10 powerful books that shaped the entrepreneur in me

The path of entrepreneurship can be daunting, lonely, and confusing. A lot of entrepreneurs are not blessed with their own Mr. Miyagi (if you’ve seen Karate Kid), as mentors are just hard to come by. But over the years, I’ve learned that books can be an excellent substitute to mentors or a formal business education.

In this article, I’ve listed some books that have had a profound impact on me, shaping the entrepreneur in me in one way or the other.

1. Ego is the Enemy

By Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is essentially a modern-day Stoic philosopher. In this book, he tackles the greatest roadblock in achieving success and happiness—our egos. Ego is explained as an unhealthy belief in our self-importance, arrogance, and self-centered ambition.  

Many great entrepreneurs have crashed and burned because their ego got the better of them. Having confidence in yourself is good, but blind faith and thinking you’re the master of the universe is not. Steve Jobs became so much more effective after he managed to tame his ego during his exile from Apple.

One way to curtail our egos is to always apply a student’s mindset. Those who consistently achieve greatness exert the greatest humility and admit how little they really know.

In Holiday’s words:

A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real teacher is also his own teacher and his own critic. There is no room for ego there.

Sometimes, ego gets the better of me. Sure, it can be fun being involved in all the small details of running a business, poking your nose into everything. It flatters and feeds your ego. But at some point, as an entrepreneur, you really have to let go and focus on the big picture.

2. Deep Work

By Cal Newport

We are exposed to an almost infinite amount of distractions. Entrepreneurs do a lot of different tasks, but you need to be able to laser-focus on specific tasks despite the chaos.

Cal Newport defines deep work as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit” that “create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

3. How to Build a Billion Dollar App

4. Hooked

5. Antifragile

6. Tools of Titans

7. Traction

8. Elon Musk

9. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

10. Disrupted