If you are a creator of any kind (a solopreneur, a writer, an artist, etc.), I assume you work alone most of the time and need a kick of motivation, every now and then, to keep you going.
Creating something that needs courage – because you’re taking a path in the unknown – and stamina – because it doesn’t work right away – is a choice you’ve made for yourself because you want something better for yourself and your loved ones. You probably don’t want to work doing something you don’t care about for the rest of your life, and on top of it, pinching every penny.
A way to expand your realms of possibility is to seek inspiration from those who’ve done it before you and foremost, have a perception of life, which is at the complete opposite of what we’ve been trained to believe.
In this article, I’ll share with you my favorite books of the self-development world, about entrepreneurship, money, creativity, and more generally, how to tweak your mindset.
Of course, I know that they are many more of them, but those are the ones that had the deepest impact on me and, as a bonus, are enjoyable to read (and listen to). In fact, they are so good, that I’ve re-read (and re-listened) to most of them – and I don’t like redundancy.
You’ll notice that some books are targeting a female audience specifically, but even if you’re not a woman, the teachings of those books are priceless.
Maybe you’ve heard of them already and never took the time to read them. So, here they are, a list of 18 books to expand your realms of possibility and make you feel better right away – And yes, those are affiliate links.
Entrepreneurship (and Career)
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
Most aspiring entrepreneurs (solopreneurs) are not thought of how business works. They mostly behave like employees in their own business instead of working on the business. And it’s not easy to grasp when you start. Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons why most entrepreneurs get overwhelmed and are forced to go out of business pretty quickly.If you start any kind of entrepreneurial journey, you need a system, as soon as you’ve reached a certain revenue – and better, before that.In this book, Gerber shows you how to think strategically about your business and distinguish between what moves the needle the most, and what is a waste of energy.
Mel Robbins’s audiobook in cooperation with Audible:
Work It Out: The New Rules for Women to Get Ahead at Work
“Work it out” is a series of conversations, life coach and motivational speaker, Mel Robbins has with women, who struggle to get ahead in their professional life.You’ll see that it has, almost nothing to do with their skills, and almost everything to do with their mindsets – their self-doubts, the setbacks they experienced, and the traumas they haven’t overcome. In this almost 6-hours audiobook, you’ll get insight on how to change your perspective radically about seemly hopeless situations, and understand, that nothing is set in stone. Even if you think you’re too old, and will never get a chance at having a fulfilling career – whether in the corporate world or as an entrepreneur.
The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth by James Altucher
I don’t know how I could have ignored this brilliant and humble entrepreneur and author for so long, but his books are one of the best you can find when it comes to entrepreneurship, money, and having a good life.”The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth” is a follow-up to his previous book “Choose Yourself!”, which describes ways to make money, especially as an entrepreneur.I didn’t put it in the “money” category because it focuses a lot on topics like networking, training your idea muscles, and finding creative ways to make it as an entrepreneur.James Altucher has failed many times, and yes he has a fascinating story of from rags to rich and rich to rags and an absolutely non-bs and likable approach to talk about all of it.
The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss
Splashy title or not (he did actually extensive research to find the title), Tim Ferriss’ first book (he has a few more) is known amongst entrepreneurs for a reason.If you’ve never come across this type of thinking, congrats! You have a whole new world to discover. Tim Ferriss wrote this book after running a supplement business who drove him on the edge of burnout just before he decided that he needed an extended break to travel the world and reflect on what was going on. The rest is history.In this book, you’ll find the basics on how to systematize and automatize a lot of things, in order to make your life easier. Foremost, this book will teach you how to shift your perspective, expand your realms of possibility and thinking in ways, you’d have never suspected existed before.
Chillpreneur by Denise Duffield-Thomas
Denise Duffield-Thomas has a talent for making her readers feeling that everything is possible and for taking a burden off their shoulders.
