This is a huge secret to being successful in whatever you do.  There are always new things to learn and discover to make you better at your job–even if you’ve chosen wife and mother as your exclusive careers.  When people stop learning, they start to die.  I hope to still be reading educational books when I’m in the nursing home.  When your children see you reading and learning, they come to accept it as a normal part of life.  They will love what you love.

Here are some books that have been especially motivating to me and have helped to grow my businesses.  I’ve linked to them through Amazon so you can click through to search inside the books and find the best prices.  If you do choose to buy through these links, you’ll be supporting this website and my family. Of course the library is another great place to start.

The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur  This book applies to you even if your chosen business is not Mary Kay.  It’s written by Mary Kay herself and tells the story of how she took a product that she made in her own kitchen and built a multi-million dollar business out of it.  One of the secrets to her success is basing her business principles on the teachings of the Bible–which the experts told her would fail.

It’s Not Where You Start, It’s Where You Finish!: The Success Secrets of a Top Member of the Mary Kay Independent Sales Force  Again, even though Gillian Ortega found success with Mary Kay her practices and standards that made her successful apply to everyone.  Gillian was born in Ireland and grew up extremely poor.  She came to the United States with $17 in her pocket and big dreams.  Now she makes $17,000+ a month and will teach you the attitudes it takes to be successful too.

The Go-Getter: A Story That Tells You How To Be One  This is a very short book written in novel form.  It tells the story of an injured war veteran and how he stopped at nothing before reaching success.  We purchased it as an audio book and love to listen to it in the car.  The children enjoy it as much as I do, and the story makes me stop and think before I say I can’t do something.

The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth  This book was shared with me by my husband, and it’s a tear jerker.  It is half novel, half instruction.  The story helps you think through what you could to do if you needed 1 million dollars earned honestly in a certain amount of time or you would lose your children.  It helped me think a little deeper and a little harder about my business plan and if I was doing all I could to maximize the potential there.

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.  I have a love-hate relationship with this book.  While the author is candid and knows how to tell a great story, I found him to be somewhat of a braggart and shady in his business practices.  On the other hand, he helped me rethink all of my businesses to maximize my income, while minimizing my time away from my family.  I’m still working through the ideas I’ve jotted down since many of them require technology that I’m not familiar with, but there is a lot of potential here.  Before this book, I considered closing down all my businesses several times to focus on my family, but now I’m starting to see how I can do both–with much less time spent on business.

How To Win Friends and Influence People  This book is a must read for every person and is required 8th grade reading in my homeschool.  It tells you how to interact with people in a way that works well for both of you.  If you are easily offended or offend others easily, this book will help you see why and make some simple changes for a happier life.  In business, it helps you sell without being pushy and find a win-win situation for your customers.

Secrets of Closing the Sale This is timeless wisdom from Zig Ziglar that will make you proud to be in sales and give you techniques to make more money while making more people happy.  I’ve received a few emails since I started this series on small business from people upset that I would focus on sales and making money.  I used to feel the same disdain towards sales professionals, but after reading this book, I have a new respect for the field that I am proud to be in myself.  There’s nothing wrong with making money honestly (even a lot of it) if you use it for good. 

There are lots of other great books out there, some of them are too high to hold my attention right now, but they are on my must read list.  That includes Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business and everything written by Seth Godin.

This post closes our series on small business, though I will still be happy to read your comments and field your questions on the subject.  Tomorrow starts my maternity leave and our series on Spring Cleaning, Organization and Decorating.  I will still be reading all your lovely comments, though I may not be as quick to reply.  My labor has been pretending to start off and on for the last week, and I feel the pains beginning again as I finish this post.  I’ll let you know as soon as baby comes, though I have been known to labor like this for weeks before  a speedy final birth :).