You never know what ideas will help you enhance your leadership or double your business profit, but reading this master list will certainly help you find some great ideas. These books have helped many of our clients with their businesses. We hope they’ll lead to many breakthroughs for you too.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has captivated readers for 25 years. It has transformed the lives of Presidents and CEOs, educators, parents, and students — in short, millions of people of all ages and occupations have benefited from Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits book. And, it can transform you. Read our book summary >>
The 10X Rule (Grant Cardone)
Achieve “Massive Action” results and accomplish your business dreams! While most people operate with only the three degrees of action-no action; retreat; or normal action.
If you’re after big goals, you shouldn’t settle for the ordinary! To reach the next level, you must understand the coveted 4th degree of action. This 4th degree, also know as the 10X Rule, is that level of action that guarantees companies and individuals realize their goals and dreams. Read our book summary >>
As You Think (James and Marc Allen)
In 1904, a relatively unknown Englishman named James Allen wrote a little book called As a Man Thinketh. The book has become one of the world’s greatest self-empowerment books. It not only reveals to us that the keys to success are within our own minds, it shows us how to use these keys to unlock the greatest fulfillment we can imagine.
In this revised edition, author and publisher Marc Allen updates this classic, changing language that has become dated, and honing the clarity of the message. Read our book summary >>
Automate Your Busywork (Aytekin Tank)
The founder and CEO of Jotform, Aytekin Tank, delivers a blueprint to help you save precious time by offloading repetitive tasks. In this book, he explains how you can use automation to unlock your productivity potential.
Time is one of our most valuable resources. Aytekin shares how you can take charge of your life using free no-code automation tools so you can free yourself up to accomplish the most important tasks in your life and work. Read our book summary >>
Awaken the Giant Within (Tony Robbins)
Wake up and take control of your life! From the bestselling author of Inner Strength, Unlimited Power, and MONEY Master the Game, Anthony Robbins, the nation’s leader in the science of peak performance, shows you his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life. Read our book summary >>
Awesomely Simple (John Spence)
The six core strategies to elevate any business-and how to implement them-made simple. What do the world’s most successful companies and organization have in common? And what can you actually take away and use from their examples?
Distilling the best fundamental business strategies, trusted advisor and strategist John Spence helps you take a hard look at your business and together develop specific plans and action steps that will allow you to dramatically improve the success of your company. Read our book summary >>
Building a StoryBrand (Donald Miller)
Donald Miller’s StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their businesses. This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services.
Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching readers the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Read our book summary >>
The Business of Expertise (David C. Baker)
This passionate expertise manifesto is intended to elevate the impact of advisors who sell insight as entrepreneurs. Three foundational chapters form the basis of the entire book: experts develop insight by isolating patterns in data; they convert those insights to wealth by crafting a unique positioning for which few available substitutes exist; and their confidence grows as the marketplace embraces their application of expertise.
The next fifteen chapters—building on that foundation—each answer a single question, starting with the role of expertise in a developed society, how important it is for experts to love the hard work required to hone their expertise, and how to see all that in the context of their own purpose in the world. Read our book summary >>
The Compound Effect (Darren Hardy)
No gimmicks. No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default.
Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, presents The Compound Effect, a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want. Read our book summary >>
Daring Greatly (Brene Brown)
Every time we are introduced to someone new, try to be creative, or start a difficult conversation, we take a risk. We feel uncertain and exposed. We feel vulnerable. Most of us try to fight those feelings – we strive to appear perfect.
In a powerful new vision Dr. Brené Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability, and dispels the widely accepted myth that it’s a weakness. She argues that, in truth, vulnerability is strength and when we shut ourselves off from vulnerability – from revealing our true selves – we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Read our book summary >>
Delivering Happiness (Toni Hsieh)
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh shares the different lessons he has learned in business and life, from starting a worm farm to running a pizza business, through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more.
Fast-paced and down-to-earth, Delivering Happiness shows how a very different kind of corporate culture is a powerful model for achieving success-and how by concentrating on the happiness of those around you, you can dramatically increase your own. Read our book summary >>
Essentialism (Greg McKeown)
Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin? Do you simultaneously feel overworked and underutilized? Are you often busy but not productive? Do you feel like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people’s agendas? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the Essentialist.
The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter. Read our book summary >>
First Things First (Stephen Covey)
I’m getting more done in less time, but where are the rich relationships, the inner peace, the balance, the confidence that I’m doing what matters most and doing it well? Does this nagging question haunt you, even when you feel you are being your most efficient?
If so, First Things First can help you understand why so often our first things aren’t first. Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass, because where you’re headed is more important than how fast you’re going. Read our book summary >>
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni)
Lencioni’s utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight. Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams, even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Read our book summary >>
Flawless Execution (James D. Murphy)
Your business can take a lesson from the American military’s fighter pilots. At Mach 2, the instrument panel of an F-15 is screaming out information, the horizon is a blur, the wingman is occupied, the jet is hanging on the edge–and yet fighter pilots routinely handle the stress.
It’s not much different in today’s unforgiving business world. One slip up and your company is bankrupt before your employees know what hit them. Read our book summary >>
Full Steam Ahead! (Ken Blanchard and Jesse Lyn Stoner)
Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner show how to create a vision for your organization, and for your own life, that will unleash your power and potential and allow you to go Full Steam Ahead!
This book offers numerous examples of effective visions and shows exactly how to create an enduring vision that will guide you on a daily basis. Read our book summary >>
Good to Great (Jim Collins)
The Challenge: Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.
