entrepreneur.com http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243714

JoelGascoigne

50 Books That Transformed My Business and My Life

As a teenager I had a period of many years where I stopped reading books completely. I even remember a timewhere I couldn’t imagine reading books at all. After I graduated and started to be interested in business and startups, Irealized the immense power and knowledge contained within books, and I started reading more and more. Today, Ican’t imagine even a couple of days passing by without some time spent reading.

As an introvert, I’m a reflective person. Sometimes that can be a challenge, since in a startup you really need to getshit done. At the same time, I see it as one of my strengths. I will sometimes go on a walk just to ponder what’scurrently going on in the company and the things we could improve. Sometimes it’s my reflectiveness that I find helpsus to untangle some of the most complex challenges we find ourseles confronted with.

I’ve found that due to this natural desire to reflect, I love to read books and think about what we could try to apply atBuffer. On top of this, at Buffer we give all new team members (and family members) a Kindle and have anunlimitedKindle books program (no limits and no questions asked).

Here are some of the books which have had the biggest impact on Buffer and me personally.

1. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

“In such technical lines asengineering, about 15 percent ofone’s financial success is due toone’s technical knowledge andabout 85 percent is due to skill inhuman engineering – topersonality and the ability to leadpeople.” – Dale Carnegie

I first read How to Win Friends andInfluence People perhaps a year before Istarted Buffer, around 5 years ago. Itinstantly had an impact for me, both onhow I wanted to improve my characterand how I wanted to run a company.

A lot of what Carnegie proposes doesn’tseem all that profound, and can even seem like common sense. Simple things like “don’t criticize, condemn orcomplain,” “smile,” “become genuinely interested in other people,” and “ask questions instead of giving direct orders.”What I’ve found is that it is incredibly difficult to put into practice. On top of that, this is not about a few tricks to getahead, as Carnegie puts it, this is “a new way of life.”

Related: Why Students Absolutely Should Create Startups

For myself personally, I have become so convinced that the How to Win Friendsway of life is the one I want to live,

that I now try to read this book every few months, both on Kindle and via audiobook, in order that I can completelyengrain the principles and they can become who I am. I’m up to around 12 reads of it so far, and I don’t imagineever stopping re-reading.

When I introduced my co-founder Leo to the book in the earliest few months of Buffer, he too was hooked and we hadendless conversations and discussions around the stories and principles. He helped me grow as a person muchmore than I could alone, due to his excitement and interest of the How to Win Friendsway. The result of this has beenthat we have based a large number of the values within the Buffer culture directly on the principles Carnegieproposes.

2. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins

“You must never confuse faiththat you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford tolose—with the discipline toconfront the most brutal facts ofyour current reality, whatever theymight be.” – Jim Collins

Good to Great is one of the firsttransformative books I read as Bufferstarted to grow beyond a product, andinto a company. This happened when wewere around 7 people and I started tofeel like we needed to think about“culture”, a concept that I previously hadno real way to understand apart fromconceptually.

As the team grew beyond 7, I noticed that team dynamics came much more into play, and we couldn’t assume thateveryone knows everything anymore. In addition, I realized that the people we work with affect us immensely.

Good to Great helped me to understand how important culture is for building a great, lasting company that has animpact on the world. It started to become clear that we already had a culture, and it was evolving. The book helpedme to understand thatculture can be crafted by choice rather than rather than simply observed:

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of consciouschoice.” – Jim Collins

Perhaps one of the most difficult yet crucial learnings for me from Good to Great was that there will be people whosevalues don’t align with the culture we create, and who will do better and thrive in a different company rather thanstaying on as part of Buffer. Asking these people to leave is one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn how to do, andsomething that has made Buffer what it is today.

3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

“When we love, we always striveto become better than we are.When we strive to become betterthan we are, everything aroundus becomes better too.” – PauloCoelho

Reading The Alchemist the first time wasa very liberating experience for me. Ithelped me to dream big and keepfollowing my gut, and not settle – which iswhat the story, about a shepherd boynamed Santiago, is all about. It’s asimple and short book and has stook inmy mind ever since I read it.

