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Top 5 Self Growth Books for Entrepreneurs

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Looking for the next best set of self growth books to help you advance your mindset as an entrepreneur?

I’ve been studying and practicing self growth best practices for the past 5+ years. If you’re someone intrigued by the purpose of life and how you fit into the grand scheme of things as an entrepreneur, you need to read these books.

These self growth books have set the foundation for my core beliefs as an entrepreneur and challenged me to open my mind to new practices to grow as an individual. With the principles communicated throughout these books, you will unleash the secret to achieving any vision that you commit to within your mind.

1. The Passion Test: The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose by Janet Attwood

I was introduced to this book as a sophomore in college by a management professor. He highly valued teaching his students about following their passions and understanding how the mind can play a role in making your dreams become a reality. In this class, he had us read and perform the activities within The Passion Test.

The Passion Test is a story as much as it is an actionable guide to aligning your mind with the things you are most passionate about in life. The book walks you through one of the author’s experience as she searched for her own passions and allowed her mind to guide her way towards who she wanted to become.

As Janet Attwood tells her own story, she pauses to insert action steps that you can take to align yourself with your passions. The core ideas behind The Passion Test have become an integral piece of the methods in which I approach the future and make decisions about where to spend my time.

At the end of reading The Passion Test, you will have a list of your top 5 passions, action steps to make those passions come true in the next year, and a mind map that depicts who you want to become. As you begin to see your ideal future more and more each day, your mind and body begins to push you in that direction without you even realizing. The Passion Test is an amazing read for anyone looking to dive into the world of self growth and self understanding.

Support ConnorGillivan.com and purchase the book today: The Passion Test at Amazon.

2. Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill

I stumbled upon this book while in Barnes and Noble one weekend afternoon. I saw it in the bargain section and knew that I had heard of it before. I picked it up, read the back cover, and immediately knew that I’d be taking it home.

The book is written by Napolean Hill, a businessman who lived in the early 1900’s and studied the lives of the most wealthy and successful entrepreneurs and politicians. His studies were focused on understanding how these men and women were able to achieve such wealth and success in comparison to everyone else attempting to achieve the same wealth.

While the book is titled, “Think and Grow Rich”, it is a book that can help anyone achieve the visions that they have for their life, even if they have nothing to do with becoming wealthy. The book is broken down into chapters where Hill presents the key principles that he found within the individuals that he studied that he believes led to their eventual wealth and success.

Within all of the anecdotes and stories that Hill tells, there are hidden gems of advice on how one can make their dreams become a reality. When all of the principles are put together, one finds a clear and descript road map for pushing themselves towards the future that they envision.

To give you a little glimpse, you must first start with a burning desire. Hill argues that one cannot achieve great wealth or success if they do not know exactly what they want. In the first chapter, Hill presents a step-by-step guide to creating your desire and committing it to memory. From there, Hill outlines the complementary principles that will take you from a dreamer to an individual of action, belief, and wealth.

This is a perfect read for entrepreneurs who already have a basic understanding of self growth best practices and want to take their mental fortitude to the next level. Through reading this book, you will have a clear understanding of how you can turn your entrepreneurial ideas into a future reality.

Support ConnorGillivan.com and purchase the book today: Think and Grow Rich at Amazon

3. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz

I was introduced to this book by one of my best friends while in college. He had heard about it from a friend and was religiously working his way through the book taking note of how he could begin to incorporate the four agreements into his daily life.

The book is written by Don Miguel Ruiz, a Toltec wisdom keeper, who introduces you to the concepts of the Toltec and how we, as human beings, are in complete control of what becomes of our life. Here are the four agreements that Ruiz covers in this amazing self-growth book:

  1. Be Impeccable With Your Words
  2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
  3. Don’t Make Assumptions
  4. Always Do Your Best

He takes time to go into the mental impact that each agreement has on our lives and how we can change our world if we begin to live by these four principles on an everyday basis. As a college junior, the greatest lesson that I learned was to not take anything personally.

