25 Inspiring Books For (and Mostly By) Women Entrepreneurs
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When I first started blogging, and imagining creating an online business, there were nowhere near the number of inspiring books for women entrepreneurs there are today.
Back then, while there were hundreds of business and success books on bookshop and library shelves, most were written by men. For a long time there, it seemed only a handful of women were writing about entrepreneurship and business success.
I love that this has changed so much over these past several years!
And in fact, it’s changed so much that the books I’m sharing here are only a fraction of the many brilliant books sharing inspiration, success stories and business strategies for women (and by women).
Below, you’ll find books that are recommended over and over in Facebook groups and conversations whenever the question is asked: “What are the best books for women entrepreneurs?”, along with my personal favourites a couple of new and recently released books that are on my current biz reading list.
Reading the strategies, struggles, successes and celebrations of other women entrepreneurs helps each of us to learn and grow on our own biz journeys. These are the stories, the wisdom and insight that you’ll find in this collection of brilliant books.
Some of them, you’ll probably already have read, and may even have on your own business books shelves. But if you’re looking for some business book inspiration, and need some great ideas, hopefully you’ll find your next read here …
1.
CHILL & PROSPER
Denise Duffield-Thomas
The New Way to Grow Your Business, Make Millions and Change the World
Want to make twice as much money with half the work? It’s time to shift your mindset, recognize your worth, and become a successful entrepreneur on your own terms!
Feeling burned out by your business? Sick of the “hustle and grind” culture of your industry? There’s a better way! Get over your perfectionism and embrace the flow of the chillpreneur.
Denise Duffield-Thomas, money mindset coach and best-selling author, will show you how with her trademark humor and down-to-earth wisdom. In this book, Denise shares invaluable business advice and counter-intuitive millionaire mindset lessons (no blood, sweat, or tears necessary) to set you on the path of abundance – without all the ‘hard’ work.
Full of reassuring and practical advice, Chill & Prosper challenges the old, boring assumptions of what it takes to create success in business, so you can create financial independence with ease and grace.
Note: Chill & Prosper is a revised and updated edition of the book Chillpreneur
“What I love about Denise is her ability to demonstrate that it doesn’t have to be all about hustle and grind! Chillpreneur shows that you can make money doing what you love and take great care of yourself and your family along the way, without the stress or burnout. Her authenticity and expertise has inspired me since the very beginning of my journey into business, mindset, and abundance.” – Mel Wells, author of The Goddess Revolution and Hungry for More
2.
THE CALLING
Rha Goddess (foreword by Gabby Bernstein)
3 Fundamental Shifts to Stay True, Get Paid and Do Good
A game-changing book offering a six-step approach on how to find and follow your true calling and redefine success from entrepreneur and soul coach Rha Goddess.
The Calling will provide listeners with a road map, via three fundamental shifts on how to stay true, get paid, and do good.
The steps that will help lead you there include:
- Recognizing – it always begins with awareness. If you can’t see it, then you can’t do anything about it
- Accepting – means embracing, and taking responsibility for yourself, your life, and the things that want or need to be changed
- Forgiving – yourself and others
… and more!
“Each of us has something amazing to offer the world that no one else can. No matter how many times we’ve failed to do the thing we know we should, there is always another chance to say “yes” to ourselves. The Calling, doesn’t just remind us that we have a mission in this life, it actually shows us how to achieve it. Step by step, breath by breath. Love yourself enough to receive this book and its many blessings.”
– Lisa Nichols, New York Times bestselling author, Motivational Speaker, and Founder of Motivating The Masses
3.
ALIGN + ATTRACT
Kerry Rowett
Align Your Energy to Create a Business You Actually Love
You might love the idea of creating and growing an aligned business, but how do you actually do it?
When you work for yourself there are constant challenges, decisions to make and directions you could go. If you lose connection to yourself and your own sense of alignment, you can easily get pulled off course.
As you read Anna’s story in this book, you’ll see aspects of your own journey mirrored and will learn the steps to take back your power, create boundaries, take action and come back to your centre.
Part story and part guidebook on how to create more alignment in your business, Align + Attract will inspire you, motivate you, and help you attract clients and gain clarity about what you really want in your own business.
4.
WE SHOULD ALL BE MILLIONAIRES
Rachel Rodgers
A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth and Gaining Economic Power
In We Should All Be Millionaires, author Rachel Rodgers shares a realistic, achievable, step-by-step path so that you can create the support, confidence and plan you need to achieve your own success … and to become the millionaire that the world needs you to be!
