I never used to be one to read for leisure, and certainly not pleasure. In fact, before the beginning of 2023, I don’t think I’d read a book voluntarily since Year 12 almost a decade ago..! But when I began developing my photography then hobby, into a now thriving business, there were a few PD processes I had to suck up the pride to overcome. One of those was getting back into reading.

Now, I’m naturally a visual learner. I’m a hands-on-doer-er. I personally thrive watching others in process first, before I act on something myself. I know that youtube, and tutorials, and podcasts are all really great ways for me to learn, process, and understand tricky things from understanding a camera’s user manuals, to the process of descaling my coffee machine. Though there’s one thing that all these services don’t have is the ability to doggy-ear corners, and use funky highlighters for annotation.

• Click here to go straight to the first book.
• Click here to see my full list, and where to purchase titles.

Why I prefer the good old fashion, physical book

Despite the wrath I would receive if my Year 12 teacher English teacher found out, I am a huge advocate for the ‘doggy-ear’ method of page annotation [Libby, I’m looking at you, directly in the eyes, and I am apologising profoundly]. If I’m reading a business, self help, fitness/yoga, whatever type book, there’s nothing I find better to locate a great source than doing a good old fashion doggy ear. My books are full of em, and I think yours should be too. On top of that, I use a highlighter when marking up author’s recommendations or references to other sources [or other books they advocate], and a trusty HB pencil for underlining, and commenting, on anything I find interesting.

If you have a book in pristine condition that you absolutely adore, don’t lend it to me. It won’t be returned in the same quality, sorry!!

Maybe you could try a kindle, or audio-books

Digital books like a kindle are also great [though there’s something beautiful about having a full bookshelf with your range of titles], or if you’re going online, audio books are also a great resource becoming much more popular.

Now I don’t own a Kindle, nor listen to audio books, so I can’t vouch for their effectiveness in my learning development personally, and so therefore, I won’t have any further comment on them on this blog [or until I’ve dived into the digital world of book-ing]. What I will do though, is link you to the Amazon and Audible links to these titles [if they have them available] if you are looking for an online alternative.

My bookshelf recommendations:

I wish I had someone telling me the exact titles and order of which books I should read when I first began my educational enlightenment a few years ago. Especially as someone who wasn’t [and still isn’t, though I am getting better] passionate about reading, or really about ‘business’.

So that’s what I’m offering you.

Now, I don’t know where you live, who your local bookstore is, or what your financial situation may be, so I’m going to be using links to all these titles via the cheap, reliable, and super fast provider, Amazon. If you’re on a tight budget and need to use this effective service, Amazon is a great distributor. If you do however want to support locally, I recommend Dymocks as a suitable contender. They have most current titles in, and have always offered to order something in for me when asking!

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1. The Barefoot Investor – By Scott Pape

You’ve definitely heard of this one. And if not heard, have had your parents buy it for you and demand you read it. The cover looks like some culty bareback guide to money enlightenment… And let me tell you – it is. The premise of the book is to teach you about money security and help provide strength and authority in your own control of it as you go. It demands a few weeks/months actions, though if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably going to be like me and action all the steps within 5 days!

The best part is, Scott Pape is Melbourne Australia local. Which means unlike the finance bros of tiktok and instagram, Scott’s advice is local and familiar and holds data and information that is relevant to our living situations here in Aus. He even prints a new edition almost every year with updated statistics from the ATO. That’s why The Barefoot Investor is my number 1 recommendation.

2. The 4-Hour Work Week – By Timothy Ferriss

I WISH I read this book at the beginning of my reading journey. Tim Ferriss has absolutely changed my whole mindset of business and workflow in this title, and I’m not afraid to announce it to the world. 4HWW is definitely a culty-lookin cover, and I’d for certain seen it around bookstores and actively avoided reading into it like the plague. I wish I caught the infection though, because the insights and strategies that Tim offers throughout this title have changed my automation and workflow for the better.

