If you’re looking for some inspiration over the summer, we’ve put together some books and podcasts that are inspiring business owners across the world.
BOOKS:
Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built
In just a decade and a half Jack Ma, a man who rose from humble beginnings and started his career as an English teacher, founded and built Alibaba into one of the world’s largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever.
Duncan Clark the author, tells Alibaba’s tale in the context of China’s momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before.
The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that’s being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
The author, Eric Ries uses real case studies from a wide array of different businesses to illustrate the principles he discusses. He also draws material from his own background as an entrepreneur. Eric offers a systematic, scientific way for business managers to get the information they need to make fast decisions in today’s changing world.
Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
Mark Manson published The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, a book that brilliantly gave shape to the ever-present, low-level hum of anxiety that permeates modern living.
Now, in Everything Is F*cked, Manson turns his gaze from the inevitable flaws within each individual self to the endless calamities taking place in the world around us. Drawing from the pool of psychological research on these topics, as well as the timeless wisdom of philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Tom Waits, he dissects religion and politics and the uncomfortable ways they have come to resemble one another. He looks at our relationships with money, entertainment and the internet, and how too much of a good thing can psychologically eat us alive.
The Barefoot Investor for Families
Scott Pape’s mission is to make sure your kids are financially strong. In this book, he shares the 10 things every kid needs to know about money before they flee the nest. And it’s simple, you can teach them over dinner, once a week.
It’s structured around one family ‘money meal’ each week. If you follow the roadmap, with dedicated lessons for each age group, your children will know how to do things like: learn the life-changing value of hard work, set up a fee-free bank account, learn to cook at least two low-cost, yummy, nutritious meals from scratch.
PODCAST:
Changeability
This weekly podcast from the UK’s Kathryn Bryant and Julian Illman provides interviews, tools, and techniques to make positive changes in your life by managing your mind.
The podcast lasts 30 – 45 minutes, on average, and covers techniques to help you develop better habits, improve your physical health, improve management, set goals, and more.
Mixergy
Hosted by Andrew Warner, a former tech startup CEO turned business speaker, Mixergy is a large collection of interviews with proven entrepreneurs across a whole host of industries.
What separates it from other similar podcasts, though, is that Warner doesn’t give his guests an easy ride; he asks all the difficult questions and really gets into the nitty-gritty of what it takes to succeed.
How I Built This
Hosted by Guy Raz, offers a unique insight into the new disruptor trend of modern startups. That’s not all, either: as well as grilling the founders of the likes of Five Guys, Wikipedia, VICE and Whole Foods, Raz also shines a light on some lesser-known success stories, such as the entrepreneur inspired by Indiana Jones, the bored Navy SEAL who stumbled upon a multimillion-dollar idea and the wannabe rapper who discovered Lady Gaga.