This book will show you how to overcome the obstacles—lack of confidence, wealth-building knowledge gaps, impostor syndrome, money mindset issues, or simply not knowing where to start —that stand in your way of having seven figures in the bank.
We Should All Be Millionaires is a book that will change the way you think about money. And about your ability to earn it!
“There are thousands of books about how to make more money, but We Should All Be Millionaires is the book we’ve been waiting for. Money lessons from a Black woman, mother of four, business owner, and self-made millionaire–an author who understands the specific challenges that women face when it comes to building wealth. A powerful, thought-provoking book about how to create abundance in your life. More money, more options, more possibilities for yourself and your family.”
– Farnoosh Torabi, Author and Personal Finance Expert
5.
BIG MAGIC
Elizabeth Gilbert
Creative Living Beyond Fear
From the bestselling author of Eat Pray Love, this magical book will guide you on a path to the vibrant, fulfilling, creative life you’ve dreamed of.
In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert shares her wisdom and insights into the nature of creativity and inspiration. She shows readers how to approach what we love, while facing down what we fear, when it comes to our creative work and the ideas that call to us.
Whether you’re looking to write a book, make art, overcome challenges in your work, pursue long-held dreams, or fill your life with more mindfulness and passions, Big Magic is filled with inspiration and guidance to uncover your own creative gifts and discover a world filled with wonder and joy.
“Gilbert sweetly yet powerfully nudges readers to release fear, summon courage and allow the ‘strange jewels’ hidden within each of us to emerge and shine. The end result is the ‘big magic’… Engaging storytelling mixed with personal anecdotes and astute insights make Big Magic a rewarding, motivating and delightful read.” – Success Magazine
6.
YOU ARE A BADASS
Jen Sincero
How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
Filled with humour, inspiration and practical advice (and the occasional swear word!), this bestselling book from author and success coach Jen Sincero contains inspiring stories and easy exercises to help you:
- Identify and change your own self-sabotaging behaviours and beliefs
- Create a life you totally love. Now!!
- “Make some damn money already!” … like you never have before.
Read You Are a Badass if you want to gain a whole lot of insight into why you are how you are, learn to love what you can’t change (and change what you don’t love), and learn to “use ‘The Force’ to kick some serious ass”!!
“I adore Jen’s realistic and funny take on all matters of living an awesome life. She has such a gift for writing in a very digestible way that will appeal to everyone. If you’re looking for purple unicorns and rainbows you won’t find them here, what you will find are practical and easy ways to connect with your inner badass and change your life.”
– Madisyn Taylor, Co-Founder, DailyOM
7.
THE NEW HUSTLE
Emma Isaacs
Don’t Work Harder, Just Work Better
In her latest book, The New Hustle, Emma Isaacs, author of Winging It and founder / CEO of Business Chicks, shares her 77 “anti-rules” for how readers can learn to embrace radical flexibility, make quick decisions, work smarter, and say ‘no’ to the things that don’t matter … so that we can say ‘yes’ to things that do.
As a successful entrepreneur, bestselling author and mum of six, Emma is determined to start an “anti-hustle”, believing that we don’t need to work ‘harder’ … just better.
The New Hustle is written with humour, with insight, and with a dose of tough love, showing women a way to reimagine the way we work, rewrite the old, outdated work rules, and to reinvigorate our businesses and lives.
8.
INSPIRED & UNSTOPPABLE
Tama Kieves
Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work!
“You are meant to succeed in the work you love. Your desire will take you all the way.” — Tama J Kieves
In this beautifully written, highly motivating book, Tama Kieves, author of This Time I Dance and Thriving Through Uncertainty, seeks to help you move into your “brilliant power”—the purpose and destiny that will lead you to your greatest fulfilment, success and happiness.
The teachings in Inspired & Unstoppable, together with inspiring success stories from Tama’s own life and others who’ve made their dreams a reality, will help you connect to your own desires and to shift your thinking … to open up to inspired actions so that you can naturally create momentum and easily outpace anything any ‘expert’ could ever tell you.
“This book is like having your own wonderful success coach. Inspired & Unstoppable will show you how to stay true to your personal and professional vision—no matter what—and get you where you dream to be. This is a soulful and practical book, full of encouragement and guidance that will save you years of time and pain. You’re going to want to read this often.”
– Marci Shimoff, New York Times–bestselling author of Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason
9.
BRAGAUDACIOUS
Shannon Dunn (foreword by Cassie Howard)
The Art of Bold Celebration
Self celebration? What even is that?
