Entrepreneurship is such a risk. Success most of the time it requires some kind
of risk. There's never a guarantee that anything is going to work out the
way you want it to, and we always have to weigh up that risk
versus the reward, and I think in business it's more true than anywhere else.
There's always going to be the risk that your new idea for an offer
isn't going to sell, But then the potential upside is that it does sell
and you help a bunch of people and it becomes really profitable. Welcome to
Imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I read all the books,
downloaded all the freebies, and did all the courses, but it wasn't
until I started taking imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year.
Imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over
perfect action, and moving forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right.
On this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable mark putting tips
and strategies to build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom,
and even more joy. Are you on the list to get my daily businesses
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forward slash DBB, or at the link in the show notes. Hey,
welcome back to Imperfect Action. This is episode six hundred and ninety eight.
Today I'm sharing with you a couple of the books that I've read and
loved this year that I've had a bit of an impact on my business,
as well as a couple of the ones that are coming up next on my
reading list. Most of the successful people that I have come across in business
in life, they all spend a lot of time reading books. And what
I've noticed is, I don't think it's so much about the actual strategies or
the tactics that the books tell you about. It's more about the actual art
of reading. It's the ideas that come up when you're in that meditative state
of reading. It's the new perspectives and new ways of seeing the world that
you might not have otherwise considered, but now you're seeing it through the author's
perspective. And this is why I'm not a fan of those book summaries.
Right, you know how you can buy like the spark Notes version basically of
a lot of these books. But I'm not a fan of those because I
don't think it allows you to have that meditative state. It doesn't allow you
allow you to be in the author's perspective and look at a new way of
looking at the world. And personally, I don't love audiobooks. That's just
how I struggle to consume information that way. But then I have a lot
of friends who that's the only way that they can read. So if you
know reading an audiobook is going to help you to read more, then do
that. But for me, personally, I need to read the actual words
on a page, whether that's a physical book or whether that's on my kindle.
Now this year, I haven't actually read a lot of purely business books,
right. I haven't read a lot of the like tactical stuff because I
actually I feel like I don't get that much out of them anymore. It's
a lot of people just regurgitating the same stuff that we've heard over and over
again. But the books that I have read that aren't business related have had
a really big impact on my business. Now. These are five of them
that I highly recommend getting onto your reading list because I enjoyed them so much.
Number one The Psychology of Money by Morgan Houseel. This was a really
easy read. I got through about eighty percent of this book on a four
hour plane flight, and basically the book dives deep into why we make the
decisions that we make when it comes to money, making money, saving money,
spending money, investing money. And I actually really love this quote from
the book that I think we'll give you a great idea of why this book
is relevant. So the court is every decision people make with money is justified
by taking the information they have at the moment and plugging it into their unique
mental model of how the world works. Those people can be misinformed, they
can have incomplete information, They can be bad at math, they can be
persuaded by rotten marketing. They can have no idea what they are doing.
They can misjudge the consequences of their actions, Oh can they ever. But
every financial decision a person makes makes sense to them in that moment and checks
the boxes they need to check. They tell themselves a story about what they're
doing and why they're doing it, and that story has been shaped by their
own unique experiences. So that was a quote from this book, And this
book looks at the reasoning behind why we make the decisions that we make.
It's so fascinating, especially if you're somebody who thinks your relationship with money could
be better, and maybe you feel a little of shame around your decisions that
you've made around money. This book will shift that big time. Number two
Find Your Red Thread by Tamson Webster. Now. I saw Tamson speak at
Social Media Marketing World in twenty twenty two, and after I watched her keynote,
I downloaded her book and then I didn't read it until this year.
It's sat there in my Kindle library for way too long. And the key
idea behind Tamson's book is that the best way to make your ideas irresistible is
to build the stories that people will tell themselves about your idea. So,
if you are trying to sell someone on any idea, whether that's something in
your marketing, whether it's your offer, whether it's something in your sales processes,
it's so much easier to build a story around it, and to build
the story that people your audience are going to tell themselves about it. Because
if you just tell somebody this is what it is. This is the way
it is. You know you're wrong, this idea is right, They're probably
gonna not pay attention, or they are going to be coming up with a
million reasons why you're wrong and they are right. So instead Tamsen shares really
actionable framework. This is probably the closest book to a business book in this
list, and she shares this framework around how to build the story that people
are going to tell themselves around your idea. Number three on the list is
definitely not a business book, and it's QF thirty two by Richard Decrepping me.
I really probably have not pronounced that well. It's one of the best
leadership books that I've ever read, and it's about Quantist flight thirty two that
in twenty ten had an engine explode shortly after takeoff out of Singapore's Changi Airport.
