Best Motivational Books: Because We All Need Motivation Sometimes

I read this book at a time when Udemy was rapidly growing—over the 18 months where we went from 30 to 200 people. It was helpful to read about Horowitz's challenges, worries, and triumphs when addressing the same types of issues at a similar stage of growth. There are so many big decisions you need to make where there's just no clear-cut, right or wrong answer. There are a lot of gray areas. You gather information from your team, but the hard decisions rest with you. This book helped me realize that while I needed to carefully and objectively consider feedback, I was responsible for making a decision in the end—even when it was an unpopular one.

Dennis Yang

CEO/Udemy

The funny thing is that the books that had the biggest impact (like my Verne’s favourite) are not necessarily the best books, objectively speaking. They were good enough to present a new worldview that I was not aware of. Timing probably was more important than their intrinsic literary qualities. They “managed” to fall into my lap at the right time. Such a book was Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, a mediocre book by my standards of today, but deeply inspirational by the ones from yesterday.

Vladimir Oane

Founder/UberVU

My children’s school recommended that we read Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The book has a lot of great information that is as applicable to managers at high growth companies as it is to parents. The key takeaway for me is that highly capable people tend to be risk-avoiders because they are afraid of failure. They get so used to being praised for their achievements that they end up not pushing themselves to their full potential for fear of looking dumb. As a parent (or a manager), the book recommends praising effort, not accomplishment, and creating an environment that encourages risk-taking and celebrates failure. This is a concept that really resonates with me, not only as a part of my parenting style, but in the way I lead at Zillow Group. Our core values as a company encourage employees to take big swings, with the understanding that they won’t all work out. It’s how we’ve achieved our current success, and it’s what motivates our employees.

Spencer Rascoff

CEO/Zillow Group

Recommended by Ola Olusoga (Co-founder/Populum)

Source: Interview with Ola Olusoga: How Books Have Guided His Path To Self-Discovery

I encourage you to read his autobiography “Losing My Virginity” as well as his book “Business Stripped Bare” if you haven’t gone through them yet. Uber-inspiring. For people who want to become Remarkable Entrepreneurs – and express their absolute best.

Robin Sharma

Founder/Sharma Leadership International

The Purpose Is Profit provides the roadmap and motivation needed to win the startup game. It is required reading for every entrepreneur committed to building a profitable business.

Barbara Corcoran

Founder/The Corcoran Group

A lot of people email me asking about habits - how to form good ones, how to break bad ones, how to stop doing the dumb shit we always do. I've got a friend named James Clear. He's an accomplished author and business owner and is kind of a "habit guru." He's probably forgotten more habits research than I've ever brought myself to look at. He just launched his first book. It's called Atomic Habits and it's probably the most practical and complete guide I've ever seen about habit formation and habit change. Do check it out. And then email him and tell him that I have luscious and beautiful hair and he doesn't. Then stick out your tongue and go, "Nyah, nyanya, nyah, nyah."

Mark Manson

Author

Ray Dalio has provided me with invaluable guidance and insights.

Bill Gates

Founder / Microsoft

Entrepreneurial professionals must develop a competitive advantage by building valuable skills. This book offers advice based on research and reality--not meaningless platitudes-- on how to invest in yourself in order to stand out from the crowd. An important guide to starting up a remarkable career.

Reid Hoffman

CEO/Linkedin

I picked up the book after Grove passed away this year and I found it so succinct, so clear, and so packed with easy-to-understand analogies. It really gets to the heart of what good management is.

Julie Zhuo

VP Product Design/Facebook

This book was recommended by Daymond John on page 234 of "Tools of Titans".

Daymond John

Founder/FUBU

Seneca’s letters are the best place to start, but the essays in On the Shortness of Life are excellent as well.

Ryan Holiday

Founder/Brass Check

Great reading. The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. Forget genes! Greatness isn't born, it's grown - the hard way.

Rupert Murdoch

CEO/News Corporation

Recommended by Ola Olusoga (Co-founder/Populum)

Source: Interview with Ola Olusoga: How Books Have Guided His Path To Self-Discovery

The books that have had the most influence for me are business biographies/autobiographies. My favorites have been Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson, How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis (the book isn’t as shallow as the title makes it seems), and Made in America by Sam Walton. Reading the stories of these business pioneers has had a big motivation on me to step out of my comfort zone and strive to make an impact.

Gunhee Park

Co-Founder/Populum

Change your environment, change your life. Ben Hardy's book is a prescription for excellence and contains the hidden keys to success.

Ryan Holiday

Media Strategist, Author, Founder/Brass Check

This book is an exceptional step-by-step guide any entrepreneur can learn from because Stacy does an awesome job covering the right lessons with the right detail. The end of each chapter includes "Sign Posts" to help you take action on critical points along your path. And Chapter Two, in my opinion, is where the rubber meets the road for any business owner--learning how to deal with self-doubt, negativity, self-sabotage, and then the lessons of how to define your priorities and giving yourself permission to fail. Outstanding!

