36 Best-Selling Business Books of All Time you must read in 2024
Discover the ultimate collection of top best-selling business books of all time for managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals to thrive and succeed.
Welcome to an insightful journey through the '36 Best-Selling Business Books of All Time,' written by Muhiuddin Alam on the book recommendations and reviews site, ReadingAndThinking.com.
Over the years as a leading authority on literary expertise, I've created numerous articles on the topics of Business and Investing Books, many of which can be found on this site. I'm also a regular contributor to other websites and publications.
I have received many requests to recommend some of the best-selling business books. In response, I'm pleased to offer my expert recommendations in this article.
So, when I suggest these books, it's because I've read a lot and want to share the best ones with you. I'm all about making your reading experience awesome. Trust in a guide deeply immersed in the literary books and stories. I love books just like you do!
I will recommend top-selling business books of all time in this post, which is based on my in-depth study and extensive research in this field. Some notable recommendations include The Intelligent Investor, Business Adventure, Factfulness, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Silicon Valley.
Best Business Books to Read in 2024
The Best Business Books can help entrepreneurs, freelancers, creatives, and professionals improve their lives at home and at work.
President Truman summed up the gap between most people and the top bosses in one sentence:
"Not all readers are leaders,but all leaders are readers. "
- Warren Buffet spends 5-6 hours reading every day;
- Mark Zuckerberg's goal is to read at least one book every two weeks;
- Mark Cuban (Mark Cuban) read 3 hours a day;
Whenever someone asks Elon Musk how to learn how to make rockets, he will answer: "I read." Don't laugh, it's true, he almost learns rocket science by himself through reading. According to his brother, Musk has to read 2 books every day when he grows up (not so exaggerated now)!
Even if Bill Gates read 50 books every year, his reading notes have been written until 2024.
Bill Gates' blog GatesNotes
Buffett said:
There is nothing higher than reading compound interest!There is nothing higher than reading compound interest! !!There is nothing higher than reading compound interest! ! !!
I found the intersection of the book lists of Buffett, Bill Gates, Musk, and many CEOs, and at the same time cross-referenced the Forbes 2020 book list, the most influential business books rated by Business Insider, and compiled it in the past 10 years.
If you are already a successful entrepreneur or just starting out, this list is for you! We've rounded up 36 of the best business books.
There are 36 eye-opening books. If you keep the frequency of two-week books, you will probably finish reading by the end of 2024.
36 Best-Selling Business Books in the World 2024
This list covers 36 of the very top-selling business books. In this list, I've done something different. I've focused on books that cover foundational business concepts.
Each of the books in this list tackles important issues that come up over and over again in business. So if you're a founder, CEO, investor, or anyone else interested in understanding and resolving common business challenges - this is the reading list for you.
If you are looking for the best business books that will change your life then make sure that you grab these 36 business books immediately because they are bound to change your life forever!
With your help, I've put together this definitive list of the best and most relevant business books for aspiring entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals to read.
If you don’t read anything else, below I will recommend a List of Best-Selling Business Books you must read in 2024.
1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
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Why read: Buffett’s recommendation word- " My financial life has changed due to the purchase of (this book) ".
Value investing is often heard, right? This was proposed in 1949 by Benjamin Graham, the greatest investment consultant of the 20th century, and the author of this book. It inspired and influenced global business leaders, including Buffett and Duan Yongping.
The "value investing" philosophy protects investors from substantial mistakes and teaches them to develop long-term strategies. The book is called the "Stock Market Bible".
2. Business Adventure by John Brooks
12 Classic Stories from Wall Street
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Why you read: "Best Business Book" by Buffett + Bill Gates.
Bill Gates wrote in his blog Gatesnotes that Buffett not only recommended this book as his "favorite business book", but also provided his own book review notes for Gates' reference.
Gates himself said that it has been more than 40 years since "Business Adventure" was first released, but it is still the best business book he has ever read.
3. Factfulness by Hans Rosling
Reverse Ten Intuitive Mistakes and Find Things Better Than You Think
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Why read: Gates thinks the essential guide to thinking clearly about the world
When asked some questions, how many of the global population are in poverty? Why is the global population increasing? Many times, we get the wrong answer systematically.
"True" provides a new explanation for this happening and outlines ten intuitions that distort our views.
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
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Why read: One of the most enlightening and influential books ever, which changed the president and tens of millions of CEOs.
"Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" starts with the premise: the way we experience the world is based entirely on our cognition; in order to change ourselves, we must first change our views.
