Entrepreneurship has become a popular topic for pre-retirees in recent years. Probably because more than a third of Americans 50 to 64 expect to keep working after traditional retirement age. Staying on at your current job for another 15 years might not sound appealing. Or worse, you might get forced into retirement before you’re ready.
That’s why becoming an older entrepreneur is such an attractive option. You’re free to grow your own wealth and create the retirement you always dreamed of, instead of worrying about how to start saving for retirement at 50.
Interested? Check out these 6 best entrepreneurship books for inspiration.
Winning Through Intimidation by Robert Ringer
Winning Through Intimidation isn’t about entrepreneurship specifically, but another important topic: intimidation. It makes the best entrepreneur books list because intimidation is the one thing that keeps most people from ever becoming entrepreneurs in the first place.
In it Ringer breaks the concept of intimidation down, explaining why it stalls people and what you can do to overcome it. The ultimate message of the book is to take initiative in every area of your life, personal or business. If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, this mindset is essential.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Think and Grow Rich is a motivational book classic that deserves a place on any best entrepreneur books list. It tackles an important question about success: what makes a winner?
Napoleon Hill studied the most successful men of his time (Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and others) to ascertain what traits they possessed. In this classic book, he explains exactly what mindset you need to have to succeed at any business venture, using real-life examples to illustrate his points.
Read this book if you want to get yourself into an entrepreneurial mindset with the right kind of motivational thinking.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Entrepreneurship can be overwhelming. You run your own show, and have to make hundreds or thousands of micro decisions every day. Each helps you inch towards success… or away of it.
Blink dives deeper into the idea of thinking without thinking, and how it impacts our ability to succeed in all areas of life. Like with all of Gladwell’s books, he uses a mixture of science, facts and stories to explain his points.
Ultimately, the reader learns what makes a great decision-maker. It’s not the person who deliberates longest, but instead someone who can “thin-slice” through to the factors that matter most.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a great dive into modern entrepreneurship. You very well might see it on a best entrepreneur books list for young, broke, Millennials. But I think the message is just as important for older entrepreneurs with retirement on the horizon.
The Lean Startup is a crash course on innovation and success in the internet age, something every older entrepreneur needs to be prepared to swim through. The book digs into the details of true success, and how to avoid vanity metrics that make you feel like you’re progressing when you aren’t.
The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco
The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime makes an important point: Mainstream financial advice is completely irrelevant today. Go to school, get a job, buy a house, invest in the stock market and build your nest egg. It simply doesn’t work like that anymore.
DeMarco explains why you need to think outside of the box to become a millionaire and how to do it. The book’s alternative road-to-wealth inspired me to become a different kind of entrepreneur, and can help you starting out as well.
Late-Blooming Entrepreneurs by Lynne Strang
Late-Blooming Entrepreneurs: Eight Principles for Starting a Business After Age 40 is practical, actionable, and right up the alley of most of our readers at My Retirement Rehab.
I like it because it draws on the personal experiences of Lynne Strang, who succeeded as a late-blooming entrepreneur herself. Your journey as an entrepreneur is more than just about your business success. That’s why Strang offers advice on navigating your home responsibilities, relationships, health and other obstacles to entrepreneurship as well.
There’s always more to learn about entrepreneurship, no matter your success. I’m still a student of it. But if you’re at the beginning stages, these best entrepreneur books are a great place to start. If nothing else, they’ll help you stop worrying about failing and inspire you to try. As Mark Cuban once said, “It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed, you only have to be right once.”