Literature is a powerful tool. Either to influence thoughts, tell stories, or simply to comfort your feelings and make you feel better, literature is one of the most powerful tools known to mankind thanks to how it’s able to affect the mind of the reader. This is why you often hear people say that the books that you read are a good indicator of the person you are, and the person that you’ll become.
Now, you need to understand that when I say literature, I’m not talking about harry potter. It’s a good book, but that’s not the point here. Literature here means any book that you read that changes your mindset, any form of written work basically. As an entrepreneur, I’ve read numerous books in the course of my career, because what better way is there to learn from other people who have gone through different things in their years of existence than reading books? It’s almost like a cheat code to put yourself on the fast track to success.
That being said, let me share the three books that have changed my life for the better.
The first book is called “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.
Widely considered to be a must-read in the entrepreneurial circle, this book is one of the most essential books I’ve ever read in my life. The book presents quite a simple idea; if you put your mind into something and you put all of your energy into it, you can manifest that idea into a reality. This book had also presented the formula that I believe into this day. It’s quite a simple formula, it simply says that desires, plus ideas, plus plans, plus massive actions will result in your success.
It’s quite simple. Start with your dreams, what is it that you desire? Do you want to be successful in what you’re currently doing, or do you want to work for a business that inspires you? Or would you rather work for a leader who inspires you? You need to know what your desires are before you can manifest them.
Through reading this book, I managed o change my mindset from that of a mindset terrified of failure, to that of success. Success mentality will not only help pull you through tough times, but it will also provide you with the resilience necessary to help you get over difficult hurdles in your day-to-day life as an entrepreneur. But don’t get me wrong, this book isn’t strictly written for entrepreneurs to get you the most income possible, no. this book is meant to help you change your mindset to help you achieve your goals in life more than anything else, and that’s why I love this book.
Okay, moving on, this next book is called “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty.
This book documents Jay’s journey as he transitions into Buddhism and his experiences in applying Buddhist teachings to life in the modern world. I love this book for the central message that is provided to me, that you can train your mind for peace and purpose, to help you find your purpose in life, and to help you achieve inner peace and that thinking like a monk does not necessarily mean that you have to give up living in the modern world and move out deep into the mountains (you can if you want to). It’s about finding your identity in the right areas, think positively, treat those around you with love, kindness, to treat them well, that’s the monk mindset, and that you can do and achieve all of this even when you’re working a full-time job, and even if you’re surrounded by technology. Go read it for yourself and tell me what you think.
On to the last one, it’s a book called “Platform” by Cynthia Johnson.
In this book, Cynthia talks about personal branding and how you can take ownership of your personal brand before others do by taking advantage of influence-building tools. This book also covers the four integral elements of building a personal brand; personal proof, social proof, recognition, and association and her experiences in how she used these factors as leverage which helped her transform herself in less than 3 years into a well-known influencer and thought leader.
With millions of followers on social media platforms, Cynthia also goes on to explain in great detail how you can implement a personal branding plan to help transform you, give you a major impact on your audience, to influence people’s decisions by stating your thoughts; to be an influencer.
This book has helped me achieve a greater understanding of just how important personal branding is in today’s world, and how we could all use it to help boost not only our careers, no matter what we do, but also that it can help gain us the influence that we need, and even help us grow our influence on our respective platforms, and I love this book for that.
When you read books, you will end up storing the information in your brain, no matter what it is, and it will ultimately influence the way you think and the person that you’ll become. For this reason, I’d like to tell you to also give these three books a read. Not only will it help you realize your true desires, bring you inner peace, and help you brand yourself to become who you want to be, but also, if you’re anything like me, it’ll change your life for the better.
So give them a read, and let me know what you think!