She’s is unapologetic and smart, and will tell you in passing, how to build a business you love without working yourself to death. (PS: You’ll still have to work ;-).
In this book, you’ll learn a lot about self-limiting beliefs and will also get concrete tips on how to improve your business.
Money
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki
If there was only one book you should read (I think you should read as many as possible) in order to understand the money mindset and how building wealth actually works, it should be this.Robert Kiyosaki’s book is a classic because it shows through storytelling and concrete examples how we have been trained by society to have an “employee”-mindset – meaning, hoping for the government and employers (or anybody else) to take care of us and hoping that just working hard enough is going to be rewarded at some point.Of course, depending on which corner of the world you live, those parameters might varies. But the point is, that most people don’t understand how wealth is built. And in this book, you’ll get the basics, on how to think of creative ways to live a richer life (foremost richer in purpose).
You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
Jen Sincero not only has a very practical way to tell you how to make things happen, but she’s also a witty and gifted writer. Jen Sincero describes how she has had money struggles her whole life until she was in her forties. Not because she wasn’t smart enough to make money, but because she had massive self-limiting beliefs that were holding her back from having a life she truly desired.If you are at rock bottom or think you are too old to take care of yourself, or if you just want to spend a good time, read Jen Sincero’s book, you won’t regret it. And besides, you’ll learn a ton of valuable lessons.
PS: I’ll also recommend the audiobook (which is way more expansive, but only cost about 10 bucks if you get an audible subscription), since she is also very good at reading her own stuff 😉
Money, A Love Story: Untangle Your Financial Woes and Create the Life You Really Want by Kate Northrup
“Money, A Love Story” is another fantastic book I’ve read recently, written by the charming and smart Kate Northrup.
Kate Northrup is the incarnation of femininity and spirituality. But if you’re expecting a rah-rah self-help book, don’t be mistaken! Northrup is very pragmatical, and the real deal when it comes to business and money.
She has successfully built a network marketing business in her twenties and is currently successful at many things, including authorship and entrepreneurship in the digital business industry.
I wouldn’t recommend an audio version that I haven’t listened to myself, or that is not so pleasant to listen to, but “Money, A Love Story” is also very well narrated by the author herself. To get it at a lower price, here is the link to an Audible subscription.
Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! Release Your Money Blocks and Live a First-Class Life by Denise Duffield-Thomas
Here we go again, Denise Duffield-Thomas…Get Rich, Lucky Bitch! was the second book Denise D.-T. wrote, and it’s also the one that made her famous amongst female entrepreneurs and women who want to be financially independent.It’s as entertaining to read as the title let’s expect, and as smart as “Chillpreneur”.If you have a hard time managing and making money – no matter your gender – , this book will help you widen your perspective and pull off the layers that are hiding your most unconscious self-limiting beliefs.
Creativity
The Artist’s Way. A spiritual path to higher creativity by Julia Cameron
“The Artist’s Way” is a classic and a book that changed everything for me. It changed the way I think. It destroyed deep-rooted hopelessness that had taken over my life and helped me go back to thinking that I could build a future I would actually be excited about.
This book is designed like a 12-week-program where you work not only through your creative blocks but also through the self-limiting beliefs that are preventing you from creating anything – from a book to a life you want.Even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person or an artist, this book will turn things around for the better. And besides, it’s well written.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert needs no introduction since her bestseller, “Eat, Pray, Love.” but “Big Magic” was a hit as well.The book has a lot of similarities with “The Artist’s way” in its approach to see creativity as something that is not sacred and reserved to a chosen few, but a matter of practice. In a nutshell, Gilbert tells you to dedicate yourself to improving your art without expecting it to be perfect, but to focus on producing – and finishing! – more than anything else. If you don’t demand too much from it and keep going, things will start to unfold magically.Gilbert is magic with words, that’s for sure. If you are a creative person (or even if not) and you are in a funk right now, this might be exactly what you need to read.
