171: {Solo} My Top 5 Book Recommendations for Female Entrepreneurs

I don't know if you are like me, but I'm always looking for a good book to read. I love reading in the mornings or on a rainy day. Also, while laying out in the sun, it's just the best! Today I'm sharing my top favorite books that I've been reading and re-reading and hope that you enjoy them too! 

Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:01.568)
All right. Today I want talk about five books that have made a huge impact on me. When I turned 30 years old, I decided I really wanted to start getting into the personal development space. I was sick of being stagnant. I wanted to learn and grow, learn new skills, start a business, this podcast, all the things. And that all came, you know, after years later, but it all started with choosing myself and personal development. And these are five books that I read.

that are my favorite books that I've read throughout my professional and personal development journey. So one book I read that I love, I reread regularly is Untamed by Glennon Doyle. And I love that book because I don't know if you're like me, I was raised in the South in the United States and that was a great experience and everything, but I was also raised that

little girls are quiet and demure and they don't have outspoken personalities or they are quiet. They don't speak up. I was told a lot when I was younger and even now that I am very bossy and there are actually other descriptive words that are positive that go along with that. And so I don't know reading that book untamed just kind of felt like I was seen and heard and

that my wild, beautiful spirit that is loud and robust and extroverted in your face and everything is okay. And I love that book and I love the author. She has a beautiful story and I would just highly encourage that you check that one out. Another book that I really love and I've heard this individual, this author speak several times on stage and she is literally mind blowing. So this book is Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima.

Jamie Kern Lima is a former TV producer turned entrepreneur. she and her husband created it cosmetics. They sold it to L'Oreal for, you know, billions with a B dollars. And she just not only has done amazing things as an entrepreneur and as a business woman, but she's an incredible person. And her first book that she had out there was called believe it, which I love that book too, but I really, really loved worthy.

Caroline Pennington (02:26.714)
And a lot of what she talks about in that book is that we are all worthy. And I think we all need to hear that message over and over. And she talks about, even as someone who's done these super, super amazing things, like she sold millions of units of makeups on QVC. I mean, again, she sold her company to L'Oreal. She's done some really amazing things. She talks about how we deal with this feeling of not feeling worthy. And I think that we all deal with that at some degree.

in some parts of our lives. And that book was just a great reminder that no matter what you're going through, no matter what you have on your plate, no matter if you're having a bad day or down, each and every one of us is worthy. And so I love that book and I reread that one too. All right, my third book recommendation is by an author and online entrepreneur. Her name is Marie Folio.

And her book is called Everything is Figureoutable. And I love this book because it just gives you more confidence and encouragement and reminders that literally you can figure whatever you want out. OK, so don't sit here and compare yourself to someone who's been doing something for 10 years. I myself had no clue what I was doing when I started this podcast, like literally no clue. Like I got on Google.

and started going down a rabbit hole reading a blog on how to start a podcast. And here we are now three years later, global podcasts and top 3 % rankings. Okay. But three years ago, I had no clue what I was doing. Okay. So I just had to figure it out. Was it frustrating? Yes. Was it time consuming in the beginning? Yes. Did I want to throw my computer out the window? Yes.

But I just stayed and I kept figuring it out. So things that used to take me three hours to do now take me less than five minutes. So my point to you is, is that whatever you have that you want to do, maybe it's write a book. I was talking to a friend recently and she wants to write a book and I'm like, okay, do it. So she's gotta go through that process of figuring it out, which thank goodness for Amazon and self publishing and all the things now, like we have so many resources at our fingertips to figure things out.

Caroline Pennington (04:45.59)
You guys, I literally started my podcast and journey and figuring things out for this show by watching YouTube videos. Okay. So everything is figure out a bowl by Marie Folio. Check it out. That's a good one too. Okay. This is a book I read every single quarter. It's an easy read. You can read it under an hour or two. It seems very simple. has 10 concepts of living a positive life.

And I think that we need to read these over and over again because life gets hard. Life is hard and we go through challenges, both personally and professionally, all the things. And so it's just a good reminder. So the book is called the Positive Energy Bus. It's by an author named John Gordon. And I love all of his books. All of his books are about, you know, planting the seed, positivity, getting rid of the energy vampires. And I read this book, the Positive Energy Bus once a quarter.

because I too frequently need you reminded that I want to keep the right people on the bus, no energy vampires, always choose the positive. We can choose every in every single moment to take the negative or the positive out of situation. And I want to be the person who takes the positive out of the situation. So this book is a good reminder. And yes, that frequency is high once a quarter, but even I need that reminder every single quarter that we are choosing positivity. We are keeping

people who are on our team, on our bus. just the book is so good. It's got 10 rules. It seems kind of silly and very basic. In the beginning, we start reading it because it's about this character named George and he has a grumpy attitude and he's about to go through a divorce. And his wife basically says, if you don't turn things around, then I'm going to leave you. And so he's kind of left no choice to change. And it goes through this whole scenario of how he, you know, gets a

flat tire and then the whole thing rolls and rolls and rolls into a snowball. But check it out. I love it. It's called The Positive Energy Bus by John Gordon. All right, my fifth book recommendation is a book I read a long time ago, but it was really eye opening to me. It is The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. This came out a long time ago, but I think it's a good reminder. That book really opened up my mind.

Caroline Pennington (07:07.703)
to what the possibilities are when it comes to entrepreneurship in life. Don't get me wrong, I work way more than four hours a week. But the book was eye-opening how he was able to start a supplement company, grow it, scale it, put enough systems automations in place. So where he had a multimillion dollar company on automation that he only had to really dedicate his time to four hours a week towards the business.

And what that opened my eyes up to was that you can do those things and you can also earn money for yourself, passive income or even active income, but you're not trading exactly time for money. So that is something that really opened up my mind as to what the possibilities are. I mean, you can make that happen with investments, high yields savings accounts. There's a ton of different ways that you can have your money work for you.

but the concept of living a freedom-based life, where again, you're not trading your time for dollars, was a really cool concept and a really eye-opening to me. So the four-hour work week by Tim Ferriss, he's written a bunch of other books and I love all of them. He's such an interesting human being and he's done some really cool things. So those are my five recommendations. So again, number one is Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Number two is Worthy by Jamie Kern Lima. Number three is Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Folio. Number four is The Positive Energy Bus by John Gordon. And five is The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. So I hope this has been helpful. I hope you at least choose one of these five to go purchase and read. I don't know if you're like me, I set a goal of trying to read one book a month, but sometimes that

kind of gets a little ambitious for me. I'm not the fastest reader. So I think sometimes finishing a book every one to two months is a better, more accurate timeline for me. But anyways, if you're a reader and you like looking for something new to read, check these out. They're all in the personal professional development space. That's what I like to read. So I hope you enjoyed the show and I would love to hear from you. Don't forget to subscribe and share. Thanks.