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The 12 Best Business Books I Read in 2025
Matt Karamazov
December 23, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 38 minutes
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I've read 33 business books so far in 2025. Below are the 12 best ones, along with exactly how I’m applying them to my own business to scale faster than ever.
But one thing I’m doubling down on (that could really help you if you run a business too) is focusing on relentless application of what I’m learning.
I read a ton of fiction too (and I love it!), but you don’t have to “apply” Anna Karenina. Or Cloud Atlas. Or The Great Gatsby. You can literally just enjoy them.
Business books, on the other hand, will barely do you any good whatsoever if you just skim through them once and forget about them. I like to think I’m pretty good on the application side of things, but I know I could be better, so that’s where I’m placing my focus this year and next.
If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas gift too, I might suggest The 5-Year-Old CEO, by my friend Hunter McMahon.
It’s a great little book about cultivating curiosity in business, and it’s one of those books where, if you have an entrepreneur or leader on your Christmas list, they might chuckle at the title, indulge you by reading the first few pages, and then realize…
Damn, this is actually…really good!
That’s basically how it happened for me. Check it out!
And lastly, in case you missed it, here are three of my latest YouTube videos:
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, We’ve Got:
“When beginners show up in your gym, try to make them feel welcome. You had to start somewhere, too - remember the uncertainty, insecurity, and worry? - and by giving even a little encouragement, you can be the reason someone doesn’t quit.”
“Your psyche has to be rewarded for paying a price. You program your psyche by using a reward to reinforce your dream. When you decide on the award in advance of achieving your dream, you are programming your mind to believe I’m willing to pay a price because this reward is going to happen. This is a continuous feedback loop that you must integrate into your plan.”
Inside my private business mastermind, Creator Launch Academy, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and implementing its lessons inside our businesses.
This month’s book is Choose Your Enemies Wisely, by Patrick Bet-David, a great business book about getting strategically emotional, selecting an enemy that you can use to focus all your energies on success, and going all-out.
Click here to claim your free trial, and join our business book club for educational content creators!
After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,442 books, including 90 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“In order to scale a system, you’ve got to simplify it.”
I’ve learned something critical in every single Benjamin Hardy book I’ve ever read (5 so far), but The Science of Scaling is completely transforming my entire business. I mean, I knew it would be good, but I didn’t think it would be this valuable.
The main takeaway is that rapid, exponential growth means discarding every single thing that can’t take you there, and the best way to discover the “critical path” is to set high, hard, seemingly-impossible goals.
There are many, many things you can do to generate “a little more” revenue this year than last year, but there are very few paths to reach massive goals. Only a few things will work.
So to get there, you have to raise your “floor,” or your minimum standard of what’s acceptable to you - in your business, in your personal life, everywhere that affects the accomplishment of your massive goal - and eliminate literally everything else.
It’s a demanding book, and the authors don’t let you lie to yourself about whether or not you’re truly ready to scale, but if you are ready…this is the book you need.
Difficulty Rating: Easy (But Demanding, If That Makes Sense)
How I’m Applying It to My Business: I’m asking myself extremely tough questions about where I want my business to go, and what I’m willing to do to get there. I’m eliminating personal habits and timewasters that are holding me back, and I’m getting real honest with myself about the actions and business processes I’m performing each day, and whether or they can get me to my goals.
“If there’s an effect in your life that you desire, such as success or wealth or health or happiness, you can have it by simply instituting the causes that have been proven to generate it.”
Beneath the surface of the everyday, there’s an unseen undercurrent of universal laws and forces that work together to determine the results you experience, what happens to you, and where you end up.
They are always and everywhere at work, much like gravity, and ignorance of these laws is no excuse. They’re quietly and powerfully shaping your destiny, whether you’re aware of them or not.
The great news is that you can learn these laws. You can discover their functions, how they operate, and most importantly, how to control them to stack the probabilities of success in your favor.
That’s what this book is about, and what Brian Tracy has done is compile 148 of these laws - covering areas as diverse as success, achievement, relationships, negotiation, fulfillment, and more - and break down how you can put them to work in your own life. So they’re working for you, rather than against you.
Just don’t try to cheat the universe, because it can’t be done. At least not for long.
Every one of these Laws will catch up with you, because they are a function of how the universe works. You exist within this universe, and so it makes sense that you’d be subject to its Laws.
You may not always “see” them operating in your life, but that’s because you’re thinking like a human being, looking outward, trying to impose order on a chaotic stream of events.
