Hey Athletes! Do you like to read? Want to learn more about what books could help with Entrepreneurship? Then tune in to this week’s AMA!
Episode 46 of Ask Me Anything is up!
Ask Me Anything: Book Recommendations For An Entrepreneur
In this week’s episode of Ask Me Anything, Jerred and Joe are answering a question from Chris. He asked about books that helped grow and build Garage Gym Athlete. Jerred talks about the books that helped him start and then the guys recommend a few more for those fellow entrepreneurs!
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
- Book Recommendations- A YEAR OF BOOKS
- Chris Spealler on Knowing Your WHY, Developing a ‘Never-Quit’ Mentality, and Being a Well-Rounded Human Being
Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Jerred Moon
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage mathlete podcast Jerred. Moon here with Joe Courtney. What’s up, Joe?
Joe Courtney
How’s it going, man?
Jerred Moon
It’s gone. Well done a little Ask me anything today. And we’ll get right to it.
Joe Courtney
As per usual, yeah, we’re
Jerred Moon
not talking about anything else.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, right.
Jerred Moon
Okay, so this is from Chris. So Chris, I’m gonna go ahead and apologize, man, this one kind of got lost in the AMA questions. It’s getting close to a year since this question has been asked. So anyway, we’ll get to it. Chris, any advice on books and resources you’ve read on entrepreneurship that helped you along the way to building this awesome business? We’d love to hear a podcast on the origins and growth of garage gym athlete over the years. Thanks for all you do, Jared. Thank you, Chris. I mean, we could talk about origin story. When did you? When did you get here?
Joe Courtney
August 2015,
Jerred Moon
August 2015. And I guess industry fitness technically started October 2011. Let’s talk books. Because that it’s a long story already. So to get right,
Joe Courtney
I just, yeah, I just realized I’ve been around longer than half have longer than 50% of the company like, Ah,
Jerred Moon
yeah, like I’m waiting to get to that point in my marriage, where it’s like, I’ve been with you longer than I was ever by myself. Okay, but but two books. When I first got started. Now, I am an absolute avid reader, I read a lot, I don’t read anything, but like self development and business books. For the most part, Joe’s even challenged me to read a book a fiction book. And I’ve made it like 60 pages. And I just I don’t have that internal motivation to keep going. But the book that really helped me kick things off, because the first program first program we sold was one man, one barbell. But the first thing I ever actually sold was, it was called the ultimate WOD. Log. And it was, you know, I was into CrossFit at the time. And so I saw that it was like a $5 thing. Basically, like a really fancy Excel spreadsheet. That’s pretty cool. But that was just getting started testing the waters, the first like plan I had in getting, you know, executed getting a program out there. Trying to be smart about it was one man, one barbell, and it did really well. But the the book behind it that kind of helped me get started was a book called the $100. Startup by Chris guilbeau guilbeau. It’s a very unusual spelling. But it’s the $100 startup, relatively old book, to be honest, I don’t know if any of it would be applicable today. Because like, we’re talking 910 years ago, I read that book. But that that definitely helped me get started. The other book that I recommend all the time is the one thing. And that’s just because it taught me a lot about how to focus on like one goal and not get distracted easily, which I think in entrepreneurship is very, very, very easy. Like, you know that for people to like, jump around to new ideas and not stay focused on one thing. And so that was a big one. But other than that, like, I don’t like to attribute one book to the business growth or anything like that. There’s, there’s a whole team here that’s helping do that. Joe, actually, Kyle Vidi Marco, you know, everybody is helping in that process. And the fact that I probably put away 40 to 50 books a year on on business and self development, you know, I think all of those things combined help help grow the business. But that’s that’s how we got started. And some of the more notable books. I mean, I have a ton of other book recommendations, but it’s always like, they get a little more specific about Okay, what are you trying to do? And should we read it? How about you, Joe, you got any book recommendations? You’re a big reader too.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, so I was the exact opposite in the fact that I only read fiction fantasy stuff like that and never in the nonfiction self help any kind of realm because it just didn’t really apply or care about it doesn’t really interest me. But the very first one that I did I think was probably because of you and it was the Power of Habit and that one I really liked I definitely enjoyed that one there’s a lot of good things to take away from it so I more of and I haven’t done any I’ve consumed any books that have are in the business entrepreneurship field, but general health health self help stuff I’ve done and then now that we’re doing our Monthly book reviews on the podcast, well push to some new ones. So Power of Habit is a great one. And there’s a lot of good things to pick up from it. It’s, it’s about building habits. And I think if you’re going to, you know, do anything entrepreneur wise, I think you need to have the right habits and things dialed down. And then the not quite SQL, but SQL, the same author also released, this is probably, I think I like this one better than power habit. And that was smarter, faster, better. That one was really, really good. It actually talks about business processes and other things of how to be more efficient in your life and things that you’re doing. That one is a really, really good one. So especially if you like Power of Habit, then smarter, faster, better is like the next step up from that was really, really good. And Extreme Ownership. We actually talked about this sometimes as well, like throughout the company. And just as things happen. This is a really good one just to have, having having ownership of what you’re doing of your own life of your own business and not playing the blame game and such like that. And I guess the last one I would do is I just checked to make sure I have it. We read it together. And that was Gary Vee, he’s crushing it. He’s got a bunch of really good books for crushing, there’s only one that I’ve read that was really good. And he also merits his own audiobooks. And it’s just putting an emphasize is a little bit better. But his is really good. He’s He’s always hustling and he’s always a big entrepreneur, and and such as well. So those are, those are four that I would definitely recommend check it out.