The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
3 Must Read Books for TPT Business Owners
What if reading just 10 pages a day could ignite transformative growth in both your personal and professional life? Inspired by a challenge reminiscent of the 75 Hard program, I share how this simple habit revitalized my approach to business development as a teacher entrepreneur. Join me this week on the Rebranded Teacher Podcast, where I journey through the pages of "Rich Routines" by Steve Houghton. This isn't your typical business book plagued by repetition; it’s filled with practical examples and an engaging style that captivated me from the first chapter. Alongside Houghton’s insights, I delve into "The One Thing" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, and the course-like experience of "StoryBrand," each offering unique strategies for focusing on impactful activities and crafting compelling narratives.
I also explore a fascinating read that redefines wealth across seven dimensions, integrating emotional, mental, business, and family into our everyday lives. These books, along with the efficient summaries from Blinkist, have become invaluable resources in my toolkit. Tune in as I reflect on how reading has become a cornerstone for growth, sparking fresh ideas and strategies—ideal for any teacher business owner aiming to elevate their practice. Whether you’re looking to streamline your tasks or weave a memorable brand story, there’s inspiration and practical advice waiting for you in this episode.
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Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author and seller on Teachers, pay Teachers and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Let's talk about three must-read books for teacher business owners.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited to share this, because I don't often share a lot of book content. To be honest with you, I am not a huge reader typically, but inside of Rebranded Teacher Academy we have a small group of us. Over the course of the last month that we've been doing a version of 75 hard, which, if you're not familiar with that, it's like health, fitness and also like personal growth, and so you read a book like 10 pages a day, and so we've kind of just had a little group. It's not really a part of my membership, but it's just been a group of us who've created a little Voxer channel. We kind of are holding each other accountable for hitting our steps and getting our exercise in drinking our water and reading our books, which is a lot of fun to be part of a community where there are people who, where we can like, push each other to be better in other ways besides just our business. But as part of this, I've had to read 10 pages of a book every day.
Speaker 1:And listen, you guys, I was an avid reader when I was young and then, as I got older, I told myself I think when I was like 17 or 18, I was like, okay, no more fiction books until you can read some nonfiction books. And so I took a year off to like only read nonfiction. And I told myself I couldn't read a fiction book until I read, at least, I think, three nonfiction books. I did not read a single nonfiction book, start to finish, and so I never went back to reading fiction or really anything for a long period of time I think it was five years before I read another book all the way through. And then, as I became a parent, I started needing to read, like parenting books and learning some of that stuff. So I kind of slowly dipped my toe back into reading and then now, as a business owner, I'm finding like, oh my gosh, why have I not been reading all this time? And having this little challenge of needing to read like 10 pages a day forced me to read the books that have been sitting on my shelves for a long time, and I'm going to share three of my favorites with you so far.
Speaker 1:So the number one book has been this book called Rich Routines from Steve Houghton. This is actually a brand new book and is not like a lot of business books that you'll read. His wife is an influencer, like an Instagram influencer in Dallas, and that's how I found out about this book is because I follow his wife and some of his family on Instagram and he's a very successful Dallas business owner and when he came out with this, I was like, eh, it's probably not going to be very good, right? And I just happened to like, look on Amazon and just read the sample that they had on Amazon, and I was so captivated by the sample that I purchased the book and immediately read I think, the intro in the first two chapters that night that I purchased the book and immediately read I think the intro and the first two chapters that night. Since then, as I'm recording this podcast, I'm almost finished with the book. I'm in the very last section and I have loved it.
Speaker 1:So let me tell you a little bit about this without spoiling anything. I don't know if you can spoil a nonfiction book, but yeah, here we go. The first thing that I love about this book is that he's not an author by trade, and what I find with a lot of business type books is that they take one principle, one core concept, and then they talk about that one principle or that one core concept the entire book, which is great. But after you get through like the first three, four or five chapters, you're kind of like I get it and you're reading an entire chapter to just get like one little tiny nugget and it's just basically each chapter is kind of telling you the same thing they told you before, just in a different way, which is cool. I mean. I think it speaks to the fact that a lot of us really need to hear things and myself included five different ways or seven different ways before it finally sinks in and hits home. And I get that and I think that that's why they do that. But they're professional writers, they do this for a living and a lot of times they are looking for just like their next big business hit. They're just kind of trying to write a New York Times bestseller, which is great.
