10 Books that Changed My Business for the Better

I honestly can’t believe I haven’t written a blog about books before. I’m a voracious reader and have been since I was a child. I find books to be such a fascinating form of human magic. We get to learn from people all over the world and across time through these seemingly random symbols on paper. It’s fantastic and I absolutely love it so much.

These days, I jump between reading books, ebooks and listening to audiobooks. I love all those mediums for different reasons and they are such an easy way to transport myself into a new concept, idea or universe (if I’m reading fiction.) I love how books expand my mind and help me grow and change as a person. They are such a fruitful way to learn.

I don’t always remember everything that I read which can be quite annoying*, and because of that there are books I come back to time and time again because they are just THAT good. If I reread a book for whatever reason, I know that it’s taught me something valuable in some way. With that said, in this post I’m going to share 10 of my favorite books that have positively impacted my business in some way.

My Favorite Books for Business

As we go through the following books, I’m going to share the books in the order I first connected to them and read them. This is because it follows the cycle of my business journey, and plays a direct role in how I’ve shifted and changed my business over time.

How to Style Your Brand

As many of you know, I became a brand designer because of web design. At the beginning of this journey though, I had absolutely no clue what a brand designer was and how that worked. How to Style Your Brand by Fiona Humberstone gave me a really solid foundation to start thinking about brand design and separating it from web design. I appreciated the detail the book went into about the brand design process, which gave me a starting point for starting to offer brand design services myself. I also found the idea of brand personalities to be super powerful, and this is a concept I still use in my brand strategy processes today. If you’re a designer, I would highly recommend reading this book to see what you can get out of it.

Big Magic

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of my favorite books about creativity. It was because of this book that I was able to discover my intrinsic creative nature. It gave words to the intuitive creative process that goes on inside my soul. Specifically, it was crazy to see how Gilbert’s description of the creative process was so similar to how The Desert Oracle Deck was created. I highly recommend this book for anyone who considers themselves an artist or is in a creative field. It is a spiritual guideline for creativity and it’s such a beautiful and powerful read.

Freelance and Business and Stuff

When I decided I wanted to be a web designer, I had no idea if I’d work for an agency or end up doing freelance. What I found in the really early stages of my journey was that it was impossible to get a web design job as a super green web designer. I found, at least for me in my area, every web design position I looked at on LinkedIn or Indeed, whether it was a junior role or not, required 3+ years experience, understanding of at least 5+ coding languages and specific platform knowledge. This was not something I had and it made me super unconfident in applying for web design positions.

Since I was having a hard time finding a job, I decided that I should try freelancing at the same time. I needed to make money somehow, right? That being said, I had no idea how to start freelancing in a legal and legit way. That’s where Freelance and Business and Stuff by Amy Hood and Jennifer Hood of Hoodzpah comes in. This book was an extremely valuable resource to me in those early days of freelancing. From figuring out if I should be a solopreneur or an LLC to figuring out how to set up a proper contract, this book breaks down the most crucial things that you need to protect yourself as a freelance designer. This book is still available and I highly recommend it for beginners in the freelance world. The Hoodzpah team has transformed the book into a course now though, and given the wealth of information I got from the book, I would recommend checking that out as well.

Building a Story Brand

While I don’t necessarily follow all the tenants of the Storybrand framework anymore, How to Build a Story Brand by Donald Miller really helped me expand the way I think about brands overall now. Not only did it help me see how brands are so much more than the sum of their visual parts, it also helped me discover how a brand is an ecosystem. Before I had read this book, I didn’t think much about marketing a brand after it’s built. After reading this book though, I started to incorporate marketing ideas into my strategy for building brands.

The Artist’s Way

The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron is a fantastic book about remaining in flow with creativity. It shares practical processes and routines to develop a deeper connection with your creative practice. For me, the main thing that I have kept from this book is a daily morning pages practice. This is a concept where you wake up first thing in the morning and free write up 3 pages of prose. I love this practice and use it as a part of my morning routine. These days, not every single day, but when my mind feels particularly jumbled and I need to get stuff out on paper.

Atomic Habits

I’m not joking when I say Atomic Habits by James Clear changed my life. Prior to this book, I was terrible at creating habits and following through with them. After reading this book, I have implemented a variety of habits into my daily routine that keep me centered and as the best version of myself. For me, one of the key takeaways that has stuck with me is the idea of habit stacking. Habit stacking is where you stack a new habit that you’re trying to create on top of another habit that is already established. A good example from my life is incorporating meditation into my morning routine before I drink my morning cup of coffee. There are so many more powerful lessons in this book and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to be more productive and have better routines.

Profit First

I’ll be honest when I say that I didn’t actually read all of Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. I am not naturally super organized or good at managing my money, so I had a hard time getting into this book. The book was a bit dense, a bit boring and it was overwhelming for me to pick up and start. What I will say is that once I did start it, I found it super insightful. Mike shares really practical and insightful financial tips for running a successful business. I read about half the book and incorporated his insight on tax savings into my business financial system. I also incorporated his idea of creating a profit account, regardless of how much money you’re making. I customized it to suit my needs, and it has worked really well for me since I started. I need to go back and finish this book, and writing this is making me excited to do that soon. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is like me and can get a bit scared and overwhelmed with financial management. It’s daunting, but this book makes it super easy to get on track without feeling judged.

Work Won’t Love You Back

Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe changed the way I connect to my business. I’m an Aquarius, so I can be super serious and altruistic about my business and its goals. Before reading this book I used to put so much meaning behind my business and my role in it. I thought my life’s purpose was directly tied to my business. Since reading this book though, this idea has shifted. I see the effects of capitalism on creating this belief in me. I see how capitalism has made me want to be a work machine. I love the dialogue and introspection this book shares about our connection to work as a society. It’s a really interesting read and I highly recommend it to anyone who works for a living (which we all do under capitalism.)

Human First

Human First by Rachel Turner is such a powerful book for a variety of reasons. First, it’s powerful because it explores leadership styles, a framework that Rachel and her wife created together. This framework has completely changed the way I connect to other business owners and run my business. For example, I used to get super annoyed with clients if they were overly emotional in their businesses. Through the framework in this book though, I discovered that these types of clients just have a different leadership style than me, and with that knowledge, I can tackle working with them more effectively. Another part of this book that I found super powerful was Rachel’s honesty about her trauma and mental health struggles. As someone who has severe mental health struggles as well, it’s comforting to hear someone else’s story and know that business isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time.

The Complete Color Harmony Pantone Edition

The Complete Color Harmony Pantone Edition by Leatrice Eiseman is another fantastic book I wanted to mention. It is a book that is all about color, and as we know I am obsessed with color, this book appeals directly to my heart. I love how the book breaks down different cultural and psychological associations of different colors. It also has beautiful color palette information and a guide on how to create compelling color palettes. For anyone that loves color, this book is a must.

Conclusion

There are so many amazing books about business out there, these are just 10 that have truly transformed my business in a positive way. I have read many many more, and will most likely have to make this a running series in the future. If there are any books you’d like me to go deeper on, let me know and I’d be happy to do that as well. I hope you found this post helpful and let me know your thoughts on IG about any of the books if you’ve read them as well!

Take Care and talk soon,

Alex

*I’m actively working on improving my reading retention by developing some systems to remember the key points of things I read. I will share more on the subject once I have more figured out!