I’ve read a lot of business books. Most of them I forgot within a week.
A few of them changed how I think about money, sales, people and my own time. Those are the ones I keep coming back to, and the ones I credit for a big part of what I’ve built.
Here are the 10 books that shaped my mindset and my tactics, and exactly what I took from each one.
Mindset: the books that changed what I believed
1. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
Growing up, I thought wealth came from inheritance or from doing something shady. This book flipped that.
Wealth is something you allow yourself to receive. You have an internal financial thermostat, and your income won’t go past it until your mindset changes.
I started repeating affirmations: I deserve wealth, and money flows to me because I provide value. That shift is what let me raise my prices and take bigger risks.
If you’ve been stuck at the same income for a while, look at the thermostat before you look at tactics. A lot of founders undercharge because, deep down, they don’t think they deserve more.
2. Think and Grow Rich
This is a blueprint for belief, persistence and committing to a goal.
When I dropped out of engineering school, I burned the ships. I reread my goal out loud every morning and visualized the outcome every night. That’s what kept me going through three years with no income.
Three years is a long time to keep showing up with nothing to show for it. Without a written goal I read every day, I would have quit.
3. Awaken the Giant Within
Tony Robbins’ book helped me recover after injuries ended my football career.
The key idea: you can change your emotional state by changing your physiology, your focus and your language. Motivation is something you create, not something you wait for. I’ve leaned on that through failed ads, team members leaving and revenue drops.
Execution: the books that changed how I work
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Two habits mattered most for me.
- Begin with the end in mind. This pushed me to build long term offers, brands and teams, with SOPs and better hiring underneath them.
- Put first things first. I stopped reacting and started planning my week, blocking deep work time, and protecting my health and relationships.
5. Getting Things Done
I was working 14 hour days and burning out. This book gave me a system.
- Capture every task in a trusted system.
- Process email instead of living in it.
- Do a weekly review.
- Batch similar tasks.
- Delegate.
The result was that I stopped being the bottleneck in my own business.
6. The Lean Startup
This taught me to stop building things nobody wants. Test small, fail fast, learn quickly.
I launch minimum viable versions and iterate on lead magnets, offers, pricing and webinar scripts. Real data tells me which ones to double down on and which ones to drop.
People: the books that made me better at sales and leadership
7. How to Win Friends and Influence People
This one is about connection, not manipulation.
I learned to listen, to be genuinely curious, to praise honestly, and to give feedback without killing morale. People remember how you made them feel. That helped me in sales, in managing my team, and in partnerships.
8. SPIN Selling
SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication and Need payoff. It’s a framework for uncovering real pain and guiding the buyer toward the solution themselves.
Instead of telling a prospect what’s wrong, you ask questions that help them see it, and then see what it’s costing them. People believe what they say far more than what you say.
It raised my close rates. I trained my sales teams on it, which gave us consistency and more predictable revenue.
9. The 48 Laws of Power
The first time I read it, it felt dark. Now I read it as a guide to awareness: how power and influence actually work, and how to protect yourself.
Laws like “say less than necessary” and “guard your reputation” made me more strategic and less naive, especially after I’d been burned by people.
Staying ahead: the book that keeps me paranoid
10. The Innovator’s Dilemma
Success breeds complacency. Companies that are winning often lose because they stop questioning what’s working.
Every quarter I challenge myself to find what could disrupt my offers, my pricing and my team structure. I’m willing to break something that works if something better is coming.
It’s uncomfortable to question an offer that’s paying the bills. But if you don’t, someone else will build the thing that replaces it.
How to actually use these books
Reading isn’t the point. Implementing is. Every book on this list mattered because I did something with it the same week.
- Pick one book based on your biggest current problem.
- If it’s belief and income ceilings, start with Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.
- If it’s close rates, read SPIN Selling.
- If you’re drowning in work, read Getting Things Done.
- If you keep building things that don’t sell, read The Lean Startup.
Take one idea and apply it before you open the next book.
The takeaway
Mindset sets your ceiling. Execution systems decide how fast you get there. People skills decide how many others help you. And staying paranoid keeps you from losing it once you have it.
These 10 books cover all four.
Want to know what’s capping your business right now? Take my free 90 Day Ceiling Plan. Answer 18 questions and get a written plan, built on your own numbers, that names the one thing holding you back and what to fix first.
