Book Recommendations

[helgi]

Time for a thread with recommended books on business and finance?

I'm finishing an Amazon order and would like to get some business/money related books -- already have in my basket How I Made It by Rachel Bridge, E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and Getting Business to Come to You by Douglas Edwards, although I'm not sure I want that last one.
Any of these I shouldn't bother with?

My first introduction to business books was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Kiyosaki, which inspired me a great deal at the time, and The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason which I still keep on my nightstand. And what I'm mostly interested in is probably just the usual stuff, entrepreneurial subjects and personal finance, something about financial independence, passive income and so on. It's just that there's so much fluff and hype out there that I'm not sure where to start, especially since I have to order online without having a chance to flip through them first to spot the duds.

Any recommendations?


Here is a list btw. of some of my favorite business/money related books to date:

The Monk and the Riddle by Randy Komisar
- Been a while since I read it, but have a very fond memory of it. Spiritually grounded business philosophy with practical advice on start-ups

Dot Bomb by David Kuo, Startup by Jerry Kaplan and The Nudist on the Late Shift by Po Bronson
- Great stories from Silicon Valley in the late '90s

The Millionaire Mind by Thomas Stanley
- An interesting look at the financial habits of millionaires, got me to see that being a millionaire is not necessarily a 24/7 rap video

The White Ladder diaries by Ros Jay
- The diary of a couple that decides to start their own book publishing business. Very entertaining and comforting

From Acorns by Caspian Woods, The Beermat Entrepreneur by Mike Southon and Chris West and The Entrepreneur's Book of Checklists by Robert Ashton
- Very similar books on the steps of starting your own business from idea to execution, although From Acorns is my favorite

Less is More edited by Goldian Vandenbroeck
- A collection of quotes on simplicity and voluntary poverty. Highly recommended to get a clearer perspective on money and material luxury

__________________________________________________ ____________

Just finished placing my order, and the business related books I decided to add were The Art of the Start and Rules for Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki. And also The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, which I suppose qualifies as a business book.

Still very interested in hearing from people about their personal favorites, especially in fluff infested areas like financial independence, personal finance etc.

[PUNCHbrad]

Most of you probably havnt heard of this one (I kid, I kid.)...

Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill


It was BOUND to be mentioned, so I figured I do the honors of listing it. I try to read it at least 2 times a year.

[Steve]

It's easier just to point you to a list of my favorite finance books on my site rather than copy the list here.

Book Recommendations » Adventure Money

I'm not a very big fan of Rich Dad stuff since it lacks the specifics. I suppose it's great that it helped a lot of people start thinking about money, so in that regard it's a good book. But once I got over that, I wanted some books with a little more substance. A great finance book is The Truth about Money 3rd Edition by Ric Edelman.

[Henry]

My favorite is "Blink" and "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Fun fact: Malcolm Gladwell sleeps 10 hours a day.

EDIT - FYI these books relate to the mind of the consumer.

[skinnyninja]

If you are geared even a little bit towards marketing, then anything by Seth Godin is excellent. "Small is the New Big", "Purple Cow", "Permission Marketing", "All Marketers are Liars".

There are others as well. You can even download a free ebook of his "Spreading the IdeaVirus."

Excellent stuff.

[helgi]

Originally Posted by Henry

Fun fact: Malcolm Gladwell sleeps 10 hours a day.

Heh, I've always thought he looked particularly well rested, like straight out of a bed commercial

I'm a big Gladwell fan, and have also recently started to read Godin, both his books and his blog as well. Gladwell has his New Yorker articles online, and he also has a blog although I don't think he updates it very much.

[smoothify]

I really like Ricardo Semler's two books, Maverick and The Seven Day Weekend.

I'm a real believer that there must be new more concious ways to do business, incorporating other things that just profit.

He really seems to get this the way he runs his brazilian company - Semco. I found the books themselves an enjoyable read too.