Instead, you have to think like the universe. Adjust yourself to its Laws and principles (which exist for your benefit anyway, and the benefit of all), and design your life according to the grand design that surrounds you in all directions, across endless space and through time everlasting.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: It’s not as esoteric as it maybe sounds from my summary above, but I’m basically taking it Law by Law and deciding whether I’m thinking and acting in accordance with each one. I’m also working backward from the “Effects” that I want in my life and business, and narrowing it down to a few “Causes” that will help me realize them.
“Entrepreneurship isn’t about trying to change the world with the next scalable idea. It is about starting small, looking for a way to make good money doing something simple, and copying proven strategies that work.”
This is a business book that’s primarily about pursuing unglamorous opportunities for wealth-creation in unfashionable industries, but it’s also about consciously choosing your own path forward in life, and not just falling in line with what the people around you are chasing. It’s about saying ‘No,’ resisting cultural gravity, and carving your own path.
What Huber calls “boring businesses” are things like landscaping services, storage units, and a variety of other things that will never have much “viral” potential.
No one dreams about one day opening a business helping college students store their stuff, but it’s that exact business that made Huber something like $30,000,000. So maybe it’s not the worst business idea in the world?
There’s so much untapped opportunity in businesses and sectors like these because of that very reason. Everyone else is getting excited about going into venture capital, or building the next Instagram, which, although it might be cooler than mowing lawns for a living, comes with horrifically low odds of success - financial or otherwise.
To be wildly successful, you don’t even need to have some revolutionary new idea, or be at the head of some miraculous innovation.
Nick never “revolutionized” the self-storage business; he just examined his competitors honestly, saw where they were weak, and outcompeted them on his way to a multimillion-dollar net worth.
A great idea with horrible execution can only lead to disaster. But a “boring” idea with powerful, precise, and professional execution can lead to the accumulation of obscene wealth over time.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This one changed a few tactical things that I’m doing on a day to day level, but mostly it’s just getting me to do more volume. More publishing, more reps - matching my work ethic to my ambitions and doing more of the simple, effective stuff that actually works.
“Think about the qualities of who you need to be that will make you the CEO of a multimillion-dollar business.
What are your key traits and qualities? How do you treat and protect your time? What habits and principles do you live by? What key shifts do you need to make? And how is this list different from who you’ve been in the past?
Go deep on this. Write out the characteristics and changes needed. Then, start being that new CEO today! You don’t have to wait.”
From 6 to 7 Figures is a step-by-step manual for moving into the headspace of a seven-figure CEO, as opposed to a “six-figure hustler.”
The target market is semi-successful business owners who just haven’t been able to crack that next level. I wouldn’t say that getting to six figures in revenue is “easy,” but there’s certainly no trick to it. It’s absolutely achievable with enough relentless action and fearless salesmanship, but getting into seven figure territory isn’t possible using the blunt force tactics of the “hustler.”
Instead, it requires the deliberate, systematic approach of the seven-figure CEO.
The main focus of this book is getting consistent cash flow, but the overall theme centers on determining your dream lifestyle and then reverse engineering your business strategy to help get you closer to making it a reality.
For myself, that means reading books basically all day, while batch-creating content that I enjoy making and establishing relationships and business partnerships with people who can advance my aims.
I’m not so focused on getting to seven figures though. For me, it’s not so much about the dollar amount as it is about the lifestyle. Which is probably one reason that this book was such a great read for me.
When most six-figure hustlers try to scale their business, they just end up scaling their headaches instead. Their business machine falls apart when they try to make it go faster, because they haven’t taken the intelligent, systematic approach laid out in this book.
Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier, but the author’s company, 2X, has helped a small army of entrepreneurs achieve more than $250M in growth in just the last few years. They’ve done this by helping their clients install a million-dollar mindset and establish extreme clarity about where exactly their business is going.
Then it’s all about implementing the framework laid out in this book to build a business machine that doesn’t rely on just one person, so everything is consistent, repeatable, and scalable.
From there, each new step they lay out builds on the previous one, giving your business a chance to hit its stride and achieve exponential growth, year after year after year.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This book helped me realize that every single “problem” in my business can be turned into a system. Don’t have enough time to publish all the content I need to get out? My system needs just updating. Messages and emails falling through the cracks? I need a better system. And so on. Super helpful book, and you know what? It’ll probably help me hit 7 figures! Not in 2026 or anything, but maybe a couple years from now!
“Most people have the wiring in their brains messed up. They’ve decided to doubt the wrong things, such as their potential, the availability of breakthrough opportunities, and their chances for making a quantum leap. For now, if you must doubt something, doubt your limits.”
This book has one of the highest ideas-per-page ratios of any book I’ve ever read, which is always a pleasant surprise, since a lot of nonfiction books probably could have been blog posts. They may have 1-3 main ideas in the whole book, stretched to 300 pages just to make the publisher happy.