Almost every second page is doggy-eared in an attempt to remind myself of the best bits. Here’s my favourite notion I’ve gravitated to that has been a constant in the way I conduct my workflow since finishing the book.

“Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.”

The 4-Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss, page 33

3. Purple Cow – By Seth Godin

Once I had learnt the best practices with my money, and best workflow with my time, Seth Godin’s best seller Purple Cow taught me how to create a product that was “Remarkable”. Tim speaks about it in 4HWW a bit too, but in Purple Cow, Seth drills home the necessity to have an outstanding product or offer, and the vitality of niching into your brand. In one of the very first few pages, Seth says:

“Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.

Purple Cow – Seth Godin, page 3

He then goes on to say this a few chapters later,

“In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible… Since just about everyone else is petrified of the Cow, you can be remarkable with even less effort. If successful new products are the ones that stand out, and most people desire not to stand out, you’re set!”

Purple Cow – Seth Godin, page 46

Personally, I inhaled this book at an alarming rate. Everything was worth taking note of, and every detail spoke volumes about the way the market is oversaturated, and unique ideas are few and far between. If the first two book recommendations were about getting your business from neutral to drive, this book is what gets your business zooming 100km/h down the M1.

4. Building A Story Brand – By Donald Miller

Okay. This one, I read maybe four times over. It’s so good. And every time I read it at a different stage of my business development, I took away something new.

Once you have your ‘purple cow’ business idea, Donald Miller teaches in his Storybrand framework how to navigate and sell to an ideal client, discussing the important of understanding a customer journey, and taking your role as the supplier of a product, away from being the ‘hero’ and into being a ‘guide’. As a guide, we can provide empathy and authority over a product or decision, and allow the customer to be the hero of their own journey. Once we identify our ideal client, the way to communicate with them, and how to incorporate our business, product, or offer into their own story, the way we begin niching into a field rapidly becomes more clear.

“… when a customer realises they have a lot in common with a brand, they fill in all the unknown nuances with trust… A hero [the customer] trusts somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

Building A Story Brand – Donald Miller, pages 80 + 81

There is also an online worksheet you can fill out as you go progress through the book. If you have any questions about your story brand, leave a comment below and we can discuss the framework together!

5. How To Win Friends And Influence People – By Dale Carnegie

This book is the definition of ‘A goldie but a goodie’. Once you read this book, you will very literally see, hear, and know, who else has read this book. The first edition was published in 1936, but is continuously updated somewhat regularly since then [this edition was published in 2017].

It’s a framework. It’s a guide. It’s a reminder. It’s literally the epitome of how to get people to like you in your personal and professional life and the matter of fact is, it works. Aint no reason to fix something that aint broke. Humans have evolved at such an alarmingly slow rate, that research and studies on habitual behaviour is being released so fast that even a book published almost 100 years ago [which feels like a long time] still holds almost entirely true psychologically practices [with a bit of wiggle on how they’re conducted to suit the current social climate]. If you want to understand the best practices on being remembered in your social circles, and make everyone love you, and secure your business transactions, and strengthen your client interactions, and be a generally better communicator, this book is for you.

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

How To Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie, page 42

6. Dare To Lead – By Brené Brown

Right, so in theory, you now know who your ideal client is, what they want, and how to solidify your relationships through effective communication. Now, with Dare To Lead, you’ll learn how to take that theoretical understanding, and put it into practice.

Brené speaks a lot about courage being a set of armour that we can put on and take off, and to “rumble with vulnerability”. Amongst other great sentiments like “Clear is kind, unclear is unkind”, Brené’s title puts a lot of focus on how to be a leader that drives change and honest discussion with collaborative involvement that invites conversation and honesty, as opposed to making forceful actions and telling others what to do, and how to do it. She writes

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving for excellence… Perfectionism hampers achievement. The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people’s expectations, and being criticised keeps us outside the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds.

