The Book List Thread

Philip J. Fry

Philip J. Fry

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tl;dr: recommend a book. Summarize it & include what you learned from it.

Millionaire Fastlane: Book is broken up into 2 parts. In the first part, he breaks people up into sidewalk, slow lane, and fast lane. Each group of people has their own view on how money works. From it, you can spot where your falling short in terms of the money game. Then, in the second part, he tells you what you should look for in a business. Basically, look for businesses you can automate and then sell.
 
Ryan holiday - Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising

Haven't finished it yet but it's a great book to develop a mindset to start thinking outside the general marketing strategies
 
A similar thread to this was created previously here.

This was what I said:

Definitely don't write off some "read-bait" books just because they marketed to the masses. For instance, those new to concepts like automation and outsourcing and the pareto principle and more will get a lot out of The Four Hour Workweek.

Another great one is The Millionaire Fastlane. It takes a look at the three financial mindsets out there in terms of psychology. It then takes the "fastlane" mindset and breaks down what needs to be done in mathematical terms to guarantee success. This is one of my all-time favorites. It has a cheese-dick title and cover, but it's killer.

Cashvertising is a MUST for anyone in marketing that's responsible for any copy, whether that be landers, ad descriptions, post titles, etc. Read this book over and over and over. Burn it in your brain.
 
I think the four hour workweek is fine, if you don't buy into the hype but take it for the techniques it presents.
Baselining - What is the minimum you need
Dreamlining - What do you need to achieve your dreams
Creating your own product
Early, easy, cheap testing - Product langin page without an actual product, etc...
Outsourcing - Fiverr wasn't around yet, but all the other's were - freelancer, etc...

I always say Getting Things Done changed my life - because it did.
If you don't know it yet, get the version 2.0 called Making it all work by David Allen
Too much to summarize, it teaches you how to organize your projects and tasks to really get stuff happening.

For coders, I recommend The Pragmatic Programmer it will teach you how to get your ego out of the way and handle code smithing like a craft. It proposes some techniques to work with code (tracer bullets), and some techniques to think about code ("select" isn't broken) that will make it easier for you to live life as a coder.
And for some reason, it is downloadable here:
http://socialwork.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/the-pragmatic-programmer_0_0.pdf

Good work, school of social work, Illinois.

::emp::
 
Currently reading 80/20: Sales & Marketing

About half way done with it and I'm hooked. It teaches you how to apply the pareto principle to all areas of your business. There's an 80/20 inside of an 80/20 inside of an 80/20. Talks about "racking the shotgun" - which means prequalifying and preDISqualifying all leads to minimize time wasted as much as possible. Goes into some copy tricks too.
 
stackcash said:
Currently reading 80/20: Sales & Marketing

About half way done with it and I'm hooked. It teaches you how to apply the pareto principle to all areas of your business. There's an 80/20 inside of an 80/20 inside of an 80/20. Talks about "racking the shotgun" - which means prequalifying and preDISqualifying all leads to minimize time wasted as much as possible. Goes into some copy tricks too.
Click to expand...

Nested Pareto's... interesting! That means 4% of your customers bring 64% of the income. Or effort/results, whatever you're measuring. I never thought about it that way but in my experience I'd definitely consider that true. I wouldn't suggest shaving it down this far, personally though. That other 16% might be worth the extra 16% income at that part of the scale. The prequalifying sounds good too. I'll track this down and read it for sure.
 
Yup. He gives the exact breakdowns for each nested pareto. Most of the book urges you to use his tool here:

http://8020curve.com/

It's really useful. So far the most powerful thing I've found using the curve is that if X amount of clients will pay X amount of dollars, then Y amount of clients will spend Y amount of dollars. It gives me client subgroups in which I can develop higher/lower priced options and expand my profit margin...with out doing too much extra work.
 
I tend to read a lot of the same books over and over again, and I usually only find about two books each year that are new that I add to that rotation. One of them was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert).

He goes through a lot of stuff about the big failures in his career (a lot of funny but also useful stuff), but the main idea that caught me was the focus on systems as opposed to goals. Adams has a blog post here where he talks about the general concept a bit, and he does it better justice than I ever could. It's something that really caught me because I've felt the same sort of thing intuitively for a long time without being able to really articulate it.

As soon as I read it and had a little while to think about it, I had this sort of crystallization of thought and immediately decided that I was going to deliberately focus on creating and maintaining systems for myself on a daily basis. My productivity and general levels of happiness drastically improved because of it.

It's one of like a handful of thoughts I've had that I've put into action that have really changed my life in a major way, so I thought I'd share since I wouldn't have really expected that from Scott Adams.
 
As a result from my thread in the orientation room, I was reminded about PersonalMBA.com and their awesome business book list. Here's a straight copy/paste:

Business Creation
Value-Creation & Testing
Marketing
Sales
Value-Delivery
Finance & Accounting
The Human Mind
Productivity & Effectiveness
Problem Solving
Behavioral Change
Decision-Making
Communication
Influence
Negotiation
Management
Leadership
Project Management
Systems
Analysis
Statistics
Corporate Skills
Corporate Strategy
Creativity & Innovation
Design
Consulting
Personal Finance
Personal Growth
 
Letters from a Self Made Merchant to His Son

Its a collection of letters from a multi-millionaire in the 1890's to his son. Letters range from when his son was at Harvard to when he's a manager at the firm.