Speaker 1:What I loved particularly about this book was that it was extremely easy to read. There were lots of practical examples, and he's not a polished writer. Now, is it a good book? Yes, is the writing something that is distracting? Absolutely not. In fact, I would say the opposite. I kind of enjoyed that there wasn't sort of the same standard flow that you sort of see of like, okay, I'm going to start with a story and then I'm going to start this chapter with a story or a hook, and then I'm going to walk you through how you apply that to your life and then how you apply this to your business, and then wrap it all up in a nice neat package with a couple of like little zingers thrown in throughout the chapter. Right, and sort of rinse and repeat and do that for the next chapter.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of personal stories woven throughout, so, like, for example, he breaks his book up into, I think, seven different areas of wealth that you can have, so emotional wealth, mental wealth, business wealth, wealth with your family, and I'm probably mixing some of those all together and I kind of felt like they all mixed together in the book, if you want to know the truth. But he talks about how to make your priorities or what you want your life to look like, whether that's your income, your investments, your marriage, your family, your religion, your spirituality. He talks about how to take those things that are important to you and, rather than like prioritizing each one in different phases of life and, you know, saying like, well, you can't have it all, how to, if those things are important to you, how to weave them into your everyday life as a part of a routine so that you don't neglect them, and he gives lots of practical examples of how he's done that in his own life, and I just found it a very easy, inspiring read that left me feeling like, okay, I can do this. I've loved all the practical examples and just how light and easy it was to read while still being very impactful, and I loved the fact that it was. It goes back and forth between your personal life, your finances, your spiritual life and then also your business life, so it's not strictly a business book, it's really just kind of like a life book. Anyway, I've really enjoyed it and probably one of the books that I've talked about the most out of all the ones that I've read.
Speaker 1:The next one is the One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. I know a lot of people talk about this book. It's a really good book for business owners, especially if you're feeling really overwhelmed with growing your business, the prospect of putting more time into your business, or maybe you just feel like you have way too much on your plate. It's really great at helping you kind of narrow in and focus on the things that are going to be the most and really just hammering in that you don't need to be trying to do everything by yourself. You're going to get better results focusing on fewer things and really just focusing your efforts on the things that are going to yield the highest return on investment. And so it's a phenomenal book.
Speaker 1:I recommend purchasing it, reading it all the way through. But I will say this is one of those business books that I kind of felt like after a while it's like okay, I get it. And while it is worth reading it all the way through because there are little nuggets in each chapter, definitely towards the end of the book I started to kind of feel like okay, like I'm ready for this book to be over, but I also want to finish it because it is good and I'm still learning from it, but it's definitely worth its weight and goal and I would recommend that, as you're reading this particular book, you have a little notebook handy or you have something that you can write in if you don't want to make notes in the book itself so that you can write some things down, because I found, as I was reading it, I was like, oh, that's how this relates specifically to me and my business. These are some things that I need to change, and I found that it was extremely helpful and, as I was reading it, it was easy for me to take the concepts that were taught in the book and see how it applied to my own business, and having a notebook handy to write those things down so I didn't forget them was key.
Speaker 1:The third book that I think every TPT business owner should read at some point is StoryBrand. Now, this is another one that a lot of business owners have talked about. It is huge, and it's big for a reason it is chock full of really incredible information, and I love particularly love the way that this book is split up, in that every single chapter is like a goldmine and it's not just regurgitating the same information in different ways in each chapter. It's literally walking you through the process of building a story brand, almost like taking a course, but in a book. I will say that this is one that I actually listened to on Blinkist. Okay, so let's talk about Blinkist for a minute and why I love Blinkist and why it's been so beneficial for me.