This book details seven habits that successful people use to change their minds and control their destinies.
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
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Why read: Gather the top human wisdom and tell the history of modern science in popular language.
From Buffett's book list. Drawing on the wisdom of top archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, the author uses humor and plain language to tell many stories from the Big Bang to the development of human civilization.
6. Guerrilla Multilevel Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
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Why read: Finding customers in an "eclectic" way will completely change the marketing strategy of small business owners.
This book is one of the most comprehensive guides on marketing ever, combining a new marketing philosophy with practical strategies designed for this era.
If you have been working hard to create a successful marketing campaign, then it will provide a mindset shift.
7. Silicon Valley by Christoph Keese
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Why read: Stop using outdated management concepts and tools.
The author explains: “Today, most companies are operating on the basis of outdated traditional' management systems. Even if companies quickly adopt the latest management tools and technologies, problems may persist because of the depth of these upgrades. Not enough.”
In these Silicon Valley companies, the author discovered very different management principles and integrated them with practice: dynamic capabilities, ever-changing organization, and people-oriented approach: "push door culture", "trial and error culture", "engineer culture", etc.
8. No Rules: Netflix and Reshaping Culture by Reed Hastings
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Why read: Use no rules to define the principles of management and leadership in the 21st century.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer follow more irregular rules for management: "Remove control", "Maximize talent density," and "Maximize frank". Whether you are a start-up company or a mature enterprise, you will completely subvert your management philosophy in the last century.
9. High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil
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Why read it: An encyclopedia of startup CEOs, a practical guide to specific issues.
The author established a mobile team at Google, and later co-founded and ran Mixer Labs with others until he sold it to Twitter, where he served as the company's vice president of strategy for two and a half years.
This book has received praise from many CEOs and is a practical guide on how to build a leadership team and expand your business.
10. Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
Cracking the Code of Human-Computer Coexistence
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Why read: From now to the future, no company will be able to bypass AI. Understanding AI is as important as understanding yourself.
Recommended by Musk and 3 Turing Award winners. The book details the way AI exists in today's world, its problems, and how to rebuild it.
"Everything that civilization provides is the product of our intelligence. Controlling intelligence that is much stronger than us will be the biggest event in human history."
11. Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim
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Why read: Why do you have to swim naked in the Red Sea?
The cruel competition will only cause competitors to compete for shrinking profits and turn the environment into a bloody red sea. Based on the research of 150 strategic initiatives (over 100 years spanning 30 industries),
the author believes that lasting success does not come from the confrontation with competitors but from the creation of "blue ocean" opportunities—entering immature new market growth space.
12. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
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Why read: If you let a world-renowned CMO vote for your favorite brand, it must be Nike to win. This book is why Nike is Nike.
The memoirs of Nike founder Phil Knight: How to quickly rise from a small, fearless startup to one of the most famous brands in the world.
This story is full of problems, limitations, and failures, but Phil Knight overcomes these obstacles with impeccable passion. The source of energy and inspiration for anyone who wants to start a business!
13. Business Outsider by William N. Thorndike
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Why read: What is a successful CEO? The Nobel Prize winner gives you the answer.
What is the CEO? Most people will think of a familiar definition: "Experienced managers with deep industry expertise." You may also think of the personality charm, superb communication skills, and confident management style of some well-known CEOs.
But when you manage an organization, what really matters? What is the hallmark of outstanding CEO performance?
14. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
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Why read: Chairman Mao said... I won’t go into details for now.
Written in the 6th century BC, it is still widely used in corporate strategy by Chinese and foreigners.
15. Daring Greatly: Subvert your inner fragility by Brene Brown
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Why read: We are afraid of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure because it makes us feel vulnerable. How to face vulnerability correctly?
Based on 12 years of pioneering research, Dr. Brin Brown eliminated the notion that vulnerability is a weakness and believes that this is actually our most accurate measure of courage.
This book presents a transformative new vision for our leadership, love, work, parents, and education. It teaches us the power of vulnerability.
16. Good to Great by Jim Collins
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Why read: How to change from a good company to a great company.
If your business is not bad, or even good, then you will learn the next step. In the book, many companies of the same kind are studied, some have grown so fast and some have stagnated in the same period.
This book discusses the type of leadership needed to make the leap from good to great, the importance of discipline to succeed, and more.
17. Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen
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Why read: What are the innate advantages that small companies can use to defeat large companies.
A must-read book for anyone considering starting a company. There are many useful suggestions on why small companies have inherent advantages over large competitors.
Through real-life examples, the strategy that may effectively enter the market is explained again.
18. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
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Why read it: A basic book of classical economics, Musk suggests reading it together with Marx’s Capital.
Describes how to build national wealth, covering a wide range of topics such as the division of labor, productivity, and free markets.
19. Deep Work by Cal Newport
How to Use Every Bit of Brain Power Effectively
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Why read: How to stay focused in a world of information explosion.
In a distracting world, provide various strategies to enhance your ability to work deeply and attentively. Most people have to fight dozens of interference forces every day.
It's easy to get caught up in the cycle of Weibo, work news, and work until the end of the day and find that nothing has been done. If you want to increase efficiency in the new year, this is one of the most suitable business books.
20. Emotional Intelligence (Why EQ is More Important than IQ) by Daniel Goleman
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Why read: Building emotional intelligence is one of the best ways to increase business success.
If you want to promote personal development and business development, this book is a must-read! "Emotional Intelligence" explains the five core skills that make up emotional intelligence and shows how they determine our success in relationships, work (business), and even physical health.
This book explores the neuroscience and psychology behind emotional intelligence, including human growth potential at any age.
21. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
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Why read: When 12-year-old Musk asked about the meaning of being alive, this book gave him a positive inspiration. Moreover, cyberpunk is so hot, that you should always know its source.
Musk: "I then read the "Galactic Traveler's Guide", which I think is very positive. It highlights an important point, which is that many times questions are harder than answers.
And if you can express them correctly, then The answer is simple. So to the extent, we can better understand the universe, we can better know what questions to ask."
22. How to Win Friends & Influence People
Book Review: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
This book became a household name more than ten years ago, and there were always recommendations in the mail-order book advertisements in the middle of the best-selling "Reader" magazine. I have just graduated from high school and have not yet entered society. The so-called social interaction is only in the single relationship of classmates.
The family also treats us as children. Any ignorant words and deeds are tolerated. People who like it will be relieved from each other. Those who do not like it. People stay away. "The Weakness of Human Nature" was read as a collection of short stories, and there was not much difference between my effectiveness and "Story Club" at that time.
After entering society after work, no one is on an island. Effective communication skills are so important. There are many people you should let go of your prejudices and cooperate with them, or you need to win the favor of the other party in the process of sales.
As a superior, you need to guide employees. As a subordinate, sometimes you need to motivate the leader. 80% of the effect of communication is the emotion in the communication process, and 20% is the content of the communication. This book guides that 80%.
To sum up, I feel that this book is still worth reading, and some chapters can be reviewed repeatedly. Although the author is based on the Western thinking environment, there may be some methods that are not suitable for Eastern culture, but I believe that the principles are the same.
Look for another way of dealing with others in our most accustomed and self-behavior styles, integrating the actual situation and specific occasions, and making others willing and willing to accept themselves sincerely and skillfully. After all, as a gregarious species, we often need external affirmation and cooperation.
23. The One Thing
Book Review: The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
This book is easy to read. The language is too simple and the logic is not rigorous enough. Such a book can cater to the taste of the general public. The author of the book is not a scholar, so the language organization is not as rigorous as an academic paper.
But there are three very interesting pictures, which I think are more thought-provoking. In fact, we all understand the truth, but expressing it more intuitively can deepen the impression and comprehend more deeply.
One image expresses a thousand words.
Picture 1: Mediocre We are often prone to fall into a "normal day", that is, spend a lot of time on other unimportant things, so it is easy to feel empty and full at the end of the day. But if we can consciously exercise ourselves to achieve an "efficient day", that is, we consciously spend time on the most important things. The result of expressing our day in such a pie chart is worthy of reflection, reflecting on how much of the pie your most important things account for.
Picture 2: Be a responsible person. In the era of popular self-discipline, everyone said that self-discipline is the key to success in life. But I don’t think it’s accurate enough. I think self-discipline is just a basis. If you can’t restrain yourself to resist other temptations when you are doing anything, then this matter is not worth mentioning in the first place.
I think the more important factor is to be responsible. Responsible for your own choices, responsible for your own plans, if you encounter anything, you can ask yourself: "This is the end, what can I do?"
Figure 3: Many people believe in talent and innate IQ and EQ. I think it is an excuse that people give themselves not to work hard or they think that they can't do it and others can't do it. Setting limits on yourself is probably the difference between an ordinary life and a creative life. A purposeful life, and a pursuit to challenge, this life will not be in vain.
The subject of this book is a reminder for me, a typical modern busy person. The typical modern busy person is to put himself in a state of multitasking forever, wishing to conjure up several things like Monkey King. This is why the dream is too big to cause trouble.
