The chiropractic entrepreneur: Top 10 business books to read

Brushing up on your business skills can help improve your chiropractic office and work.

Where do you start? An easy alternative to taking a business class is to pick up a book aimed at entrepreneurial skill-building. But given the hundreds of business books on the market, it can be challenging to weed through the bad to find the good. But here’s a great place to start: the 10 best books about business that will help improve your chiropractic practice and your life.

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People

First published in October 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has been one of the top business books for more than 75 years. And everyone still agrees that it is just as useful today as it was when it first came out. The book examines the keys to success, which author Dale Carnegie believes are to “express ideas, assume leadership, and arouse enthusiasm.” This book will help you develop your leadership skills and also learn how to motivate employees to get what you want from your business. Many top executives swear by this book. Even Warren Buffett read it when he was 20 and said it changed his life.

2. The Innovator’s Dilemma

Clayton Christensen’s groundbreaking “Theory of Disruptive Innovation” was a favorite of Steve Jobs. This book, published by the Harvard professor in 1997, chronicles Christensen’s ideas on forgetting traditional business practices and looking at what business should actually be focusing on.

3.Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

A Wall Street Journal and Businessweek bestseller, this text by business guru Seth Godin turns the idea of marketing on its head and stresses the importance of creating something noticeable that people point out. You might not notice a regular cow, but you would notice if a cow were purple. Godin urges people to transform their businesses by being remarkable and standing out in a crowd.

4. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Written by successful entrepreneur Ben Horowitz, this book examines what it’s really like to begin and lead a successful startup. It chronicles Horowitz’s personal experience as co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz along with offering practical advice. Published in 2014, this book combines honesty, humor, and straight talk to teach veteran entrepreneurs, managers, and those just starting out what it takes to really start a business.

5. Sprint

Have you ever hit a roadblock in the office that you just can’t seem to solve? In Sprint, three partners at Google Ventures named Braden Kowitz, John Zeratsky, and Jake Knapp, outline a five-day process for solving the toughest problems you might encounter in business. This is a practical guide that will help you tackle challenges that might otherwise defeat you. The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, swears that reading this book will help you build better products faster.

6. The 4-hour Work Week

In 2007, Tim Ferriss introduced a new step-by-step guide to living a more luxurious life. His self-help book breaks down how to change your life so you can work less, make more money, and have a more fulfilled life. The book includes tips on outsourcing and reducing the amount of work you have by 50 percent in only 38 hours. It’s basically a guide to living your life on your own terms that has gained a lot of praise over the years.

7. The E-Myth Revisited

E-Myth stands for the “entrepreneurial myth” or the notion that you’re only an entrepreneur if you start a small business. In this book released in 1995, Michael Gerber breaks down myths about starting a new business including how common assumptions, expectations, and technical expertise can hinder your success. Through abstract ideas, Gerber compels readers to use innovation, quantification, and orchestration to make their businesses succeed.

8. The Lean Startup

Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, Eric Ries explores strategies for startup companies. His practical advice explains what works and what doesn’t when it comes to new businesses. It’s a scientific approach from lean manufacturing that’s all about testing visions early and often, and having the ability to adapt them to meet consumers’ needs. But for more than just startups, this book has important lessons to help improve everything you do.

9. Good to Great

Before Jim Collins published Good to Great in 2001, he brought together a team of 21 people for a five-year study on businesses. From their findings, Collins wrote this management book that’s all about why some companies don’t make the jump from good to great. Some of the successful management practices lead to concepts such as Level 5 Leaders, the Hedgehog Concept, a Culture of Discipline, the Flywheel, and the Doom Loop that all work to improve businesses.

10. Originals: How Non-Conformists Move The World

In this thought-provoking book, Adam Grant changes the way you see the world and value the importance of an original idea. It teaches leaders how they can fight group-think and build a culture that welcomes dissent and new ideas that push businesses even farther. Grant uses business, sports, politics, and entertainment examples to drive home his points and deeply examine what non-conformists have in common.