Entrepreneurs are known for figuring things out. When your entire business (and income) depends on only you, somehow you just make things work. You didn’t know code, but you managed to design a decent-looking website. You’re no accountant, but you were able to figure out your freelancer taxes. And when you’re both an entrepreneur and a mom, you might as well be superwoman. Moms are the queens of figuring things out as they go. When you brought home that sweet little newborn, be honest, you had no idea what you were doing.
So now that you’re running your own business, you know that you can handle anything that comes up. However, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use a little help sometimes. When I first made the leap to entrepreneur, I started by reading everything I could get my hands on about business and writing. I had to google just about everything. I also made friends at the library.
Books are one of our most underrated resources. When an expert decides to write a book, she pours years and years of experience and knowledge into it, and then we can just rent it for free. It’s like having your own business coach, and you can get a new one every week!
We’ve compiled a list of the five books that every mompreneur needs to get her hands on this year.
Good Enough is the New Perfect
Back when I was just pondering the idea of working for myself, I stumbled upon this book on Amazon. I was a new mom, working full-time, going to grad school part-time, and losing my mind all of the time. I was beyond overwhelmed, and something needed to give.
As soon as I opened this book, I knew the authors, Hollee and Becky, understood my pain. Both women were in high power corporate jobs before making the change to flexibly work from home. They interviewed countless women who have found the right balance of a satisfying career and family life, and no two stories are alike. From a lawyer turned freelance writer to a pediatrician turned toy maker, this book is full of transformation stories to spark your imagination and remind you that it’s never too late to start a new chapter.
Do you ever feel like you sabotage yourself? Like if things are going “too well,” you worry that it won’t last? Your business just had its best financial month ever, and on the drive home you get a speeding ticket. You just went for a run with your kids, then go home and eat an entire pizza. You’ve started your new meditation practice, but opt to sleep in instead of sitting on your mat just as you’re gaining momentum.
The good news is that we actually all do this, but can change it! In this incredible book, Gay Hendricks explains the “Upper Limit Problem.” Basically, we each have a certain tolerance for feeling good, and once we reach it, we start subconsciously sabotaging ourselves until we get back down to the level we think we deserve.
I experienced this firsthand a few years ago. I was struggling to gain momentum in my business. At the same time, my husband and I had been trying to become pregnant for a year. I decided to register for an online course I had been wanting to take for years, and things took off. I completely revamped my website and started seeing a huge response from my audience. Within a few months I had a profitable blog and was expecting our son! Then one morning I woke up with the worst morning sickness I had ever experienced. I rested and hoped it would pass, but it didn’t. It lasted for months, and I felt like I could barely get through the day without running to the bathroom constantly.
I stopped working on my website, and slowly but surely lost all that momentum I had worked so hard for. Fortunately, this is the exact time I discovered The Big Leap. Suddenly everything made sense! Experiencing so many incredible life changes at once pushed me way out of my comfort zone, and my body reacted. If it had not been the morning sickness, it would have been something else. In The Big Leap, Dr. Hendricks walks us through the process of recognizing your upper limit problem, and then moving past it.
This book is an oldie, but a goodie. Anyone who has ever worried about money knows how much it can affect your life. When you’re not sure how you are going to pay your bills or simply just wish you had more money to live the life you truly want, it’s hard to focus on anything else. And when you’re a one-woman show, money worries can quickly take over all your thoughts.
So many of us spend our adult lives thinking, “I’m not good with money.” But here’s the thing – have you ever seen a newborn baby walk and talk? No of course not, because that baby needs to learn those skills. It’s the same with money. No one is born being “good with money.” It’s a skill, just like any other, that we can learn, and Rich Dad Poor Dad is a wonderful teacher. In this best-selling book, Robert Kiyosaki breaks down money beliefs of the rich and poor, and gives practical strategies to start building wealth today. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, this is a must read.
Social media is constantly changing, and it can feel impossible to keep up. Focus on email marketing. No wait, you must do Facebook live videos. Are you on Vine? Oh you need to get on that! When your work hours are confined to your child’s nap time, you don’t have a lot of time to mess around, especially on strategies that don’t work.
In this book, Gary Vaynerchuk breaks down each of the popular social media channels and offers easy, practical ways to engage with your audience. He explains how brands can tell their stories using social media, rather than just constantly spamming their customers. By providing real value and truly engaging, you can start using your social media in a meaningful way. The book is also full of examples, good and bad, of how brands have used their social media followings.
Do you ever feel like you lack discipline? Like you have a clear vision for your life, but just can’t quite make the changes to get there? You know you need to wake up earlier, but just can’t make it happen. Or you want to start working ahead instead of procrastinating every deadline, but somehow month after month you’re left scrambling to finish everything.
If so, you are not alone. In The Power of Intention, the late Dr. Wayne Dyer encourages us to drop the struggle when it comes to our goals and desires. Dr. Dyer believed that there is a power greater than us that we can tap into at any time. Call it God, the Divine, your intuition.
By aligning our actions with this all-knowing, loving source, we can joyfully move forward and achieve our goals much faster. This book offers multiple real-life examples of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things by focusing on their intention. Dr. Dyer also provides a step-by-step guide for getting started with these principles. This book not only helps you reach your goals faster, but you’ll actually enjoy the process too.
