The 365 Best Business Books Of All-Time: Bold

Over the past decade I’ve had the privilege of meeting and talking personally with some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet. Some of them you would recognize, many of them you would not (and they like it that way).

Almost every single one of them think big. As in “how can my business impact a billion people” big. There is no small thinking in their equations.

I see a lot of similarities between the people I’ve met personally and the people who are highlighted in today’s book — Bold by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kottler (listen to or read the summary here).

Of course, it’s one thing to think big. Anybody can do that. But it’s another thing to put your money where your mouth is and to execute on big thinking.

This requires a special skill set, and at the foundation of that skill set is today’s key takeaway/principle.

My Key Takeaway/Principle

Rely on first principles.

One of the things that all great entrepreneurs have the ability to do is think in first principles.

Elon Musk gave an interview to Kevin Rose, and explained how first principles work when thinking about how to manufacture batteries — something critical to both Tesla and Solar City.

They thought about the materials that batteries were made out of — carbon, nickel, aluminum, some polymers and a steel can. By by-passing the battery manufacturers and buying the materials on a metals exchange, they realized that they could get the battery cost to levels well below anybody thought they could get them.

So whatever problem you are working on, question all of the assumptions built into it, and work the solution all the way through from beginning to end. You’ll find insights there that almost everybody else would miss, which will lead to your biggest breakthrough.

Questions to ask yourself

• What assumptions are built into the products and services that dominate my market today?
• What are the first principles used to create those assumptions?
• Based on those principles, are there other ways to create value in my market?

What else is covered in this book?

There are 8 different ways to think differently profiled in this book, and relying on first principles is only one of them. Another two of my favourites are how to rapidly iterate and experiment, and understanding the balance between risk and risk mitigation.

This year (2018) I’m reading and summarizing the top 365 business books of all-time. You can get the full list of books, and links to my reviews of each book, by clicking here.

Happy learning!