The Alchemist conveys a powerful idea:that the world will help you if you justchoose to follow your dream, that often times our upbringing and environment lead us to believe dreams areimpossible to realize, and that it won’t be a smooth journey and that is fine.

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting” – Paulo Coelho

If you ever happen to find yourself becoming skeptical or feeling that you’re not enjoying what you do, I canrecommend reading The Alchemist .

4. Joy At Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job by Dennis Bakke

“Leaders who want to increasejoy and success in the workplacemust learn to take most of theirpersonal satisfaction from theachievements of the people theylead, not from the power theyexercise.” – Dennis Bakke

Joy At Work provides great insight intothe journey of Dennis Bakke and AES,the company he co-founded. Bakke andhis partner Roger Sant started thecompany and strived to live to a corevalue of fun. It is a fascinating read interms of their definition of fun (makingimportant decisions and being giventrust, not ping pong tables and snacks),and also in how difficult they found it to run the company unconventionally in order to be true to their values.

AES reached over 40,000 employees all across the world and they created a significantly different corporate structurethan many organizations of today. At Buffer, AES and Bakke have been a big inspiration for us in staying true to ourown values.

A large part of the process of staying true to the value of fun for Bakke was for him to be a sevant leader and to helpindividuals in the company make as many important decisions as possible. They devised the Decision Maker methodof making decisions as a team, where the person closest to the problem (rather than a manger) makes key decisions.He also wrote a fable called The Decision Maker around this concept, which I have also included in this list.

5. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performanceand Personal Renewal by Tony Schwartz & Jim Loehr

“Because energy capacitydiminishes both with overuse andwith underuse, we must balanceenergy expenditure withintermittent energy renewal.” –Tony Schwartz & Jim Loehr

The Power of Full Engagement was oneof the first books that helped me to startto understand myself, and to work toembrace how I feel and be intuitive. Thekey concept in the book is that youshould be either fully engaged in a task,or fully disegaged and finding renewal.For example, finding the natural dipswithin your day and thinking about ritualsand changes you could make. Maybeyou go for a 20-minute walk at 3pm when you naturally find yourself less productive.

The other thing this book revealed to me was the idea of having 4 key types of energy: physical, mental, emotionaland spiritual. We should work on each of these separately, and with each we can expand our capacity by stretchingourselves and then renewing. It uses the analogy of muscle growth to describe this a lot, and argues that the sameapproach can be used for our other types of energy.

For me, reading this book triggered many changes over time to my routine. I started exercising almost every day, andI tried a ritual of an evening walk to wind down before sleeping. All these experiments have helped me to feel happierand more productive, and many of them I have kept for several years now, with compounding benefits as a result.

6. The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works by Ricardo Semler

“For a company to excel,employees must be reassuredthat self-interest, not thecompany’s, is their foremostpriority. We believe an employeewho puts himself first will bemotivated to perform.” – RicardoSemler

Ricardo Semler took over his father’sbusiness, Semco, in 1980 under thecondition that he could change itcompletely. On his first day as CEO, hefired 60% of all top managers. Since thenhe has introduced a wide range ofunconventional practices, such as havingno official working hours, employeeschoosing their own salaries, and havingno vision (instead wanting employees to find the way using their instinct).

For me, The Seven-Day Weekend opened my eyes and helped me to question every business practice that existstoday. Semler aimed to operate as a ‘sevant leader’ and made a conscious effort to make zero decisions himself.

7. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

“Team members who are notgenuinely open with one anotherabout their mistakes andweaknesses make it impossibleto build a foundation for trust.” –Patrick Lencioni

A leadership fable about a failing SiliconValley tech company who brings in a newCEO. Kathryn attempts to unite a highlydysfunctional team and through hisnarrative Lencioni explains the five keyways that teams struggle, and how toovercome the hurdles.

I read this book at a key point in timewhere we were just discovering that weneeded to put our values into words andshape the culture of Buffer. The book helped to clarify that through culture, provided we lived it, we could solveproblems of trust and enable much better teamwork within the company.

8. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

“Our philosophy has been to takemost of the money we wouldhave spent on paid advertisingand invest it into customer serviceand the customer experienceinstead, letting our customers dothe marketing for us through wordof mouth.” – Tony Hsieh

Zappos has always been a hugeinspiration for us at Buffer. I clearlyremember watching a video interviewTony Hsieh had where he was askedwhat one thing he would do sooner if hecould start Zappos again. He replied “putvalues in place on day 1.” We hadalready started Buffer, but weestablished our values shortly after thatwhen we were 7 people.

On top of their focus on culture and values, Zappos has also provided us with inspiration for making half of our vision“to set the bar for great customer support.” We have always had a large happiness team compared to the ratios othercompanies have, and we find great joy in aiming to surprise and wow customers with how quickly and caringly werespond to Tweets and emails.

9. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston

“Starting a startup is a process oftrial and error. What guided thefounders through this processwas their empathy for the users.They never lost sight of makingthings that people would want.” –Jessica Livingston

I read Founders at Work in the earliestfew months of Buffer, before I hadmanaged to drop my freelance workwhich I was doing on the side to pay thebills before our revenues grew. It wasinspirational and practical at the sametime, and laid out very clearly the pathsthat many of the biggest tech successestook to reach their prominence.

10. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup by Brad Feld & DavidCohen

“Usage is like oxygen for ideas.You can never fully anticipatehow an audience is going to reactto something you’ve created untilit’s out there. That means everymoment you’re working onsomething without it being in thepublic arena, it’s actually dying,deprived of the oxygen of the realworld.” – Brad Feld & DavidCohen

There is so much great content packedinto this book across all aspects of astart: ideas, execution, culture, hiring,firing, fundraising, product, metrics,incorporation, work-life balance. It is abook I can highly recommend if you’reinterested in or are getting started with a startup. Brad Feld and David Cohen are super smart and have a lot ofexperience, and it shows.

I especially loved the chapter titled “If you want money, ask for advice.” It’s something I’ve tried to apply ever sincereading the book. I’ve found that genuinely seeking advice is often more productive and leads to more opportunitiesthan asking for money or a partnership or a sale.

The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living by Randy Komisar

“And then there is the mostdangerous risk of all — the risk ofspending your life not doing whatyou want on the bet you can buyyourself the freedom to do itlater.” – Randy Komisar

I first heard the term ‘deferred life plan’ inthis fantastic book by Randy Komisar. Ithas been especially relevant for me,since it is a story about a silicon valleyentrepreneur and teaches the idea thatthere are many things more importantthan money. The book poses thequestion “what would you be willing to dofor the rest of your life?” and persuasivelyargues that if you will do that, the moneywill follow.

12. Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace by RicardoSemler

“To survive in modern times, acompany must have anorganizational structure thataccepts change as its basicpremise, lets tribal customsthrive, and fosters a power that isderived from respect, not rules. Inother words, the successfulcompanies will be the ones thatput quality of life first. Do this andthe rest – quality of product,productivity of workers, profits forall – will follow.” – Ricardo Semler

Maverick is Semler’s earlier book, whichgoes into the full details of how he tookover Semco from his father, fired overhalf of the executive team, diversified the business and revolutionized the way an organization could be run.

I especially enjoy how Semler challenges some deeply ingrained assumptions and beliefs about how business needsto be run. Things like whether growth is even a good thing, and how rules and policies can quickly snowball and grindcompanies to a halt. It has helped us to reach one of our most powerful phrases we use at Buffer, as an often usedalternative to policies: “Use your best judgement.”

Related: 6 Suggestions for an Aspiring Entrepreneur

13. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hahn

“Peace is present right here andnow, in ourselves and ineverything we do and see. Everybreath we take, every step wetake, can be filled with peace, joy,and serenity. The question iswhether or not we are in touchwith it. We need only to beawake, alive in the presentmoment.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

Around two and a half years ago I foundmyself on a very organic path frombusiness, success and self-improvementbooks to those that spanned bothpersonal success and spirituality. Bookslike The Monk and the Riddle mentionedabove address this topic. After readingsome of these books, I naturally found myself interested in meditation and Zen Buddhism. One of the mostfascinating Zen Buddhists and authors for me has been Thich Nhat Hahn, who has written many books.

