I still remember the pain living with less than 100$ in an airport in a foreign country for 1 month and having to lay of 20 lovely employees because I had to shut down my first agency.
These 21 books below have changed my life upside-down and given me all the education needed to achieve my business goals.
"Millionaire Fastlane" and "4-Hour-Work Week"
I had 800 dollars in my bank account and a decision to make after reading these two books:
a) going back to do mind-numbing but well-paid labor job in the Australian outback
b) staying in Thailand and figure out how to make a living from the internet
This was before the digital nomad era, when the idea that everybody could make money on in internet still sounded absurd.
1 year later: My perspective has changed from seeing business as a necessarily evil for making a living towards a tool to gain freedom. I suddenly was making more money then by parents working as a remote (and self-taught) marketer.
"Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Think and Grow Rich"
Mum and dad have taught me about ethics, work-ethic, integrity, courage and faith.
They are loving parents that have been working hard to escape the struggles of the working class.
But very much like the "Poor Dad" in the book we grew up with lack of financial education. Money was always working against us.
These two books have given me a new perspective on money and how to make it work for us.
Power of Habit and Getting things done
I started out as a freelancer when Upwork was still called Odesk. Performance marketing was still associated with Google ads. Being 1 out of 5 specialized "Facebook marketing experts" made it easy to get work.
This journey has taught me that time is money. To make more money or to have less time, we have to optimize how we use our time.
It's the same for being a business owner. It often feels light fighting hydras. You close one task and chop of one head of the hydra. And 3 new tasks and hydra-heads pop up.
There is always more work than time.
These two books gave me the tools to master my time by being better organized and able to break unproductive habits.
"To sell is human" and "Ultimate Sales Machine"
The biggest obstacle going from charging 20$ or 100$ an hour as a freelancer and 500 USD or 2000 USD agency retainers is the ability to sell. I still suck at it, that's why we don't charge 10000 USD for our retainers...
Selling is one of the most valuable skills in the world. And most people hate sales and sales person, because we all have been betrayed by sleezy insurance brokers and car salesmen.
The first book has eliminated this wrong perspective of sales. It has allowed me to open my mind towards learning the science and art of sales.
The second book has given me the direction to turn myself and my organization into a sales machine.
I also wish "Sell Like Crazy" by Sabri had been in the market back then.
"Lean Start Up"
Before I shut down the agency and had to lay off 20 people, there has been a long fight to keep it alive.
Almost 2 years of working 100+ hours. I was living upstairs of the office and my room had nothing than a mattress in it. When my family visited me in Thailand, I neither had the money nor the time to join them to travel around the country.
Did I mention that me and my partner lost more than 100 000 USD in the process?
It happened, because right after we had signed 2 big clients, we thought we have product-market-fit with our services. We opened offices at the same time in Austria, Nepal and Thailand.
Business was great, until reality hit and we lost the clients...
All of this could have been avoided using the Lean Start Up Methodology.
Today I use it for everything from improving marketing campaigns of clients, starting new business towards planning my holidays.
Always build, measure and learn.
Profit first
Money has always been a tool to gain freedom to me.
The first few years in business I didn't understand the different of a P/L and a balance sheet and I hated all the finance books that I had picked up.
This book has been a game changer. It almost made reading financial books fun and it gave me the mental framework and the financial education needed to manage our finances.
E-Myth, Traction, Scaling Up and High Output Management
After shutting down the company, me and my girlfriend went back to doing marketing projects as marketing freelancers again.
It is much easier to make 10,000 USD /month as a skilled freelancer than trying to make 30,000 USD as an unskilled business leader with ten people.
During this time I did pick up the book E-Myth and it made me understand why:
We didn't had the right systems and processes in place.
I, as the CEO, was not working on the business, but in the business.
This understanding was the main reason why 5 month later I decided to start a new agency and to try I all over again.
Traction and Scaling Up gave me the tools and frameworks to go from idea to product market fit and from 0 to 10 people in the first year.
Scaling Up gave me the tools to go from 10 to 30 people in the following years.
Andy Grove published High Output Management in 1983. It became the bible for many silicon veterans who have build the first unicorns. It's crazy how timeless it is!
The other and the hardest pill to swallow of my first company has failed:
I wasn't good enough as a leader
The best metaphor is probably the example when I gave 1on1 feedback and my report ended up running out of the room crying. The worst part is that I thought that I "had just given honest feedback" for months afterward.
To me, leadership is by far the hardest skill about business and something I am still actively struggling and trying to improve with every day.
It's also the most complex book and no book covers it's all. After reading 100s of books here are the ones that stood out the most:
Start with Why
Every time we as leaders got too busy and did not start with why (the purpose of the work), but focussed on how and what to get work done... We ended up with a demotivated team that didn't anything done or even left the company. Always start with why.
Game Changers at the Circus
I hate fiction books but I really love this fable by my leadership coach. Different personalities have different tendencies and they all have their own weaknesses to overcome. I am still catching myself being the "high-flying eagle" who easily connects the dots in my (own!) head, but fails to communicate the same picture to the elephants and beavers on the ground with their own perspective.
12 Rules for Life
Nobody has helped me understand my messed up mind and the mind of others like Jordan Peterson. My favorite is the perspective of
“Treat yourself like somebody you are responsible for helping”. Once one truly understand oneself, we can effectively understand and lead others.
How to win friends and influence people
I always wonder how many more books they would sell by simply re-naming the book to "How to be a better human being". 90% of my problems with other people happen because I have ignored one of the principles from the book.
Principles
I don't even know how to describe this masterpiece. Great example of principles that serve as the Northstar for your organization, life and a better world. I have been asking myself many time "why not blindly copy all of the principle for my business and life?".
Hard things about hard things
Hard things about hard things: Your best clients will leave, employees and friends will betray you and you struggle to make payroll. One week you are king, the next week close to death. This books helped to put it into perspective and to embrace the ride.
Trillion Dollar Coach
Bill Campbell has coached people like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey and Sherly Sandbery.
