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Entrepreneurs today face a constellation of challenges related to the rise of AI.
A Gallagher survey of business leaders finds 11% of entrepreneurs see AI as a potential risk, more than double the previous year’s percentage. The prospect of AI errors and hallucinations, privacy risks and legal liability related to AI misuse all factor in their thinking.
But entrepreneurs know opportunities abound in the new normal, too. Sixty-four percent of business leaders told Gallagher they implemented generative AI solutions in 2024. Eighty-two percent see the technology as a potential boon for their businesses.
To successfully balance the risks and potential rewards of this unique moment, entrepreneurs must be willing to do things differently — and have the resilience to face the immense challenges ahead. Read these four books to learn how.
Related: The Future of Work: How Entrepreneurship Can Thrive in an AI-Driven Economy
1. I Hope So by Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe
The science is increasingly clear that positive emotions like hope and optimism correlate with success in the face of adversity. A recent meta-study published by the American Psychological Association, for example, found that hopeful people are far more likely to find meaning in life — a known predictor of success.
These findings no doubt resonate with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe. Hanley-Dafoe’s new release, I Hope So, is a research-backed guide to resilience that leads readers through a hope-filled historical journey.
Filled with evocative vignettes from some of humanity’s toughest periods as well as the latest peer-reviewed scientific evidence, I Hope So shows that hope is an essential ingredient for overcoming challenges. Hanley-Dafoe provides readers with essential tools to strengthen and leverage their natural resilience in personal and professional settings. For business leaders, the book is a crucial companion to more traditional tomes on management and strategy — and a guiding light in what may prove to be a period of challenges to rival any our species has faced before.
Related: How to Lead With a Balanced Sense of Optimism When The Future Looks Bleak
2. A Call for Service by Gary Benoit
Nearly 90% of entrepreneurs struggle with at least one documented mental health issue, according to a Businessolver study. These issues include anxiety (50%), stress (46%) and loneliness (27%).
What’s more, leaders exert outsize influence on their teams’ own mental health, which in turn affects job performance, productivity and retention. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 69% of employees say their managers directly influence their mental well-being, for better or worse.
Gary Benoit’s A Call for Service is a handbook for leaders who understand that healthy employees are more effective employees. In it, Benoit provides a road map for developing resilience and solidarity among teams facing stressful situations. For leaders themselves, he offers strategies for personal self-improvement, beginning from the base truth that — with help — anyone can overcome adversity to live a healthy, productive life.
3. Change Fluency by Jay Kiew
Jay Kiew has helped drive more than $2 billion in organizational transformation. As an innovation strategist, Kiew understands the inflection points that transform not only companies but also entire industries, such as Spotify’s wholesale disruption of the analog radio model.
Change Fluency is a guide for entrepreneurs and executives navigating their own inflection points. It blends a plausible near-future parable about a tech company facing an existential threat from a more advanced rival with years of on-the-ground, here-and-now experience Kiew has distilled into nine principles of navigating change.
Connecting it all is the idea that change is less a process than a language: something any leader can become fluent in. Kiew’s narrative reveals the often subtle differences between those who merely muddle through disruptive periods in their organizations’ histories and those who use them as springboards for rapid growth. And unlike most books about leading through adversity, Change Fluency comes with reinforcements: a set of leadership exercises and an AI coach to help you apply Kiew’s principles in real life.
Related: 5 Urgent Moves to Make to Shield Your Business from the Next Big Crisis
4. Thriving in the Storm by Bill Murphy
Opinions differ on the true small business failure rate, but it’s safe to say that well over 50% cease to exist before celebrating their 10th anniversaries.
Thriving in the Storm author Bill Murphy believes that personal crises often contribute to these failures. When adversity strikes, he says leaders have three choices. They can give up entirely, muddle through in survival mode, or take the opportunity to thrive.
Drawing on his lived experience and frameworks from luminaries like Grant Cardone and Tony Robbins, Murphy offers actionable advice for overcoming them. He presents nearly two dozen mental exercises for readers to complete at their own pace. All lead toward an achievable — if not exactly easy — goal: to turn negative feelings (anger, resentment, fear) into positive and productive ones (happiness, enthusiasm, satisfaction) that correlate closely with success.
In an uncertain world, business leaders are defined by their ability to navigate change. Whether you’re staring down an existential crisis today or you merely worry about what could be around the corner, these books will help you face the future with confidence. With persistence — and a bit of luck — you and your team will emerge stronger than before.
Entrepreneurs today face a constellation of challenges related to the rise of AI.
A Gallagher survey of business leaders finds 11% of entrepreneurs see AI as a potential risk, more than double the previous year’s percentage. The prospect of AI errors and hallucinations, privacy risks and legal liability related to AI misuse all factor in their thinking.
But entrepreneurs know opportunities abound in the new normal, too. Sixty-four percent of business leaders told Gallagher they implemented generative AI solutions in 2024. Eighty-two percent see the technology as a potential boon for their businesses.