I was even lucky enough to attend a Day of Mindfulness with him and many other like-minded people in San Diegoaround a year ago. Today, I find thatmeditating almost daily is a key part of maintaining a clear mind, balancing myenergy, feeling healthy and being present.

14. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to CreateRadically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

“The goal of a startup is to figureout the right thing to build—thething customers want and will payfor—as quickly as possible. Inother words, the Lean Startup isa new way of looking at thedevelopment of innovative newproducts that emphasizes fastiteration and customer insight, ahuge vision, and great ambition,all at the same time.” – Eric Ries

In many ways, Eric Ries and The LeanStartup deserve a lot of the credit forwhere I am today and for Buffer existing.I first discovered Eric and his LeanStartup concepts via his blog about 5years ago. He really helped me to understand the idea of validating an idea before spending lots of effort, and thenotion of measuring progress in terms of learning rather than lines of code.

The Lean Startup is an incredible handbook for anyone who wants to get their startup off to the very best startpossible. It helped me to take Buffer from idea to paying customers in 7 weeks.

15. The 4-hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss

“What we fear doing most isusually what we most need to do.As I have heard said, a person’ssuccess in life can usually bemeasured by the number ofuncomfortable conversations heor she is willing to have. Resolveto do one thing every day that youfear. I got into this habit byattempting to contact celebritiesand famous businesspeople foradvice.” – Tim Ferriss

This is one of the most practical booksI’ve ever read. It is packed with so muchinformation and actual resources to getyou on your journey with creating passiveincome and if you desire, traveling. It really opened my mind to a lot of productivity improvements I could make.

I would also say that The 4-Hour Workweek helped me to dream about the idea oftraveling while working. I read it 4years ago, and in that time I have traveled the world and lived in 4 different continents. It’s been one of the bestexperiences of my life so far, especially when I’ve spent months rather than weeks or days in a place.

16. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

“Introverts often work more slowlyand deliberately. They like tofocus on one task at a time andcan have mighty powers ofconcentration . They’re relativelyimmune to the lures of wealth andfame.” – Susan Cain

I read Quiet recently and it gave me aninstant feeling of comfort in myself, howI’m wired and my personality. It made mefeel confident about aspects of how Iapproach things which I previously sawas a weakness. It helped me discoversome of my true strengths. I’m anintrovert. This book helped me realizethat the core difference between

introverts and extroverts is the way that they recharge. It helped me to make sure that I get my solitude so that I feelsharp and alert, and so that I have the time to reflect.

It also helped me discover an important difference in how myself and my co-founder Leo approach things. Often whenwe have a discussion, I am purely interested in contemplating or reflecting on something and Leo is often moreinterested in the definite next step and deciding that right away. There’s value in both of these approaches, and amiddle ground where we reflect a little and then take action seems to create great outcomes. Previously, thisdifference in style used to sometimes cause some tension. Quiet surfaced exactly what is going on:

Introverts are “geared to inspect” and extroverts “geared to respond.”

I shared this with Leo, and ever since we both realized this we now have much more empathy for each other. It alsobecame clear that the combination of these differing approaches and other ways Leo and I are different is whatmakes us a great co-founder combination.

17. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Ruiz Don Miguel

“Nothing other people do isbecause of you. It is because ofthemselves. All people live intheir own dream, in their ownmind; they are in a completelydifferent world from the one welive in. When we take somethingpersonally, we make theassumption that they know whatis in our world, and we try toimpose our world on their world.”– Ruiz Don Miguel

The Four Agreements introduce the ideaof “don’t take anything personally” to mein a whole new light. This is a bookbased on ancient Toltec wisdom andrefers to this concept in terms of removing ego. I was recommended this book by one of our awesome investors,Robert Fanini, who told us that he previously based his company culture and values around the 4 primary ideas inthis book:

Be impeccable with your word

Don’t take anything personally

Don’t make assumptions

Always do your best

These are great life values and I’ve tried to live to them since I read The Four Agreements.

