Reading is probably the most important habit an entrepreneur needs to develop. During the cycle of her/his entrepreneurial career, books will show up as the most important source of passive knowledge. Although reading is an active process where the human mind feeds from the consumed knowledge, books are just there holding the information until we go after these.
Additionally, a good reading habit will result in a wide knowledge acquisition system that will occur in parallel to any other course, webinar or learning process. It has been around for centuries and will continue to be one of the main sources of knowledge acquisition for anyone, not just entrepreneurs.
I read more than 100 books every year. I love to. But every single book isn't just my goal. The goal is to keep reading and reading. By maintaining this pace, I'll be doing more than 1,000 books during the next decade and will be at almost 2,000 when I reach my 50s.
But it all started with one book. And then another, and another...
The Ideal Book to Start
There are thousands and thousands of books out there, so I will just go straight to the meat. The first book you need to read should be:
A motivating book: It is worthless to start building a reading habit with a book that does not provide a good source of motivation. You could easily lose the inertia that comes with the initial interest of getting started and it could ruin completely your passion or initial move.
A successful method: Although I could try to sell you smoke, you need a living proof with evidence that actually works towards your goal. If you want to succeed, you need to start with the best possible system. You need to learn about a system where risk is better reduced than on other alternatives and then, consider other ones as "the plan B". It will be complete discouraging for your career to start with a failed or "unique" method that isn't used anywhere.
A book that opens new worlds: There are many dead-ends books out there. You should start reading something that feeds your learning hunger and that results in a room full of possible doors to go through.
I just wish someone has had something like this for me available 10 years ago. Still, Eric Ries hadn't yet published The Lean Startup.
The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup is the theoretical foundation of a startup business. It is the key to understanding what is coming ahead and the system that will prepare your mind, as an entrepreneur, to face the reality that is in front of you. The specific title is "The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses".
Being an entrepreneur means many things, but operating like one, failing, accelerating and keeping on can also be taught. That's what this book is about. You could start with any other case study, system or inspiration book, but The Lean Startup will essentially help you understand why these companies succeded, how did they survive and how real life works.
Terms like testing, pivoting, measuring, accelerating and adapting are just some of the main concepts that can be found on it. I could go ahead and extend myself, but I'll just leave the numbers and the reviews talk by themselves.
The book was written back in 2011 and since it has achieved:
More than 1 million copies sold
Translated to more than 30 languages
New York Times Best Seller
Amazon.com Best Seller
More than 3,000 Amazon Reviews with an average of 4.5/5
More than 2,500 Good Reads Reviews.
If you are looking for the best first book and entrepreneur needs to read: this is it.
You can order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
