17 Business Cheat Codes That WIll Make You Rich

If you’re looking to break away from your current work arrangement and start doing something that you’re passionate about, consider starting your own microbusiness, a business run by one person. Where you once needed to have a fair amount of funding to get started, Chris Guillebeau suggests you can now do so for as little as $100.

In The $100 Startup, Guillebeau breaks down the process of starting your own business. He covers everything from finding your target audience to creating a development plan, explaining how you can find success without loaning a cent from the bank.

What do master chess players and master businesspeople have in common? Both always plan five steps ahead. In Your Next Five Moves, entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David argues that what distinguishes exceptional business leaders from average ones is their ability to anticipate future events and plan effectively for them—ideally by thinking five steps ahead. To turn you into a master business planner, Bet-David presents five strategic steps you must start taking now: learn about yourself, improve your problem-solving skills, create a winning team, expand your business, and position yourself as an industry leader.

In each step, we’ll describe how you can enhance your ability to strategize for long-term success. We’ll also connect Bet-David’s ideas to those of other entrepreneurs and business leaders, such as Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) and Gino Wickman (Traction), so you get the greatest insight on how to build a successful long-term strategy for your business.

In Fix This Next, entrepreneur and business author Mike Michalowicz introduces the Business Hierarchy of Needs, a system for determining which of your company’s problems you should fix next. Michalowicz created this system because many entrepreneurs struggle with prioritization. They’re often overwhelmed by problems, so they focus on fixing the most immediate problem instead of identifying the most impactful approach that’ll fix the problem’s root cause. Since the root cause isn’t resolved, problems continue to appear.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how Michalowicz’s prioritization system works and how you can use it to make your business more successful. In our commentary, we’ll compare his advice to that of other business experts like Simon Sinek and Seth Godin, as well as explore concrete tips for implementing Michalowicz’s ideas.

Running a successful business requires a lot of time and effort, but it doesn’t have to take over your life. In Buy Back Your Time, veteran entrepreneur Dan Martell says you can run a profitable business and make time for the things you love without having to work yourself to the bone. Simply buy back your time: Hire others to take over some of your work, and then invest your reclaimed time in activities that replenish your energy and advance your business. Martell shares practical strategies for managing your time better, including how to identify a task’s value, waste less time at work, and create optimized schedules for achieving your personal and professional goals.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to prioritize and delegate tasks, run your business more efficiently, and create weekly and yearly plans to optimize your time. Along the way, we’ll supplement Martell’s strategies with advice from other self-improvement experts and provide additional practical tips for taking control of your time.

In Unscripted, MJ DeMarco—entrepreneur, investor, and best-selling author of The Millionaire Fastlane—insists that there’s only one way to achieve financial success: Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset.

He claims that most people don’t practice this mindset and can’t achieve financial success because they have unproductive beliefs about money that dissuade them from pursuing an entrepreneurial path. However, he argues that though these beliefs are pervasive, they’re surmountable: You can remove their influence, cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, and achieve your financial goals.

This guide walks you through DeMarco’s advice for cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset and achieving financial success, covering:

• How beliefs about money fall into one of three financial mindsets—each influencing how you manage your finances and the amount of wealth you accumulate
• Eight unproductive beliefs about money that prevent you from achieving the wealth that you want
• Actionable ways to remove the influence of unproductive beliefs and adopt an entrepreneurial mindset

Additionally, we’ll supplement DeMarco’s ideas with psychological research and practical advice from financial advisors and successful entrepreneurs.

In today’s fast-paced world, our lives increasingly revolve around productivity, efficiency, and work. It’s now normal for many people to answer emails during dinner and pack their days with as many tasks as possible. Yet in Do Nothing, radio journalist Celeste Headlee argues that by trying to do too much, people are working less efficiently because the human brain isn’t designed to multitask or work without rest. In addition, the culture of overworking has led to worse health outcomes and increased social isolation.

So if all this work isn’t serving us, how can we end an addiction to productivity? And if not work, what should we be doing? Headlee’s solution is to embrace true leisure—doing things just for the fun of it. In this guide, we’ll explain the historical origins of the modern work addiction, how it impacts society, and what you can do to live a healthier life. We’ll also supplement Headlee’s ideas with more context on global labor trends and tips from other wellness and productivity experts.

Whether they’re winning sports championships or engineering technological breakthroughs, teams can accomplish amazing things. But building a high-performing team requires more than getting a group of people together and hoping for the best. In The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, leadership expert John C. Maxwell provides 17 pieces of advice compiled over a lifetime of leadership research to help you recruit and organize the right people, align their efforts with a common goal, and create a positive team culture. By following Maxwell’s advice, you can raise your team to its highest potential and achieve your most ambitious goals.

In this guide, we’ll discuss why teamwork is crucial for reaching big goals and explore how you can build a winning team by assembling the right people, fostering a team identity, and cultivating strong team dynamics. Along the way, we’ll share more practical tips to help you make the most of Maxwell’s techniques and supplement his advice with other expert perspectives on leadership and teamwork.

Leadership expert John C. Maxwell argues that today’s leaders must abandon traditional management practices and make leadershifts—changes in how they think, communicate, and act as leaders. In Leadershift, Maxwell shares lessons from a lifetime of leading organizations and coaching developing leaders, sharing common leadership mistakes, and providing guidance for becoming a transformative leader who can inspire great things from others. By making Maxwell’s leadershifts, you can maximize your leadership abilities and amplify the success of your team or organization.

In this guide, we’ll explore the leadership changes Maxwell suggests to run an effective organization. We’ll discuss how to improve your leadership mindset, manage a team effectively, earn the respect of others, and inspire new generations of leaders. We’ll supplement Maxwell’s advice with insights from other leadership experts and share additional practical tips for making Maxwell’s leadershifts in your work.

Running a successful business requires a lot of time and effort, but it doesn’t have to take over your life. In Buy Back Your Time, veteran entrepreneur Dan Martell says you can run a profitable business and make time for the things you love without having to work yourself to the bone. Simply buy back your time: Hire others to take over some of your work, and then invest your reclaimed time in activities that replenish your energy and advance your business. Martell shares practical strategies for managing your time better, including how to identify a task’s value, waste less time at work, and create optimized schedules for achieving your personal and professional goals.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to prioritize and delegate tasks, run your business more efficiently, and create weekly and yearly plans to optimize your time. Along the way, we’ll supplement Martell’s strategies with advice from other self-improvement experts and provide additional practical tips for taking control of your time.

Jack Canfield struck gold as a co-author of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, but it took years for him to achieve success. In The Success Principles, he details 67 principles to help anyone achieve their goals and dreams, based on his study and interviews with hundreds of successful people. The basic formula for success is to identify what you want, know that you deserve to have it, and use the book’s principles to get you there.

The book's Principles include taking responsibility for your life, setting goals and visualizing success, facing your fears, forgiving others so you can move forward, asking for and graciously receiving feedback, and appreciating your successes.

As social media becomes increasingly central to how we share information, socialize, and do business, a personal brand—your digital presence and reputation—is now an essential career tool. In Crush It!, Gary Vaynerchuk explains how to develop and leverage your personal brand to get a better job or—better yet— to quit your job altogether and earn a living monetizing that brand.

Vaynerchuk became one of the earliest social media influencers during the late 2000s with a daily video series in which he tasted and talked about wine in a casual, accessible way. Fifteen years after launching his vlog, he remains a top influencer in business.

In this guide, we’ll discuss Vaynerchuk’s step-by-step instructions for building and monetizing a personal brand. We’ll also amend his advice with updated information and practical tips.