It’s a good thing to have a big dream, but if several things are done at the same time, the result is often that the quality is not good, either at the same time or everything is not done ideally. I will never trust the bullshit of multitasking anymore.
Just focus on one thing right now, even if you admit that you are incapable of taking care of other things. To complete one thing with quality.
24. The E-Myth Revisited
Book Review: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
I just finished reading "Those Things You Must Go Through in Entrepreneurship". I think this is a good book that every technician with entrepreneurial dreams must read.
Starting from the entrepreneurial impulse that professionals are particularly prone to, it brings out the three identities that people who want to start a business must shoulder: entrepreneur, manager, and professional. These three identities complement each other, but they are separate.
The non-acceptance of each other leads to the dilemma of professionals being unable to successfully transform from professionals to managers and ultimately ends up in entrepreneurial failure. The second half of this book is to tell professionals how to build their own businesses to build an efficient small business.
If you don't know anything about entrepreneurship, but you have entrepreneurial ideas, this book may be your best choice. Although it is not too advanced knowledge, it is basic common sense. There are cases, opinions, and arguments that are very clear.
The author said that entrepreneurs, managers, and professionals all interact at the same time, and no one can do without each other. Give a simple example, ignoring other complex objective conditions. Just like the relationship between the emperor (entrepreneur) and marshal (manager) and soldiers (professionals).
The emperor decides the country's development strategy, and the need for development requires the expansion of the territory. When the emperor decided to develop the north, this dream could only be realized by the marshal. At this time, the marshal needs to lead the army all the way north but to attack the city, you need soldiers to die.
25. Company of One
Book Review: Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business by Paul Jarvis
Core content: In fact, a company does not need to be bigger and stronger. It is also very good to be a small one-person company. For example, the author's own company, and some other companies that the author knows about. How to do it.
The core is to find areas where big companies are not good at doing well and do personal-to-personal services. Let customers feel the warmth of humanity and pay happily. For example, be more caring, use education instead of promotion, build more trusting relationships with customers and use more technological tools to improve work efficiency.
Finally, there are some practical suggestions, such as finding a lawyer, registering a company, finding an accountant, etc.
Evaluation: The author is obviously not good at writing books (after all, he dropped out of school at 19 to work). The content is messy. There are some interesting things worth referring to.
But the core is actually those: first clarify what services you can provide, build trust with people, teach others for free, build your own professional image, build social capital, and then find a way to acquire a customer...
A few more, and then more through personal trust relationships to expand customers, and to maintain their existing customers, it is the general knowledge of these small business operations, which is still useful for people who don’t know.
What is lacking are three points:
- How to do the specific work (the author assumes that this is the professional skills of the reader),
- How to convert customers/negotiations/pricing (potential customers will not take the initiative to pay for themselves),
- Encounter How to deal with the problem (small personal companies are most likely to encounter all kinds of bad things and bad customers).
Without saying these core and most practical things, readers will find it difficult to build a one-man company on their own. But maybe it’s because the author is a Canadian with a larger heart, and the surrounding customers are also more kind.
26. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Book Review: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
After reading the entire book, I reviewed that the contents of the book should belong to a management book, and to be precise, it is entrepreneurial. Management skills and details in the development process of a large-scale company.
From this point of view, it is highly recommended that entrepreneurs whose company's products are on the right track read this book. Although the domestic and foreign environments are different, most of the techniques solve common human problems and are not related to the environment.
I don't know when I started talking about entrepreneurial topics around me gradually. What used to be a dense white-collar area has gradually become a preparation area for career transformation-this can also be regarded as a warning signal of the career ceiling.
Professionals who have accumulated a lot of work experience and professional knowledge, in order to avoid the trap of "the other's law" or the butcher of layoffs, began to consider the possibility of using their professional experience and contacts to work hard on their own.
Of course, a considerable part of this group of entrepreneurs is embracing big dreams and passions and embarking on a thorny road with an unpredictable future.
While most entrepreneurial books talk about how to do the right thing and don’t mess it up, Ben Horowitz will also tell you: What should you do when things are messed up, this is this book The core value of the book lies.
In addition, a large part of the content in the book is related to human resources issues. I personally think that a large part of the content is related to common sense issues in human resources, such as whether to recruit employees from a friend’s company, why one-on-one conversations, etc?
Wait. If you want to learn this aspect, you can look at professional books on human resources, which are more thorough and have more skills than this one. If someone wants to practice, he must try dialectical thinking.
