4 Books for Entrepreneurs Seeking to Challenge the Status Quo The easiest path isn't always the best. These four books help entrepreneurs challenge themselves and build a bolder future.
By Peter Daisyme Edited by Micah Zimmerman
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Inertia is a powerful force, even for entrepreneurs hardwired for efficiency and driven to improve themselves and their teams continuously. Everyone gets complacent eventually. Perhaps you've already reached a point in your entrepreneurial journey where you're tempted to say, "Good enough."
But unless you're nearing a long-planned and well-deserved retirement, there's more work to be done. Shaking off complacency won't be as easy or comfortable as sitting back and being satisfied with what you've achieved so far. You won't be the first to do it, though. Four new books — each authored by an expert in their field — show the path forward.
Related: 10 Ways Successful People Push Through Adversity
Four books for entrepreneurs challenging the status quo
These four books cover different domains: healthcare, financial planning, cyber security and executive leadership. Yet all offer clear, actionable guidance for entrepreneurs ready for something more than "just good enough."
1. A World Undivided: A Quest for Better Healthcare Beyond Geopolitics by Joseph Saba, M.D.
Infectious Disease physician Joseph Saba's latest book delves deep into the healthcare challenges of the last 40 years to draw broad lessons about what it will take to prevent the next pandemic and expedite solutions for today's most critical health challenges.
Drawing on his work with the World Health Organization and UNAIDS during the HIV/AIDS pandemic and, most recently, his work with pharmaceutical companies to improve access to medicines, Dr. Saba chronicles the fierce impact of healthcare's resistance to globalization and the geopolitical pressures that impede progress for patients.
These challenges are real, but they're surmountable. Dr. Saba describes what it will take to deliver healthcare into the 21st century — from reducing our overreliance on hospitals and health facilities as the sole point of care to breaking up the public vs. private sector divide in healthcare delivery and tapping into digital tools to connect patients to healthcare services better. He also highlights the need for champions outside the healthcare industry to help deliver sustainable change for patients.
A World Undivided shows that a human-centered approach is applicable beyond healthcare. For entrepreneurs, it shows the power of rethinking old ways of doing things and creating value in collaboration rather than competition.
2. Fire Your Financial Advisor: 40 Years of Greed & Exploitation of the American Retiree, and How You Can Fight Back by Greg Aler
The subject of Greg Aler's new book is a familiar and painful one for many entrepreneurs: the high cost of retirement planning and wealth management. Readers don't have to take the title's advice to heart to absorb its powerful arguments against status-quo thinking.
Aler, a serial entrepreneur who built a successful financial services firm in his 20s and 30s, tells the story of a trillion-dollar industry that's resistant to change and dismissive of its customers. While not painting all financial advisors with the same brush, he shows that advisors have strong incentives to withhold and gatekeep useful information about market risk, taxes in retirement, long-term care costs and the fees financial advisors pass on to clients.
Aler invites readers to reimagine retirement planning without all that noise and misdirection. He offers lessons applicable beyond the industry he knows best. It's useful to see those lessons in the context of a field that has already changed considerably, thanks to portfolio automation and fee-only relationships — and to think about how they might apply to fields that haven't been disrupted yet.
Related: How To Prepare For A Smooth Retirement Transition
3. The Human Fix to Human Risk: 5 Steps to Fostering a Culture of Cyber Security Awareness by Lise Lapointe
In the expanded second edition of The Human Fix to Human Risk, Quebec-based cyber security expert Lise Lapointe shares an innovative, customizable threat management framework designed for the era of dispersed work. This is the Terranova Security Awareness 5-Step Framework, for which Lapointe has earned a spot on who's-who lists like IT World Canada's "Top 20 Women in Cyber Security" and WXN's "100 Most Powerful Women" entrepreneurs in Canada.
The Terranova Security Awareness 5-Step Framework goes beyond tactical prevention-and-response guidelines to create what Lapointe calls a "culture of security" within organizations. It's people-centered, not technology-centered. It relies on internal stakeholders from across the organization rather than remaining siloed in the IT department.
Through her work in one of the most complicated and frustrating domains for modern businesses and entrepreneurs, Lapointe shows the importance of breaking down bureaucratic and process-related barriers to change. She offers a roadmap for strategic change at the individual level as well, inviting entrepreneurs to leave their comfort zones as they work toward personal and professional goals.
4. Lead You: The Winning Combination to Achieve Personal and Professional Success by Bobby Harrington
Executive leadership coach Bobby Harrington's new book invites entrepreneurs more accustomed to leading others to lead themselves. Lead Yourself First, his unique approach to "self-leadership," applies basic leadership principles at the individual level. It draws on Harrington's long and varied career in sports, the military, the nonprofit world, and Fortune 100 boardrooms.
Harrington's advice is familiar. It's built around personal responsibility, self-discipline, and continuous improvement. What's unique about Lead You is how Harrington knits everything together in an actionable roadmap for entrepreneurs who (mistakenly) feel like they've hit their ceiling. With consistent implementation, the Lead Yourself First framework helps entrepreneurs find a higher gear and overcome previously impossible obstacles.
Related: The Best Entrepreneurs Are Experts at Self-Improvement
Find your challenge
These four books challenge readers to improve themselves and those around them. To find new opportunities for personal and professional growth and new ways to impact the world positively.
Their lessons aren't always easy or comfortable. But doing the easy or comfortable thing is not in most entrepreneurs' DNA. So if you're unsatisfied with your own status quo, accept these authors' invitation to make a change.