Stephen Woessner

CEO/Predictive ROI

John has been a mentor and teacher for me for many years and what I love most about him is that he has pushed and helped me personally go through the 5 Levels of Leadership!

Kevin Turner

COO/Microsoft

I also really enjoyed reading The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.

John Shea

Founder/No Shame Income

The book shares several theories and tips which can be easily implemented in life for a success journey.

Haris Siddique

Co-Founder/Artimization

Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz will open your eyes on the topic of self image.

Nick Janetakis

Founder/NickJanetakis.com

Recommended by Mike Benkovich (Founder/Anatomonics)

Source: Book-talk with Mike Benkovich, web developer & entrepreneur

As for business, my favorite would be Good Strategy / Bad strategy by Richard Rumelt. When you read a title like this, you most likely end up wondering whether it is going to be another strategy book loaded with buzz words but lacking in articulate content. Well, this one clearly delivers. It paints an accurate picture of the problem surrounding strategy and explains why there’s so much bad strategy all around us. What a CEO or entrepreneur will find extra useful is the fact that the book also exposes what you need to do in order to create good strategies.

Radu Marcusu

CEO/Upswing

Recommended by Craig Pearce (Co-Founder/Kid Genius)

Source: Interview with Craig Pearce

I have 2 books that resonate with me and my work. The first one is a book written by Rick Warren called “The Purpose-Driven Life” and the second one is “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. These are the books that I can read over and over again, because they always remind me what’s my purpose in this life, in my daily job and what I can do with my projects and work to create a purple cow effect.

Robert Katai

Founder/Instagramology

Rich20Something reminded me that my goals aren't too far off, and that, regardless of my age, I can create a business that gives me freedom and great income!

Arne Giske

Founder/The Millennial Entrepreneur podcast

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma is a great read especially when I feel burnt out or when the business is going through hard times. This book made me realize that sometimes I need to prioritize myself before the business as my overall health will affect how I manage my team.

Iqbal Ameer

Co-Founder/Livescape Group

Recommended by Noah Kagan (Founder/Sumo)

Source: The 18 Books That Changed My Life

Recommended by Craig Pearce (Co-Founder/Kid Genius)

Source: Interview with Craig Pearce

Last year I read the book 'Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business' by Charles Duhigg. Look passed the click-baity title and you'll find one of the best books on productivity I've ever read... And I've read a lot of them.

Mike Benkovich

Founder/Anatomonics

Agile Selling shows you how to become an overnight expert, capable of bringing a continuous string of sales-inducing ideas to your clients. Get it to develop superpowers your competitors will envy.

Genevieve Bos

CEO/IdeaString

It's difficult to pinpoint an exact moment because all of the books helped me in a way. Probably a recent example was the book The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. He is talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. After reading this book I was, damn that's the future and I need to start investing in this technology. Didn't stop ever since.

Ionut Danifeld

Co-Founder/DevMark.co

David Epstein's "The Sports Gene" made me decide to never tell a child that "if you really really want something, and you work really really hard, then you can achieve your dream" -- not when it comes to sports, at least.

Gabriel Coarna

Founder/Readable

I met Katrin during her first week of attending CrossFit classes, shortly after my first CrossFit Games championship...Her story is a reminder to fans and aspiring athletes that anyone can achieve greatness if they are willing to work hard enough. It’s also a testament to the power of Iceland’s Dottirs that makes my heart swell with pride.

Annie Thorisdottir

Two-Time CrossFit Games Champion

Favorite business or leadership book in a long time.

Ryan Holiday

Founder/Brass Check

A book called the Motivation Hacker by Nick Winter is written well and too the point. We all struggle with motivation and building positive habits, and the book made me see habits in a new light with the idea of building success spirals.

Cody McLain

CEO/SupportNinja

I don’t know a lot of people in our business who feels completely at ease with how much they use their phone. After years and years of a tiny minority trying to get our attention about the dangers of phone addiction, it seems like the idea is finally getting a larger audience. I’m certainly in that camp. I use my phone too much, and I’d like to use it less.

This book gave me the motivation to try harder to actually do something about it. There weren’t any novel arguments or statistics I hadn’t heard before, but recounting them all in one place provided the final push to finally do something. This kicked off a thorough review of not just how much time I spend on my phone, but reviewing what that usage has done to both my capacity for concentration and my motivation to go deeper on topics. I didn’t like the conclusions I came to.

So I’ve started taking more sabbaticals from my phone and the addictive apps on it. I credit this book for finally getting that going.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Co-Founder/Basecamp

Learning the different characters of the heroes of faith in the bible and learning how God sees us as who we are in Him and who we will become and not who we were affirmed my identity in Christ and helped me to see the promises of God in the scripture.

