Top 10 Best Selling Books in Business Management & Leadership for August 2018

Leaders need to be readers. I recommend reading leadership and business books regularly to sharpen your skills and make you aware of important, new concepts. I’m a huge fan of Audible. I listen to these books on my daily commute. I especially like hearing the books read by the authors. Here are the Top 10 Best Selling Business Books for August 2018 according to Amazon:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey has captivated readers for 25 years. It has transformed the lives of Presidents and CEOs, educators, parents, and students — in short, millions of people of all ages and occupations have benefited from Dr. Covey’s 7 Habits book.

With over 100,000 copies sold, Unlimited Memory by Kevin Horsley has been a Wall Street Journal Best Seller and the #1 memory book on Amazon for more than two years. It has been translated into seven languages including French, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian.

Often the decision between a customer choosing you over someone like you is your ability to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make it count. Phil M. Jones has trained more than two million people across five continents and over 50 countries in the lost art of spoken communication. In Exactly What to Say, he delivers the tactics you need to get more of what you want.

In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. With riveting firsthand accounts of making high-pressure decisions as Navy SEAL battlefield leaders, this audiobook is equally gripping for leaders who seek to dominate other arenas.

A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations – whether in the boardroom or at home. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’ head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: in saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles – counterintuitive tactics and strategies – you, too, can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal lives.

Four-time New York Times best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk offers new lessons and inspiration drawn from the experiences of dozens of influencers and entrepreneurs who rejected the predictable corporate path in favor of pursuing their dreams by building thriving businesses and extraordinary personal brands. In his 2009 international best seller Crush It, Gary insisted that a vibrant personal brand was crucial to entrepreneurial success. In Crushing It! Gary explains why that’s even more true today, offering his unique perspective on what has changed and what principles remain timeless. He also shares stories from other entrepreneurs who have grown wealthier – and not just financially – than they ever imagined possible by following Crush It principles.

Quietly and steadily, the number of women making six figures or more is increasing and continues to rise at a rate faster than for men. From entrepreneurs to corporate executives, from white-collar professionals to freelancers and part-timers, women are forging careers with considerable financial success. In Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Barbara Stanny, journalist, motivational speaker, and financial educator, identifies the seven key strategies of female highearners: A Profit Motive, Audacity, Resilience, Encouragement, Self-Awareness, Non-attachment, and Financial Know-How.

In today’s fast-paced world of competitive workplaces and turbulent economic conditions, each of us is searching for effective tools that can help us to manage, adapt, and strike out ahead of the pack.  By now, emotional intelligence (EQ) needs little introduction—it’s no secret that EQ is critical to your success. But knowing what EQ is and knowing how to use it to improve your life are two very different things. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers a step-by-step program for increasing your EQ via four, core EQ skills that enable you to achieve your fullest potential:
1) Self-Awareness
2) Self-Management
3) Social Awareness
4) Relationship Management

Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business – and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency”, include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams.

In 2009 Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work and, in turn, inspire their colleagues and customers. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, including more than 28 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on Start with Why – the third most popular TED video of all time. Start with Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way – and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with why.

This Start-Up Story is a Must Read for Every Entrepreneur

Forget all the phony internet garbage about how glorious the life of an entrepreneur is. Ignore the Instagram pictures of Ferraris and private jets with the word “hustle” written over it. If you want to understand what it’s like to start a business, you need to read this book.

Phil Knight is incredibly successful. He is worth more than $24 billion. The company he started is worth more than $86 billion. But the story of how he built Nike into the world’s leading sports brand is priceless.

“There were many ways down Mount Fuji, according to my guidebook, but only one way up.” Phil Knight

The success of Phil Knight and Nike is truly exceptional. What’s not exceptional is the story of how he built his company from the ground up. The challenges that Knight faced in starting and building his company are common to every entrepreneur.

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.” Phil Knight

That’s why this book is so powerful. If you’re dreaming of starting a business to become an overnight success, this is your wake-up call. If you’re already an entrepreneur and you’re struggling through the daily grind, this is your second wind.

“When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly.” Phil Knight

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike is, by far, the best business book I have ever read. Maybe it’s because I’m a year and a half into a business startup or maybe it’s because of the detailed, personal perspective that Knight weaves into the story, but this book demonstrates how difficult it is to build a great company.

Knight’s success can be attributed to two main character traits. He was deeply passionate about shoes and he was persistent. He had what Angela Duckworth now defines as Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

“Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” Angela Duckworth

Phil Knight’s journey from a crazy idea of importing Japanese running shoes to building a successful, global brand is anything but a short story. Knight faced cash flow problems, lawsuits, unfaithful partners, government investigations, media scrutiny, employees leaving for the competition, and the loss of endorsing athletes. He tackled all these challenges because he believed in his company, his team, and what they stood for. He continued to push forward despite the overwhelming difficulties he faced.

“History is one long processional of crazy ideas.” Phil Knight

This is the story of an overnight success that took more than 18 years. If you’re starting a company or building a business, you probably know it won’t be successful overnight. But how many of us would give up after 2, 3, or 5 years of continuous struggle? For Knight and his team, they battled for close to two decades to get Nike off the ground.

“Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” Phil Knight

In the end, passion, desire, hard work, family, and lifelong friendships allow Knight and his team to overcome all odds. This is an incredible, well-written story that should be mandatory reading for all entrepreneurs.