The Four Books That Shifted How I Think About Business this Month.
June reading roundup. Must reads for business owners.
Hey everyone,
With June coming to a close, I wanted to share what kept me inspired and excited this month. June was a big month for me! I officially turned 30 (and am really excited about it, age is wisdom, and I look forward to becoming more wise and drinking deeper in life for this next chapter ahead). To me, wisdom is having a range from different perspectives, industries and walks of life. In my reading journey, I'm often turning to more books that offer range, I like going outside the industry to improve my thoughts on the industry as I feel this is what makes someone truly untouchable. With the rate at which AI is pacing, I feel the best way to stay current is to understand what works in connecting with people, timeless principles over fleeting trends. Yes, it's important to stay on top of AI and what's coming (which I do), but in order to stay relevant to people, I need to offer the data points that AI can’t get to without the input data. In summary, my June picks do exactly this.
I'm going to try a new approach this month in mapping out who I think these books are best for, feedback is welcome and appreciated. I hope these books help with your business and branding journey.
Play Bigger by Al Ramadan
(Perfect For When You're Stuck in the Weeds).
This book was a massive game changer for me. I love the simple resets that books can offer. Nothing about Play Bigger is groundbreaking, but its simple reframing allowed me to start new thinking patterns for working with brands who are struggling.
This book is for those who feel stuck, whether you need a perspective change, or you're simply just frustrated because what you are doing is not working. This book will snap you out of your funk and give you a clear path forward for re-communicating your message. I work with a big beauty brand that reached out for repositioning support, I recommended this book, and they've had 8-figure virality 3 times per week for the last month. The owner credits the social success to the message laid out in this book.
The whole structure is refreshingly simple and reminds you that real power lies in thinking differently, not just executing better.
One of my favourite takeaways was the 76% rule. In this book, the authors discuss how Category Kings (leading market companies) capture 76% of their market's total value. Not revenue, not market share—total value. This means you either create and own a category, or you're fighting for scraps forever. There's no middle ground. If you aren't owning 76% of your market share you are going to be struggling, and you need to pivot now to where you can own.
What I love about this approach is how it reframes everything. Instead of asking "How do we compete better?" you start asking "What category can we create?" It's the difference between playing someone else's game and creating your own rules.
Another concept I loved was the Magic Triangle, perfect alignment between Company Design, Product Design, and Category Design. This framework shows that success requires all three elements working together. Company Design is how you organize and operate. Product Design is what you build and how it serves customers. Category Design is the market space you create and own. Miss even one element and the whole system collapses. It's not 2 out of 3 equals partial success, it's 2 out of 3 equals zero.
In summary, this book is for you if: You're feeling stuck competing on features or price, or you know your brand should be bigger but can't figure out how to break through.
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
(Essential Reading for Every Business Owner).
I'm having my entire team read this month because it's that important. Will Guidara's insight that "every business can choose to be in the hospitality industry" is revolutionary.
This doesn't just apply to restaurants. It fundamentally changes how you approach every customer interaction. The difference between service and hospitality? Service is black-and-white, while hospitality is colour. Service meets expectations. Hospitality creates connection.
My favourite story: the blue spoon. When Guidara was designing a gelato cart for MoMA's Sculpture Garden, he discovered expensive blue spoons and decided to use them despite the cost (they were legit the nicest ice cream spoons he'd ever seen). One day, he watched Glenn Lowry, the director of MoMA, buying gelato for visiting curators. To Guidara's satisfaction, the curators spent a moment admiring the spoons in their hands before digging into the gelato. This perfectly illustrated his belief in Walt Disney's principle that "People can feel perfection."
The 95/5 rule alone is worth the price of the book: Manage 95% of your business down to the penny; spend the last 5% 'foolishly.' That last 5% has an outsized impact on the guest experience, which will transform your business and influence how people think about your brand.
This matters now because as businesses get bigger, they often lose the personal touch that made them special. Guidara shows you how to scale without losing your soul (a really important skill that businesses with big ambitions should learn).
Read this if: You're a business owner at any stage, especially if you're scaling and worried about maintaining quality and connection.
Obsessed by Emily Heyward
(Perfect for CPG Brands).
Emily Heyward, an agency owner out of NYC, writes a book about her experience working with CPG brands like Casper, Allbirds, and Away. If you're in the product space, this book is packed with case studies and simple frameworks you can implement immediately. I will say this book is OKAY, but it's helpful for getting the wheels turning on what worked for mass market CPG brands that have good branding and messaging.
The core insight: "To drive obsession, brands need to be comfortable leaving some sets of consumers and opportunities behind." Ultimately, to please everyone, you please nobody, and this insight is helpful if you want to build a community (the best way to win online). It sounds scary, but it's actually liberating. Focus creates obsession.
Heyward's approach is simple: Start with the customer problem, not your product features. Create a shared identity with your customers rather than just describing what you make. Use tension in your brand personality to create surprise and engagement.
Read this if: You're launching physical products, running a D2C company, or trying to break through in a crowded CPG category.
The Nvidia Way by Tae Kim
(For Speed and Innovation).
This book connects beautifully to Play Bigger's themes but focuses on execution. The book chronicles the founder of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, and his obsession with avoiding the Innovator's Dilemma—i.e. the idea that successful companies get disrupted by nimbler competitors—drove him to build a culture of relentless adaptation.
A core takeaway from this book is the "speed of light" principle, which suggests that your pace should be constrained only by the laws of physics, not by historical norms or internal politics. This mindset helped Nvidia stay decades ahead of market demand.
I love brands that credit OODA loop thinking to their success, because the brands that can Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act faster than anyone else, win.
Jensen believes Nvidia's worst enemy isn't competition, it's complacency. Nvidia won the microchip game because of the continuous innovation that came from a flat organizational structure, its whiteboard philosophy, and a constant feedback culture (where people can receive feedback without being fragile).
Read this if: You're running an established brand worried about disruption, or you want to understand how to build a culture of continuous innovation.
The Thread That Connects Them All
All four books are really about the same thing. Thinking beyond the obvious.
Play Bigger says stop competing, start creating categories. Unreasonable Hospitality says stop serving, start caring. Obsessed says to stop appealing to everyone and start obsessing over your ideal customer. The Nvidia Way says stop reacting, start anticipating.
They're all fundamentally about rejecting conventional wisdom and choosing a harder but more rewarding path.
I keep coming back to this: the brands that dominate don't just do things better, they do different things entirely. They play longer games, think in decades, and understand that true differentiation comes from seeing opportunities others miss.
The real lesson to take from these books is that you don’t win by being ‘perfect’, you win by seeing the world differently and adapting to its changes. It's about being awake to the world and not having your head down in the sh*t.
I hope you enjoyed this month's round-up and found some of your next reads. As a note, I am launching my July social media cohort, so if you would like to join, please reply to this or send me a direct message. My cohort is capped at 12 experts, where we work to build your brand + approach to socials over 6 weeks.
You can find my full reading list on my Goodreads!
Talk soon,
Camille
PS. You can access my Social Media Masterclass here! Access the #1 content framework for business owners, founders, and marketers.