The last post focused on my pics for the 5 best design books and so I thought it only prudent to follow this up with my 5 best business books. If you’ve read any business books, you’ll know that many of them touch on a lot of the same basic principals of being a successful entrepreneur/business person. This shouldn’t discourage you from reading a diverse collection of business material because reading these books will help hammer home some of the fundamental core values of being successful. Some business books are anecdotal, some are fact based, and all are valuable assets to have in your home library, easy for you to reference when you’re feeling discouraged, lost, or just need that boast to know that somewhere along time ago, there were people going through the same issues/success you are experiencing right now.

*As always, any prices listed below are based off of Amazon.com

Hit the jump for the full reviews!

1) Book Title: One Minute Entrepreneur Author: Ken Blanchard Price: $19.99
A great book and a very easy and quick read. The principals in this book are laid out in quick anecdotes as you follow along with a young entrepreneur as he progresses through life and business while learning how to manage both effectively. Some of these principals are surprisingly effective and provide a strong foundation for any company or organization to be built on.

2) Book Title: Ignore everybody Author: Hugh MacLeod Price: $23.95
Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) kills it with this book. For the reader with the short attention span, MacLeod lays out 40 keys to staying true to yourself in a world of pleasing others. No BS. No cute fluffy words. He cuts through the crap and tells you like it is and in most cases….tells you what you need to hear.

3) Book Title: Getting Things Done Author: David Allen Price: $16.00
The title says it all. If you’re finding yourself constantly thinking about projects, what you need to do next, how you’re gonna get those things done, all while drowning in a see of post-it notes and clutter, buy this book. Now. Allen’s system is a simple and DOABLE system that allows you to focus on the jobs and tasks that really matter, while keeping all of the mental, and physical clutter sorted and placed in places that streamline your efficiency and turn you in to well-oiled working machine.

4) Book Title: The Richest Man in Babylon Author: George Clason Price: $6.99
A classic entrepreneur/personal finances/business book that touches on solid principals of business, financial investment and security, and sound decision making in the form of parables. Principals such as how to efficiently allocate all of your paycheck told in the form of biblical parables makes for an interesting reading. Applying these ideas to ones life can make financial planning a stress-free enjoyable tolerable event!

5) Book Title: Strengthsfinder 2.0 Author: Tom Rath Price: $22.95
There’s not much to say about this book except wow. A recommendation from Luke Mysse, this is probably one of the most influential books I’ve read recently. And the kicker is, there really isn’t even any reading. Within this book is the real treasure in the form of a detailed 30 minute quiz, which analyzes your strengths based off your series of responses. This quiz pulls from millions of responses to give you a very detailed and accurate results sheet. Your strengths are presented to you in 5 of 32 different strengths. I could sit here and go into detail about each one, but I’d much rather you go and take the test. My results were so accurate in some areas that only voodoo could have made such magic occur.

There are tons of books out there that I’ve yet to read so if you know of a book that has inspired you, leave a comment and let me know!