The 3rd Book That Changed My Thinking
In my previous two articles, I shared how Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill influenced the way I began thinking about work, money, opportunity and what might be possible in life.
But there was a third book that introduced me to something equally important.
Leadership.
The book was Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell.
Now, you might be wondering what leadership has to do with starting an online business, developing new skills or simply wanting to create a different future for yourself.
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Because one of the most valuable things I took from Maxwell’s book was the realisation that leadership isn’t necessarily about being in charge of other people.
Sometimes, it begins with learning how to lead yourself.
You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader
When we hear the word leader, we often picture somebody in a position of authority.
A company director. A manager. A politician. Somebody standing in front of a room giving instructions.
But Maxwell challenged that traditional picture.
One of his central ideas is that leadership is about influence, rather than simply having a title or a position.
And that got me thinking.
You don’t necessarily need a team of employees or a large organisation behind you to have a positive influence.
You might influence somebody through your example, your attitude, your willingness to help or the knowledge you share.
You might encourage somebody to try something they hadn’t previously considered.
You might help them see an opportunity or a possibility they hadn’t noticed before.
And you can do all of those things without ever calling yourself a leader.
For somebody interested in entrepreneurship, that was an important distinction.
It made leadership feel less like a position you had to achieve and more like a quality you could begin developing.
The First Person You Need to Lead Is Yourself
This is perhaps the lesson that has stayed with me the most.
Before you can expect to influence others positively, you need to take some responsibility for the direction of your own life.
That doesn’t mean controlling every outcome.
None of us can do that.
But it does mean becoming more deliberate about the decisions we make, the habits we develop and the things we choose to spend our time doing.
It’s very easy to let circumstances make those decisions for us.
Work becomes busy. Life gets complicated. The days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into years.
Before long, we can find ourselves following a routine without giving much thought to whether it’s taking us where we actually want to go.
Learning to lead yourself means occasionally stopping and asking:
Am I moving in a direction I’ve consciously chosen, or am I simply following the path in front of me?
That’s not always an easy question to answer.
But it’s an important one.
And I think it applies whether you’re building a business, developing a career, learning something new or simply trying to make a positive change in your life.
Being Busy Isn’t the Same as Making Progress
Another idea from Maxwell’s book that resonated with me was the importance of prioritisation.
This is something I’ve come to appreciate more and more.
There always seems to be something demanding our attention.
Emails to answer. Problems to solve. Information to absorb. Things to organise. Another task to add to the list.
And when you’re exploring entrepreneurship or building something alongside your existing work, there can be even more competing demands.
You can spend an entire day being busy and still finish it wondering what you’ve actually accomplished.
I certainly recognise that feeling.
But one of the questions that helps bring things back into focus is remarkably simple:
What really matters most right now?
Not what is making the most noise.
Not what feels easiest to tick off a list.
But what will genuinely move something important forward?
Sometimes that might mean learning a new skill.
Sometimes it means having a conversation you’ve been putting off.
Sometimes it’s creating something, testing an idea or finally taking action on a decision you’ve been thinking about for weeks.
And sometimes it means saying no to something that doesn’t deserve quite so much of your attention.
Leadership, even when applied only to yourself, involves learning to make those choices.
The Importance of Having a Vision
Maxwell also emphasises the importance of vision.
And this connects closely with the lessons I took from the first two books in this series.
If you don’t have some idea of where you want to go, how do you decide which direction to take?
A vision doesn’t have to be grand or complicated.
It doesn’t have to involve building a huge company, becoming wealthy or changing the world.
It might simply be wanting more control over your time.
More opportunities to do meaningful work.
Greater financial independence.
The freedom to learn, travel, create or spend more time with people who matter to you.
Or perhaps it’s the desire to build something of your own and see where it might lead.
Whatever it looks like, having a sense of direction can change the way you approach everyday decisions.
You begin to recognise which activities support that direction and which ones are simply keeping you occupied.
And perhaps most importantly, you have something to return to when things become difficult.
Because they inevitably will.
Leadership Is Also About Helping Others Grow
There’s another side to leadership that I think is particularly relevant today.
The opportunity to make a positive difference to somebody else.
When I first became interested in online entrepreneurship, much of my attention was naturally focused on learning new things and discovering what opportunities might be available.
But over time, I’ve become increasingly interested in something broader.
What can we do with the things we learn?
How can our experiences help somebody else?
How can we share an idea, a lesson or an opportunity in a way that genuinely benefits another person?
We don’t have to pretend to know everything.
In fact, I think being open about what we’re still learning can be far more valuable than trying to present ourselves as experts in everything.
Sometimes the most useful thing we can offer somebody is simply a different perspective.
Or the encouragement to believe that another possibility might exist.
That’s a form of influence too.
And it’s one that doesn’t depend on having a job title, a large following or a team of people working for you.
Three Books, Three Important Lessons
Looking back at these three books, I can see how they each contributed something different to the way I began thinking about life and entrepreneurship.
Rich Dad Poor Dad encouraged me to question some of my assumptions about work, money and how people build financial independence.
Think and Grow Rich encouraged me to think more seriously about purpose, belief, persistence and the importance of taking action.
And Developing the Leader Within You helped me understand that creating a different future also requires something from within.
The willingness to take responsibility, make decisions, set priorities and develop the ability to influence others positively.
None of these books gave me a magic formula.
And reading them certainly didn’t mean that everything suddenly became easy.
But they changed some of the questions I was asking.
They encouraged me to look beyond familiar routines, consider different possibilities and take a more active role in shaping my own direction.
And that, to me, is what makes a book genuinely valuable.
Not simply the information it contains.
But what you decide to do differently after reading it.
Where Does Leadership Begin?
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Maxwell’s book is that you don’t need to consider yourself a leader to benefit from its ideas.
You don’t need to run a business.
You don’t need to manage people.
You don’t even need to know exactly what you want to do next.
You can begin by taking a little more ownership of the direction you’re heading.
By being more intentional about your time.
By developing your knowledge and skills.
By following through on the things that matter to you.
And by looking for opportunities to encourage and support others along the way.
Because leadership doesn’t always begin with somebody else deciding to follow you.
Sometimes, it begins with deciding that you’re going to take the lead in your own life.
And that’s why Developing the Leader Within You became the third book that changed my thinking.
Until Soon! Your Friend,
Dylan