mom passed away in 1998, but her greatest gift to her only son can be found in the pages of Watty Piper’s classic of a diminutive diesel who refused to believe he couldn’t find a way to climb that mountain and bring toys to all the good boys and girls who lived in the valley.
There are three universal lessons from The Little Engine that Could:
- ASK for the help you need. The toys didn’t just sit there. They didn’t give up when they received the first NO.
- HELP may come in a different package than you wanted or expected. No one would have bet the farm on the little engine, but at least he was willing to help the toys.
- When you are asked to help, GIVE it everything you got. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish when you believe you CAN.
If Mom was still alive today, she would be proud to know her lessons on perseverance are still alive in the heart of a grown man who believes the other 9 books on this list are useless unless you master the simple wisdom of The Little Engine That Could. You might say that with a timeless message on the values of optimism and hard work, this book predates Mindset by about 8 decades – minus the research.
Mom left this world far too early (1998) her only son is still grateful for the gift she shared when he was a locomotive-loving 4-year old boy who took to heart the story about The Little Engine That Could and her oft-repeated mantra that “There is no such word as can’t”. I don’t know if she is subscribed to this blog in heaven or not, but if she is checking her news feed, I always want her to know how much those words and those lessons still mean to me.
What You Will Learn: Reinventing any aspect of your business and life is impossible without the spirit of a chug-chug-chugging tiny train who exemplified the necessary mindset to overcome obstacles and all forms of negative, stinking thinking you run into along the way.
Through the Ten Business Books You Can Take to the Bank, you might detect a common theme. There are no shortcuts when it comes to becoming a better person and if you and I work hard at becoming better people, our businesses get better as well.
You can bank on that one.
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them” MARK TWAIN
P.S. … I am fairly certain that everyone who digests this list has also read books that have changed their lives and refocused their business priorities. I would love to hear your choices and why they mattered.
P.P.S … You can’t put together a list like this one without including some honourable mentions.
Delivering Happiness – TONY HSEIH
Start Something that Matters – BLAKE MYCOSKIE
McDonald’s: Behind the Arches – JOHN LOVE
Made to Stick: CHIP & DAN HEATH
Moneyball – MICHAEL LEWIS
Linchpin – SETH GODIN
If you are interested in having Gair speak to your organization, you can learn more about his keynotes, seminars and consulting programs at www.gairmaxwell.com
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