What Books Do CEOs Read?

CEOs read lots of books! Great answer right? But it’s true.

Warren Buffett, the world’s richest man, reads 400-500 pages per day which is equivalent to reading 2 books or so per day. The average CEO reads 3-5 books per month.

Why do CEOs do so much reading?

CEOs read books to become smarter. Duh right? Every book you sit down to read is full of someone else’s knowledge and primed for you to download into your brain. It speeds up the learning curve as well as expands your thinking.

Take this quote from Charlie Munger as a prototype of the millionaire mindset:

“The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.”
— Charlie Munger

This first quote is explaining how important it is for people to share the knowledge they’ve acquired with others. For example, right now I’m sharing knowledge with you to make you smarter and my blog is full of information I’m sharing with the world to make it a smarter and better place.

You should do the same. When you start an online business, you select a topic you are knowledgeable enough on to share with others. This is how you build a 6 figure earning blog, sharing information with others and packaging it into books, audio content, and video lessons.

Read: The 3 Types of Informational Products to Create and Sell 

Quote #2 to live by according to Charlie Munger…

“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.”
— Charlie Munger

The second quote is how you should strive to become smarter every day just as these CEO’s are doing. In today’s world we have access to the internet which provides you a free way of finding knowledge to learn.

Books are still a great old school way to learn and are convenient because the author has taken the time to put all the informational together in a package by chapters for you to learn. It saves you time from having to search hours and hours to find pieces of information related to a topic.

I read for three basic reasons and I’m sure the CEOs reading books daily would agree with these:

1. Read books to learn something new
2. Read books to know how to implement these newly learned skills or ideas.
3. Read books to become more of an expert on a subject. As I’ve mentioned before in this post, to be considered an expert about something, you just have to know more than somebody else about it.

I usually read non-fiction books such as self improvement, inspirational, educational, etc. as these have lots of great lessons to learn on a particular subject I’m exploring. I’m sure many CEO’s read books on self development also to better themselves as leaders of their company and become smarter all around. You’d be amazed how well you improve as a person mentally from self-improvement books. They can even be addicting to read…

Alright, enough talk of why CEOs read books and why you should too. Now let’s get to my recommended list of books that should become part of your bookshelf this year.

I’ve listed out 52 different books you can read for the next year by consuming 1 per week. I’d love to hear your thoughts below if you’ve read these before and what your biggest nugget was that you took away from the book.

52 Books CEOs Read That You Should Too

• Money: Master the Game 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robins

• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoloan Hill

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

• The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

• The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

• Bullseye The Power of Focus by Brian Tracy

• The Essays of Warren Buffet by Warren Buffet

• The Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

• Start With Why by Simon Sinek

• The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin Johnson

• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

• $100 Start Up: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living by Guillebeau

• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight, Founder of Nike

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

• Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson

• The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller

• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

• The Hoops Whisperer by Idan Ravin

• Pensees by Blaise Pascal

• The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman

• Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy

• Ogilvy on Adverstising by David Ogilvy

• Purple Cow by Seth Godin

• The Snowball by Warren Buffett

• E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

• Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

• Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks for a Better Life by John Wooden

• Sam Walton: Made in America by Sam Walton

• Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

• When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead by Jerry Weintraub

• 50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People by Sally Beare

• How to be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth by Martin S. Fridson

• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

• Zero to One by Peter Thiel

• Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson

• The Power of Others: Peer Pressure, Groupthink, and How People Around Us Shape Everything We Do by Michael Bond

• The Everything Store by Jeff Bezos

• The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson

• ADHD Does Not Exist by Richard Saul

• Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis

• So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

• Everything is Obvious – How Common Sense Fails Us by Duncan J. Watts

• Focus by Daniel Goleman

• Ask GaryVee by Gary Vaynerchuk

• The One Thing by Gary Keller

• Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian

• The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

What’s Your Favorite Book?

Leave a comment below of your favorite book you’ve read and recommend to everyone else who will be reading the comments! It’s good to have you here today!

Be great,

Nick

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