This post was last updated Jan. 17, 2023
Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian. He believes that business is nothing but a conduit for personal growth and embraces the company’s vision to Love How You Live. When he’s not leading and growing his organizations, you can find Adam either in the mountains or out in nature with his wife and three children.
Hitting the $1 million net income mark in a calendar year is a massive milestone for real estate professionals. One million dollars! Does that sound like a lot to you? Or is it just a flash in the pan? Either way with a clear vision, strategic plan, talented people, the right daily activities and a commitment to self-leadership, 2023 can be your year.
I attribute much of my success over the years to reading, learning and (and it’s a big “and” for a reason!) taking action. Knowledge without implementation isn’t going to get you anywhere.
Below are some of the key books I’ve read to help create a successful real estate team, which has now grown and expanded to over 30 states. But again, it’s not just about reading the books.
Take notes. Test out some of the ideas. Figure out which concepts are going to work for you and your business, and then work closely with your team to implement them. That is where the real growth happens.
Before you know it, you will be on your way to a million-dollar real estate team. Here are 10 books to help you net $1 million in 2023.
1. The Millionaire Real Estate Series by Gary Keller
There is no way I could have picked just one of Gary Keller’s books. He literally wrote the book(s) on how to build profitable and sustainable real estate businesses, whether that is through a real estate team, real estate investing or flipping houses.
You won’t find just theory or inspirational words in these pages. Each book offers a step-by-step guide to walk you through how to build a business that lasts and how to create wealth along the way. Pick up one of these books today and start growing!
- The Millionaire Real Estate Agent
- The Millionaire Real Estate Investor
- Flip: How to Find, Fix and Sell Houses for Profit
- Hold: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth
- Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times
2. The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel
What stories do you have about money? Is money the root of all evil? Does money give you power and options? Where did you learn your behaviors and thought patterns around money?
In this book, Housel sheds some light on how real-world people — like you and me — make decisions about money from emotions, prior experiences, marketing and our unique view, not necessarily based on spreadsheets.
Behavior is the driving force behind financial decisions. Housel will teach you how to take these thinking patterns and behaviors and make smarter decisions about money, which is an essential skill when building a business.
3. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
No sugar-coating things here. Ben Horowitz’s book takes you behind the scenes and tells you the truth about how hard it is to build and run a business. Get an inside look into the mindset behind the leaders who must make the tough calls every day.
Horowitz also dives into the wartime versus peacetime CEO mindset. As your business grows, markets shift, and the economy changes, you will be called upon to use different leadership skills to run your organization.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things tells it like it is. Not everyone will succeed in business because of how hard it is. But don’t let that discourage you — let it drive you!
4. The Founder & The Force Multiplier: How Entrepreneurs & Executive Assistants Achieve More Together by Adam Hergenrother with Hallie Warner
This is the essential read (yes, yes, I’m biased) for entrepreneurs who want to know who to hire and how to strengthen their strategic partnership with their assistant.
You’ll hear some of my own entrepreneurial story, and how having a Force Multiplier by your side will accelerate your team’s growth and get you where you want to go faster (while giving you more freedom along the way).
Read the book with your assistant. Compare notes. Use it as a catalyst for engaging in fierce conversations. The power of the partnership only works when you are both committed to challenging each other and growing together every day. Together, you will achieve more.
5. Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Bill Campbell was an executive leadership coach and business executive who mentored some of the most successful and visionary entrepreneurs and business leaders of our time. Trillion Dollar Coach outlines the key principles that helped these leaders grow and thrive.
Whether you are helping to coach your agents and team members, or you simply want to improve your own leadership, this book is for you.
6. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have all the Facts by Annie Duke
The average individual makes 35,000 decisions a day. And for leaders, decisions are our products. Over time, businesses succeed or fail based on the strength of their decisions.
How can you make smarter decisions? How can you help your team make even better ones? Thinking in Bets offers the mental models and frameworks to help you do just that.
7. Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Sanjay Gupta, MD
Entrepreneurs and business leaders are pulled in many different directions on a daily basis. We’re called upon to make high stakes decisions regularly and to have the stamina to work long hours building businesses, closing deals or creating new opportunities for our team.
Keep Sharp is a great book that focuses on the importance of exercise, sleep, good nutrition and maintaining an active lifestyle (that goes for continuing to challenge the brain too, by “working” even after retirement).
All simple things, but not easy when you’re constantly faced with the latest fad diet, exercise trend and demanding schedules — but a must if we want to be living our best life for years to come! Gupta’s book explains how.
8. The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
When you’re building a business, there are thousands of distractions, problems, shiny objects, and people looking for your time and attention. The One Thing helps you cut through the noise and focus on achieving more in less time and with less stress.
The authors ask this simple (but often hard to answer) question, “What is the one thing I can do, such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Throughout the book you’ll learn how to get clear on your vision and priorities, how to determine your success list, and how to focus on what really matters — to you and your business. This is definitely my go-to productivity book.
9. Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz
If finance and accounting aren’t really your specialty, then Profit First is the book for you. Michalowicz uses a simple, yet unconventional formula to help you create and manage a profitable business from Day 1.
The book’s step-by-step advice gets you into action quickly and helps you focus less on the top-line sales number (which can be a gross miscalculation of the business’s success) and more on what really matters — profit.
Even if your business is growing, it’s never too late to take a fresh look at your finances, minimize expenses, optimize investments and increase your profit margin. The Profit First approach will set you up for long-term growth.
10. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
Ravikant is an entrepreneur and investor. He is also the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a curation of Naval’s wisdom from Twitter, podcasts and around the web for the past decade.
Start on any page of the book, and you’ll be hit with some hard truths about wealth and happiness — according to Naval, building wealth and being happy are skills we can learn. Good news for us entrepreneurs and business owners! For me, the book was a reminder that we do not have to sacrifice our health and happiness for wealth, nor do we have to sacrifice building wealth to be happy. We can have both.
Here is one of my favorite Naval quotes, which really sums up this sentiment:
“I want to be that guy who is successful, peaceful, happy, enjoying life, blissful, meditative, spiritual, successful, and as healthy as I can be, and famous, and rich, and not give a damn about any of it. If I lose it all tomorrow, I still want to be happy. That’s it. That’s where I want to be. I’ll just make that decision because somebody has to be that person. It might as well be me.”
And why can’t it be you, too?
What are your favorite business-building books? Which books have helped you create a wildly successful real estate business?
Adam Hergenrother is the founder and CEO of Livian, the author of The Founder & The Force Multiplier, and the host of the podcast, Business Meets Spirituality. Learn more about Adam’s companies and culture here.