But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Read our book summary >>
Living Forward (Michael Hyatt)
Each of us has but one life to live on this earth. What we do with it is our choice. Are we drifting through it as spectators, reacting to our circumstances when necessary and wondering just how we got to this point anyway? Or are we directing it, maximizing the joy and potential of every day, living with a purpose or mission in mind? Read our book summary >>
The Maxwell Leadership Bible (John C. Maxwell)
In this Bible, Dr. Maxwell explains what a godly leader is and how God is glorified when you accept the role you’re called to. It includes great articles and insights that will become an invaluable part of your leadership library.
You’ll find 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader with lessons about Biblical characters who exemplified each. Over 100 biographical profiles feature stories that share God’s truth about leadership. Read our book summary >>
Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss)
Chris Voss is a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI and offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home.
This book is packed with amazing tips and techniques to improve our communication skills and our outcomes. Read our book summary >>
The New One Minute Manager (Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson)
For more than twenty years, millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses nationwide have followed The One Minute Manager’s techniques, thus increasing their productivity, job satisfaction, and personal prosperity.
These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its employees. The One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. Read our book summary >>
Permission Marketing (Seth Godin)
Whether it is the TV commercial that breaks into our favorite program or the telemarketing phone call that disrupts a family meal, traditional advertising is based on the hope of snaring our attention away from whatever we are doing. Read our book summary >>
The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg)
Changing your habits is one of the fastest ways to massively impact your productivity and wellbeing. Through simple explanations and compiling examples, this book teaches you how. Read our book summary >>
Reality-Based Leadership (Cy Wakeman)
71% of workers think about quitting their jobs everyday. However, they are not actually quitting. They go to work clocking their time and taking a pay check, while being emotionally checked out.
This book reveals how to be the kind of leader who changes the way people think about and perceive their circumstances-one who deals with facts, clarifies roles, gives clear and direct feedback, and insists that everyone do the same-without drama or defensiveness. Read our book summary >>
Rework (Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson)
Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf.
Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition.
The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. Read our book summary >>
The Right—and Wrong—Stuff (Carter Cast)
The Right—and Wrong—Stuff is a candid, unvarnished guide to the bumpy road to success. The shocking truth is that 98 percent of us have at least one career-derailment risk factor, and half to two-thirds actually go off the rails.
The reason why people get fired, demoted, or plateau is because they let the wrong stuff act out, not because they lack talent, energy, experience, or credentials. Read our book summary >>
The Road Less Stupid (Keith J. Cunningham)
Smart people do dumb things. Here’s the proof: How much money would you have right now if I gave you the ability to unwind any three financial decisions you have ever made?
The principles and structure suggested in The Road Less Stupid will enable anyone, (regardless of the size of the business, the currency or the industry) to run their business more effectively, make more money, and dramatically increase the likelihood of keeping that money. It all hinges on Thinking Time.
This is a business book for business readers who want to learn the principles and strategies of making great decisions and minimizing risk. The structure of Thinking Time will enable you to minimize reacting emotionally and defaulting to the most obvious “best idea” available in the moment. Read our book summary >>
Start With Why (Simon Sinek)
Why are some people and organisations more inventive, pioneering and successful than others? And why are they able to repeat their success again and again? Read our book summary >>
Talk Like TED (Carmine Gallo)
Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In order to succeed, you need to be able to sell your ideas persuasively. This ability is the single greatest skill that will help you accomplish your dreams.
TED Talks have redefined the elements of a successful presentation and become the gold standard for public speaking.
TED―which stands for technology, entertainment, and design―brings together the world’s leading thinkers. These are the presentations that set the world on fire, and the techniques that top TED speakers use will make any presentation more dynamic, fire up any team, and give anyone the confidence to overcome their fear of public speaking. Read our book summary >>
Traction (Gino Wickman)
Do you have a grip on your business or does your business have a grip on you? All entrepreneurs and business leaders face similar frustrations–personnel conflict, profit woes, and inadequate growth. Decisions never seem to get made, or, once made, fail to be properly implemented. But there is a solution. It’s not complicated or theoretical. Read our book summary >>
Triggers (Marshall Goldsmith)
In business – as in life – the right behaviors matter. But getting it right is tricky. Even when we acknowledge the need to change what we do and how we do it, life has a habit of getting in the way, upsetting even the best-laid plans. And just how do we manage those situations that can provoke even the most rational among us into behaving in ways we would rather forget? Read our book summary >>
Unlimited Power (Tony Robbins)
If you have ever dreamed of a better life, Unlimited Power will show you how to achieve the extraordinary quality of life you desire and deserve, and how to master your personal and professional life.
Anthony Robbins has proven to millions through his books, tapes, and seminars that by harnessing the power of the mind you can do, have, achieve, and create anything you want for your life. He has shown heads of state, royalty, Olympic and professional athletes, movie stars, and children how to achieve.
With Unlimited Power, he passionately and eloquently reveals the science of personal achievement. Read our book summary >>
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Marshall Goldsmith)
Perhaps one small flaw – a behavior you barely even recognize – is the only thing that’s keeping you from where you want to be.
It may be that the very characteristic that you believe got you where you are – like the drive to win at all costs – is what’s holding you back. As this book explains, people often do well in spite of certain habits rather than because of them – and need a “to stop” list rather than one listing what “to do”. Read our book summary >>
Who Moved My Cheese (Spencer Johnson, M.D.)
It is the amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.
Cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life, for example a good job, a loving relationship, money or possessions, health or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for what you want, perhaps the organization you work in, or the family or community you live in.
The problem is that the cheese keeps moving. Read our book summary >>
You Are A Badass (Jen Cincero)
In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, bestselling author and world-traveling success coach, Jen Sincero, serves up 27 bite sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word. Read our book summary >>
This book will help you:
- Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want
- Create a life you totally love (and create it NOW)
- Make some damn money already (the kind you’ve never made before)
For More Reading Ideas
Mark Tilbury says he has read 1,000 business books, and he’s put together his top 40. Might be worth a listen!
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