Must Read Books!

Our Book Club

We have a joke that we have our own little book club. What happens any time one of us reads a good book is we DECLARE the other person MUST read it so we can talk about it. Or we just continue reading aloud snippets to the other person until we’re told to stop. Although, yes, this is majorly nerdy, it has truly impacted our marriage, family, and businesses in the best way. We individually find things that we’re interested in and inspired us, we read about them, and then we discuss how we can implement them in our daily life.

It is HARD to find time to read, but we get creative. We love audiobooks while we’re doing dishes or we’re on a long run. We try to sneak in 10-20 minutes of reading before we go to bed. Really just wherever we can. And to be honest, sometimes we go MONTHS without reading. So it’s ok, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.

We just want to share THE most influential books we have read and why they’re our favorites, and why they should be on your MUST READ list today.

Marriage

1.  The Body Keeps Score: We put this one FIRST because the principles in this book are absolutely foundational in our life. This book discusses the impact of trauma and how it effects us physically, mentally, and emotionally throughout our entire life. Diving DEEP into our own various traumas has really helped us understand ourselves better and learn how to communicate it effectively to each other. It has helped us to help, process, and control our reactions in a new way. Just because you’ve had a “good life” doesn’t mean you haven’t had trauma. It doesn’t have to be something major like a car crash to be traumatic, it can be an event as simple as someone making fun of you for your shirt when you were 7. These things stay with us and affect us more than we know. So we truly believe the path to a healthy marriage is understanding these principles with your partner.
2. Love Worth Making: Ok, we’re about to get weird. But, everyone wants great sex. Or at least we hope you do, in your marriage. But if your plan, like ours, is to have a lifelong relationship with someone, your sexual relationship will ebb and flow. This book is a wonderful exploration from a well accredited sexual and marriage therapist to help walk you and your partner through every stage of your journey.
3. The Four Agreements: This book totally changed the way we see our life. It is so easy to get caught up in a cycle of self-limiting beliefs instead of exploring what is truly possible. This book will rattle your foundation in the best way and help you realize the true potential for your life.

 

 

Family

 

1. Bringing Up Bebe: We read this early in our parenting journey and it was such a good perspective shift to see how people parent differently all around the world. The author is American and raising her children in France. She compares the differences of parenting in the two countries. There are so many parenting principles in this book that inform our parenting every day.
2. The Whole Brained Child: Honestly, we don’t read many parenting books because it’s so easy to get overwhelmed by everyone’s own opinion on the best way to raise *your* kids. But this book really should be in the hands of every parent. The authors eloquently describe child brain development, how it impacts your children’s behavior, and how you can respond to it most effectively. This book will truly help you raise great kids who know their emotions and how to regulate them.
3. There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather: Another book with a perspective from a different country. This Scandinavian mom discusses how VITAL it is for children to be outside on a regular basis. It gave us just the jumpstart we needed to make outside time a priority for our family.

 

 

Business

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People: A classic on most people’s business lists. This book gives you the confidence and the tools to succeed in your career and in life. There is room at the top for everyone!
2. Company of One: Have you been told that bigger is better? That you need to scale your company in order to grow? This book talks all about how staying small can be one of the most effective ways to be successful. We use so many of these principals in our businesses!
3. The 4 Hour Work Week: This book is at the foundation of our business mindset. We started businesses for the FREEDOM they bring to our life. This book taught us how to set up our businesses so we don’t have to wait for retirement to enjoy life!

 

 

 

Let us know if you’ve read any of these books! Come back and tell us what you think when you’ve read them. We mean it, we really love reading and talking about books!!

IF you LOVED a lot of the ideas these books talk about, you’ll really dig our FREE GUIDE: THE 3 STRATEGIES WE USED TO TAKE OUR LIFE FROM SURVIVING TO THRIVING.

 

 

And don’t forget to subscribe to our email list to stay up to date on all of our latest content!