This week’s post is inspired by two of our clients and not a book. But it’s still related to books. Because both these clients read and take courses.
We haven’t met a successful person, business owner or professional, who isn’t an avid learner.
Books. Courses. Programs. Seminars. Coaches. Mentors…
The list goes on and on.
High achieving founders and entrepreneurs know that being a successful business owner requires constant learning and growing.
We are the same. We read books, take courses, attend seminars, and work with our own coaches and mentors.
Yet, throughout the years, and with the help of mentors, we realized something about being an avid learner.
And this is what we want to share today.
The Problem with Avid Learners
Being an avid learner is not only admirable but it’s also a requirement for continued success.
What got you here will not get you there.
How you build a 6-figure business is not how you scale it to 7-figures. What took you to scale to 7 figures is different from what is required to expand to 8-figures.
And this is where the learning comes in. Books, courses, and mentors are at our fingertips to help us grow our businesses.
The problem?
Lack of Focus
We used to be like this. The latest hot book is about habits? Awesome. Let’s read “Atomic Habits.”
Indra Nooyi just published an autobiography? Next one we are reading!
A new fantasy series is taking the world by storm? Time to listen to Game of Thrones on audible.
In other words, we used to read anything and everything we thought would be interesting and useful.
No plan, focus, or structure.
And many of the clients we work with and other business owners we know do the same thing.
They hear about a book and read it next.
Constantly looking for that next thing. The secret revealed in this new course or seminar. The missing piece that will help them grow the business.
Oh, this is how this person got a list of 100,000 email subscribers, let me try it.
Sounds familiar?
While learning is essential, jumping from one idea to the next, from one topic to the next, from one expert to the next, slows your business growth and can even cost you your whole business.
Learning with Purpose
The solution?
Learning with purpose.
You are a successful business owner. Chances are, you have certain goals for this year. Start there.
What is your most important goal for this year?
Then, once you have this clarified, think about your contribution to achieving this goal.
What skills and knowledge do you need to personally have to achieve this goal?
Now, you are ready to plan your learning journey for the year.
Based on the skills and knowledge you need, choose the books, courses, seminar, mentors, coaches, that will help you.
Also, align your learning materials to the stage of your business. If you are scaling from 6 figures to 7 figures, maybe the book about multi-million dollar corporate contracts is not what you are looking for. What Starbucks did in the beginning has nothing to do with what it does today to grow the business.
What Changes When You Learn with Purpose
Think about it. When you went to school, each course had specific recommended or required reading that was aligned with the subject and the desired outcome.
When you start applying this same principle in your livelong learning, things change dramatically.
First and foremost, you keep your focus. Instead of jumping from one idea to another, you know the path ahead and find ways to move faster and easier.
Next, you get to see patterns. If 5 books and 2 courses mention the same thing, maybe it’s important. Maybe this is something fundamental you need to pay attention to and implement.
Lastly, it gives you a chance to actually implement what you learn and really improve that skill.
Because learning on its own is not power. Applied knowledge is.
Non-Negotiable and Extra-Curricular Learning
Let’s be honest. It’s human nature to want distractions and look for new things.
Sticking with only one topic to build one skill can be too boring for an avid learner.
And it can also be a bit limiting. Because, as Dorie Clark shares in “Stand Out”, breakthrough ideas rarely come from the inside. It takes outside perspective to widen the lens.
So, we personally have two types of reading, in addition to the required upskilling books.
Personal Development
The first is non-negotiable. This is how we start our days. With a book on personal development.
Over the past couple of years, our focus has leaned more toward deeper personal development, including books with a more spiritual lens such as “The Master Key”, “The Secret” series, and “Transurfing”. Because of how they influence how we think, decide, and show up as business owners.
Here’s the thing. You can have the right strategy, systems, and plan but if you don’t understand how you think, react under pressure, and make decisions, those systems will eventually break down.