However, there is no wasted wisdom in this one - it’s full of fantastic stuff that can help you make a tremendous amount of progress in a very short time.
The Quantum Leap Strategy is tiny, clocking in at just 40 pages or so - haters might call it a pamphlet. But anyway, I took five pages of notes from the thing, and Dr. Pritchett had me thinking completely differently about my potential, what’s attainable, and what I would have to adjust about my approach in order to achieve my 5-year goals in six months.
None of it is overcomplicated, and even some of my notes may seem stupidly simple. Almost obvious. Like, of course you should start thinking about what you actually want, not just what’s reasonable for you to expect. Of course you should think big, aim high, and take massive swings. Of course you should doubt your limits, not your potential.
But there’s something about the clarity and power with which these very simple (yet profound) ideas are expressed that made them really connect with me.
Out of the 40 pages, I took five pages of notes, like I said, but I probably came away with at least 100+ ideas for how I could grow my business, make more money, fill my life with more adventures and memorable experiences, and make more progress in 12 months than most people will make in their entire lives.
Give this one a shot. It could do the same for you.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This book helped me see that a quantum leap in my results was even possible, which helped motivate me to take many of the actions I had been avoiding, such as reaching out to larger sponsors, etc. It’s given me this…dumb confidence that I should just go for it and figure out all the details later. So far it’s working!
“This long-term view of partnerships always felt obvious. My goal was never to make the most money possible on each deal, but rather to increase the number of times each client hired us. I figured we’d make more money and attract sponsors like a magnet if we became their favorite people to work with.”
I’ve been a full-time creator for several years now, and even though I’ve already passed the $5,000 per month mark, I still ended up with six pages of notes from this incredible book about how to land sponsorships and brand deals.
Sponsor Magnet filled in several critical blind spots I had with respect to the whole process, and the author, Justin Moore, is the guy when it comes to sponsorships, having earned more than $5,000,000 in the online space since he started not too long ago.
There’s literally no one else I trust more, and he lays out all his best advice here in this book.
The wealthiest and most profitable creators I’ve known don’t wait for brands to reach out with opportunities. They create their own opportunities, and using Justin’s frameworks you’ll learn how to price your work with confidence (and stop being taken for a ride), and how to craft excellent pitches that stand out from the pile and help you get noticed.
There’s a literal wealth of knowledge in here about structuring win-win-win partnerships, making sure the sponsorship itself is masterfully executed, and plenty of word-for-word scripts you can use to help you navigate the whole process.
There are also detailed and helpful breakdowns of various pricing models, along with the pros and cons of each, and a ton of other templates that I’ll be using in my own business for sure.
And again, I’m not a beginner! I’ve landed plenty of sponsorships and brand deals before, and I still learned things in this book that are likely worth $100,000+ to me over the next few years. So if you are a beginner, Sponsor Magnet is likely to be revelatory.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: It’s already helped me add ~$3,000/month to my bottom line, but it also got me to adjust my pricing structure and stop undervaluing myself and what I can offer brands. I was SERIOUSLY selling myself short, and this book helped me to, you know, stop doing that!
“If you have diluted focus, you will get diluted results.”
This is easily one of the best personal branding books I’ve ever read, and the authors explain that, in building your authority and reputation, you’re most effectively positioned to serve the person you once were.
Meaning, you’ve likely already achieved some measure of success. Maybe a lot of success. Well, there are people several steps behind you - that used to be you - that you can now turn around and help.
They make the case that it’s even better that you’re not the World’s Foremost Authority on XYZ - because those people are too far advanced to be of much help to people just getting started. Like I always say, you don’t go to Bill Gates to learn how to build a website.
Wealthy and Well-Known will help you get very clear on your brand identity: your Uniqueness, Message, Problem, Cause, and Avatar. The problem you solve, who you solve it for, what makes you different, and the message you show up with. You won’t be left wondering where to go from here. You’ll know exactly what to do to scale your reach, revenue, and reputation.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: One of the things they say in the book is that diluted focus leads to diluted results. So I’ve resolved to do fewer things, and do them at an even higher level. Their book helped me take a look at each component of my business and ask myself what the value was for other people, whether I actually enjoyed doing certain things, and whether my limited time, focus, and energy may be better spent elsewhere.
“There’s plenty of money. You just have to go get it.”
This is a very simple book that will teach you how to make a lot of money very quickly. A “Money Model” is essentially ways to generate revenue in a business. It’s your offer, your pricing structure, your upsells, down-sells, etc.