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, and I think, just to add to that list, deep work is another one. Like, the one thing teaches you how to focus and then deep work gives you a little bit more practical tactical, like how you should structure your day. So deep work is a really good one. And then yeah, I think just staying like things that interests you, you know, I’ve done a lot on mindset. I’ve done a lot on leadership, or read a lot on these topics. And then I’ve more recently gotten into a bunch of biographies and autobiographies just because I think if the best way to learn from successful people is just to kind of pick things apart from their life and, and get as much of it as you can learn the lessons that they went through. But I think, you know, I think if if anyone’s looking to go on this entrepreneurship journey, it really is, the whole thing is just a journey in self development, like, because there’s so many things that you have to manage that go beyond the business. And it’s really challenging at times, going back to kind of the origin story. And we can kind of end after this. But the I started getting really, I didn’t read that much. Before I was an entrepreneur, like, you know, I was in the like, a couple of books per year camp. And then once I realized I really need to kick things up, that’s when I started reading a ton. And I still do that to this day. But there there was a definite when I was part time doing into three fitness, like the business just could not grow like it. And there’s like a really scary point where you have to make that decision of like, Alright, I’m going all in on this. And most people are smarter than me when they do that they have like a decent amount of money and savings and stuff. Like, that wasn’t my reality, we basically had no money at all. And then we decided to go full time entrepreneurs. And that caused a lot of stress and anxiety. So I wouldn’t recommend doing it that way. I don’t think that’s how it has to be done. So if you if anyone does want to go down this path, I think you need to be a learner, learn as much as you can take courses. That’s another thing I do, you know, read books and be smarter than I was if you’re going to get started. And then I was going to say there’s one more thing about Oh, fitness books. I was like, throw this in there cuz people ask me this question. This is just related. They asked me like, what kind of fitness books do I read to like, stay up to date on things? I read a lot of studies, as people know, because like for every one study, you hear on the podcast, I had to read like 10 other studies just to prep for that episode. And then fitness books in general. There aren’t a ton of them out there that read like books like I think Alex Hutchinson’s injure is the only book I’ve ever read where I’m like, you actually did it. Somehow you did it. You You wrote a fitness book. That was like fun to read, because most of these other ones and I have a ton of them just like sitting around my office and on my bookshelf, about training about energy systems about these like sports training and like, all these different things, but they don’t they read like textbooks. They’re not like fun reads. And so a lot of times I just pick out portions or I’ll read the whole thing if it is relatively good. And I have a bunch of those as well. But those are never audiobooks. I’m always like picking things apart reading chapters here and there. And I could recommend those books if people ever wanted to know, but they’re, they’re just very different a whole different animal. And I mean, after you kind of learn the basics of that stuff, unless you’re trying to learn a very specific like programming principle from a coach, I don’t think they’re more helpful than like reading a study and just trying to get better at it yourself.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, as literally the other day, I asked you guys about a online Exercise Science course I was thinking about. And your answer was you just read the nsca.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, get a textbook. Yeah, that’s all you got to do. And then you know, more than most people out there. Cool. Well, Chris, thanks for the Thanks for the question. Do you guys do have in if you guys do have any more questions, go to garage mathlete comm slash ama, I hear word on the street is we’re also putting a link in the YouTube description for this now. So it’s there now actually is a place to access this if you want to click the link and ask a question. And this really can be anything guys. If you want to ask a question, if there’s a scientific study that you would like for us to cover more in depth, we just kind of go with the flow with whatever these things but if, if we need to, like really prep for them and like dive into some studies, because you do have a complex question. We’re happy to do that. The only thing that we do stay away from if you’re like, hey, my question wasn’t answered. We don’t do there’s some a lot of questions that are borderline product reviews. And we’re just not in the business of doing product reviews. And it’s not because we don’t want to plug a company we just don’t we I have no experience with that product. So like what are we gonna say, you know, so like, theoretical, like, whatever so anyway, we don’t we stay away from those for the most part just because we have what we have and we’re not looking to review products but any other questions fair game about training, programming, entrepreneurship, anything? So yeah, that’s it guys. If you are listening to the podcast, five star review positive comment really helps the show and I would greatly appreciate it. And if you’re on your YouTube, subscribe to the channel, leave us comment, thumbs up. That’s it for today. Thanks for watching or listening