3 Books for you to read this month | March
I really admire people who can read big long books about business on a regular basis. They’ve got patience, determination and the self-control to set aside the time for it.
Personally, I can’t do that. I used to love reading fiction, but now, surrounded by more and more technology, I get distracted so quickly. I’m just busy!
So I’ve picked 3, pretty short books that are actually easy to read. They’re written in plain language, which is easy to take in but still high-level and they’re not hard to finish. 3 books, 10 days each. That’s doable, isn’t it?
(Update - it’s now October and I want to focus more on my reading, which I know many of you do too. So I’m happy to post you a book every month, which we can then discuss afterwards. Sign up here.)
First up –“This Won’t Scale” by the Drift Marketing Team.
Divided into 8 sections are 41 plays used by the team at Drift to build their business.
Now they’re different to most of us – it’s Service as a Software (SAAS), which is B2B (Business to Business) and they’re a startup with big funding. So you might not be able to build a bookshelf in your office, in which your company buys books your employees request for them to all read and pass around. You might not have an office, or employees, or anything like that.
But there are important lessons for any and every business that is actively trying to grow – such as how sometimes it’s more important to write in a way that your customers relate to, than write with fancy language and perfect punctuation.
The book is just 107 short pages long and costs only £7.51 on Amazon.
Next, This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor.
This book is pretty famous – Adam Kay was an NHS Doctor who burnt out the system. He did some pretty incredible things, but shines a painful light on what life is really like for the Doctors powering our national medical machine.
You might be wondering why I included it. There are no big lessons in sales or marketing and although I have a personal passion for all things medical, that’s not relevant for most business leaders.
I included it because there are some important personal lessons. Developing our soft skills is as important as technical knowledge, and those span different industries.
How do you handle your mistakes? How do you handle working with people who aren’t necessarily the sharpest knives in the block? What effect does stress have on you?
Whatever we go through, Adam and the Doctors of the NHS are going through the same but with much higher stakes – we can learn a lot.
This is also a fairly short book and although it has serious moments and is an eye-opener, it’s also quite funny and entertaining. The Amazon paperback is just £4.50, also.
Finally, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson.
Don’t judge a book by its title, this is a lot better than you’d expect. This book will help you choose what to care about and how to care in a productive way. I won’t ruin anything more – this book is a little longer than the others, but decorated with anecdotes and rather entertaining. The paperback amazon copy is just £9.99.
I found these three books to be really easy to read - I finished them within days and it wasn't a chore to read. Why not start off by ordering just one (or go on impulse like me and order them all) and instead of watching an episode of Brooklyn 99, read the first chapter tonight. I bet you won't be able to stop there.
Don't forget to let me know what you thought of these books - click here to send me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message!