Caught up in beliefs, cultural norms, societal expectations, family ways, the resistance to celebrating is a reality for too many ambitious, creative, wise, rebellious, regal, inspirational, adventurous, visionary, heroic, freedom loving, nurturing, connecting, magical, diplomatic, leading, loving, expansive women.
Over the course of a year, with monthly guidance and inspiration award winning author and creator of the Thrive Factor Framework ™️, Shannon Dunn, will support you to embrace the art of bold self celebration, inspired by one Thrive Factor Archetype at a time.
Cheerleader for thriving, Shannon offers a new look at thriving, this time through the lens of self celebration. Ingenious women of the world this is your call to celebrate YOU. Queue the pom poms. Your time has arrived to become a part of the Bragaudacious sisterhood!
10.
PLAYING BIG
Tara Mohr
A Practical Guide for Brilliant Women Like You
In this groundbreaking, inspirational book, Tara Mohr shows women how to start “playing big from the inside out”—to share their voice, their vision and their message.
As an expert in leadership, Tara saw a pattern in her work with women: talented women with valuable ideas and aspirations, who were not recognising or living out their own brilliance.
Playing Big provides the insights, inspiration and practical tools to help you trust your own instincts, recognise and follow your calling, become your own mentor, and take action to make your dreams and ideas a reality.
“If you’ve ever struggled (as I have!) with feeling like you have so much more to offer the world yet are unsure of the next step, Playing Big will give you the road map. Chapter after chapter I felt Tara was speaking directly to my soul… there’s not a trick for hiding and playing small that she misses. Tara’s tools will help you excavate your voice, clarify your mission & message, and fuel yourself renewably from the inside out. Playing Big is a must read for every woman with a dream.”
—Manisha Thakor, CEO of MoneyZen Wealth Management
11.
PIVOT WITH PURPOSE
Rebecca Cafiero
The true stories of how 18 female entrepreneurs and business owners pivoted during one of the most unprecedented times in history
Written by eighteen women from unique and varied backgrounds, the essays in Pivot With Purpose recount the challenges, insights and lessons that came from their shared experience of growing and scaling businesses during the global pandemic.
Although they never met outside the parameters of their computer screens, these women made a commitment, to themselves and each other, to “pivot with purpose”, refusing to settle, back down or surrender during a time of incredible uncertainty.
Pivot With Purpose shares the stories and heartfelt experiences of these powerful female leaders, entrepreneurs and women.
12.
BELIEVE IT
Jamie Kern Lima
How to Go From Underestimated to Unstoppable
With radical vulnerability and honesty, author Jamie Kerm Lima takes you on a journey through deeply personal stories of heartbreak and resilience. Jamie also pulls back the curtain on her fight to change the beauty industry’s use of unrealistic images, on behalf of all the little girls who are about to start doubting themselves, and all of the grown women who still do.
In Believe It you’ll discover how to…
-Overcome self-doubt
-Tune into and trust your own intuition
-Let go of your mistakes and insecurities
-Turn down the volume on your inner critic
-Handle the rejection, the haters, and the mean girls
-Start your dream (and keep going!)
And much more…
If you’ve ever doubted yourself or felt truly underestimated, this book will inspire a new kind of belief and confidence in you and your dreams!
“Believe It will leave you laughing, crying, and moved by the story of a woman who believed she could. For the women who have been told you’re too much and not enough in the same breath, and for anyone who has ever questioned if you’re capable of making a difference, this book is for you.”
—Jenna Kutcher, Host of The Goal Digger Podcast
13.
SHE TAKES ON THE WORLD
Natalie MacNeil
A Guide to Being Your Own Boss, Working Happy, and Living on Purpose
Are you ready to create a business and life you love?
In She Takes on the World, author Natalie MacNeil shares powerful business and life lessons, her plan for success in this digital age, and inspiring, engaging stories of successful women entrepreneurs.
Written with sparkling clarity, humor and honesty, this guide to “being your own boss, living happy, and living on purpose” provides just the right balance of inspiration and practical strategies to show you how to build your own business and make a living doing what you love.
“A game-changer, Natalie will help you pioneer new opportunities and create winning strategies in business and life.” ~ Camilla Webster, Co-Author of The Seven Pearls of Financial Wisdom
14.
THE BIG LEAP
Gay Hendricks
Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
In this popular and often-recommended book, bestselling author Gay Hendricks reveals a simple but comprehensive program for overcoming our one barrier to happiness and fulfilment, the Upper Limit Problem.
The Big Leap delivers a proven method to help identify the fears preventing us from reaching our personal upper limit, and then breaking through that limitation. Learn what it is to work in your Zone of Genius, and how to find your way there from the less fulfilling work in your Zone of Excellence and Zone of Competence.
