23 Business Tips & Lessons from the Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf

You’ve heard you are what you eat, well we believe that you are what you read. Teach a CEO presents lessons from our bookshelf on how you can improve and grow your venture. We have taken nuggets from our library and provide them for entrepreneurs and business owners.

1. …the real issue for entrepreneurs these days is that Silicon Valley is simply getting very crowded. There are so many startups at work in the Bay Area that it can be hard for a small team to get attention and, by extension, to get funded. (Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City)
2. One of the biggest problems we face today is that most of us are exposed to frequent bouts of stress all day long, but we don't have the opportunity to duke it out, run in the opposite direction, or even Play It Out. (The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time)
3. The expression of negative emotions can spark a team from lifelessness to alertness. Optimal mental functioning depends on emotional arousal because emotions contribute greatly to attention, perception, memory and problem solving. Without emotional arousal, we can fail both to notice important danger signals and to muster enthusiasm to address the threat. (Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance)
4. Just remember: small changes add up. It's as simple as that. (Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business)
5. There is truth that some people are afraid to blindly immerse themselves in any new pursuit. Some people want to know everything before they start something. The reality is those people will never start because everything will not be laid out. This is a normal occurrence in any situation. (Reaching the Finish Line: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Champion in You)
6. You're not weak. Being in an environment full of temptations means we'll eventually weaken and succumb. No matter how much we want to resist, willpower eventually wears out. (The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time)
7. People tend to think that once they build a website, they're done. Having a website, though, is a little like a pet. It's something that has to be continually groomed and cared for. So, think of your website as a constantly evolving entity. (Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business)
8. The fact is, bright ideas are not geographically limited, and innovation is happening ever day in cities all over the country and around the world. What's more, it is now cheaper than ever to start a technology company, thanks to plug-and-play platforms like Amazon Web Services that all but eliminate the need for expensive hardware and infrastructure. It's becoming less risk, too, as more and more founders are following the popular lean startup model that encourages quick deployments, bare-bones testing and “failing quickly” when an idea doesn't find a profitable market. (Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City)
9. Compared to the average businessperson, successful serial entrepreneurs can more easily intuit how a random event will pan out in the future. (Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance)
10. Well, despite users' protests about their overflowing in-boxes, e-mail marketing is still one of the lowest-cost forms of lead generation out there. (Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business)
11. A simple way to be more patient is by being more realistic about things. So many people are disappointed with themselves because of their unrealistic expectations. (Reaching the Finish Line: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Champion in You)
12. Differentiate or die. It may sound overly dramatic but it is, in fact, that dire. You must be able to get across what makes you different. This is actually the absolute heart and soul of all business strategy. In fact if you cannot define clearly what makes you different, then there's no point in reading any further. (Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business)
13. But startup life in and around Detroit is about more than just individual goals and individual aspirations. It's about fortunes of the city and the region, it's about contributing to something bigger than yourself, and it's about getting in on the ground floor of what many hope, could be one of the largest civid recovery projects in US history. (Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City)
14. One of the biggest challenges to practicing a new behavior is simply remembering to do it. We're all ver busy, so not paying attention is one of the main obstacles blocking our progress toward change. (The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time)
15. For a great purpose to perform its magic, it must be in the forefront of people's consciousness. It can't just occupy a far corner of the mind, where you only access it on special occasions, such as a sales call to a major client or an interview with a reporter. (Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance)
16. You cannot–no! must not–bury your head in the sand in an effort to avoid seeing any bad reviews. (Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business)
17. If you start training to become more resilient, you'll evolve to not only survive, but thrive despite the demands of your life. You'll live a rich, healthy, long life and be the best possible version of yourself, making a positive impact personally as well as professionally. (The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time)
18. Taking the first step is the most important thing that you can do to create your destiny. If you avoid this necessary step, you will continue to hold yourself in an idle state. This is also know as procrastination. (Reaching the Finish Line: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Champion in You)
19. It's impossible to overlook the role that Texas culture plays in the Austin startup scene as well. People in Texas are very transparent, Hurt says, and they're humble, surprisingly so for an ecosystem that has seen such growth and success in recent years. (Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City)
20. This aptitude [sales] is the bridge that can turn leads into profits. I feel that the best way to develop this skill is through experience. (Reaching the Finish Line: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Champion in You)
21. Whether your team must solve an internal design problem or invent the next disruptive breakthrough in your industry, they won't exceed your expectations unless you make it clear that creativity is Job One and develop an environment that fosters innovative thinking. (Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance)
22. The primary hurdle at this point is coming up with a good idea and finding a way to monetize it. And Silicon Valley doesn't have a monopoly on that. (Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City)
23. Achieving our goals requires time, persistence, planning, and effort. These elements are all crucial, but in my opinion the most important is persistence. (The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time)