27. Influence
Book Review: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
There is something worth thinking about in life, and we also need to think about it. To be an independent-minded person, do not fall into the trap set by the caring people in life.
I feel that the switch of thinking should be activated from the moment I have direct contact with people who are not in a close and friendly relationship. We don't think too much about others, but please allow us to be as geographical as possible.
However, friendly and intimate relationships are often used by others. This does not mean that we are always in a crisis-ridden environment, but not believing others may avoid more mistakes.
After reading many books on behavioral psychology and social psychology, this time I re-read the various examples and experiments listed in the book. Psychological factors are well understood, and I feel that I have narrowed the distance between Cialdini and the time when Cialdini wrote this book.
A good book is so awesome. You know the realm of the author, but you can only get closer to the realm of the author when you write the book by enriching your experience and knowledge and rereading it over and over again.
There are many mixed points in the book. For example, "occupying scarce resources" and "competing for scarce resources" are different. The former is for profit, and the latter is for satisfying psychological needs.
So the author is wrong to say that "we buy things for practicality, not for possession." It should be that both ingredients are available, but we should usually pay more attention to the former (practical value).
28. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Book Review: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
A book like this that has obvious themes and tells the reader a reason and a method are usually divided into two parts. The first part is what the result is to be achieved and why it is to be achieved. The second part is how to achieve the above results, and why to achieve this.
For example, the first part of this book stated that under today's uncertain market conditions, entrepreneurship should learn from the ideas of lean production to achieve the fastest entrepreneurial success with the least waste. Why do you want to achieve such a result, because failure is frustrating, failure is a waste of resources.
The second part of this book is usually the most valuable part of the book. Teaching people how to do it is always more difficult than just telling the truth. We often tell children to play fewer online games and read more. But how can it be done? Few people propose practical methods.
The book's performance at this key point is quite satisfactory, not bad or brilliant. How can we achieve lean entrepreneurship? The main theme is gradual progress, small batch production, and continuous revision, similar to PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action).
I looked around, and it seems that the people around you are doing this. Whoever is determined to win from the beginning, mass production, success or failure depends on whether the initial bet is right or not.
So I said that this book just describes the process that everyone has done. And because the author is from the software industry, the examples cited are basically software entrepreneurship. The other non-software innovations or entrepreneurship are a bit vague and provide little reference value.
29. Outliers
Book Review: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is a good book writer and journalist. I think he has written three books in total: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. The common feature of these three books is that one is more popular than one, and it becomes a hot topic as soon as it comes out.
In the book Outliers, the public library in our small town (with a population of less than 100,000) bought 8 copies at one time. Because it was too popular, it was only available for one week (usually three weeks for books), but it was over.
There are still twenty or thirty people waiting in line for two months. The book reviews of this book are overwhelming. Even Amazon launched the Kindle 2 a few days ago and used it as a background photo.
Like every book written by a reporter, the views in this book are not new, not scientific breakthroughs or academic progress. Reporters are powerful, and for ordinary people who don’t read and think often, their views are very new.
Having said these words, what I want to say next is that this book is very valuable. Its greatest value is to get rid of ordinary people's superstition of "successful people".
The so-called "outliers" are those individuals in the statistical sample who deviate too far from the average, that is, those who are not a little bit stronger than the average person, but are so strong that you feel that they are not the same as you.
Why are they so awesome? Superstitious thinking is that they are "The ONE". We can see this kind of thinking repeatedly in Hollywood movies: they may have been bitten by weird spiders and changed their DNA, they are more likely to be born with talents or are the destiny of the prophecy. In short, their success is because they are different.
The point of Outlier's book is that successful people are actually ordinary people, heroes created by the times.
30. Tools of Titans
Book Review: Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss
Tools of Titans is the work of Tim Ferriss, a famous American best-selling author. Some people call this book the Poor Charlie's Book of the 21st Century. This book is an interview. It records the interviews with elites from all walks of life since Tim started podcasting (selected a part).
The book is divided into three major parts, namely Health, Wealth, and Wisdom. Each part focuses on interviews with major players in related fields. Sometimes Tim will cross-reference the content mentioned in other interviews. Other than that, the entire book does not have a complete structure.
Each interview is connected with questions, recording the dialogue between the questioner and the interviewee. Questions are similar to What secrets do you have, what books do you like, and what advice do you have for young people?
The disadvantage of this book is that personalized questions do not account for much, although the answers are very personalized. But Tim himself is also a very smart person (it can be said that he is a personal efficiency master, graduated from Preston, and is an investor, writer, and consultant for Facebook, Uber, and other companies.