This book provides a clear path for achieving your true potential and attaining not only financial success but also success in love and life.
“Gay Hendricks’ positivity, his love, his genius fill me with hope. And in, The Big Leap, he once again names a pattern that I have always been aware of in myself but never quite brought to consciousness. Now that I have, there’s no going back.” – Geneen Roth, author of Women Food and God
15.
COACH YOURSELF TO SUCCESS
Talane Miedaner
101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life
Imagine having the insight you need to be your own life coach!
In this book, professional coach Talane Meidaner shares 101 of her most powerful and effective coaching tips to help you achieve success and attract everything you want in life and business.
Coach Yourself to Success provides an easy to follow, 10-part program that will help you gain insight into what’s most important in your life, and give you the tools you need to shift from where you are right now to where you want to be.
“This book is your blueprint for the life you’ve always dreamed about having.” – Sandy Vilas, president, Coach University
16.
SOUL MODES
Carlie Maree
You Are Not One Ordinary Woman. You’re Four Extraordinary Ones!
In Soul Modes, learn about Carlie Maree’s ground-breaking research into the motivational patterns and hidden magic that resides in all women.
Both Carlie Maree’s own experience and the experience of the many women she’s worked with have shown that women have a distinct cycle through four different “Soul Modes”—Super mode, Sparkle mode, Wild mode and Bear mode—each with its own unique characteristics and different needs.
When we give ourselves permission to embrace these soul modes and fulfil those needs, we can move with ease through our Soul Cycle.
Soul Modes provides an easy to understand framework that will help you do just that … and to finally do life in a way that feels good, honours your body’s natural energy, and enables you to truly thrive.
17.
LET IT BE EASY
Susie Moore
Simple Ways to Stop Stressing & Start Living
Susie Moore is a life coach and advice columnist for some of the world’s biggest media outlets. Her earlier books (also great books for women entrepreneurs!) include What if It Does Work Out? and Stop Checking Your Likes.
Susie knows that all too often we create our own stress … and she knows that we can just as easily create peace and power for ourselves. While she doesn’t deny the reality of pain and suffering, in Let It Be Easy she does share powerful ways to process grief, loss, pain and anxiety so we can live a peace-filled and easier life.
The poignant stories and wise and witty words that Susie shares in this latest book deliver nuggets of real-life wisdom to help you defuse triggers and turn failures into successes with simple but powerful changes.
“Part shaman, part therapist, 100 percent inspiration. Susie Moore has used her jaw-dropping life story to provide a moving, practical, sensational guide to letting everything be easier. Shockingly easier. Like you can’t believe it could be so easy. Like the first sigh of relief you’ve breathed in years! Like the first sigh of relief you’ve breathed in years! Let go of doing things the hard way! Stop pushing boulders uphill! …” – Sheri Salata, former executive producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show
18.
GIRL ON FIRE
Cara Alwill Leyba
How to Choose Yourself, Burn the Rule Book, and Blaze Your Own Trail in Life and Business
Who would you be if you stopped following *their* rules? What would you create if you create if you had nothing holding you back?
Now is the time to show up for ourselves. We all have the ability to design a life and career beyond our wildest imaginations without permission, selection, or validation. Girl on Fire will show you how to do it.
This book is for every woman, who has had a vision that others might not understand. It’s for every woman who is sick and tired of playing by the rules. It’s for every woman who has known she was meant for more and has waited far too long for someone to give her the permission she thought she needed.
19.
WOMEN WHO LAUNCH
Marlene Wagman-Geller
Women Who Shattered Glass Ceilings: Empowering Stories of Game-Changing Women
Dorothy Parker observed, “It’s a man’s world”. The lady entrepreneurs and game-changers profiled in Women Who Launch would beg to differ. Unlike the matrons of the 1950s – “the women who lunched” – these kick-ass females left their DNA in the annals of time.
Women Who Launch is filled with inspiring true stories of women activists, artists, and entrepreneurs who launched some of the most famous companies, brands, and organizations today and changed the world. It is both a collection of biographies and a testament of female empowerment.
These women who launched prove, in the words of Rosie the Riveter, “We can do it!”
“These soaring stories will inspire you to live your dreams!”
– Becca Anderson, author of The Book of Awesome Women
20.
DEAR FEMALE FOUNDER
Lu Li
66 Letters of Advice from Women Entrepreneurs Who Made $1 Billion in Revenue
Dear Female Founder is a unique book based on one simple question:
If successful female entrepreneurs and investors wrote a letter of advice to the next generation of female entrepreneurs – what would they write about?
