Must Read Business Books For Summer 2022

Blue Ocean Strategy

If you want smooth sailing for your business, you need a blue ocean strategy. A blue ocean company focuses on innovating useful products, pricing them well, and bringing them to market in a fluid process. New market space is like the clear blue ocean, but if you focus only on beating the competition, you’ll flounder in seas stained red with corporate blood-letting. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne defined this ground-breaking concept in their 2005 business classic, Blue Ocean Strategy, which was expanded and revised in 2015. It’s got all the details on how to become a true-blue ocean business.

Five top insights from the Blue Ocean Strategy summary

1. A blue ocean business adopts a strategy of creating new markets instead of fighting the competition in crowded old ones.
2. Blue ocean businesses don’t get stuck on conventional ideas of how to operate.
3. Having a blue ocean strategy makes it easy to pivot when there are problems with a product.
4. A blue ocean business makes sure that all stakeholders are on board with its long-term vision, so that it can move quickly.
5. A blue ocean strategy can only be successful when optimized for profitability.

The Psychology of Selling

Do you want to be the best seller in your company? Of course you do, and Brian Tracy wants to help you get there. The Psychology of Selling contains tips and techniques that Tracy collected over a long career as a top salesman. You’ll learn how to choose the right targets, come up with a perfect pitch, and above all, close the deal. Tracy’s 1985 guidebook has become a classic for anyone dealing with sales.

Five top insights from The Psychology of Selling summary

1. Use positive self-talk every day to stay confident and at the top of your game.
2. Make your customers feel like they are your friends. If you don’t, they will buy from someone else.
3. You only need to be a little bit better in each of the key areas of selling for it to accumulate into an extraordinary difference in income.
4. Visualization is an extremely powerful skill to develop. Picture yourself as capable and competent in every part of selling.
5. Put all your emphasis on highlighting the value and ultimate benefit the prospect is receiving when buying your product, rather than on lowering the cost.

The High 5 Habit

A high five makes you feel great: validated, successful, appreciated. So why not high five yourself every day? It may seem silly, but it’s not. In fact, it will help you banish self-hate, self-doubt, and feelings of inferiority. Success starts with appreciating the person you see in the mirror. Learn how to build a strong relationship with yourself in The High 5 Habit.

Five top insights from The High 5 Habit summary

1. You deserve encouragement just as much as the celebrities, athletes, friends, and family members you already high five.
2. You can use the High 5 Habit to reprogram your subconscious and build self-esteem.
3. Your subconscious will learn to silence your inner critic when you raise your hand to high five yourself.
4. Every morning, stand in front of a mirror and look deep within your soul. Then, when you are connected, give yourself a high five.
5. Your life will change when you replace the self-doubt and self-criticism that weighs you down with self-acceptance and self-love that lifts you up.

How to Do the Work

If you’re just going through the motions, it’s time to break that destructive cycle, whether it’s at work, in your personal life, or both. Dr. Nicole LaPera explains why people get trapped in self-defeating cycles and how to escape them in How to Do the Work. It’s not an easy journey, because our self-destructive tendencies typically stem from childhood issues. But we’re not condemned to keep repeating our mistakes – as we look deep inside, we can grow into a happier life.

Five top insights from the How to Do the Work summary

1. People obsessed with negative thoughts about 70 percent of the time, according to research. You need to fight back by creating positive feelings about yourself.
2. You must consciously check in with yourself regularly to boost your positive thoughts. Set reminders during the day to help you do this.
3. Physical activities such as yoga and meditation will help you build awareness of your thoughts and feelings. Controlling your body helps control your mind.
4. Childhood trauma affects everyone on some level, so we all must face it and condition ourselves to overcome it.
5. You’ll have an easier journey if you join a community of fellow self-healers, whether it is online or in-person, one-on-one, or in a group activity.

The Greatest Salesman in the World

Og Mandino finds inspiration for being a great salesperson in an unusual place – faith – in The Greatest Salesman in the Word. Mandino’s business-oriented fable tells the story of a boy in biblical times who receives a set of scrolls that teach him everything he needs to know about selling – and living a good life. He becomes a great success and passes the scrolls and their wisdom along to the apostle Paul, who uses them to share the message of Christianity.

