There are tons of books that millionaires read. I’ve read many books, and will cover 4 books that made a difference in the trajectory of my thoughts, actions, and ability to increase my finances.
Look, you can’t become rich by reading books alone.
But, it does help you on your journey to become rich. Most millionaires read in some form, whether it be audible or a physical read. What this does is that it allows you to learn from others, through their stories and successes, plus the information you read can accelerate your ability to make money faster, opposed to not having that information before.
There are a ton of great books millionaires read out there, so this is very subjective, but these books stood out to me among the rest. If I learn one meaningful nugget of information from a book, I will execute on that right away.
Books are full of wisdom and contain a wealth of knowledge from people that have traveled a similar road that you may be looking to travel. And I don’t know what I don’t know, so when I learn something new, it unlocks a part of my mind and forms new thoughts and a form of problem solving.
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What books do millionaires read?
According to research, Businessmen and women who read at least seven finance or business books a year earn 2.3 times more than those who read only one a year.
I think this can be attributed to forming those new ideas or strategies that can be implemented in their respective business.
The four books that makes the list that most millionaires read. Books such as Traction by Gino Wickman, Who Not How by Dan Sullivan, Atomic Habits By James Clear, and Ready, Fire, Aim’ by Michael Masterson.
Alright so let’s dive into the first book..
Traction By Gino Wickman
This is a book millionaires read that not many finance folks are talking about, but this is full of actionable steps for anyone who is a business owner, or an aspiring business owner.
This book is all about a system called the EOS System (the Entrepreneurial Operating System). To reach new levels in your business you need to build a business that drives itself, powered by system’s and processes, rather the just working hard every day, without any plan on how to remove yourself from the day to day.
The biggest takeaway, for me, was in order to grow as a business owner, I needed to create and document the processes in my business, and any future businesses ideas I decide to start.
I learned that It’s not enough to simply identify my processes, but that we should attempt to document every one of those processes.
The author Geno Wickman, goes on to say “Nothing can be fine-tuned until it’s first consistent.”
Essentially every department within your organization will need to have their own processes on the way that they need to operate. For example, if your business has a sales team, a marketing team, and maybe some remote virtual assistants, then each department will need their own process documents, on how to do the tasks within that department from A to Z, boiled down to only the most important steps.
When you do this, you will essentially be increasing the efficiency of your business, you will increase its value, have the ability to scale, or hire someone to fill your role and you can become the visionary, or just get more time back to focus on other things.
If you haven’t looked into this book, I definitely think its one that can make a difference in the way you handle the organization that you created.
Next We have..
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan
This book can be summarized down to replacing how with who. So instead of saying “How will I get this done?” you can instead ask yourself “Who will help me reach my goal?”
By replacing how, with who, is the entire concept of this book. This book more so helped me shift my mindset than it did give me actionable steps. I’ll use this YouTube channel to illustrate how I’m currently applying this.
For awhile now, I’ve tried to learn everything there is to know about video editing, so that I could make my videos exactly how I vision. I’m super particular of every cut, animation and text that is used in my videos. This stems from a history of me being a creator as a music producer in my 20’s, and when it comes to my YouTube videos, I ultimately want to make the absolute best videos I can.
This issue is that although there are a lot of video editors out there, they simply don’t have the passion, or the skills needed to edit my videos. I’m not trying to come off offensive, however, most, not all, editors I’ve encountered won’t put in the same care into the detail that I would in my own videos.
I had to rewire the way I was thinking about this, and instead of asking “How can I edit my videos better?” I would instead ask myself, “Who can I hire, that can Edit better?”
Learning how to edit better, won’t help me in the long run, when my ultimate goal is to scale and grow my channel.
Having the who not, how mindset, allows you to achiever bigger goals, than you could on your own. Its delegation at its core and will allow you to focus on doing things that play to your strengths.
When you hire a Who, your role is to set the vision, and allow them to do what you hired them to do. Give them the freedom to do what you hired them to do. I like to think that if I they can get me 70% there, then its worth it.
Rather the alternative of me doing what?…. 100% of the work.
This moves on to talk about the Freedom that you get as a result of implementing the who not how method.
Using the Video editing as an example, it frees up more time, for me to work on other things. That time that I gained can be focused on new ways to create more money and efficiencies.
Ok moving on to the next book, we have..
Atomic Habits By James Clear
This is a book millionaires read that can help you on changing your habits and aimed at helping you get control the outcome of your life, through your daily habits.
This book is basically about stopping bad habits and adopting good ones, showing you how tiny, incremental, everyday steps can compound into a huge difference over time.
Habits compound over time, the same way that money grows with compound interest, the effects of your habits snowballs as you repeat them consistently day in and day out.
I mean think about it, if you’re an aspiring millionaire, and you aren’t taking steps each day towards that goal, then its honestly very unlikely that you will attain that achievement.
I chose to include this book as it can relate to anyone, no matter where you are in your life journey.
- Your results are a lagging indicator of your daily habits.
- Your net worth is a lagging indicator of your investment habits.
- Your weight is a lagging indicator of your eating and exercise habits.
- Your marriage is a lagging indicator of your marital and relationship habits.
And so on… You get out what you put into it, and small daily steps towards any goal can help get you there.
Next we have..
Ready, Fire, Aim’ by Michael Masterson
This is my most current read, whether you’re looking to build and grow to a 100 million dollar company or starting a new business, this book provides some great perspective on what it takes to build a successful business.
This book breaks into the 4 stages of business growth.
Stage 1 – 0 to 1 million
Stage 2 – 1 – 10 million
Stage 3 – 10-50 million
Stage 4 – 50-100 million
So, according to Masterson, any of you looking to create a brand-new business will need to focus on these top priorities:
Identifying your target market. So who are you going to sell to?
Quickly developing a product to sell to that market. But not trying to perfect the product just yet, which is the meaning behind the Ready, Fire and aim concept.
Discovering your optimum selling strategy. There’s a lot of emphasis here, especially around becoming a One trick marketing pony, and sticking to only 1 marketing that provides 80% of the results.
And actually, selling the product. A lot of new entrepreneurs decide to focus their time, resources, and money, on everything besides actually selling the product.
This is a book that I will need to re-read over and over, to fully understand and implement what I’m learning. Every stage has a different focus to get to the next stage, and this book made me realize that I’m barely scratching the surface and showed me how much more I need to learn and grow to truly walk in my purpose and reach new heights in my finances and business.