Tim himself is also a very worthy learning object, but just I’m not going to start here, you can check out his TED talk: Fearless, Unending Learning)
I often practiced by myself, practiced many suggestions in the book, and added my own explanations to some suggestions, so it’s a little bit compared to general interviews. It has a reference value and also reduces the difficulty of reading. The shortcomings are also obvious.
Many suggestions still lack context (derivation process), so they have no deep experience after reading them. The structure of the whole book is very loose, and it does not summarize some common features that everyone has value. After all, many suggestions have their scope of application.
Personally, I think it can be used as reading material in my spare time. I can read a short section at any time. There is no need to read it all at once. In fact, reading it all at once has no effect.
There are a lot of books on this kind of life experience and advice. In comparison, this one may not have that high priority. For example, the "Principles" of the founder of Bridgewater were also published some time ago. Obviously, from the perspective of length, that book can clarify the author's philosophy of life and its related context more clearly and carefully.
This book is more suitable for "Mind-Blowing", introducing some points that make you "wow", but don't be overly obsessed with it. No matter how much reason you listen to (in fact, we can get this kind of reasoning everywhere), you can't choose the right advice and repeat it day by day. It is still difficult to live a life if you persist in practice.
PS: Regarding each interview, if you are really interested in the interviewee, I suggest you listen to the complete episode of Tim Ferriss Show interviewed by the interviewee, and then search for the interviewee For other information, refer to each other, and perhaps have a deeper understanding of some points of view. Google is your best friend.
31. The Power of Broke
Book Review: The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage by Daymond John & Daniel Paisner
In the book, the social network celebrity Acacia chooses to endorse clothes and activities that match his personality; General Mills distributes free oatmeal bars in some scenic spots to promote the brand of Natural Canyon; Under Armour founder Kevin Planck designed more A T-shirt suitable for athletes, but sponsors may not be easy to understand at the beginning; in order to participate in the skateboarding competition (eleven years old), skateboarder Rob Daedek allowed ten people to buy tickets for free, observe others, and analyze the people he admired.
Ideas and practices; application developer Christopher Gray developed software to increase the sales of college students' scholarship information inquiry and so on.
In the process of achieving the goal, each step must proceed from reality to ensure that the goal is visible. Although the goals will continue to change with the development of oneself and your business, to achieve the goals, you have to have no distractions.
In fact, multiple goals should be set. The Coca-Cola Company only sold 25 bottles of Coke in the first year after its establishment. 97% of entrepreneurs who gave up halfway became employees of 3% of entrepreneurs who did not give up.
At the end of the book, the author concludes that the principle of the Jedi counterattack force includes: Using all available resources but don't expect to integrate these resources at one time, and it is impossible to function automatically.
This is impossible. Stay true to yourself. Learn (and accept) the power of optimization. Maximize the role of time, energy, action, opportunity cost, and capital. When solving other people's problems or filling vacancies in the market, additional benefits will be obtained. No matter what you do, you must be full of enthusiasm and have clear goals.
If you don’t believe in yourself, your products, services, and your business, you can’t expect others to believe in you. Take the time to understand and appreciate everyone you meet on the road to success, including investors, distributors, suppliers, potential buyers, or customers, and show that you have a deep understanding of their perspective and are willing to stand in their perspective Look at the problem. Take a long-term view.
Find the right way to support the vision with logic, data, and realistic predictions. Wishful thinking can hinder progress and even collapse. Let the desire for success become a natural part of thinking.
32. Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Book Review: Zero to One: Notes on Start-Ups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
Recently, the book "From 0 to 1" has been very popular in the Internet circle. I will also talk to you about some thoughts after reading this book. "From 0 to 1" is a book about his entrepreneurial journey and experience written by "the godfather of Silicon Valley investment" Peter Thiel. This elder brother is also the founder of Paypal and the first external investor in Facebook.
After being sold to eBay in 2002, most of PayPal's key employees have left, but they still maintain close contact. They even gave their group a name-"Paypal Gang".
The book "Zero to One" is a typical new generation of Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial thinking. It is also a masterpiece of the Paypal gang's thinking. The difference is that "Zero to One" emphasizes ZERO TO ONE more and emphasizes innovation from scratch. I am a believer in this kind of thinking.
We often put all our energy into competition in order to defeat our opponents, for credits at school, and for promotion at work. Can't generate excess income, if you can't win quickly, it will bring endless consumption of value. Our value is not to defeat the opponent at all. If we focus on defeating the opponent, then how can we have time to think of a better idea to develop?
