EP#42 - The 7 Best Business Books that We Actually Recommend Reading, from Our Combined Twenty Years of Learning

In this episode Luke and I discuss our favourite entrepreneurial books from the last ten years of educating ourselves each in the space. We heavily caveat this episode to say that if you really want to start a business, don't bother reading all or any of these books - better to start actually doing business and get better at that rather than reading the rule book inside and out before getting started. If you are interested in finding out our favourite picks and a summary of what makes them great then this is a good episode for you. If you're too busy and just want the list now, then here it is: 

1. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight - The best solo entrepreneur book and a bit of the inspiration behind the title of this podcast, as Phil Knight pretty much embodies the best aspects of an Adventure Capitalist. Top book, more like a movie than an educational book. 

2. The Snowball - Warren Buffet. Biography of Warren Buffets journey from selling coke and pepsi tops to buying out companies and stripping out their assets and making the last few bucks having fired the entire workforce. That little guy has got some pretty ruthless stories in the vault, but also tells you how you could see business as a functional capital creating machine rather than people's livelihoods. He's currently the 4th richest person on earth so it's packed with value, he's also very straightforward in his advice in general. If you want to learn the fundamentals of value investing this is a good read. 

3. The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman. This is like a cheat sheet for an entire MBA course, good set of theory and principals for business. Very academic and a little bit dry but Alex read this back to back and got a lot of value from it. 

4. Atomic Habits - James Clear. How can you build new productive habits and break bad ones. Worth a read and could spell the difference between building a future you want and shrugging off elements of your personality you'd rather not live with. 

5. Critical Business Skills for Success: the Great Courses. (Audible) This is a 36 hour long lecture series and covers everything from Marketing, Strategy, Operations, Finance and Accounting for people wanting to learn the full suite of what it takes to run a business. Honestly, Alex listened to most of this as he was driving to and from work, in hindsight he should have been taking action at this point and not just theorising all day long. (his words)

6. 4 Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris. It's a classic, if you haven't read this it's worth a quick read. All about how outsourcing can build the fundamentals for a life without work. He's the ultimate work-life balance guru and it's inspiring stuff. 

7. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. An old one with some still very relevant and good advice. 

Enjoy.