As an individual, you have your own thoughts and views on the way things should work. Sometimes others may not agree with you and they may challenge your ideals. A simple example is someone judging you for reading The Four Agreements because it is a “self-help” book. I learned that you must not take these judgments seriously and that you must continue to focus on the beliefs that you have for your future.

This is a great read for anyone that is looking for further harmony in their day to day life. Don Miguel Ruiz provides actionable steps that you can immediately begin taking to align yourself with the four agreements.

Support ConnorGillivan.com and purchase the book today: The Four Agreements at Amazon

4. The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz

Another amazing read by Don Miguel Ruiz. After being blown away by The Four Agreements, I searched for other books that Ruiz had written with regards to self growth. I found this one as I was leaving the states to live in the rural province of Mpumalanga, South Africa for 3 months to run a social entrepreneurship program for a company called ThinkImpact. I was dating my current girlfriend, Lauren, and I thought it would be a great book to read “together” while we were thousands of miles apart with little Internet connection.

This book opened my eyes to the importance of self when getting into any type of relationship. One of the biggest pieces of guidance that I learned was that you must first 100% accept and love yourself before you are able to fully love and appreciate someone else. Ruiz explains the importance of fully understanding who you are, accepting your flaws, and falling in love (not in an egotistical way) with yourself before you attempt to show that love to another.

The second piece that continues to stick with me is Ruiz’s explanation of what love truly is between two individuals. He argues that true love is when we are not dependent upon each other. Both individuals in love can be completely independent and their own person while the true love is them complementing each other. He presents examples of people who think they are in love because they have grown to be so dependent upon each other and don’t know how to be apart. But then who are they as individuals? Is the love destroying who they are as self?

This is an amazing read for entrepreneurs that want to learn how to juggle all of the relationships that will naturally come into their lives. Whether it be your significant other, a business partner, a mentor, or a client, you must first to learn to love yourself before you can positively form a relationship with others.

Support ConnorGillivan.com and purchase the book today: The Mastery of Love at Amazon

5. Debunking the Leadership Myth: The Story of Conscious Leadership by Ryan Caradonna and Jake Caines

This is another book that I picked up before traveling to South Africa in 2012. I was heading into a position where I was responsible for leading and managing over 30 people so I thought that a leadership book would be a great accompaniment to my trip. I was recommended this book from an entrepreneurial friend.

It turned out that this was a perfect book for my 3 month experience in South Africa. It is an extremely actionable book with pauses at the end of each chapter for you to complete leadership activities and align your mind with the leader you want to become. The book also carries a story throughout all of the chapters relating the lessons presented to a fictional company and their leadership team.

There is one major lesson that stick with me from this book: conflict leads to change. Many individuals believe that conflict is bad and so they shy away from it. They may not share their opinion because they are afraid of the response or they may withdraw and run away when they run into a conflict. From this book, I learned that conflict is necessary for change. I learned that conflict is never easy and that it will be awkward when handling it at first, but that if both parties are there to reach a common solution, it will lead to some sort of change.

This book is perfect for entrepreneurs that want to grow their leadership philosophies. The book combats a lot of the traditional leadership and management methods that we still being practiced today and presents new solutions to handling leadership dilemmas. If you take the book seriously and complete all of the activities at the end of the chapters, you will absolutely walk away with a different mindset about leadership.

Support ConnorGillivan.com and purchase the book today: Debunking the Leadership Myth at Amazon

Get Started on your Self Growth Journey!

Add these books to your self growth reading list and take actionable notes based off of their teachings. These books have been transforming entrepreneurial minds for years and will only continue to do the same as more and more people realize the secret behind everything that they’ve written.

At the end of the day, you’ll learn that everything you imagine can be achieved through belief, proper planning, and steadfast dedication.

By purchasing the books through these links, you are supporting my efforts towards educating the next generation of entrepreneurs. Thank you for reading!

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About Connor Gillivan

In the past 10 years, I’ve started 7 businesses & built two to $10M+ in annual revenue, teams of 30+ & an exit in 2019. Today, I run SEO & growth for my 4 B2B companies while teaching millions how to make SEO simple.

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