Learn Everyday: Buy More Books

As I mentioned in "How Do You Define Success?", I learn everyday.

Building two companies requires me to improve my skills, challenge my assumptions and keep abreast of new developments in the worlds of technology, business and marketing. In personal development terms, I'm learning how to negotiate better, manage money better, compensate for my weaknesses, achieve work-life balance as an entrepreneur and mother, capitalize on my strengths, and ask for help.

In practical terms, I'm learning systems, software, invoicing, setting rates, managing cash flow, trademark registration requirements and processes, tax laws, the legal duties of an S-corp, and more.

While I read LOTS of articles online, subscribe to Entrepreneur, read The Portland Business Journal and Oregon Business, pick up the occasional issue of Fast Company, receive e-mail newsletters from The New York Times and The Financial Post (Canadian) as well as others, I also find books—and increasingly, ebooks—to be an invaluable source for the information I need.

If an entrepreneur I admire recommends a book to me, I go get it. No questions asked.

Because if there's anything I've learned so far, it's that other entrepreneurs and business owners have all encountered the same questions, problems and anxieties that I have. If they tell me of a resource that can make my life better, easier or help me solve an issue that they struggled with, too, then I get it.

So far, they've always been right.

And that, my friends, is why I started my own online Dusty Widget Bookshelf at Powell's Bookstore.

The books that have helped me can help you, too.

And, the books that help me to help you help me even more when you buy them from here. Yes, I do make a generous commission on the sale of each and every book (even the latest by Stephenie Meyer), CD, DVD, ebook, magazine and journal that you buy from Powell's when you link to the online store from "Ditch the Dusty Widget."

It's my favorite kind of relationship: a win-win-win. You benefit with knowledge, the best bookstore on Earth gets a sale, and I get a commission.

So, please do us all a favor and grab yourself some summer reading material here.