Entrepreneurs — the greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young!

Whether you’re a newly minted entrepreneur or you’ve been running a small business for years, it’s never too late to learn something new. As Henry Ford once said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

Whatever challenges you’re facing, chances are, someone else has already been there, done that. And even in this age of digital communication dominated by 140-character tweets and brief blog posts, a great book is still an invaluable tool in your pursuit of lifelong learning.

Below are seven books, in no particular order, that I believe every business owner should read. Most relate directly to business, but some are more personal.

1. | Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way

For readers of “#GIRLBOSS” and viewers of “Shark Tank” aglobal revolution in entrepreneurship is under way, inspiring women to blaze a trail of financial self-reliance and become self-made.Featuring a foreword by Suze Orman.
What does it mean to be self-made? It s not just about having money, but financial empowerment is where it begins. It means getting out of survival mode, where you are one problem away from catastrophe. It means changing your mindset from instant gratification to goal orientation. It means being able to sleep at night without worry. It means being rich in every way: rich in money, rich in family, rich in love, rich in time abundant!
For Nely Galan entrepreneur, TV producer, and real estate mogul helping women to become self-made is a movement and a mission. Galan pulls no punches. She is the straight-talking friend and mentor you ve always wanted, and here she shares valuable, candid, no-nonsense lessons learned on her own path to becoming self-made ( There is no Prince Charming; Think like an immigrant; In your pain is your brand; Don t buy shoes, buy buildings! ). You ll read inspiring stories of women who started and grew businesses out of ingenuity, opportunity, and need. You ll find exercises to help you identify your goals and your strengths. You ll learn tips and tricks for saving money, making money, and finding hidden money that can help jump-start your self-made dreams.
When you become self-made, the change in you inspires change in those around you, because one of the greatest rewards of a self-made life is seeing how the sparks from your personal revolution can light a fire in others. So come, join the Self-Made movement. The revolution starts inside of you!

2. | 5% More: Making Small Changes to Achieve Extraordinary Results

5% More presents a painless route to change, with results that can last a lifetime. Whether you want to boost your health, wealth, or wisdom, this book reveals a key technique that makes it stick. You may already know that breaking big goals into small chunks makes them easier to achieve, but the trick is in making those chunks large enough to be productive, yet small enough to be sustainable. This book shows you how to bring your goals within reach with only five percent more effort. Five percent is almost unnoticeable in terms of effort — but it accrues quickly, with each step boosting the baseline. Increase sales, decrease your marathon time, boost your savings, or master a new skill. Just five percent more can get you where you want to be.

Small changes, small commitments, and small adjustments can lead to very big results. You can accomplish more than you ever thought possible in your business or in your life. This book walks you through the 5% More strategy to help you map your path to the future.

• Accomplish big changes with very small steps
• Make bigger leaps in progress each step of the way
• Break big goals into manageable milestones
• Find a change that you can stick to for the long-term

Mountain climbers don’t conquer Everest on their first time out — attempting to do so would be a tragic failure. No matter what your goal, no matter what your baseline, small, incremental steps set you up for success. 5% More gives you a concrete strategy for realizing your goals and making changes that last.

3. | Unmistakable: Why Only Is Better Than Best

Stop trying to beat everyone else. True success is playing by your own rules, creating work that no one can replicate. Don t be the best, be the “only.”
You re on the conventional path, checking off accomplishments. You might be doing okay by normal standards, but you still feel restless, bored, and limited.
Srinivas Rao gets it. As a new business school graduate, Srinivas s dreams were crushed by a soulless job that demanded only conformity. Sick of struggling to keep his head above water, Srinivas quit his job and took to the waves, pursuing his dream of learning to surf.

He also found the freedom to chart his own course. Interviewing more than five hundred creative people on his Unmistakable Creative podcast was the ultimate education. He heard how guests including Seth Godin, Elle Luna, Tim Ferriss, Simon Sinek, and Danielle LaPorte blazed their own trails. Srinivas blends his own story with theirs to tell you: You can find that courage too. Don t be just one among many be the only. Be unmistakable. Trying to be the best will chain you to others definition of success.

Unmistakable work, on the other hand, could only have been created by one person, so competition is irrelevant. Like Banksy s art or Tim Burton s films, unmistakable work needs no signature and has no precedent.
Whether you re a business owner, an artist, or just someone who wants to leave your mark on the world, “Unmistakable” will inspire you to create your own path and define your own success.”

4. | The First Two Rules of Leadership: Don’t Be Stupid, Don’t Be a Jerk

How can you improve your leadership results beginning right now? “The First Two Rules of Leadership: Don’t be Stupid, Don’t be a Jerk” provides a clear path to increased results and higher job satisfaction for the leader and the people he is leading. Written for the leader who wants to do great things, but is overwhelmed with the complexities of leading, it is a book with a very simple message: think your decisions through and take care of your team.