I wrote a post about Ricardo Semler on the radiant souls blog:

Key Points

• You choose your job description, your manager and how much you get paid.
• You can work when / where you want - just as you can check your emails on a sunday evening you're free to go to the cinema on a monday afternoon
• As your interests change - so can your job. Talk about new ideas you have for projects and the company will try to support you in creating that
• No managers monitoring what you are doing - no chain of command, even Ricardo himself doesn't have a job title and doesn't give orders.
• Informal meetings, no long term planning (6 months maximum), the company has no mission statement or profit goals.
• Transparency, you know what salaries people earn - very little office politics

[RT Wolf]

The Automatic Millionaire and The Wealthy Barber. A decent book on personal finance (Personal Finance for Dummies works ok, or Personal Finance for Canadians for Dummies is also ok).

Stock books (difficulty-wise, first easiest):

The Little Book That Beats The Market by Joel Greenblatt
One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Value investing FTW.

[Mycroft]

I too am not a fan of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". The only thing I got out of it was Kiyosaki's concept of an asset being something that makes money. As far as I could tell, the only money he ever made came from writing a book and perhaps some real estate investments.

The books that had the greatest influence on my financial success have been:

1. "Financial Peace" by Dave Ramsey - I already wrote about my experience with that in this thread.

2. "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" by Andrew Tobias - Great information for when you're ready to invest after you get out of debt!

3. "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin - This book is an eye opener and gets you to equate money with life energy. From what I recall, after all the various taxes, you have to earn something like $2 to be able to spend $1 so if you make $20/hour, that dinner and a movie just cost you over 4 hours of your life, not counting the time spent staring at the movie screen.

I have lots more, but these were the biggies for me.

[helgi]

Interesting suggestions so far!

I'll add to the list a book I'm about half-way through reading now, called The Washing Machine by Nick Kochan. It's an overview of money laundering, illegally acquired wealth and terrorist financing etc., with interesting stories and examples from different sectors of the black economy.

The writing is a bit stodgy, but a fascinating read none the less

[Dave Kaminski]

Does anyone have any experience with Brad Sugars? I watched one of his dvd seminars and it was amazing. I want to get the updated version but it's four grand. I think it'd probably be worth every penny. His books are cheap, I'm gonna go with those first. (Like eight bucks a piece used on Amazon.)

I'm halfway through eMyth and should be done with it by the end of today. I'd suggest it to anyone who has interest in having a real small business and not just a surrogate job.

[Abhey]

by Daniel Pena
However it costs about 285 pounds (over 500 us dollars), and i think most of the advice only becomes useful when you have already reached a certain wealth threshold. Unlike some other self help authors he did actually build a company worth 400 million dollars from 1000 dollars over a period of 8 years.

[Dave Kaminski]

I can give you hundreds of book suggestions, and throughout the forum I guess you'll find a ton of them, but my advice is this:

• APPLY what you read in the books.

Don't make the same mistake I make almost all of the time; I'm working on it...

[Alvin]

I just did a book review on Success Built to Last: Creating a Life that Matters

It's not business specific per se but goes into the principles that drive some of the most successful people in the world today, many of them successful businesspeople.

You can read the book review at Life Coaches Blog, or check out the short summary here:

What Is Success Built To Last?

Authors Jerry Porras (of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies), Stewart Emery and Mark Thompson interviewed over 200 high achievers all over the world, over a ten year period and distilled their secrets into this amazing book.

And get this: everyone who was interviewed had to have had at least a track record of 20 years of enduring success, not just by the social benchmarks of success; fame, power or fortune, but have had made a positive impact on the world.

How To Create A Life That Matters

What I love about this book from the get-go is their insistence that there is no road-map to success.

But what they did see in their study was that there were basic principles that successful people stuck to that they attributed to their success.

The authors define success as the synergy between 3 working parts:

Meaning - how successful people stay successful,

Thoughtstyles - the extreme makeovers that start in your head,

Actionstyles - how to turn passion into action.

It was revealed that people who built successful and meaningful lives never went for fame, power or fortune, many of them believe that success never lasts if that’s all you aim for. To them, success is simply doing what you love, being damn good at it and creating an insanely big dent in the universe. The fame, power and fortune just followed.

In short, creating a life that matters.

[Milo Riano]

Road Ahead inspired me alot. It is the story of Bill Gates. After that I read books about Michael Dell, Jack Welch, Larry Ellision, Plattner, etc. There are no better business books than the history of the richest people in the world, in my biased opinion. If you can learn from multi-billionaires why spend time on books by millionaires. Sorry for the biased viewpoint.

