Bring soul into your strategy
The books in this reading list offer templates and frameworks for reflection, gratitude and action to honour both sides of your business. Reflection is the best (and fastest) way to grow your business, and flourish with your team and clients.
As I grow myself and my businesses I want to make sure it’s authentic to honour both the soul's desires and the business needs. I know what it’s like to suddenly see yourself outgrowing your current frameworks and reach a point and think “I need to update everything and everything is different” but lasting change usually happens in smaller increments and reflection is the best way to set goals and take inventory of all you’ve accomplished and the progress you’ve already made.
Learning some of these listed frameworks to reflect on my business changed how I experiment, keep track of my progress and know when to move toward what is working and away from what isn’t. Many of the books listed below have given me an overall feeling of being present in making decisions, and not getting too attached to an idea and this allows me to move quickly, edit and grow with the flow.
Here’s my list of books I believe help bring the soul into business so we can show up and do our best and know why we are pushing ourselves through the difficult feelings when they inevitably come.
1. The Four Agreements
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is easily one of my favourite books, it’s a quick read and it’s number one on my list for good reason. This book looks at the source of self-limiting beliefs that often keeps us from truly reaching our desired goals. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offers a code of conduct that can transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
This book is full of wisdom, at just 138 pages and a 4-hour audiobook it’s super approachable to read in a single day or when we need the reminder. I personally throw on the audiobook in the background whenever I’m looking to get more grounded. TFA is a practical guide to improving our belief systems through awareness, forgiveness, and action. My overall takeaways from this book are establishing a regular practice of meditation and mindfulness, being present, letting go of dreams that are not my own, having compassion for others and continuing to work on myself because that indirectly benefits the collective.
Here is a quick breakdown of The Four Agreements
First Agreement: “Be impeccable with your word”: Say only what you mean.
Second Agreement: “Don’t take anything personally”: Understand that others’ words are the product of their lives.
Third Agreement: “Don’t make assumptions”: Be brave to ask questions and gain clarity.
Fourth Agreement: “Always do your best”: Your best will change from moment to moment.
Get The Four Agreements audiobook —>
2. The Artist’s Way
Number 2 on my list is The Artist’s Way, anyone who knows me knows how much I advocate for this book and that’s because it truly changed how I reflect, track progress, feel gratitude and grow the things I like and also overcome difficult feelings. Building a business is a creative endeavour, it requires creative thinking and looking at things in abstract ways in order to grow and track progress. The Artists Way is a 12-week course by Julia Cameron and it’s all about discovering and recovering your creative self, the main structure of the Artist’s way is Morning Pages, Artists Nights and a set of basic principles to help push your creative self. Along with the main structure of the course, each week offers unique journal prompts with areas of reflection including recovering a sense of safety, recovering a sense of power, and abundance amongst others.
It’s really about changing your routine and adding reflection and expression as a regular practice. Morning pages changed how I reflect and release — at one point in the book Julia says “am I too crabby to do my morning pages or am I crabby because I didn’t do my morning pages“ and that really spoke to me, there is so much to be said about writing 3 journal pages as soon as you wake up because you are the most you when you first wake up and before you interact with other people and energies. An artist date is a way to devote time to your creative self. It should be done solo, and the time is just for you, and whatever you feel like doing. It may be walking through nature, making a painting meant for nobody to see or visiting a museum—anything you find creative and enjoyable.
Most of all it’s about setting goals, pushing through uncomfortable feelings and overcoming limiting beliefs, I highly recommend this book to anybody in any field.
3. Art & Fear
Number 3, Art & Fear is pretty self-explanatory in the title, being creative and starting a business can bring up many limiting beliefs, fears come up when you look to the past, and they come up when you look to the future and if you’re like most people, tend to imagine worse case scenarios, you may even find yourself staring at your half-finished business project and fearing that you lack the ability to finish it and that no one will understand it if you do.
More often, though, fears rise in those moments when vision gets ahead of execution. This book is a story of a young student who began piano lessons with a Master pianist. After a few months’ practice, he says to his teacher, “But I can hear the music so much better in my head than I can get out of my fingers.” to me that is one of the most relatable statements I’ve ever heard. We all have beautiful visions in our minds and sometimes we already have the necessary skills to execute them but sometimes we need to learn and be free to learn and experiment in order to get to the place we see in our minds. And if you’re like the majority, that journey includes lots of self-doubt and vulnerable feelings of not being good enough. This book reminds us that we can push through the uncertainty and that uncertainty is an essential, inevitable companion to your desire to stand out with your business. Getting comfortable with uncertainty is the prerequisite to growing and succeeding.
This book helped me look at things in a more realistic way instead of the filter of past fears that no longer serve me. Our fears might tell us the worst but actually, things tend to work out fine if you’re willing to work on them. It’s another easy read, it’s 118 pages and a 3-hour audiobook.
4. Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
Wabi-sabi is a book describing the beauty of imperfection, impermanent, and incomplete things. It’s a beautiful description of the Japanese aesthetic and filled with lessons on the spiritual practice of beauty. It emphasizes “the minor and the hidden, the tentative and the ephemeral: things so subtle and evanescent they are invisible to vulgar eyes." It’s kind of like the handle of the rake you used for years to gather leaves. There is beauty in this well-used object which may also display the nicks and discolouration of time. Or how about the teapot you’ve had for a million years. It is faded and chipped but its innate beauty still shines through in ways that touch the heart and reveal our intimacy with it. Seeing the beauty in the ordinary is one of the best gifts we can give ourself.
I truly enjoyed this book and found myself coming to a deeper appreciation of the little wonders in my daily life. This book has helped me in my gratitude practice and acceptance of the now which are so crucial to the healthy growth of any business. It’s a beautiful book with gorgeous imagery and it’s only 88 pages long, perfect to easily pick up and finish in a few hours.
did you like my list?
Running a business is hard work, it takes patience, determination and a whole lot of passion to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and beyond your perceived limits. I think it’s so important to take a step back from time to time and take a look at the bigger picture, I know what it’s like to fall into tunnel vision with everyday tasks so I make sure to add reflection into my schedule or else I forget, the Artist’s way has really helped me with adding daily reflection into my routine.
What are your go-to soul business books for reflection? Or maybe you have some out of this world techniques and I’d love to know them.