Being a business owner is demanding. Difficult clients, team challenges, constant changes… there’s always pressure. And how you respond in those moments directly impacts your business.
That’s why this type of learning matters. It helps you:
- stay clear when things get messy
- make better decisions under pressure
- lead your team more effectively
- and follow through on what actually matters
One of the tools that helped us and our clients with this is the Energy Leadership Index (ELI) Assessment. It gave us a clearer view of how we show up in different situations, especially under stress, and how that impacts our leadership and decision-making.
For example, understanding that you might default to a more reserved or reactive style under pressure, and learning how to manage that, can completely change how you lead, communicate, and execute.
If you’re looking to grow your business, this is the foundation that supports everything else. So alongside your skill development, we recommend:
- Align your learning with your current business stage and goal
- Start your day with focused personal development
- Use tools that help you understand how you think and lead (like ELI)
- Work with a professional who can challenge your thinking and help you stay accountable
Because at the end of the day, your business will only grow to the level that you do, especially in how you think, decide, and lead.
Fun and Expansion
The second type of extra-curricular reading is the one for fun and expansion. As I’m writing this post I’m reading a novel called “Water Baby” by Chioma Okereke. This is my evening book. To wind down and relax. And it’s the book for the monthly book club I attend together with Amanda Gavigan.
From time to time I also read books that Darren Hardy would classify as “just in case.” They are non-fiction books that have nothing to do with our current business goal. Like “Open” by Andre Aggassi.
So, what we are ultimately trying to say, is that you can, if you have the time, of course, add a bit of spice and diversity into your reading and learning routine.
Novels and fiction has been proven to expand our empathy. And you never really know where a breakthrough idea will come from unless you venture into unknown and different territories.
Lifelong Learning in Action
Examples always help. So, here are a couple.
What we are doing
Let’s start with our learning plan for Q2 and Q3 of 2026 (from Apr 1 to Sep 30).
Since our goal this year is to grow the business revenue from $2K to $10K a month, we are focusing on Sales as a skill for these six months.
This is a list of the books and courses we have curated. We won’t go through all of them, but they give us a focused pool to pull from over these six months.
- “New Sales. Simplified” by Mike Weinberg
- “Fanatical Prospecting” by Jeb Blount
- “Virtual Selling” by Jeb Blount
- “The LinkedIn Edge” by Jeb Blount
- “90 Days to Level Up Your Sales Skills” by Jeb Blount
- “The Psychology of Selling” by Brian Tracy
- “Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham
- “High-Profit Selling” by Mark Hunter
- “Sell Like Crazy” by Sabry Subi
- “Book Yourself Solid” by Michael Port
- “Endless Referrals” by Bob Burg
- “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch
- “Unstoppable Referrals” by Steven Gordon
- Course: School for Selling
We usually dedicate time in the afternoon to do the reading and learning for our main skill. You can also use the early morning hours for this but we prefer to start the day with the personal development books.
Our focus is on implementing improvements, so the goal is to complete 1 to 2 of these books and courses each month.
What our clients are doing
One of our clients, a lawyer in California, recently hired her first legal assistant after reaching the point where she couldn’t keep handling everything herself.
Instead of just handing off tasks and hoping for the best, she is investing in paralegal training for her new assistant for two reasons. First, to help her new employee grow. And second, so she herself can learn what effective delegation to a paralegal actually requires from her as the owner and lawyer.
Keep Growing
If you are extremely busy like many of the business owners we work with (especially lawyer and doctors), this is your main task: choose a skill and focus your learning on this one skill for the next few months (or even the rest of the year).
If you have more time to read and learn, we still recommend keeping your main focus on the skill development curriculum and only expanding a bit with personal development and maybe some fun and “just in case” books.
And if you are serious about improving how you lead, make decisions, and respond under pressure, tools like the ELI Assessment can help you understand and improve how you show up in those moments. You can learn more about it here.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not how much you learn. It’s how clearly you apply new learning that drives results.