[copla]

I've never understood why anyone would ever reccommend Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The author is a proven con artist who has lied about his "succeess" at every level. It's pretty much a typical example of sell the sizzle not the steak, his real estate holdings are meager outside of his home, and there's just nothing backing up his claims. The whole "well it helps people think about money" aspect reaks of bullshit as well, as in all honesty, there are plenty of better written, more applicable, and more in-depth books by people who aren't complete hacks.

Tirade over. On to good books! Like mentioned, Think And Grow Rich is just an incredible book, the world would be a better, and more successful, place if every high school student had to read it before graduation. Beyond that, Napoleon Hioll also wrote the excellent Keys to Success.

Even if you're not a trader, I'd heartily recommend Market Wizards and New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager, they're both full of insightful interviews with some of the most successful traders on the planet, I don't think I've ever taken more notes on a book, aside from Richest Man In Babylon, outside of those those books.

Actually, on second thought, I lied. The book I've taken the most notes on ever is As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. It's only about 40 pages, but it's chock full of "Wow, I never thought about it that way" moments.

I could go on for hours, but I'd also recommend Tony Robbins' Ultimate Power. I know, I know, Tony Robbins... but honestly, it's a great book. He has a very engaging writing style, and he puts forth a great overview of NLP and the power of thought in achieving success. Hope all that helps someone.

[Alvin]

After going through a series of negotiations recently, I realized 2 things:

1) I suck at negotiations!

2) This would be a really useful skill to get better at!

Any book recommendations on sharpening negotiating skills?

[mikeschu]

Originally Posted by Alvin

Any book recommendations on sharpening negotiating skills?

Getting To Yes is probably the best book on negotiation out there. I'd also recommend Crucial Conversations because you're going to be doing a lot of listening during negotiations and the stakes may be raised.

[Eggzachery]

Originally Posted by Alvin

After going through a series of negotiations recently, I realized 2 things:

1) I suck at negotiations!

2) This would be a really useful skill to get better at!

Any book recommendations on sharpening negotiating skills?

Negotiate This!: By Caring, But Not T-H-A-T Much is a fantastic book. Herb Cohen has written other books on negotiation. I would highly recommend any of them.

[Erik Mazzone]

Originally Posted by Alvin

Any book recommendations on sharpening negotiating skills?

As a former family lawyer who trained a lot of young attorneys how to negotiate divorce cases, I would second the recommendation for Getting to Yes. It's better basic negotiation training than most attorneys receive from 3 years of law school. Also, check out Difficult Conversations. It is by the same group of Harvard Negotiation Project folks behind Getting to Yes.

[Alvin]

Cool! Thanks for the recommendations guys, those go on my order list

[Markus74]

I'd recommend the following financial books:

The Wealthy Barber: Everyone's Commonsense Guide to Becoming Financially Independent

The Richest Man In Babylon For Today: New Secrets For Building Wealth in The 21st Century

The Millionaire Next Door

Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

[Akashic_Librarian]

The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind all 12 books are apparently great, I have only read the first 1 and a half but its ace

[stephencp]

Frank Channing Haddock's Power-Book Library to include Power of Will, Business Power and Power for Success.

Stephen
Power-Book Library: Free personal development, success, inspiration and motivational classics

[WanderingOak]

I just posted a review of JD Frazer's Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free: Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash here.

[Colin]

For all the forex traders here I have just written a review of the ebook 'Bird Watching in Lion Country' by Dirk du Toit.

This has been one of the main influencial books in my trading journey and has had a profound effect on the way I currently approach the currency markets.

I have written a full review of the book, but it's a rather long review so here's a quick excerpt:

"This review is not going to be your average, run-of-the-mill book review. I won’t be providing an overview or even chapter by chapter breakdown of the book’s contents. The information and the approach to trading the forex market that Dirk du Toit lays out in the four sections of the book have been absorbed by my mind and now colour the way that I look at the forex world. None of the ideas or views put forward in the book are revolutionary in isolation. On the other hand, if your trading education to date has focused primarily on technical indicators, short time frames and ‘beating’ the market then the contents of the book will open a window on a new world. Dirk asks you to see the forex world afresh."

