Tax season is almost over, and tax preparers can’t wait. During the off season, one of my favorite hobbies is reading. I’ve listed 5 books that I think are important for every CPA to read. These books have nothing to do with accounting. They help you in other aspects of your business that are usually missed by accountants and CPAs. You don’t have to be a CPA to enjoy these books
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds
- You Can Negotiate Anything
- E-Myth Revisited
- Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
1. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Don’t get taken for a ride by someone promising the moon, and read Charles MacKay’s 1840s classic, not to become unethical yourself, but to understand how memes spread. Covers the history of con artistry and market mania delusions (e.g. the Tulip mania of the 1630s, Mississippi South Sea Bubble 1720s, etc.). One of Ray Dalio’s favorite books, it teaches you why people fall prey to con artists and how they manipulate others’ minds.
2. You Can Negotiate Anything
Forget the negotiating gurus and pros, because Herb Cohen was the first and still is the best. You Can Negotiate Anything is not just a very quick read, but one filled with insights that will last a lifetime. Herb talks about how everything in life is a negotiation, from career to marriage to dealing with your children. He dispenses with the academic theory, instead teaching you how to negotiate in the real world at any time in any place.
3. E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
The Entrepreneurship Myth is: you’re an entrepreneur because you started a small business. Wrong! -according to Michael Gerber. His lesson is: Don’t get caught up working in your business rather than working on your business. Accomplishing that requires understanding the differences among Gerber’s three business archetypes in business: entrepreneur, manager, and technician.
4. Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on it
Trying to boil the ocean is a fool’s errand. Don’t take it from me. Al Ries’ Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It teaches why you must specializing in your business and why trying to be everything to everybody is a seductive recipe for total failure. Don’t let the 2005 publishing date fool you; learn from the name who co-invented the term positioning.
5. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
How do you break the cycle of repeating self-defeating behaviors and how do you replace those behaviors with positive ones? Atomic Habits is how. No surprise that’s still of the most recommended books for entrepreneurs and business owners and has sold over 5 million copies.