Life Coaching tips
The Answer: How to take charge of your life and become the person you want to be by Allan & Barbara Pease
Allan and Barbara Pease are serial bestseller authors and they have hold seminars all over the world. Their story is fascinating. They have fulfilled a lot on their bucket list and overcome massive obstacles. In this book, they tell you how to reach goals that seem unrealistic, not only by changing your mindset but by deconstructing every step you need to take in order to achieve them. If you don’t know where to start, this book will help you with the overwhelming. Besides being highly motivational, it will give you a roadmap to living your best life.
The Courage To Be Disliked: How to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
This book is written like an imaginary conversation between a philosopher and a young man, and is inspired by Alfred Adler’s individual psychology.
It doesn’t have chapters but topics you can read through. The book describe an approach at the opposite of Freud’s psychology, which is based on the premise that you are more or less determined by your childhood.
In a nutshell, Alfred Adler’s belief is that we aren’t determined by anything that occurred in the past, but simply by the decisions we make in the present moment. This approach can be seen as inconsiderate but makes a lot of sense. Traumatizing past experiences or not.
You are a badass. How to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life by Jen Sincero
If Jen Sincero would write another book, I would probably buy it right away without even looking at the blurb.
It’s just a delight to read how she pulled herself out of a seemly hopeless situation and how she built a life she desired, going to every self-help seminars she could afford and reading every self-help books she could get her hands on. But foremost, by taking big scary steps like hiring a coach for an – at that time for her unthinkable – amounts of money.Even if you’re happy where you are right now, read it! It’s worth every penny.
Choose yourself by James Altucher
In “Choose Yourself!”, serial entrepreneur and author, James Altucher takes you to his journey from rags to rich, to rich to rags, to rags to rich. This entrepreneur has gone through a lot: 18 business failures, his whole network avoiding him, being on the edge of committing suicide, until he went back to work again and built a company he sold for millions within a few months.Altucher’s work is full of life lessons and wisdom that nobody should miss.
Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
Marie Forleo is a legend amongst digital entrepreneurs.The path that took her from the New York Stock Exchange where she gave her resignation after a while, to get a job at a prestigious magazine, to quit, to get another job at another prestigious magazine, that she also quit, to being a bartender and a part-time life coach, to becoming a fitness and dance trainer, and one of the first Nike’s dance athletes, is impressive!Now Marie Forleo inspires thousands of people online and already had over 50 000 people taking her legendary online business course: B-School. Yes, that’s a lot of cash.If you don’t know her, the time has come that you get inspired by her work.
Take control of your life: How to silence fear and win the mental game
I can’t recommend Mel Robbin’s work enough. Her strength is definitely in how easily and gracefully (and in an entertaining way) she spontaneously coach people.She was the number one female speaker – and maybe still is – and for a good reason. Her insights and spontaneity are contagious and really, really helpful.In this audiobook, she also has conversations with everyday people who desperately need help to take control back, by confronting themselves with their deepest fears.
Kick Ass with Mel Robbins: Life-Changing Advice from the Author of “The 5 Second Rule”
In “Kick-Ass” Mel Robbins also has conversations with people who just don’t know what to do anymore. They are stuck in scary situations like addiction and dealing with past traumas that completely sabotage their careers and private life. If you want to learn how to coach yourself out of a seemly hopeless situation, Mel Robbins is one of the best in the world. You can benefit from each of her audiobooks.There are no written versions for all of her 3 audiobooks, but they’re all worth it. If you want to get a good deal, get yourself an audiobook subscription. You’ll have one free audiobook per month (2 the first month if you have an Amazon Prime account), and every new audiobook you download costs only about 10 bucks instead of 30 or 40. And, of course, you can cancel every month.
That’s all for today. But I guarantee you that every one of those books is worth your time. If you have suggestions yourself, or books you read that you think are totally worth it, please tell me in the comment section below.
Others can benefit from what you already know, and I’d be thrilled to discover new books.Cheers,Martha