For many entrepreneurs, the most important lessons are the ones they learn while working and creating – not the ones they are taught in a business school classroom.
Still, for any aspiring businessperson, it can be helpful to learn from people who have already experienced the successes and failures of creating or running successful companies.
If you’re one of the lucky few fortunate enough to already have a relationship with a notable founder or chief executive, having first-hand access to their knowledge can be invaluable. If you’re like the rest of us, however, another option is simply reading the first-hand accounts of already successful entrepreneurs.
Chief executives at an array of companies ranging from General Electric to Disney, have penned accounts of their experiences in the world of business. Even for people less interested in the world of entrepreneurs, these books can also offer insights into the minds of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.
For example, Stephen Schwarzman, the co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, explained his decision to pursue highly ambitious goals in his 2019 memoir “What It Takes.”
“It’s as hard to start and run a small business as it is to start a big one,” he wrote. “So choose one with the potential to be huge.”
In other instances, memoirs reveal the sometimes circuitous paths to success taken by people who weren’t born with access to wealth or power.
“No young kid growing up ever dreams of someday becoming a businessman,” Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard wrote in his book ‘Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman.”
“He wants to be a fireman, a sponsored athlete, or a forest ranger. The Lee Iacoccas, Donald Trumps, and Jack Welches of the business world are heroes to no one except other businessmen with similar values. I wanted to be a fur trapper when I grew up.”
Continue reading to learn more about bestselling books written by CEOs.