Written by bestselling author David Cottrell, “The First Two Rules of Leadership: Don’t be Stupid, Don’t be a Jerk” offers tried-and-true leadership strategies that stand the test of time — all of which you can put into practice today to positive results. The principles discussed apply to businesses in every industry, as well as schools, hospitals, churches, and even homes. By following the two rules outlined in the book’s title, you’ll improve morale, decrease turnover, increase your own job satisfaction, and have a whole lot more fun leading. Lead with confidence and class Make better decisions and develop synchronization on your team Coach smart, deal with poor performers, and focus on what’s really important Listen to your team, encourage positive performance, and attack complacency

You can lead your team to achieve extraordinary results! “The First Two Rules of Leadership: Don’t be Stupid, Don’t be a Jerk” gives you the expert tips and tricks you need to treat your team with dignity and respect — so you can all enjoy the benefits of winning with class.

5. | Heads I Win, Tails I Win: Why Smart Investors Fail and How to Tilt the Odds in Your Favor

According to “Wall Street Journal “investing columnist Spencer Jakab, most of us have no idea how much money we re leaving on the table or that the average saver doesn t come anywhere close to earning the average returns touted in those glossy brochures. We re handicapped not only by psychological biases and a fear of missing out, but by an industry with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets and an eye on its own bottom line, not yours.
Unless you re very handy, you probably don t know how to fix your own car or give a family member a decent haircut. But most Americans are expected to be part-time fund managers. With a steady, livable pension check becoming a rarity, we ve been entrusted with our own finances and, for the most part, failed miserably.
Since leaving his job as a top-rated stock analyst to become an investing columnist, Jakab has watched his readers and his family, friends, and colleagues make the same mistakes again and again. He set out to evaluate the typical advice people get, from the clearly risky to the seemingly safe, to figure out where it all goes wrong and how they could do much better.
Blending entertaining stories with some surprising research, Jakab explains

• How a typical saver could have a retirement nest egg twice as large by being cheap and lazy.
• Why investors who put their savings with a high-performing mutual fund manager end up worse off than if they d picked one who has struggled.
• The best way to cash in on your hunch that a recession is looming.
• How people who check their brokerage accounts frequently end up falling behind the market.
• Who isn t nearly as good at investing as the media would have you think.

He also explains why you should never trust a World Cup predicting octopus, why you shouldn t invest in companies with an X or a Z in their names, and what to do if a time traveler offers you economic news from the future.
Whatever your level of expertise, “Heads I Win, Tails I Win “can help you vastly improve your odds of investment success.”

6. | Motivate Yourself: Get the Life You Want, Find Purpose and Achieve Fulfilment

Do you want to feel more productive, more present and more inspired by your own life?

“Motivate Yourself” offers practical strategies to improve your productivity and gives you the know how to create the life you want. Learn how to move past your self-doubt and propel yourself into living your dream.

With practical exercises featured within each chapter, this book will help break those emotional barriers that hold you back and set you on the path to becoming fully engaged and more productive.

Kick start your productivity journey today and: Quieten that negative inner voice that inhibits your personal growth Wake up to the possibility and opportunity of a different way of living Learn how to motivate those around you with productivity at the center of everything you do Challenge yourself to discover who you really are and what you are truly capable of achieving

7. | The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life

Cofounder of the Stanford D school Bernie Roth shows you how the power of design thinking can help you achieve goals you never thought possible.

Did you know that achievement can be learned? As Bernie Roth explains, achievement is a muscle. And once you learn how to flex it, you’ll be able to meet life’s challenges and reach your goals.

Based on a legendary course Roth has taught at Stanford University for several decades, The Achievement Habit employs the remarkable insights that stem from design thinking to help us realize the power we all have within to change our lives for the better. By ridding ourselves of issues that stand in the way of reaching our full potential, we gain the confidence finally to do things we’ve always wanted to do. Combining design thinking, problem-solving, creativity, communication skills, and life adjustments, readers will learn:

• Why trying and doing are two different things
• Why using reasons (excuses), even legitimate ones, to explain one’s behavior is self-defeating
• How to change your self-image into one of a doer and achiever
• How subtle language changes can resolve existential dilemmas and barriers to action
• How to build resiliency by reinforcing what you do rather than what you accomplish
• How to be open to learning from your own experience and from those around you

Our behavior and relationships can be transformed — if we choose to, we can be mindful and control our intentions to create habits that make our lives better. And with this thoughtful book as your guide, you can.

If you liked this and want more:

Do me a solid ❤ Heart it, 💬 comment on it, and/or follow me 😀

Also, if you would like to read more captivating stuff on the topics of entrepreneurship, marketing, social media, leadership, technology, innovation and venture capital via my regular posts then please click ‘Follow’ and feel free to connect via SlideShare, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Please go ahead and ThugStart — that’s my awesome blog! Don’t miss this one please!

P.S. here are my other Articles on Medium.