Today is World Book Day, gone are the days of me having the panic of finding an appropriate fictional character to dress my children as! Now I am encouraging them to think laterally and chose different genres to broaden their knowledge and interests which, don’t get me wrong, is still a challenge! My enthusiasm for reading has really only rubbed off onto one of my children, the other still thinks books are for squishing spiders!
When I think about it, reading hasn’t always been something that I have enjoyed! I dived into my first book during a girly holiday at the ripe age of 19! As I unpacked all the holiday essentials – sun cream, flip flops, kaftans etc., my friends were unpacking books and discussing who would read what when they were finished! I decided to get on board and pick a book and since then, have never looked back!
The beauty of a book is all about taking it back to basics, stepping away from technology and getting lost in a novel, being so taken in with the story that you are almost living it, with the real world almost ceasing to exist! There is sometimes nothing better than that escapism!
An interesting debate - Book v’s Kindle! I’m wholeheartedly a book person; I get so frustrated if I lose my place in my kindle! However, within the team at Compass Point Recruitment, Paige is a book person at heart but appreciates the benefits of her kindle, Annette and Nicole are both fellow book people and James is happy to appreciate a great read by any means and is prone to just enjoying a cuppa and a magazine!
I have always ranged in my interests and Genre choices - from the classics, enjoying the wonders of Jane Austin, to Psychology reads with an excellent book written by John Cleese and a psychologist Robin Norwood called “Families & How to survive them”, right through to Business and Self Help books.
As someone who is always interested in personal development and fresh business ideas, in recent years I have started to read a lot more in relation to business and largely around self-development, I also listen to a lot of audio books in the car on the way to and from work and podcasts when trying to get my daily exercise in.
Reading, in my opinion, allows us to become better entrepreneurs, paving the way for fewer mistakes in business, better and faster business decisions and supporting us to have the right approach from the get go! I find that the decisions we make in business are based on knowledge and/or experience and having an open mind to different perspectives and advice can only ever strengthen this.
I wanted to share with you some of the books that I have found to be helpful and have gone on to impact me in my development;
- How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie
- Black box thinking – Matthew Syed
- How to wreck your business – Stuart Mason
- The 1 page marketing plan – Allan Dib
- Start with why? How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action" - Simon Sinek
- Think and Grow Rich! - Napoleon Hill
- Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead - Sheryl Sandberg
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey
Happy Reading!