Speaker 1:When it comes to finding books, I mentioned at the very beginning that I feel like a lot of business books even really popular ones, new York Times bestsellers take the same core concept and sort of regurgitate it in different ways, and so, while you get little nuggets of wisdom or you get little pieces of information here and there that make it worth reading the whole book, it feels like you're eating the same meal, but it's served on different platters each time, right. So I have found myself many times starting books that are phenomenal and then after the first few chapters, I'm like, okay, I'm out, like I cannot continue to read this, because for every 10 pages I'm reading, I'm getting like one worthwhile sentence, and while I know sometimes that's just how it is, if I'm going to read a book and I'm only reading 10 pages a day, I want to learn something every time I'm reading, or I want to be able to gain a new perspective or a new insight on something every time I'm reading and I feel like with a lot of books that just doesn't happen. So I've really enjoyed Blinkist because what it does is it takes a lot of these really popular, particularly nonfiction books and even some TED Talks and it breaks down to the core concepts that are presented in each chapter and it gives you an audio retelling of the book, like giving you the high points from each chapter. And I've listened to some of them. Like the one thing I listened to on Blinkist and read the book and I felt like listening to it on Blinkist, while it wasn't as great as reading the book itself, I got all of the core concepts and I felt like it was a very beneficial listen. But then there have been a few books that I've listened to and I thought, okay, that's helpful, but not helpful enough to make me want to actually read the book.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've got the basics of this and, while the book may be a little bit more beneficial, listening to it on Blinkist was not beneficial enough to make me want to read the book. Does that make sense? Whereas, like other books, like Story Brand, I listened to it on Blinkist and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I have got to read this entire book because this is gold. So Blinkist has allowed me to get the gist, or the key points, the high points from many, many books at this point and listen to them in 15 to maybe 25 minutes.
Speaker 1:I like to listen to one while I'm going on a walk, similar to how I would listen to a podcast while I'm doing dishes or things like that, and I can listen and I can learn. If I really like the blink, as it's called, then I can save it to my list of books that I want to read. So this is how I'm vetting books from this point forward is I'm listening to them on Blinkist first and then, if it makes the cut and I really wanna read the book and take the time to take notes on it and apply it directly to my business, then I will do that, but only after I have listened to the Blink on Blinkist. That way I know I'm not gonna be wasting my time by reading the book. So Blinkist. That way I know I'm not going to be wasting my time by reading the book.
Speaker 1:So highly, highly recommend Blinkist, especially if you have a ton of books on your must read list and you want to knock some of them out and cross some of those off your list, you can find a link to get a free trial to Blinkist down inside of the description. If you're like me, then you're probably going to want to just go ahead and sign up for an entire year, because that's what I did and I have purchased it for like the last two years. I've listened to a lot of TED Talks, I've listened to a lot of books and I even have discovered books that I wasn't aware of or hadn't heard of before, because it will recommend books to you or blinks to you, based on books that you've already listened to or enjoyed. So there's my little plug for Blinkist. It's been a game changer for me and my business because, like I said, I like reading, but it has to be really, really good in order to keep my attention, and if I'm only reading 10 pages a day, I'm gonna ditch a book pretty quickly if it's not holding my attention and if it's not giving me loads of value every time I sit down to read it. So, not holding my attention and if it's not giving me loads of value every time I sit down to read it. So those are my top three so far, and I might have to do another one in 2025 with all of this extra reading that I'm doing, but for sure, rich Routines, the One Thing and Story Brand you do not want to miss those. And then you can grab a link to try Blinkist for yourself down inside of the description.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for being here, you guys. Again, you can find the link to join Blinkist and get a free trial inside of the show notes, and if you have a book that you've really enjoyed it's enriched your personal life or your business life send me a message. I'm on Instagram at thelaurenfulton. You can also find me inside of my free Facebook group, the Rebranded Teacher. We have oh gosh, I don't know thousands of members at this point, and I would love to hear your book recommendations so I can add them to my list and either listen to the blink or get the book itself. Thanks so much for being here, you guys. If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure and share it with a friend, and I'm gonna see you guys right back here next week.