Therefore, if you can’t defeat your opponents, then join forces with your opponents. If you foresee fierce competition, then turn around, stand alone, and build a monopolistic world.
This world is not completely fair, the world has secrets. If you fantasize that you can get the most value with blind efforts, then you are not working hard enough. Hard work that doesn't care about anything is not hard work. Real hard work is trying to discover the secrets of the world and use them to achieve one's goals.
The excerpts are as follows:
- Bold attempts are better than mediocrity and conservative
- Bad plans are better than no plans
- It is difficult to obtain excessive profits in a competitive market, and a monopoly is possible
- Marketing and products are equally important
The purpose of being a business is not to defeat all Your opponents, if you focus on defeating your opponent, then how can you have time to think of a better idea to develop.
In fact, most people in modern society should have heard of it: Progress without a plan is called "evolution." Darwin wrote: Even if life is not prepared, it will "evolve" by itself. Each life is just the result of the random mutation of certain organisms, and the best version will win in the end.
We often think that competition is the essence of business, and we even focus all our energy on competition in order to defeat our opponents. However, if we cannot quickly win the competition, it will only lead to the consumption of value, rather than the creation of value. If you can't beat your opponents, you join forces. For example, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk created Paypal.
Only find the best, because the best produces more value. The world is disproportionate.
33. The Compound Effect
Book Review: The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy
Reading the title of the book at first thought it was an academic book, but later found out it was a book in the category of personal development.
The reason for this name is to encourage you to only do a little bit more hard work every day, and practice a few personal development skills. As time goes by, there will be earth-shaking changes.
Two points that are more impressive, one is what Aristotle said We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Although I have known this sentence for a long time, refreshing it in my memory is of great benefit.
Another point is that the author mentioned the importance of beyond expectation, for example, when preparing for a speech is more adequate than expected, and the clothes you wear when attending certain occasions are more delicate than appropriate. These things may not need to pay much, but the benefits brought by them are huge in the long run.
The author also cited Jobs one more thing as an example. The content of One More Thing itself may not be very exciting, but the emergence of one more thing itself stimulates the live audience is huge, and this style has become an iconic style of Jobs itself, and in turn, It also promoted further extension of the influence of his personal charm.
Think about it, sometimes I often feel that I am constantly underperforming but I can’t figure out what went wrong. Sometimes because of my personality or other reasons, I always choose a low-key style, which may invisibly make me lose my expression.
There are many opportunities for value, a little less, and it doesn’t make much difference, but there will be a world of difference in what others see and what they think about you. How should I say, keep working hard to improve?
34. The 4-Hour WorkWeek
Book Review: The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
When I first saw this book, it was on the bestseller recommendation counter in a bookstore. It was not very conspicuous, but when I looked at the cover, I knew it was a bestseller because most of the bestsellers were printed in this way.
Ranked No. 1. Seeing that it has been published in many languages, I hesitated, went home, and checked the catalog and general introduction of the book on the Internet, so I couldn't wait to buy the book.
Don't be fooled by the title of the book. It does not make us lazy, nor does it tell us about the new work system, it just tells us a fact.
The author of the book, Tim, is a very charming person, he is only 30 years old, can speak multiple languages, and is a champion of martial arts and dance international competitions. These honors look very dazzling, but when you read this book, you will know how he got there. He even told you the method in the book (any so-called expert in a certain industry).
The book is divided into four parts: D-positioning, E-simplification, A-automatic control, and L-liberation. This book is worthy of my recommendation and sharing, not because of the clever combination and meaning of these letters, but: because we know that reading inspirational books generally depends on foreign countries because foreign authors write books and generally tell you the concept or It is something written into your subconscious mind.
There are no implementation rules, but it will give you potential motivation, and many domestic inspirational books are dogmatic, only telling you the rules, how to be a person, not to be, you follow his rules There is little motivation to do it.
The reason why I was attracted by "The 4-Hour Work Week" is that the author has been to China and he effectively combined Chinese and Western cultures and wrote this book that not only tells us motivation but also teaches us How to implement such a practical manual.
After reading the complete book, I feel:
- I don’t have to wait until I retire to enjoy a better life.
- Packing up the house today, I found that 80% of the plastic bags I collected might not be used for a lifetime, so I threw them away.
- I keep reminding myself when I work, do these things I am doing make sense to me? So it was a very simple but efficient week.
- Thank you, TIM for teaching me a quick reading in the book. I want to apply this method to more scopes.