It’s written in a simple, straightforward way because the best business models are simple. As Dr. Benjamin Hardy says in The Science of Scaling, actually, to scale a business you first need to simplify it. So no overly-complex, “make myself sound smart” explanations in this one. Just guaranteed money models, proven to work, with examples, pro tips, and super clear explanations.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: I have quite a few revenue streams in my business, and this book is helping me consolidate some of them, simplify all of them, and identify the ones with the greatest, highest profit potential.
“Purpose does not exist without problems.”
There’s a lot to this book, and even though it’s quite short, I ended up with dozens of excellent ideas. They exist mostly on a higher, more philosophical level than the ideas I’ve taken from the other books on this list, as this one is about merging your talents and abilities with your natural curiosity, and what’s gradually unfolding as your purpose.
What I’ve found to be true is that I don’t need to get “motivated” to work on something that’s deeply meaningful to me. Maybe that’ll be obvious to most people. But it’s so easy to forget! Whenever I get tired or burned out, I can usually take a step back and identify something I was working on that didn’t align with anything I truly cared about.
Difficulty Rating: Moderate
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This book made me think more expansively about what I want my business to be about. It also confirmed my path, and made me even more committed to never, ever, EVER doing anything with my life that wasn’t deeply connected to purpose and contribution.
“There are no unrealistic goals; there are only unrealistic deadlines.”
Brian Tracy’s one of my favorite business authors by far, and what I appreciate about him is his logical, methodical approach to goal-setting and achievement. There’s a reason why I’ve read more than a dozen of his books so far, and look forward to reading the rest!
This one’s about goals, of course, and it outlines his very precise, powerful method of setting goals, organizing your efforts, and stacking the probabilities of success in your favor. A lot of this material wasn’t necessarily “new” to me, but it’s the kind of stuff that, if you’re serious about achieving your goals, it helps to be reminded of occasionally.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This book got me to go back and be even more methodically about setting and revising my goals, and for every area of my life. I already knew where I was headed “directionally” in most areas, but Brian Tracy helped me refine the path ahead, and helped me identify a few crucial pieces I was missing.
“Reality is more malleable than is commonly believed.”
This book is about the nine key traits and characteristics etc. of people who have changed the world, but it’s not anything boring like “courage” (although of course it’s partly that), or “stick-to-it-iveness” (although of course they all have that too). Here’s the list:
Self-Belief
Olympian Expectations
Transforming Experiences
One Breakthrough Achievement
Make Your Own Trail
Find and Drive Your Personal Vehicle
Thrive on Setbacks
Acquire Unique Intuition
Distort Reality
Through the lives of 20 “Players” who have all achieved unreasonable success - everyone from Viktor Frankl to Winston Churchill to Bob Dylan - he breaks down what was unique about their individual path, but also how they “bent reality” to achieve what most people will never get close to. And importantly, how we can approximate their success.
Difficulty Rating: Easy
How I’m Applying It to My Business: This book is kinda making me into a jerk, if I’m being honest! Maybe I’ll just call it “assertiveness” haha. Whatever you call it, I’ve been ratcheting up the borderline-DELUSIONAL self-belief, conviction, confidence, and personal FORCE that I never really fully tapped into until now.
“Great families are not nearly so perishable as great men.”
While it’s not “technically” a business book, I just had to include it because of how tremendously it impacted my life and work this year.
It’s a history of the Rothschilds banking family, whose original patriarch, Mayer Rothschild, started in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt, selling coins to the local nobility, and ended up taking over the entire continent.
Briefly, Mayer had five sons, and they all split up, each taking residence in different European cities and setting up business there. In fact, Nathan Rothschild (London branch) helped develop this internationally respected messenger network whose couriers basically waited on the sidelines of the Battle of Waterloo, learned who won (the British stopped Napoleon), and ran back to give Nathan the news so he could use it to make an absolute KILLING on the London stock exchange.
I seriously could go on and on and on about this book and how much it just…changed me on a deep, fundamental level, but yeah…it’s sooo good! It’s also hilarious in some parts, which I really wasn’t expecting.
When I’ve finished copying out my notes from this one I’ll DEFINITELY be sharing them here. It’s FASCINATING.
Difficulty Rating: Moderate
How I’m Applying It to My Business: The Rothschilds operated on a completely different timescale than most people, and I’ve been doing the same. Where their plans took generations - centuries - to come to fruition, most people are extremely short-sighted. I already had a 100-year plan for my life before reading this book, but now I’m thinking about my 1,000-year plan, and really filling in some of the details on my “shorter-range” goals and plans too.
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 180,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and scaling my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two more ways I can help you:
Educational Content Creators: Book a 1:1 call and I’ll help you hit $5K/month with a plan tailored to your business.
Join Creator Launch Academy, my private business mastermind for educational content creators building real revenue and real freedom.
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