I Read 40 Self Improvement Books in the Last Five Years
Here are 11 of my favorites
I took over a business book club online during the pandemic and have kept it running ever since.
We meet every Wednesday at 4pm ET and discuss a couple chapters at a time, breaking a book down into 4-6 weeks usually.
We’ve met authors, changed lives, and made new friends literally all over the world.
I love our format of reading a couple chapters per meeting, because it allows us to put into practice what we have been reading instead of just discussing it all at the end like a typical book club.
I also love how I end up reading around 7-8 books a year with this group. It’s great accountability for finishing a book.
One thing I like about our book club is that I don’t choose the books. The group does. You never know which book will win in the voting process amongst those suggested!
Here are some of the best books that our group loved over the last five years:
Atomic Habits This book has consistently been an absolute winner. A near perfect book, if there were such a thing. It’s come back to our group three different times and every time it has been a game changer. I would recommend anyone reading this once a year.
Company of One One of my personal favorites. Basically emphasizing how staying small is the best thing you can do for your business, your life, your mental health. What if your metric for success was how many days you spent with your family? Or went surfing? Can you create a business that allows you to do that as often as possible?
Building a StoryBrand This one is a fantastic read for anyone who needs to clarify their messaging and tell the story of what they do. Donald Miller takes the reader through the hero’s journey to craft the message of your company and - plot twist - the hero isn’t you.
The Long Game This was a double winner - everyone really enjoyed this book and my friend Dorie Clark wrote it! If you are impatient for success, this book is made for you. So many solid pieces of wisdom here on how to think in terms of years and not just months or weeks.
Miracle Morning A classic pump-you-up self improvement book, but this one instilled some great routines in me that I still keep to this day (journaling, meditation, visualization, etc).
The Art of Gathering This is such a great book and Priya Parker is a fantastic writer. This book examines every aspect of a gathering, from the invite to the goodbye, and makes a strong case as to why it all matters.
Unreasonable Hospitality Will Guidara’s amazing story of bringing a restaurant to number one status in the world. This read was incredibly inspiring, and covers how to build a rock-star team as well as thinking of out of the box ways to surprise and delight your customers.
The Myth of Normal My absolute favorite book from last year. This book rocked me. Consider it Gabor Maté’s pièce de résistance. This book is a perfect and complete thesis describing the connecting between body and the mind. It describes how stress and culture affects us to our very core.
Profit First This book is best read with an accountability partner. It’s a financial system created to ensure you stop bleeding money and start paying yourself more now. There are a lot of moving parts to this one, but once the pieces are implemented, I can already see how this money mindset is radically changing my finances and my life.
Outliers Quite simply: Successful people aren’t born that way; they worked really really hard to get there. All of them.
The E-Myth Revisited This book convinced me that running my business on instincts and feelings is no way to run a business at all. Having systems in place to make every part replicable, easy, and familiar to my clients is the best way. In short: you want to make your business franchisable, so that it can run without you.
What are some books we should read?