If you think reading is not important, read this NPR article “Reading Practice Can Strengthen Brain ‘Highways’ “ about how reading helps the WHOLE brain.
Here are a number of books that I have read and recommend.
- 40 writers “moved by” God, The Bible
- Napolean Hill, Think and Grow Rich – gets you thinking about more than doing just a job.
- T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – your money “blueprint” will tell you how far you’ll go in making it.
- Tom Rath, Donald Clifton, How Full Is Your Bucket? – your insides are reflected on your outside, no matter what the issues.
- Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D., Now, Discover Your Strengths – focus on what you do best and don’t “shore up” your weaknesses, but find others to cover your weaknesses.
- Rabbi Levi Brachman, Jewish Wisdom for Business Success – lessons learned from the Torah about the morality of business and capitalism.
- W. Clement Stone, The Success System That Never Fails – personal success begets business success.
- Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen, The One Minute Millionaire – how to approach being a millionaire.
- Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen, Cracking the Millionaire Code – same venue, but their 32 ways of product views are indispensable to growing your business.
- Seth Godin, Tribes – be the leader of your own tribe of change, forget big businesses.
- Seth Godin, Ideavirus – how to get a product to go viral.
- Chip and Dan Heath, Made to Stick – why some ideas survive and others die. Updated 10/2009
- Brian Tracy, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success – personal guide to success.
- Donny Deutsch, The Big Idea – how others have started with nothing and made their life change.
- Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start – most detailed view of starting a larger business.
- John C. Maxwell, Failing Forward – how to handle and learn from failure.
- Bo Burlingham, Small Giants - you don’t need to be the next Microsoft or Apple, small can still be great.
- Mark Sanborn, The Fred Factor: How Passion in your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary - how to approach each and every day.
- John C. Maxwell, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics – ethics are ethics, period!
- Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Next Door – what a millionaire really looks like.
- Michael E. Geber, The E-Myth Revisited – where startups fail the most.
- Michael E. Geber, E-Myth Mastery – broader view of startups.
- Rieva Lesonsky and Staff of Entrepreneur Magazine, Start Your Own Business – great overview of most of the issues involved in starting a business.
- Seth Godin, Purple Cow – transform your business.
- Beth Andrus, The Essential Business Handbook – key ingredients need to start and run a business such as Federal ID#, bank account, etc.
- Rhonda Abrams, What Business Should I Start? – what are you interested in in starting up?
- Rhonda Abrams, Successful Business Research – doing your due diligence and researching the feasibility of starting a business.
- Rhonda Abrams, Six Week Start-Up – starting up in six weeks
- Rhonda Abrams, The Successful Business Plan – for larger businesses.
- Jeff Gitomer, Little Red Book of Selling – if you don’t sell, you won’t be in business long.
- Zig Ziglar, See You At The Top – how to motivate yourself.
- Jim Collins, Good to Great – defining long range business growth.
- Jim Collins, Built to Last – how businesses were defined and that foundation kept them in business for the long haul.
- Christine Comaford, Rules for Renegades – a “true grit” account of what it takes to build a large business.
- Larry Julian, God is my CEO – He has your back.
- Robert A. Watson and Ben Brown, The Most Effective Organization in the U.S.: Leadership Secrets of the Salvation Army – you can be effective even doing good.
- Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline – how you view learning.
- Max Depree, Leadership is an Art – oh so true.
- David Allen, Getting Things Done – about being personally productive.
- Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Critical Chain – the real view of project management
- Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal – what is your goal?
- Fredrick Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month – a view of people and project management.
- Donald Wheeler, Understanding Variation: Key to Managing Chaos – how decisions made with poor data can waste resources.
- W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis – Helped Japanese overcome their “second place” quality showing as evidence by Honda and Toyota.
- Edward De Bono, Six Thinking Hats – the various viewpoints of problem solving.
- Tom DeMarco, Slack – how people can’t switch thinking from one subject to another like a machine, there are delays.
- Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese – watching for change.
- Ken Blanchard, Gung Ho! - getting your people motivated
- Ken Blanchard, Raving Fans – how to get raving fans for your business
- Ken Blanchard, Whale Done! – positively affecting others
- Malcolm Gladwell, Tipping Point - how most large society changes start slow but occur at a tipping point.
- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, Power of Full Engagement – monitoring your physical and emotional energy level will determine your productivity.
- Tim Sanders, Love is the Killer App – think abundance, not scarcity.
- Ed Oakley & Doug Krug, Enlightened Leadership – ask the right questions, get the right answers.
- Richard Oppenheim, Getting You Past Go – How to get unstuck and stay unstuck forever. Updated 10/2009
What are your favorite books?
You can also see Paul Graham’s view of startup book library.
