Every week, RTÉ's Reignite will recommend books that help you answer the five big questions we’re posing over five weeks. Reignite 1 will be all about the 'why’ of getting started: Why me, Why this, Why now?
As someone who has changed careers a few times, I've constantly sought answers deep in the scrawly pencil doodles and in the eureka moments of reading a great book.
The five books below have helped me step onto the startline, confident that I know what gives me a sense of purpose and that I know how to interrogate if the idea has a life outside my imagination.
- The Squiggly Career, by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis: Figure out your Super Strengths and Values, and more. This book is a great baseline for getting the tools, ideas and actions for figuring out your next career move. [Note: Sarah Ellis is a guest on Reignite 1]
- Mindset, by Dr Carol S Dweck: Do you have a growth or fixed mindset? Having a growth mindset, a powerful passion for learning, is the one you need for realising your ambitions.
- Start With Why, by Simon Sinek: Steve Jobs, the Wright brothers and Martin Luth King have one thing in common: they started with why. In business, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters why you do it.
- The Lean StartUp, by Eric Ries: Most people who have ever run a business will recommend this book to someone thinking about starting a business! It has changed how companies are built, starting with learning about what your customers actually want.
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz: The book I wished I’d read at the start of my first startup! This book is brutally honest about what it actually takes to start a business.