Five top insights from The Greatest Salesman in the World summary

1. Persistence in the face of all odds will bring great prosperity.
2. Always act with love as a salesperson.
3. Living in the moment will allow a salesperson to be more efficient and productive.
4. Salespeople cannot succeed if they are slaves to their emotions.
5. Salespeople who want to achieve great wealth and happiness must remember that they control their destiny.

Make Your Bed

Did your mom tell you to make your bed every morning, so you would start your day off right? Well, she knew what she was talking about. Admiral William H. McRaven builds on that classic advice in Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World. Based on his experience and exploits as a Navy SEAL, McRaven explains how to build good habits and overcome challenges in life and business.

Five top insights from the Make Your Bed summary

1. When you start each day by making your bed, you begin with a sense of accomplishment and set yourself up for success.
2. Never let quitting be an option.
3. Call on others to help when you need them, and reciprocate when they need you.
4. Don’t expect life to be fair.
5. Life is like Navy SEAL training: it’s tough, but you can make it through and succeed.

Nonviolent Communication

How you resolve conflicts is the key to success in business and personal relationships. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (1999) by clinical psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg will teach you a life-affirming, empathy-based approach to conflict resolution. It’s called Nonviolent Communication, or NVC, and it’s about being attuned to the feelings and needs of others. When we’re not hung up on our own needs and demands, we can reach solutions together.

Five top insights from the Nonviolent Communication summary

1. Traditional hierarchies favor top-down communication that can reduce our ability to feel compassion.
2. Conflicts are more easily resolved when there is mutual respect.
3. You must truly desire to understand the other side, suspend judgment, and listen carefully to what they are saying.
4. If you use positive language, your ideas are more likely to be understood and accepted by the other party.
5. Empathy and self-compassion are mutually reinforcing.

Strengths Based Leadership

What makes a great leader? Based a Gallup-designed survey, Strengths Based Leadership answers that question for executives, managers, and students who truly want to get ahead. In the survey responses, the qualities of trust, compassion, stability, and hope stood out. Tom Rath and Barry Conchie take the results and offer solid tips to help leaders develop all four on the path toward greatness.

Five top insights from the Strengths Based Leadership summary

1. Leading based on your unique strengths is most likely to succeed.
2. You can use the StrengthsFinder test to determine your leadership style..
3. Each strength creates the needed environment for followers to feel engaged and productive.
4. When employees are truly engaged, they feel respected, confident, and enthusiastic due to the influence of leadership.
5. Followers prefer having stable leaders, which allows them to be more engaged. Stability is best created with transparency into the company’s operations for employees.

Who Moved My Cheese? 

Change is tough, but we need to roll with it. That’s the key message of Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson’s fable seems simple and childlike, but his tale of two mice, two little people, some cheese, and a maze has become a perennial bestseller. It’s especially popular with people seeking business success.

Five top insights from the Wo Moved My Cheese? summary

1. Change is coming, whether you like it or not, so be ready for it.
2. Letting go of old ways and habits can help you adapt to change and embrace new opportunities
3. Fear can keep you from acting. You must overcome it.
4. It can be exhilarating to begin the search for something new.
5. Visualizing success and happiness can help you focus on what you need to do.

The 50^th Law

50 Cent wasn’t always a pop culture star. The rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, shares his rags-to-riches story in The 50^th Law. It was co-authored with Robert Greene, who also wrote the bestselling The 48 Laws of Power. The 50^th law is simple: fear nothing. It’s a handbook about overcoming adversity and driving to success, based on the examples of Jackson and many others.

Five top insights from The 50^th Law summary

1. There are two ways of dealing with fear. One is to avoid it by being passive, being safe, and being comfortable. The other is to confront it, to take risks, to be bold, and to be unconventional.
2. 50 Cent refused to stick to hustling and wanted to become a rapper. However, when he was almost shot dead, the music industry rejected him. He refused to give up and worked independently to achieve his goal.
3. The new fearless types strive in experimentation and not in traditional and conservative ways.
4. The 50th law states that we can control our reaction to events, which increases the margin of control over circumstances and fearlessness.
5. Observing the 50th Law creates open possibilities, brings freedom of action, and helps create a forward momentum in life. The key is to assume the active mode in dealing with your fears.

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