Four Books to Kick Off 2025 on the Right Foot

By Alexandra Zendrian

For financial services professionals who want to be on top of their game in 2025, books have a transformational power to inspire their readers to achieve new heights and challenge themselves to be better.

Here are four books that will help financial advisors and fintech leaders get in the growth mindset to start 2025 off strong.

Shut The F Up And Listen

You might think you have good listening skills, but until you’ve learned about and start practicing engaged listening with tips from Storyteller, Coach, Podcast Master and Captivating Speaker Matt Halloran, you likely aren’t listening as well as you ought to be. Listening is a key skill that builds trust, which leads to strong and enduring client relationships. 

In “Shut The F Up And Listen,” which is designed with exercises at the end of each chapter so its readers can practice what they have learned, Halloran explains the seven kinds of listening and the situations where each is most applicable. He also delves into the five types of communicators and their communication preferences so people can begin to understand that someone isn’t shutting them out but perhaps explaining how they want to be spoken to.

This book aims to bridge the gap between people as their listening is transformed to hold space for people rather than listen to find the appropriate time is to respond. The book should serve to help people level up in their careers, leaders be better managers of people, and people have better relationships with each other.

Wealth in the Key of Life: Finding Your Financial Harmony

In CNBC Contributor, Educator, and Financial Planner Dr. Preston Cherry’s debut book, he breaks down the idea that money is a tool, instead showing that it needs assignments so people can achieve their individualized version of financial harmony. This life state occurs when a person’s physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and financial lives all sing from the same song sheet.

Only after an honest self audit, which Dr. Cherry explains and guides his readers through, can people appropriately incorporate their finances into their life.

“Wealth in the Key of Life” can assist financial advisors to better emotionally connect with their clients in their life journey. Harnessing all of his knowledge as a financial therapist, educator and financial planner, Dr. Cherry brings these points together to show people how their money mindset shapes their decision making, which might not align with how money should appropriately fit into their lives to achieve harmony. 

Fintech Feminists

It’s not an accident that predominantly men lead successful fintech firms. This trend has been nurtured by a culture that consistently makes it difficult for women to rise to the top from funding through staffing. 

In her debut book Fintech Feminists, Nicole Casperson, founder of Fintech Is Femme, takes a historical look at fintech while also sharing the stories of a half dozen inspirational female fintech leaders and trailblazers. 

This book gives tips for women to create their own roadmap to fintech success while encouraging them to take their own futures by the horns. By tapping into each other and the women who have come before them, female fintech leaders can rise. 

The Soul of Wealth

The concept of wealth is bantered about quite often, but what truly is it? Orion Advisor Services’ Chief Behavioral Officer Dr. Daniel Crosby dives deep into wealth’s meaning and effects through 50 short essays. 

“The Soul of Wealth” helps people get back to their roots with the forgotten truths of wealth and how money can be used to find and have meaning. 

As financial advisors head into their work in 2025, the concepts within this book can produce at hand more meaningful conversations with their clients.