In the book, you will find invaluable insights from 66 inspirational women. These trailblazing female entrepreneurs, from all around the globe, have generated more than $1 billion in revenue between them. Here these women share the business advice and wisdom they wished someone had told them when they first started out.
“Dear Female Founder is as inspiring as it is honest. A must read if you are thinking about taking the journey into the world of startup or want to inspire the next generation of female founders that they can do it too.” – Kathryn Parsons
21.
SHE MEANS BUSINESS
Carrie Green
Turn Your Ideas Into Reality and Become a Wildly Successful Entrepreneur
With little more than an internet connection and computer, you can get your ideas, messages, and business out there like never before and create unimagined success.
She Means Business author, Carrie Green, started her first online business at the age of 20. So she knows what it’s like to be an ambitious and creative woman with big dreams and plenty of determination. She also knows the challenges that starting your own business brings – the fears, the self doubt, overwhelm, confusion, and the blocks that entrepreneurs face.
If you’re a creative and ambitious female entrepreneur (or are contemplating the entrepreneurial path) this book will provide honest, valuable guidance, and the practical tools you need to follow your heart and bring your vision to life.
22.
HER BIG IDEA: The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
Haley Hoffman-Smith
The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
In 2017, only 2% of venture capital spending went to female-founded companies. That doesn’t quite cut it! Haley Hoffman Smith set out to research why this was, and to challenge the barriers to BIG thinking in women’s pursuits of entrepreneurship.
Her Big Idea explores the themes of creative ideation and the common pitfalls of entrepreneurship. Highlighting the successes of the greatest female entrepreneurs of the 21st Century, Hoffman Smith underscores their big ideas and reminds readers of the overarching message that any woman, regardless of her age or level of experience, can bring her idea to life and make it bigger than she ever dreamed possible.
Featuring stories from Headbands of Hope’s Jessica Ekstrom and Diversability’s Tiffany Yu, stories of favorite female-led companies such as Rent the Runway and Hint Water, Her Big Idea ushers in a new frontier of entrepreneurship.
23.
THE SOUL-SOURCED ENTREPRENEUR
Christine Kane
An Unconventional Success Plan for the Highly Creative, Secretly Sensitive & Wildly Ambitious
In The Soul-Sourced Entrepreneur, former songwriter and performer, and founder of Uplevel YOU, Christine Kane shares the insights that have helped thousands find success without losing themselves.
In these pages, readers will find a practical plan to:
• Toss out ineffective, old-school goal-setting models.
• Reframe your intuition and sensitivity as valuable assets, not as flaws to hide.
• Examine old patterns for clues as to what’s been holding you back.
• Clean up the spaces and distractions draining your energy and power.
• Learn to confidently trust in your own wisdom.
• Break free from fear-based decision-making that plagues most businesses.
Forget business as usual. Your business is personal, and in this new era, authenticity, creativity, and sensitivity are what set businesses apart. The Soul-Sourced Entrepreneur is your unconventional plan to build the business of your dreams, and being wildly successful by being you.
“If you want to be successful, powerful, and influential, but are repulsed by admonishments to crush, hack, manipulate, and succeed through pure 24/7 aggression, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. In this inspiring and practical guide, Kane points to those qualities you may have deemed problematic—vulnerability, sensitivity, creativity, intuition—as the path to lasting success.” – Susan Piver, New York Times bestselling author and founder of The Open Heart Project
24.
DARE TO LEAD
Brene Brown
Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.
When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.
In Dare to Lead, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BSstyle that millions of readers have come to expect and love.
In Brene’s words, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.”
Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.
25.
DO NOTHING
Celeste Headlee
How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving
In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside, and start living instead of doing. As it turns out, we’re searching for external solutions to an internal problem. We won’t find what we’re searching for in punishing diets, productivity apps, or the latest self-improvement schemes. Yet all is not lost—we just need to learn how to take time for ourselves, without agenda or profit, and redefine what is truly worthwhile.
Pulling together threads from history, neuroscience, social science, and even paleontology, Headlee examines long-held assumptions about time use, idleness, hard work, and even our ultimate goals. Her research reveals that the habits we cling to are doing us harm; they developed recently in human history, which means they are habits that can, and must, be broken. It’s time to reverse the trend that’s making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive, and return to a way of life that allows us to thrive.
“This book is so important and could truly save lives.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
Hopefully that’s given you some great ideas to put on your reading list or your next book order!!
I’d love to know what your business book favourites are! Let us know in the comments below.
♥ Brigid
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