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What do Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, and Arianna Huffington have in common? All of these smart, savvy, successful business leaders share a passion for self-improvement through reading.  Yep, good old fashioned reading.

If you want to improve your skills as a business owner, why not spend a bit of time each day reading books that guide you to greater success?

I am such a sucker for a good book (business or otherwise) so hopefully my reading list of inspiring business books will help you get started:

• “Miracle Morning” by Hal Enrod
  Hal is a motivational speakers, author and life coach and boy has he had a myriad of experiences in his life.  After suffering a near fatal accident (which could have easily ended his life), Hal devised a way to start each day with positivity, faith, peace and focus.  As someone who has struggled their whole life with being not being a “morning person” there are many takeaways from this book.  The biggest for me was setting myself up the night before for the day ahead.  Make life easy for “future Stacey”.  Whilst I still prefer a sleep in over a 5am alarm, this is still a great read.
• “The 25 minute meeting” by Donna McGeorge
  Donna is an expert at maximising the use of your time – and meetings could be one of the most time wasting exercises in any business.  Donna wants your time spent at work to be productive and enjoyable.  Oh tell me more.  In The 25 minute meeting, you are forced (in a good way) to think about the purpose and goal of the meeting (and let me tell you many meetings fail at the first hurdle).  Meetings should have a framework and it should be followed. Plain and simple.  I don’t have time to waste so this book was gold for me (so much so that I went on to buy another of her books – The First 2 Hours)
• “Winging It”” by Emma Isaacs
  One of the queens of Australian entrepreneurship, Emma is the founder of Business Chicks.  Australia’s largest networking and support group for women. She works across a few time zones now she resides in the USA, and has a team who put on monthly events, speakers, networking nights, learning sessions, retreats and workshops.  She is one busy lady and this book goes through her journey.  And boy, it is so refreshing to see someone say it how it is.  No holds bar easy read about the entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
• “Risk & Resilience”” by Lisa Messenger
  If you are an Aussie based business and have never heard of Lisa Messenger – where have you been.  An entrepreneur from way back, she dabbled in a print magazine (The Collective) and now has a series of books on offer on a range of topics.  All relevant for the business owner, Risk & Resilience, is all about surviving those start up hurdles and scaling without crumbling.  Um hell yes please.
• “Make Time”” by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky
  Here is what I love about this book – I have never heard of the authors.  Yep, usually I bee line for books by highly proclaimed business people, and often I leave feeling a little underwhelmed. Well, the authors of this book say “We’re normal, fallible human beings who get stressed out and distracted just like everyone else.” Oh gosh, please tell me ALL your secrets.  This book focuses on fighting distraction and how to make your time work for you. I have not met a business owner who is not working stupidly crazy hours to fit it all in, so this needs to be on your reading list.

Now the above books are only a small sample of the ones on my bookshelf.  I have hundreds of books. I love them and can’t bear to get rid of any, even once I have read them.  I know I can buy ebooks, but I love turning the pages of a “real” book.  It is therapeutic in a way I guess.

“Reading for me is such a guilty pleasure as being a business owner, sitting down for 30 minutes “doing nothing” feels selfish.   “

But I challenge you to flip that thought around. That 30 minutes of reading is self development, it is relaxation, it is much needed down time.  And if you learn a thing or two in the process, well that is such a great bonus.