After reading this book, 13 pages have been nested by me, and each page contains useful materials and information for me. I think that in addition to thanking the author, we must also thank the Internet. If it were not for this era of advanced Internet and information, it would be difficult for us to work four hours a week and enjoy the joy of traveling.
Some of the skills learned in this book can be used for life. My next plan is to learn how he learned so many languages in 3-6 months on Tim's blog. I believe I am not as stupid as him, haha.
35. The Great Crash 1929
Book Review: The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
This is a concise but insightful historical work that has been reprinted since its first edition. What's the reason? Galbraith himself wrote in 1997: "Every time it is about to stop printing, a speculative bubble...will arouse people's interest in this period of history. This is an important case of the ups and downs of the modern economy."
Reading history to make people wise is not empty talk. The main reason why I like to watch financial history works recently is that I can always see the shadow of reality. When an avalanche occurs, no snowflake is innocent, and the government, media, practitioners, and investors cannot get rid of their original sins after the disaster. The past is, the present is, and the future is still.
Countless masters, such as Graham and Fisher, fell into the sand during the Great Depression. Fisher was the hardest hit in this crisis. Before the crisis, he was confident in the strong economic fundamentals of the United States and determined to see more. What is more interesting is that in the late 1920s, the United States passed a prohibition on alcohol for workers, which imposed restrictions on workers drinking at work.
This was interpreted by Fisher to increase the productivity of American workers and make them more worthwhile. Trust will further stimulate economic development. The bull market is easy to confuse people.
Although we cannot deny Fisher's inference, a small prohibition has little effect on the economies that have completed the electrified industrial revolution, and his hypothesis is invalid. This example also reflects what we often say: any good news in a bull market is good.
The financing leveraged transactions promoted by securities brokers in 1929 were also impressive. The 15-year mad bull market of the Big A was driven by leveraged funds. At that time, I thought it was the new normal. Needless to say, the final result.
If you can read so many classic investment history works during the last bull market, I believe that the ability to identify risks will be greatly improved. But it is precisely that so many people do not pay attention to learning these things that have led to the continuous cycle of history and created opportunities for those who are interested.
Of course, there are many scenes in the book that we can see today: the media that advocates the bull market (here we have to praise the "New York Times", which sang badly in 1929), the leader who added fuel to the bull market (Hoover), and there are investors who are eager to get rich overnight (there is a sentence in the book, "Although Americans have the innocent qualities that he praises, at the same time they also exposed the desire to get rich quickly at the cost of the smallest effort", gave me certain Enlightenment).
36. Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?
Book Review: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround by Louis. V. Gerstner
I heard of Gerstner’s "Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance" a long time ago and have always wanted to read it. This time I finally realized my wish. After reading it, I feel really good. People with rich experience in writing books have a big advantage.
It lies in the truth, and the insights are also very persuasive. The giant company that went downhill when Guo Shi was incorporated into the head of IBM, that is, the "elephant", people dare not imagine that it will come back to life, but Gerstner did it.
He vigorously promoted reforms and successfully realized the transformation of IBM. From the hardware provider to the service provider. From Gerstner’s corporate management practices, we can also find some useful experience in administrative system reforms, such as performance evaluation and salary system reforms, and measures taken by IBM to prevent each business unit from doing things independently, such as overall and partially the achievements of these departments are used to evaluate the heads of these departments.
That is to say, if the heads of these departments want to be promoted and raise their salaries, they must not only make achievements in their own departments but also help the overall development, which depends on sacrificing overall interests. Actions to achieve local benefits will definitely be punished, not rewarded.
Regardless of the contribution to the whole, by drawing on the experience of IBM, it is entirely possible to introduce their contribution to the development of higher levels when assessing the performance of local officials, which may avoid the occurrence of local protectionism and short-term behavior.
Conclusion of Top Best-Selling Business Books of All Time You Must Read in 2024
Whether you are searching to make investments in a new employer or are searching for strategies to take your commercial enterprise to new tiers of growth, the excellent commercial enterprise best-selling business books in history are positive to furnish you with some treasured recommendations and instructions that may want to show help to your universal success.
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About Muhiuddin Alam
Muhiuddin Alam is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ReadingAndThinking.com. He serves as a consistent contributor to various websites and publications, including Medium, Quora, Reddit, Linkedin, Substack, Vocal, Flipboard, and Amazon KDP. Alam personally read numerous books and, for the past 10 years, has been providing book recommendations and reviews. Find Me: About Me & Google Knowledge Panel.