You can read the full review here.

[trekr5]

Thomas Friedman's "The World Is flat"

A bestseller by one of the NY times foremost journalists on the effect globalisation and technology has on the world and the impact it will have on your future

The whole book reminds of that famous phrase "Adapt or Die". I highly recommend it

[Shaden]

Ian Kershaw's incredible two-volume biography of Hitler

[tracyrtwyman]

On the subject, here's the book I would least recommend to anyone. Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, by Spencer Johnson. My grandfather gave me a copy of this book when I was having trouble with my career. It was horrible. Here's the review I wrote of it for amazon in 2005:

Are you a man or a mouse?, November 19, 2005

The message of this book is meant to squelch personal ambition and encourage its readers to resign themselves to corporate slavery. The central metaphor that the author uses is inherently dehumanizing. In his world-view, all of the people who work beneath the summit of the corporate pyramid structure are akin to mere lab mice, trapped inside an inescapable maze not of their own making. They are being cruelly manipulated by their all-powerful corporate overlords, represented by the scientists running the experiment, who keep moving the metaphorical cheese (representing sources of income in the workplace/marketplace) to new locations. The mice must constantly adapt to the ever-changing cheese movement patterns devised by their overlords, or else they will starve. In this scenario, the only power the mice have is over their own basic survival. If they persistently, tirelessly pursue the cheese hunt, constantly adapting their strategies to the new conditions, they can live to hunt another day. The changing cheese locations may represent for the readers, variously: (a) changing market forces, such as new trends in consumer demands, or; (b) changes in the demands of their employers (such as requiring more previous experience for applicants, longer hours, smaller pay, fewer benefits, drug tests, intrusive personality assessments, credit checks, etc.)The key to being able to adapt to these changes is to maintain a positive attitude about it, and to accept the changes without complaint.

Basically, I object to the idea that I have no control over where I find my cheese (that is, where I get my income). It is true that forces outside of ourselves and beyond our control have a great impact upon market forces and business trends. But a lot of those business trends are also created by people - individual people with new ideas that spark new business trends. These people are responsible for moving the cheese - people that the author has blanketly dismissed as powerless, insignificant vermin.

I would think that if you were going to use mice and cheese as a business metaphor, the cheese would represent sellable products and services, while the mice would be the potential customers or clients. In this way of viewing it, businesses keep changing the way they present their cheese to make the bait more alluring to the mice. If you are successful, the mouse gets trapped, and you've won a new customer. But such a metaphor again seems insulting to the class of people represented as mice (the gullible public), so it's not an appropriate allegory to use. I don't think the allegory of "Who Moved My Cheese?" is any more appropriate.

I think we can all get what author Spencer Johnson was trying to say. But perhaps a less condescending image would be of a Nomadic tribe of Native Americans who must keep moving to new hunting grounds, or of a fisherman moving to new waters where the fish are more abundant. At least then the seekers of sustenance would be represented as humans with free will, not as pea-brained rodents controlled by someone else they can't even see. If the reader actually took the lessons taught by Spencer Johnson in "Who Moved My Cheese?" to heart, their outlook on their own future would be inherently bleak, hopeless, and Sisyphean. Because he teaches that you can never be the scientist: you are always the mouse, living off of the scraps that fall from those above you.

I think that no one who has any real ambition or personal vision can believe the things in this book and succeed. But I give it two stars, rather than one, because I did find it revealing. I think that the author has subconsciously revealed how he views people. The fact that this has been such a widely used corporate training tool reveals how many executives view their employees. But they only get away with treating people like lab mice because people are all too willing to let someone else control them. They do this because they have been made to believe that they are already powerless, just like this book says you are.

If anyone else has thoughts on this book, please let me know.

[Colin]

Originally Posted by tracyrtwyman

If anyone else has thoughts on this book, please let me know.

I never quite thought of it like that when I read it. Good alternate viewpoint!

I can see where the message that Spencer Johnson tries to get across is a good one (change is constant and you have to accept that to live life), but the mice analogy seems a bit too close to the 'rat race' view of things.

Another great business book that I got a ton out of is The Spirituality of Success by Vincent Roazzi.