And after the engine exploded, all of the things started going wrong,
right, all of the different systems in the plane started going wrong, and
the author was the captain of the flight, and he and his crew had
to basically, you know, they had to go into crisis management mode and
land this plane safely. With four hundred and sixty nine people on board.
And why it's such a great leadership book is because it looks at how the
captain the author managed to keep his team from panicking and also managed to keep
the flight attendants and all of the passengers from panicking when they could literally look
out of the window and see that there was, you know, there were
holes in the wing like it didn't it didn't look great. So it's a
great book on that. It's also really just fascinating and weirdly, it's made
me feel a lot safer flying. I don't know why, but it just
happens. Made me realize the planes don't just fall out of the sky.
Number four is also not a business book by any means, and it is
called Against All Odds by Craig Challen and doctor Richard Harris. So these are
the two Aussies who helped to rescue the kids that were trapped in a flooded
cave in Thailand a couple of years ago. This is such a great book
about leadership and about risk. So even though it's not a business book,
it was really interesting to look at how they both displayed leadership skills and how
they weighed up the risk of sedating and diving these kids out of the flooded
cave versus the inevitability that the kids were going to die if they didn't get
rescued. I'm also currently reading doctor Richard Harris's next book. His most recent
book called The Art of Risk, which is very relevant to anyone who has
started their own business, because starting a business is a huge risk. Entrepreneurship
is such a risk. Success most of the time it requires some kind of
risk. There's never a guarantee that anything is going to work out the way
you want it to, and we all have to weigh up that risk versus
the reward. And I think in business it's more true than anywhere else.
There's always going to be the risk that your new idea for an offer isn't
going to sell, But then the potential upside is that it does sell and
you help a bunch of people and it becomes really profitable. So there's always
the risk versus that reward. And I think any books where we're looking at
risks that people have taken, it can be such a great reminder that risk
is a very normal part of life, and it's a very normal required part
of success. Okay, and then number five, the Catalyst, How to
Change Anyone's Mind by Jonah Berger. If you are a coach, course creator,
marketer, you are in the business of behavior change, and helping someone
to change their behavior is really really challenging because humans are wired to keep doing
the same things over and over again because it keeps us safe. If we
can predict how something is going to turn out, then we are going to
stay alive because we know we've done this before, it's worked out, and
it's safe. Our brains are wired to keep us safe. Now, this
book walks you through Jonah's framework for removing the barriers and the roadblocks to change
and creating the catalyst for someone to change. And this actually might be the
most useful marketing book that I've read this year. Even though it's not technically
a marketing book or even a business book, it's really useful because so much
of marketing sales, and then obviously working with my students in my courses,
so much of that requires taking them along this journey of change. And like
I said, if you're a coach, course creator, a marketer, any
kind of digital product creator, you are in the business of behavior change.
You will find this book really useful. Okay. And then I have three
books that are coming up next on my reading list. Number one is four
thousand Weeks Time and How to Use It by Oliver Berkman. I actually listened
to Oliver on The Imperfect podcast recently and it was such an interesting episode,
such an interesting interview around how we manage our time. And I want to
read this book because I'm so guilty of saying yes to everything and thinking that
I have endless time to get all of the things done, when in reality
I need to be a little bit more selective with what I say yes to
and a little bit more intentional with the time that I do have. The
next one on the list is Alchemy The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don't Make
Sense by Rory Sutherland. This book is a book about ideas, about being
less logical, about thinking outside of the box. And I'm excited to read
this one because I am such an ideas person. I love reading about ideas,
where they come from, what we do with them, and I don't
know, I'm interested to hear just a different perspective on ideas that work and
don't work. And then the final one is The Surrender Experiment by Michael singer,
because I, like most of us, spend way too much time trying
to change and control the things that I can't actually change or control, when
it would be so much easier to just accept these things and stop wasting my
energy trying to change or control them, and instead focus on the things that
I actually can control. So there you have it. That's eight books to
add to your reading list if you're a fan of reading. If you're not
a fan of reading, it might be a new habit to try to get
into. It's one of the best habits that I've got into for sure,
and I know it's it can be really time consuming, but it's so much
more valuable than flopping on the couch and watching Netflix in the evening. Now,
if you've learned anything from any of the episodes on this show, I
would really appreciate it if you could take just thirty seconds to leave a quick
rating and a review. I read every single one of them. It means
so much to me when you do take the time to do that. And
that is it for today's episode. So thank you so much for listening.
Catch you next time.