18. The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization, One Decisionat a Time by Dennis Bakke

“When leaders put control into thehands of their people, at alllevels, they unlock incalculablepotential.” – Dennis Bakke

Within Buffer, we have a concept whereanyone is able to make any decision,provided they get advice from peoplewho will be affected by the decision. It isthe way we’ve found to envision acompany without managers or bosses.We’re still at the beginning of this journey,it’s an exciting one to be on and I thinkwe’re creating an incredible company tobe part of.

This decision making concept originatesfrom a company called AES. I alreadymentioned Joy At Work , AES co-founder Dennis Bakke’s first book and this is a fable he wrote to describe a companychanging how they work and adopting the Advice Process.

19. Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg

“Poor distribution— not product—is the number one cause offailure. If you can get even asingle distribution channel towork, you have great business. Ifyou try for several but don’t nailone, you’re finished.” – GabrielWeinberg

Traction has been a somewhat recentread for me. The key take-away I hadfrom the book was to try to spend asmuch time on traction as on productdevelopment. The other realization thebook triggered for me was that in theearly days of Buffer, we focused ourcontent marketing efforts around traction,and we found that guest blogging helped us a lot with spreading the word and triggering new signups for Buffer.

We now try to strike this balance a little better. As a team we don’t necessarily believe that all marketing activityshould be tied to creating traction, but we do think it is worth exploring new traction channels and measuring our

impact on traction from marketing. I can recommend this book to any new startup trying to get traction, or existingstartups trying to reach new levels of traction. The book helped to give us a nudge to try some new traction channelsagain.

20. Confucius Analects translated by Edward Slingerland

“This is wisdom: to recognizewhat you know as what you know,and recognize what you do notknow as what you do not know.” –Confucius

Related: My 7-Day Work WeekExperiment

This translation of Confucius’ ancientteachings is a book I keep coming backto time and time again. It’s another of thebooks I feel like I just want to take in andlet it become who I am. There are manygreat themes which Confucius discussessuch as self-cultivation (the idea that inancient times learning meant to makeourselves better people and not just tomemorize or recite texts) or virtue, goodness and focus on action rather than words:

“A person’s character is not properly judged by his words or his public reputation, but is rather revealedto one who carefully observes his actual behavior, comes to know something about his motivations,and discovers what he is like in private. It is in the details of one’s daily behavior that true virtue ismanifested.”

21. Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell

“Be content with what you have;rejoice in the way things are.When you realize there is nothinglacking, the whole world belongsto you.” – Laozi

Tao Te Ching is one of the most famoustexts that exists for philosophical Taoism(along with Zhuangzi which I have alsoincluded below). This book follows adifferent format to other philosophicaltexts and is very easy to read. It is splitup into 81 very brief chapters (some justa few words). It’s one of the philosophybooks which for me had a lot of impact invery few words. There are many thought-proviking ideas shared, the most clear ofwhich is the idea of ‘Wu wei’ or non-action:

“Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done,nothing is left undone.”

This was a fascinating paradox for me to try to understand, and author Stephen Mitchell explains it very well:

“This “nothing” is, in fact, everything. It happens when we trust the intelligence of the universe in thesame way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body.”

If you enjoy challenging norms and yourself and strive to improve your character, I can highly recommend Tao TeChing.

22. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

“Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside ourconsciousness, or can bedeliberately designed. They oftenoccur without our permission, butcan be reshaped by fiddling withtheir parts. They shape our livesfar more than we realize— theyare so strong, in fact, that theycause our brains to cling to themat the exclusion of all else,including common sense.” –Charles Duhigg

This book introduced me to the idea of‘keystone habits’, which are ones whereif you focus on them then they cantransform your whole state and cantrigger further healthy changes. For me and for many people, exercise is a keystone habit:

“Typically, people who exercise, start eating better and becoming more productive at work. Theysmoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards lessfrequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespreadchange.”

This is one of the reasons that exercise, alongside early mornings, helping people and other habits are rituals which Inow try to live by, and which I believe make me happy. The book is a great guide for understanding and creatinghabits, stopping bad habits and reframing your life around habits in order to achieve your dreams.

23. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

“Most people do not listen withthe intent to understand; theylisten with the intent to reply.” –Stephen R. Covey

The Buffer value of ‘Listen first, thenlisten more’ comes almost directly fromthe quote above and Habit 5 from thisbestselling classic. Each of the 7 habitsare all worth studying and reflectingupon:

1. Be proactive

2. Begin with the end in mind

3. Put first things first

4. Think win/win

5. Seek first to understand, then to beunderstood

6. Syngergize

7. Sharpen the saw

The 7 Habits is another of those books which I consider worth going back to time and time again. Even now typingthis list of the 7 habits, I feel that I am quite far from being as good as I can be at each of them, and I think I need tore-read the book to take in the advice and try to focus on applying it again.

24. Reinventing Organizations by Frédéric Laloux

“When trust replaces fear, will ahierarchical pyramid still providethe best structure? Will we needall the rules and policies, detailedbudgets, targets, and roadmapsthat give leaders today a sense ofcontrol? Perhaps there are muchsimpler ways to run organizationswhen the fears of the ego are outof the way.” – Frédéric Laloux

Reinventing Organizations is currentlybeing read or has been read by almostall the people within the Buffer team, andit is likely that it will drasticallytransformhow the company operates. If thechanges succeed, it is also likely that myrole which look very different. Why is that? Let me try to explain.

In this fascinating book, Laloux reminds us that there have been several different management paradigms andorganizational structures in the last several centuries. He then proposes that a brand new paradigm is currentlyunderway, and illustrates it with a dozen example organizations which run very differently to what most of us know.There are 3 key concepts to what Laloux describes as a “Teal Organization:”

1. Self-management: There are no bosses. People in the company choose to work on what they are passionateabout, and hold multiple roles. They are not constrained by a job title. New teams form and disband fluidly asneeded.

2. Wholeness: The company is set up such that everyone feels comfortable bringing their whole self to work.Everyone is appreciated and is heard. The idea of work-life separation slides away, because you can beyourself at home and at work.

3. Evolutionary purpose: The company doesn’t follow a set vision, because that would limit everyone. Instead,the company listens to individuals and teams and develops a natural purpose and direction. The organizationgoes where it naturally is meant to go and can achieve its full potential.

This is one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read, and I can’t wait to see how it might impact Buffer.

25. Seneca: Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated by Richard MottGummere

“It is not the man who has toolittle, but the man who cravesmore, that is poor.” – Seneca

For some time, I have been veryfascinated by Stoicism. When Idiscovered the ideas, it felt like quite anatural fit for my personality. I enjoy theidea of controlling my excitement and, asa result, my sadness. For example,stopping myself working late into theevening, so that I can wake up fresh inthe morning. In essence, I feel thatStoicism can help entrepreneurs a lot,since there are naturally a lot of highsand lows in a startup journey, andStoicism can help us handle those.

I love the format of Letters from a Stoic, as each chapter is an ‘essay in disguise’ in the form of a letter of advice fromSeneca to his friend Lucilius. It makes for enjoyable and easy reading.

26. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

“If you wish information andimprovement from the knowledgeof others, and yet at the sametime express yourself as firmlyfix’d in your present opinions,modest, sensible men, who donot love disputation, will probablyleave you undisturbed in thepossession of your error.” –Benjamin Franklin

I was drawn to read Benjamin Franklin’sautobiography because it is mentionedseveral times in How to Win Friends andInfluence People. Franklin achievedextraordinary things and he has a lot ofwisdom to share in his autobiography,alongside a gripping account of the storyof his life.

There are also some super humbling aspects of the book, since it was published in 1791. Here’s an example:

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared inAmerica, and was called the New England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely tosucceed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for America.

27. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

“Never mingle your speculativeand investment operations in thesame account, nor in any part ofyour thinking.” – BenjaminGraham

Graham’s The Intelligent Investor musthave been recommended to me at least 5times from different people, and I’vecome to learn that it is probably theclassic book on investing. I love howmany of the concepts can translate towise living even if you’re not in a positionto invest.

