Business Books CPAs are Reading Right Now

5 great business books to read as a CPA

As a CPA, it’s important to take control over your own learning and personal development if you want to reach your full potential. Waiting for someone else to teach you what you can learn on your own gives away gratuitous power and misses an opportunity to take initiative.

John Rohn says, “the book you don’t read won’t help” and we couldn’t agree more. Reading popular business and personal development books is a great way to stay up to date with the latest in thought and leadership, as well as innovation. Books will not only help your progress in your career, but in your personal life as well by providing you with new perspectives, ideas, and thoughts, so that when new opportunities or challenges arise you will be more prepared to handle them.

If you’re feeling indecisive about what to read first, here are 5 book suggestions to start you off on the right track:

1. Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, by Keith Ferrazzi

Amazon Synopsis: Do you want to get ahead in life? Climb the ladder to personal success? The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered in early life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

Ferrazzi’s form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handing usually associated with “networking.”

Chock-full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,” and more, this new edition of Never Eat Alone will remain a classic.

2. The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod

Amazon Synopsis: What’s being widely regarded as “one of the most life changing books ever written” may be the simplest approach to achieving everything you’ve ever wanted, and faster than you ever thought possible.

What if you could wake up tomorrow and any—or EVERY—area of your life was beginning to transform? What would you change? The Miracle Morning is already transforming the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world by showing them how to wake up each day with more ENERGY, MOTIVATION, and FOCUS to take your life to the next level.

3. Good Leaders Ask Great Questions: Your Foundation for Successful Leadership, by John C. Maxwell

Amazon Synopsis: John Maxwell, America’s #1 leadership authority, has mastered the art of asking questions, using them to learn and grow, connect with people, challenge himself, improve his team, and develop better ideas. Questions have literally changed Maxwell’s life. In Good Leaders Ask Great Questions, he shows how they can change yours, teaching why questions are so important, what questions you should ask yourself as a leader, and what questions you should be asking your team.

No matter whether you are a seasoned leader at the top of your game or a newcomer wanting to take the first steps into leadership, this book will change the way you look at questions and improve your leadership life.

4. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown

Amazon Synopsis: The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.

By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.

Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything. A must-read for any leader, manager, or individual who wants to do less, but better, and declutter and organize their own lives, Essentialism is a movement whose time has come.

5. The Carpenter, by Jon Gordon

Amazon Synopsis: Michael wakes up in the hospital with a bandage on his head and fear in his heart. The stress of building a growing business, with his wife Sarah, caused him to collapse while on a morning jog. When Michael finds out the man who saved his life is a Carpenter, he visits him and quickly learns that he is more than just a Carpenter; he is also a builder of lives, careers, people, and teams.

As the Carpenter shares his wisdom, Michael attempts to save his business in the face of adversity, rejection, fear, and failure. Along the way he learns that there’s no such thing as an overnight success but there are timeless principles to help you stand out, excel, and make an impact on people and the world.

Drawing upon his work with countless leaders, sales people, professional and college sports teams, non-profit organizations and schools, Jon Gordon shares an entertaining and enlightening story that will inspire you to build a better life, career, and team with the greatest success strategies of all.

If you are ready to create your masterpiece, read The Carpenter and begin the building process today.

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