The Bookshelf

Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City: The most exciting high-tech startups are escaping the expensive and inbred environment of Silicon Valley. Welcome to the future. Entrepreneurs know they must embrace innovation to excel—starting with where they locate their new venture. Fortunately, budding companies seeking fertile ground have more options today than ever before. Screw the Valley calls on today’s entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners to forget California and explore other options across the country—cities that offer more room to breathe, easier access to funding and talented workers, fewer heads to butt, and less money down the drain.

Reaching the Finish Line: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Champion in You – For some people, a goal is just a good idea. For others, a goal is a necessary requirement before one embarks on their quest. Most people are stuck in their jobs due to a lack of faith in their potential. “Reaching The Finish Line” shares research and discoveries on what hinders people from reaching their goals and what people can do to become successful achievers. You will learn several life changing opportunities that are rarely known by the public…. “Reaching The Finish Line” includes in-depth chapters offering you a variety of career options, based on your preferences and current situation. If you have always wanted to become the person that you dreamed about, look no further for this is the book that will make the difference.

Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance – Emotion, more than anything else, spells the difference between stellar and mediocre team performance. Fear, anger, frustration, and other negative feelings, can endanger a group's dynamic. But positive emotions have the power to transform it into a high-performance engine, where everyone operates at their peak. Their minds sharpen. They find creative solutions. They get great results. Thanks to discoveries in neuroscience and psychology, we now know that emotions operate independently from our logical minds. They can't be reasoned away. They must be dealt with directly. Drawing on the latest research, Primal Teams shows how anyone can control potentially damaging emotions, while triggering the kind of passion and energy that supercharge performance. Illustrated with compelling examples, this groundbreaking guide reveals how to: transform fear and negativity; energize primal emotional systems; activate insight and intuition; foster emotional bonds and team spirit; and, connect the team to a deeper purpose.

The Resiliency rEvolution: Your Stress Solution for Life — 60 Seconds at a Time – What if, despite the ever-increasing stress in your professional and personal lives, you were able to live resiliently? You eat healthy, sleep well, and have the time and energy to exercise. You perform well in a demanding work environment, are the best possible version of yourself for your loved ones, and are becoming healthier every day. Much of our physiological hardwiring still dates back to when we were cave people. The human body hasn't evolved to our twenty-first-century, stress-filled lifestyles and we're paying the price – we're dEvolving. The Resiliency rEvolution is your stress solution. Rather than letting stress diminish your life, you can become more resilient to it. Using your primitive hardwiring to your advantage, you can learn how to recover from stress more quickly and raise your threshold for it. Utilizing realistic and manageable tactics, you'll soon be on your way toward a more resilient life.

Sell Local, Think Global: 50 Innovative Ways to Make a Chunk of Change and Grow Your Business – After years of sharing her small-business tips and marketing tricks with readers of her popular blog, ChunkOfChange.com, and column in the Long Beach Post, Olga Mizrahi has taken her message to the streets, urging business owners to focus in while reaching out. You'll be excited and motivated to clearly state your difference to the world–and your neighborhood–while confidently selling yourself and your business.