For example, the concept of “dollar-costaveraging” is something that has

especially stuck with me. The idea is that you invest a fixed amount of money at regular intervals (say weekly,monthly, or quarterly) regardless of the state of the market (up, down or sideways). For me, this felt like a greatphilosophy for productivity and life. For example, you would do well to set down a blogging schedule and aim topublish a post every week or every month regardless of circumstances.

28. The Teaching of Buddha

“People naturally fear misfortuneand long for good fortune; but ifthe distinction is carefully studied, misfortune often turns out to begood fortune and good fortune tobe misfortune. The wise manlearns to meet the changingcircumstances of life with anequitable spirit, being neitherelated by success nor depressedby failure.”

My co-founder Leo and I discovered thisbook, essentially the Bible of Buddhism,when we were on vacation together inHawaii. We found it in the hotel roomsand we ended up taking it around theresort with us and discussing the wisdom and stories over lunch. It was fascinating.

There are some religious teachings in The Teaching of Buddha. At the same time, there are just as manyphilosophical teachings and stories that would be enjoyable for anyone to read.

29. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts

“There is still an overwhelmingsocial compulsion—an insanity ofconsensus, if you will—to get richfrom life rather than live richly, to“do well” in the world instead ofliving well.” – Rolf Potts

One of our core values at Buffer is “Livesmarter, not harder,” and includes thefollowing sub-point:

You choose to be at the singleplace on Earth where you are thehappiest and most productive,and you are not afraid to find outwhere that is.

Travel is something we’ve found to crave and seek out within the team, and the fact we’re set up as a distributed teamgives us all a lot of freedom to explore the world.

Vagabonding is one of the best books out there to think about travel in a whole new way. Rather than going to placesfor just a few days and cramming in seeing all the sights, it suggests that if we can we should spend weeks or monthsrather than days in a place. That way we can get to know the culture and people or even become part of it.

I’ve been lucky to do this several times (I’m originally British and I lived in Hong Kong for 6 months, San Francisco for2 years, Tel Aviv for 3 months and Cape Town for 2 months, all within the last few years). I feel like it has opened mymind and made me a much better person. Mark Twain put this better than I can:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

30. Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard

“we find that the optimists havean undeniable advantage overthe pessimists. Many studiesshow that they do better onexams, in their chosenprofession, and in theirrelationships, live longer and inbetter health, enjoy a betterchance of surviving postoperativeshock, and are less prone todepression and suicide.” –Matthieu Ricard

The author of this book has sometimesbeen called the “happiest man in theworld”. He is a French Biochemist turnedBuddhist monk and has been in a uniqueposition to merge science withmindfulness and meditation.

Related: I Admit It. I Have No Idea What I'm Doing. (And That's a Good Thing.)

The underlying theme of the book is that happiness is indeed within our control, and is much more a skill thansomething that simply happens to us.

One of the biggest revelations for me in this book was the way that it linked happiness with altruism, asserting thatthere is an undeniable correlation and that helping others can provide a much more lasting satisfaction andhappiness than pleasure activities such as watching a movie or enjoying a banana split. This was something I hadintuitively when I got into helping early stage founders, and reading it in this book made me recommit to helpingothers as a way of life, which in turn makes me very happy.

Another 20 powerful books

I originally intended this list to be 30 books. Here are some of the ones I struggled to exclude from the main list, whichmade me choose to make this a list of 50:

The Best Service is No Service by Bill Price and David Jaffe

The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh

Lean Customer Development: Build Products Your Customers Will Buy by Cindy Alvarez

The Saint, the Surfer, and the CEO: A Remarkable Story about Living Your Heart’s Desires by Robin Sharma

Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard

Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body by Michael Matthews

The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work by Scott Berkun

Zhuangzi: Basic Writings by Burton Watson

The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

Complete Calisthenics: The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Exercise by Ashley Kalym

Leadership Is An Art by Max Depree

Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno

The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship by Don Miguel Ruiz

You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment by Thich Nhat Hahn

Turning the Mind Into an Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

What would you include in your list which I missed here or haven’t come across? I am always looking forreading suggestions and would love to hear your thoughts.