Chapter 12
Must Read Books – In No Particular Order
The following is a list of books that I consider to be books that everybody must read. Each description is taken from Amazon.
The success stories speak for themselves in this book from money maestro Dave Ramsey. Instead of promising the normal dose of quick fixes, Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money matters, providing not only the how-to but also a grounded and uplifting hope for getting out of debt and achieving total financial health.
Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. "Don't even consider keeping up with the Joneses," Ramsey declares in his typically candid style. "They're broke!"
The Total Money Makeover isn't theory. It works every single time. It works because it is simple. It works because it gets to the heart of the money problems: you.
The bestselling The Millionaire Next Door identifies seven common traits that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don't live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue-they live next door.
Every day thousands of people are losing their jobs, their income, and their security—perhaps you are one of them. However, with the right strategies, you can easily achieve financial independence. The Laptop Millionaire provides easy to follow step-by-step strategies you can use to make real money online. Author Mark Anastasi reveals the exact strategies he used to make millions and includes the success stories of other millionaire Internet entrepreneurs. Whether you need an extra hundred dollars a day or want to start an Internet Empire, this book gives you the tools and advice you need.
His no-fluff, no-filler strategies provide a blueprint to online success allowing you to discover the laptop lifestyle for yourself.
How anyone can make $700-3,000 a week thanks to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other Social Media sites
The simple steps to creating an online business—featuring the 3 steps that led Mark to his first $10,000 a month business!
How the 21 Millionaire Secrets can transform your life
If you read and apply what Anastasi has laid out in his book, you will be well on your way to becoming a millionaire.
Personal finance author and lecturer Robert T. Kiyosaki developed his unique economic perspective from two very different influences - his two fathers. This text lays out Kiyosaki's philosophy and his relationship with money.
5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated,
principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity--principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”
The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek includes:
•More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point
•Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal
•How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times
•The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either
A must for anyone wanting to improve their lives and their positive thinking. There have been more millionaires and indeed, billionaires, who have made their fortunes as a result of reading this success classic than any other book every printed. NAPOLEON HILLS's "Think and Grow Rich" is the authors most famous work. This is the COMPLETE Reference Book. A true masterpiece with the fundamentals of the Success philosophy. ***** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Napoleon Hill was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions. How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach for the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books. ****** Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, about "Think and Grow Rich": Think and Grow Rich is a motivational personal development and self-help book written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie. While the title implies that this book deals only with how to get rich, the author explains that the philosophy taught in the book can be used to help people succeed in all lines of work and to do or be almost anything they want.
For instance, Jim Murray (sportswriter) wrote that Think and Grow Rich was credited for Ken No rton's boxing upset of Muhammad Ali in 1973. The Reverend Charles Stanley writes "I began to apply the principles of (Think and Grow Rich) to my endeavors as a pastor, and I discovered they worked!" The book was first published during the Great Depression. At the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies. It remains the biggest seller of Napoleon Hill's books - a perennial best-seller after 70 years (BusinessWeek Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published). Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List. The text of Think and Grow Rich is founded on Hill's earlier work The Law of Success, the result of more than twenty years of research based on Hill's close association with a large number of individuals who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes. At Andrew Carnegie's bidding, Hill studied the characteristics of these achievers and developed 16 "laws" of success intended to be applied by anybody to achieve success. Think and Grow Rich condenses these laws further and provides the reader with 13 principles in the form of a philosophy of personal achievement. It is noted in the book, that an individual with desire, faith, and persistence can reach great heights by eliminating all negative energy and thoughts and focusing at the greater goals in hand.
With Who Moved My Cheese? Dr. Spencer Johnson realizes the need for finding the language and tools to deal with change--an issue that makes all of us nervous and uncomfortable.
Most people are fearful of change because they don't believe they have any control over how or when it happens to them. Since change happens either to the individual or by the individual, Spencer Johnsonshows us that what matters most is the attitude we have about change.
When the Y2K panic gripped the corporate realm before the new millenium, most work environments finally recognized the urgent need to get their computers and other business systems up to speed and able to deal with unprecedented change. And businesses realized that this was not enough: they needed to help people get ready, too.
Spencer Johnson has created his new book to do just that. The coauthor of the multimillion bestsellerThe One Minute Manager has written a deceptively simple story with a dramatically important message that can radically alter the way we cope with change. Who Moved My Cheese? allows for common themes to become topics for discussion and individual interpretation.
Who Moved My Cheese? takes the fear and anxiety out of managing the future and shows people a simple way to successfully deal with the changing times, providing them with a method for moving ahead with their work and lives safely and effectively.
In Multiple Streams of Income, bestselling author Robert Allen presents ten revolutionary new methods for generating over $100,000 a year—on a part-time basis, working from your home, using little or none of your own money. For this book, Allen researched hundreds of income-producing opportunities and narrowed them down to ten surefire moneymakers anyone can profit from. This revised edition includes a new chapter on a cutting-edge investing technique.
10. Multiple Streams of Internet Income
Following the success of the bestselling Multiple Streams of Income, Multiple Streams of Internet Income took the idea of making money on the Internet to the next level, by revealing how to deliver a marketing message faster, cheaper, and to a larger number of potential customers. This new updated edition includes the same wisdom that made Allen one of the most influential financial advisors in the world, but also features updated information on everything readers need to know.
The book features the original seven powerful methods that average people can use to make money on the Internet, and covers such topics as taking offline products online, niche marketing, successful Web-based business models, information marketing, affiliate programs, and more.
There's plenty of new material in this Second Edition, including coverage of new federal and state laws covering spam and how to work around much of the new anti-spam technology active on the Internet. All the Web sites and online resources featured in the book have also been updated.
11. The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living.
Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.
There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do. You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.
In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don’t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for. You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.
Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. Among Chris’s key principles: if you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.
In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives. And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs. This remarkable book will start you on your way.