Dare To Lead – Brené Brown, page 78

Dare To Lead is a great reminder on how to be an inclusive leader, that provides empathy and authority [much like Donald Millers Building A Story Brand] as opposed to a dictator with a heart of stone. This one is a brilliant read for those in business beginning to take on larger responsibilities, and who is sub-contracting assistants, or co-creatives on projects.

7. You Are A Badass At Making Money – By Jen Sincero

Woof. When I tell you this shook the way I look at my money, I’m telling you, it rocked my mindset for the better. This was actually the first book I read out of all of these, and it is definitely culty culty mindset culty. I wish I read all the other books first, because after reading this one again later on, I realise how wonderfully brilliant and optimistic and encouraging it is.

Jen speaks a lot about money being like a river that flows, as opposed to a dam or pool that sits. As a fresh business owner, this shook me to my “I need to save my money for a crisis” core, because in reality, there was no crisis, other than the crisis of stagnation.

“Get clear on the specifics around your Why: Why do you desire this money? What will you spend it on? … If you’re going to make the kind of money you’ve never made before, you’re going to have to do a whole lotta stuff you ain’t never done before.”

You Are A Badass At Making Money – Jen Sincero, pages 99 + 100

This book was a hype-me-up incentive to go out and healthily splurge on all the products I needed to grow my business, with the money that I’d reserved for myself because I believed I needed a pool [or a dam] of cash before I was allowed to spend it on growth. Na ah. In YAABAMM [I like the sound of that actually, it’s kinda punchy] Jen, almost like a vision or a fever dream, told me to spend all my money on all the gear I needed to upscale my business to attract the clients I want to receive the income I desired to achieve the growth I wanted to continue the cycle over and over again. And when I tell you it was like a twist of fate that the morning after I complete the book [the first time], I spent $5000+ on equipment purchases for potential client bookings I knew I wanted, that the LITERAL following morning [I have literally told people this story, I couldn’t make this up] a client booked me for an almost-to-the-dollar service that covered that entire expenditure. Jupiter was in orbit and the stars were aligned and the good energy was flowing my way or something.

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TLDR: My bookshelf recommendations to help build your business:

Here’s the full list of books, and the easy sites to purchase/obtain them from. I’ve included soft-cover, audio transcribed, and online/kindle alternatives to as many as I can. Use these links to direct you to the medium that best assists with your learning abilities.

1. The Barefoot Investor – Scott Pape
   https://amzn.to/45ITXWo
2. The 4-Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss
   https://amzn.to/3LhHxMY
3. Purple Cow – Seth Godin
   https://amzn.to/3rh0NDj
4. Building A Story Brand – Donald Miller
   https://amzn.to/3RgLSDL
5. How To Win Friends And Influence People – Dale Carnegie
   https://amzn.to/3EzouKk
6. Dare To Lead – Brené Brown
   https://amzn.to/48cYsu2
7. You Are A Badass At Making Money – Jen Sincero
   https://amzn.to/3PxcajM

If you aren’t already a member with the highly reputable AUDIBLE, there is currently an offer for a free trial through Amazon. For the easiest way to digest as many of these titles on a budget, sign up for your free trial with Audible, and cancel at any time.

Redeem your Audible free trial here:
https://amzn.to/3ZuMpEe

Amazon also have a great offer with KINDLE UNLIMITED, offering a free trial that doesn’t stop at just kindle holders, but expands to users wishing to utilise their phone or tablet! If online reading [as opposed to hard-copy] is your forte, I highly recommend signing up with Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited offer.

Redeem your Kindle Unlimited free trial here:
https://amzn.to/3LyFCUg

I often review or link to products & services I trust and use regularly, and think you might find genuinely helpful too. Wherever possible I will use referral links, which means if you click one of the links in this video or description and make a purchase I may receive a small commission or other compensation for the transaction. I will never post a link to a product I do not personally endorse.