Lilian Ong

Founder/Class Living

A few years ago, Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson started noticing the same problem from different angles: Even high-performing kids were coming to them acutely stressed and lacking motivation. Many complained they had no control over their lives. Some stumbled in high school or hit college and unraveled. Bill is a clinical neuropsychologist who helps kids gripped by anxiety or struggling to learn. Ned is a motivational coach who runs an elite tutoring service. Together they discovered that the best antidote to stress is to give kids more of a sense of control over their lives. But this doesn't mean giving up your authority as a parent. In this groundbreaking book they reveal how you can actively help your child to sculpt a brain that is resilient, and ready to take on new challenges.

The Self-Driven Child offers a combination of cutting-edge brain science, the latest discoveries in behavioral therapy, and case studies drawn from the thousands of kids and teens Bill and Ned have helped over the years to teach you how to set your child on the real road to success. As parents, we can only drive our kids so far. At some point, they will have to take the wheel and map out their own path. But there is a lot you can do before then to help them tackle the road ahead with resilience and imagination.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Co-Founder/Basecamp

Finally, a leadership book that I can relate to this book is full of practical and accessible strategies.

Dave Lloyd

CEO/Square One Construction

Here’s a few books I recommend (in this order) on learning how to write effective copy:

• The Boron Letters by Gary Halbert;
• Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joseph Sugerman;
• Kickass Writing Secrets of a Marketing Rebel by John Carlton.

Nick Janetakis

Founder/NickJanetakis.com

It’s interesting to learn about what is stopping people from getting what they want and surprisingly most of the time the resistance is self inflicted and in order to succeed in business it’s important to learn how to overcome these social defense mechanisms.

Nadia Al Sheikh

Founder/Deal’n

When asked what books he would recommend to youngsters interested in his professional path, Stephen mentioned Positive Psychology in a Nutshell.

Stephen Lew

Director/The School of Positive Psychology

Recommended by Ryan Holiday (Founder/Brass Check)

Source: Books to Base Your Life On (The Reading List)

Scott will open your eyes to a different way of doing work that matters. His generous, persistent, consistent belief in our ability to level up and contribute comes through. This is time well spent.

Seth Godin

Author & Entrepreneur

Recommended by Yaro Starak (Founder/Entrepreneurs-Journey.com)

Source: Yaro Starak, Founder of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com: ’’There’s no such thing as failure, there’s only stepping stones to success’’

At a time when stress and burnout have become global epidemics, along comes Jesse Itzler to remind us how important it is to be present, intentional and connect with ouselves and with what really matters. With wisdom and humor, he takes us not just inside the monastery, but inside ourselves, toward a life of more stillness, more presence, more patience and more gratitude.

Arianna Huffington

Founder/Huffington Post

I had been suffering from acute anxiety and panic attacks for 5 years without knowing what the hell was wrong with me while assuming I had every life-threatening disease under the sun. Then one day I picked up a book, "When Panic Attacks" by Áine Tubridy, and read the back. I immediately said to myself, "holy shit, that's me!" Needless to say, I went straight to the counter and made the purchase.

Nicky Cullen

Writer, Anxiety Coach

Recommended by Lex Na Wei Ming (CEO/Bountie.io)

Source: Lex Na Wei Ming, CEO of Bountie.io, on How Books Molded His Character

I’m not a morning person and all my life I’ve struggled with waking up early Monday to Friday, and sleeping until noon during the weekends and then waking up with my head in a whirl. The book that really helped me overcome this bad habit was Sleep by Nick Littlehales. It has two simple rules: wake up every day at the same hour and sleep in 90 minutes cycles. I’m still not a morning person and never will I be, but these simple habits helped me sleep less, but rest more.

Iulia Ghita

CEO/Bookster

If you’re into gamification, like myself and my team, I highly, highly recommend Reality is Broken, by Jane McGonigal, Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou, and Gamify: How Gamification Motivates People to do Extraordinary Things, by Brian Birke. Jane McGonigal is essentially the Martha Stewart of gamification (sans prison sentence), and Yu-Kai Chou is doing great things in the field, pioneering great frameworks like the Octalysis. Can’t wait to get more of their books.

Xi-Wei Yeo

Director/Living Theories

The shift in power to the customer is now a certainty. In her engaging book, Shelle lays out precisely what's going on and how to think about it.

Seth Godin

Entrepreneur, author, marketer

This is next on my list of technical books to read! Refactoring is one of two programming books that I’ve read multiple times (the other is Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns), and I’m due for another reading. What perfect time then to dive into Martin Fowler’s long anticipated 2nd edition, now using JavaScript rather than Java for the code examples.

Like the stoic books, I read Refactoring and that Smalltalk book again and again not because I’m going to learn something new, per se, but because I want to be reminded about what I already know. And what better time to reread than just as we’re kicking off a new major project that needs a fresh architectural foundation.

Also, these two books just remind every time of how much I love the craft of programming. It’s not just having the programs, it’s not just solving problems, it’s simply using my hands and head to program that in and of itself is sublime.

David Heinemeier Hansson

Co-Founder/Basecamp