Jim Belden's Blog

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

This book by Steven Pressfield isn’t exactly a business book, but more a book on how to overcome what is holding you back from being creative or getting going starting your business.   The focus of the book is on overcoming what Pressfield calls “Resistance”  and living ones destiny.    This is a great book for those, such as myself a lot of the time, who can’t seem to get on track and do the things they need to do to achieve their goals.

Resistance as referred to by Pressfield holds you back, keeps you ordinary and keeps you from the work you were called to do.  Pressfield says the war with Resistance is a war to the death.  Pressfield stresses that our lifetime job is to find out who we already are and become it.

In this book, Pressfield gives examples of resistance, how to view it and ultimately overcome it.

“There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.”   -  Steven Pressfield

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

I can’t really say enough good things about this book.  It is somewhat of a classic, but I’m always surprised at how many people I meet starting a business or in business that have not read it.   In this book Michael Gerber talks about working on your business and not in your business.  Gerber is referring to the situation where someone starts their own business in the hopes of freedom and more flexibility and actually ends up working harder and longer hours in their business then they did in the “job” they gave up.

Through the use of a story Gerber explains his ideas at a reasonable pace that is clear and easy to understand and provides ideas that can start to be implemented immediately.

Gerber also takes you through some of the stages of a business and addresses things such as the business development process, the businesses primary aim,  organization strategy, management strategy, people, marketing and systems.

This book should be mandatory reading for anybody starting a business and one of those books that should probably be reread every once and a while just to regain perspective.

Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat (Agora Series)

This is another really great book.   In this book, Michael Masterson takes a look at the different phases of a business from startup to a 100 million dollar business and more.  Along the way Masterson discusses the challenges at each stage of the business, offers suggestions on how to overcome them and hot to take your business to the next level.

Masterson discusses why sales and marketing are so important to a new business and one solid product is the way to go in the early stages.   Beyond the early stage, beyond 1 million, Masterson discuss the strategy for growing the product line and the business and how hiring others to help do the work is the key to further growth. Finally, Masterson discusses some of the issues as the company gets really big and offers suggestions on how to continue to be successful and grow the business.

I also like how Masterson discusses the role of the founder of the company through all the stages and how this role will change as the company grows.  For many it is a hard transition to make and Masterson does a good job of calling out what to expect.

At some point every business owner should make the decision on how big they want their business to be and their role in it.  Masterson really give a roadmap of what to expect and how to be successful in each stage of the business.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

Ok, I’m throwing this in a bonus book worth reading because several people I know brought it up in conversation recently.  Wikipedia description of Kaizen is  “Kaizen (改善, Japanese for “improvement”) is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life.”    In this book Robert Mauer discusses and demonstrates how very small, easy to take steps can have a huge impact over time.   For example, if a person is extremely out of shape, instead of deciding to go run 10 miles just start small and walk around the block.  Little by little make it a bit longer and at the end of a year you could easily be dong the 10 miles.   Or for example in my case, I am working on starting a business, but have been over whelmed by all the things I want to do.  I know where I want to go and have started to just take small steps, sometime as small as working on something for only 15 minutes a day, know that if I keep moving forward, I am still making progress and will get there.

Kaizen is a very powerful way to think and as demonstrated by Maurer with his examples can result in big changes.