It sure is a great time of year for sports fans, right?
Between the baseball playoffs (go Dodgers!), the start of the NBA season, and college football, fall is sports fans’ favorite time of year, even if rooting for your team is sometimes futile.
But what’s not in vain is the fact that some of the best business advice you’ll ever get comes from the world of professional athletics.
Being the business book writer that I am, I’m naturally drawn to other books and writers in this genre. Perhaps surprisingly, some of my favorite business books come from the world of sports. But maybe not.
Sports and business have a lot in common: uniting around a shared vision, the need for teamwork, overcoming adversity and playing to win instead of not losing are just a few.
Here are four great business books from people in the professional sports world:
“32 Ways to be a Champion in Business” by Magic Johnson
Of course, Magic was an amazing basketball player, maybe the best guard ever. On the same subject : The 7 most powerful of all time manipulating characters in video games. But did you know that he might even be a better businessman than he was a player?
Starting from his playing days, Magic learned the business from some of the best CEOs in the world. He learned about business, investing, getting mentors, building community and more, which allowed him to turn his $40 million in NBA earnings into Magic Johnson Enterprises, which today is worth about $1 billion.
This book, in which Magic distills what he learned into 32 practical lessons (he was #32 for the Lakers), is a gem: engaging, easy to read and super useful for small business people.
“Negotiate Like the Pros” by Kenneth Shropshire
Small business people negotiate all the time. Read also : The best summer movies to stream on Prime Video. Whether it’s getting that supplier to give you a better deal or working to get that investor to help fund a dream, negotiation is a part of every entrepreneur’s life.
That being said, this book is a winner.
Shropshire is a top sports negotiator who has negotiated many major sports deals. In this book, he shows you the tricks of the trade, from playing to your strengths to finding and using leverage.
“Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight
Knight is the co-founder of the footwear and sportswear giant Nike. When I say that some CEO memoirs are dry and boring, I’m not talking about books like this. This may interest you : Bengalis apply for Ohio sports betting license. This is the opposite of that. Nike is a real entrepreneurial startup story, a rags to riches story, and Knight captures it all.
If you want to learn how to start a business and build a brand, this is the book for you.
“Moneyball” by Michael Lewis
While this book might be a little outside the strike zone, since Lewis is not a sports pro, it is about professional athletics (and more), so we’ll give your judge some time on this one.
And that’s a good thing because this is a really great book for entrepreneurs.
Moneyball tells the story of how, in 2002, Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, had a problem similar to many small business owners: he didn’t have enough money to do what he wanted to do, which was create a winner.
Traditionally, the answer has been famous pitchers and hitters. But the A’s couldn’t afford them. what to do? Beane’s answer: Use the data.
Instead of relying on big names that cost big bucks, Beane and his team crunched the numbers to find hidden gems of unknown players at a fraction of the cost. And it worked.
That’s why this is a great book for small business people.
It turns out that Beane’s lesson is important for us, too: If you go beyond the glitz, learn your numbers, and dig into the data, you can win your own small business pennant.
