It’s Library Lover’s Month! I’d love to share some of my absolute favorite books to read for business and self-care with you! I’ll be sharing the links below to Good Reads as well as small snippets about each, so you can add them to your list too!

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by 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.”

The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins

“It’s a simple tool, backed by research, and it has changed the lives of millions. It will work for you too.

Using the science of habits, riveting stories, and surprising facts from some of the most famous moments in history, Mel Robbins will explain the power of a five second decision. You’ll also meet and inspired by hundreds of people around the world who are using the Rule to achieve their goals, reach their potential, and chase their dreams.

In the book, you’ll learn the inspiring and relatable story of how Mel invented the 5 Second Rule during the worst moment of her life, when her anxiety and finances were so bad, she could barely get out of bed. Since creating the Rule, Mel has shared it with audiences around the world, the most respected brands, and people who want to make real and lasting change.”

The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer

This book was my first read with my very first business coach and it was the start to changing my entire world! The start to believing in myself and working through all the internal struggles that happen in your mind in business and life. It was a very powerful read for me and a huge mindset shift that has brought me to where I am today. I can’t recommend it enough!

“The Success Principles will teach you how to increase your confidence, tackle daily challenges, live with passion and purpose, and realize all your ambitions. Not merely a collection of good ideas, this book spells out the 64 timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history. Taken together and practiced every day, these principles will transform your life beyond your wildest dreams!

Worth Every Penny: How to Charge What You’re Worth When Everyone Else is Discounting by Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck

“There’s a radically different way to run a small business, one in which the owners focus on offering specialized products and over-the-top customer service—not on matching the prices of their competition. Worth Every Penny encourages business owners to use a different business model, one that is designed to maximize their advantages over the big-box stores and other discounting competitors.They’ll learn how to:- Use the relationship-based sales skills needed to close every sale and have their clients clamoring for more.”

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

“Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.”

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

“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. 

By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.”

Purple Cow : Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godwin

“Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows – but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. And it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It’s built right in, or it’s not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It’s a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.”

All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World by Seth Godwin

“All marketers tell stories. And if they do it right, we believe them. A good story is where genuine customer satisfaction comes from. It’s the source of profit and it’s the future of your organisation. This book shows how to discover and tell authentic stories that set you and your products or service apart from the competition.”

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

“Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.”

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

I can’t exactly pinpoint why I love this book, but it really drove home my why. I always ask myself before any project or task why. Is this bringing me closer to my why? I remember having a lot of light bulb moments listening to this book on my morning walks. I’d often have to stop and make notes or pause and pounder. I’m very curious to read the second book Find Your Why. I heard it’s even better especially for us struggling with what our why is.

“Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit—those are always results. WHY does your organization exist? WHY does it do the things it does? WHY do customers really buy from one company or another? WHY are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?

Starting with WHY works in big business and small business, in the nonprofit world and in politics. Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And the people who follow them don’t do so because they have to; they follow because they want to.”

Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

“When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it and work to align authority and accountability. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into the vulnerability that’s necessary to do good work.

But daring leadership in a culture that’s defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty requires building courage skills, which are uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the same time we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection and courage to start.”

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz

I love this book because it really puts money making first and let’s be honest we all need to make money to stay in business. It’s time for a refresher course on this, but I still try and follow the simple priciples of profit first.

“Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales – Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren’t always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales – Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows.”

Have A Favorite Book?

Do you have a favorite book for business, self-care, or really anything that isn’t on my list?! I’d love to read it this month and add it to my library! Send me your suggestion here!