What I learned from the book was:
* pick your girlfriend/wife carefully. Her money perspective should be like yours, or else you'll pay for it!
* I worked 1 hour a day, every day, rain, snow, or hot sun, for a whole month when I was 10-15 on a paper route while my friends played for a measly $50 since my parents didn't let me have the full check. I will *NEVER* think lowly of a single dollar ever again.
* the purpose of work is to advance yourself to the next higher position. I used to work so I'd get by or not get fired or make enough buy what I want but that was so wrong. You master your tasks and then you work harder than you need to so you can move up and get the next guy's position. That's how you get paid more (or, in our case, earn more). My sites are selling for XX,XXX and I'm mastering that area but I'm also right on the tail of Tavin so that I can out-do his X,XXX,XXX sale.

Fuck you Tavin. I'm gonna out-do you so good, you'll send me a resume.
 
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

There's no real need to read it unless you like overly verbose books that use long winded stories to lengthen themselves and drive the point home.

With that said, this impacted me personally quite a bit because I tend to hold on to things longer than I should.

The basic story is there are two mice in a maze. They solve the maze and there's a huge chunk of cheese at the end. More than they can eat. They eat some, get full, return home to the start. They memorize the maze, get comfy with no longer working for it, thinking, or being hungry.

One day they arrive at the end and this never-ending cheese block is gone! One mouse sits down and just waits for it to return. He comes back to it every day, expecting it to be there, avoiding having to get into the old journey of traveling and mapping the maze. "I should go try to find out where it moved, but I've already waited this long to see if it comes back. What if it comes back tomorrow? Heck, I'm kind of used to being hungry again now anyways." He basically gives up and gets real skinny and dies.

The other mouse pivots immediately and sets out to find the new locations of the cheese. He works very hard for weeks on end and finally finds it and continues to enjoy his good life.

The Point:
The point ends up being, when shit changes, you should change immediately. Don't sit around and pout or worry or hope for conditions to return. Just get back to work and create the new conditions you want. You are in charge and unless you take action, nothing happens. Also, the longer you wait to make this change, the harder it becomes to do it.
 
Been reading some of these and here's my take so far

80/20 Sales & Marketing: Excellent! Nothing groundbreaking really, but the way it's effected how I apply and look at the 80/20 has really helped.
Making It All Work: I'm about halfway through and working on implementing the system. Definitely has some potential, but man is it a tough read. So dry, but given the subject I suppose that's expected. I certainly think the system it describes will be useful for myself and probably anyone who reads it, though.
Ca$hvertising: I've picked this up but have only thumbed through it so far. What I like from what I've seen is that it seems to be a very interesting and engaging read, and everything's so actionable (i.e. use this font, not this, use this font size not this, etc.)
 
Shooter said:
Been reading some of these and here's my take so far

80/20 Sales & Marketing: Excellent! Nothing groundbreaking really, but the way it's effected how I apply and look at the 80/20 has really helped.
Click to expand...

I just finished this. Moving on to Lean Startup now.

Did you use any of the supplemental material for 80/20? The power curve tool seems pretty useful, but I'm not sure I completely understand how to use it in a given situation.

I took the marketing DNA test and it actually described me to a "T".
 
I've checked out the Power Curve tool but beyond that haven't really tried to apply it anywhere yet.

The Marketing DNA test I was kind of rolling my eyes during and felt like on most I could have chosen multiple answers so I wasn't expecting much, but yeah it got me pretty well too.
 
Papillon, Henri Charrière -

My favorite book of all time. The story of the french man with a butterfly tattooed on his chest. It's not a self help book per se, but it really made me think about the way I live my life, and what is truly important.

Bravo Two Zero, Andy Mcnab -

It's just a classic. Very inspirational. Not much more to be said. Read it in one sitting, couldn't put it down.

The Big Fight, Sugar Ray Leonard -

The story of the legendary boxer, his rise to fame and fortune, then how he lost everything and managed to rebuild his life. Helped me a lot through some hard times.

Double Cross, Chuck Giancana -

The true story of Sam Giancana, one of the most notorious mafia dons who used to run America.

My Friend Leonard, James Frey -

Changed my life when I was going through rough times. The story and the way it's written is mesmerizing. It's the sequel to "A Million Little Pieces" which is also amazing, along with "Bright Shiny Morning".

I don't read self help books anymore, I just don't find them very useful as I much prefer to read inspiring, non fictional type shit. I am however reading "Thick Face, Black Heart", but I don't really consider it to be self help.
 
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I vote for Cashvertising. I read the book, implemented some knowledge and got a 200 - 300% increase in my CTR. That is amazing.
 
The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday
Shows you how every single thing in your life could be seen as an opportunity with the use of Stoic principles. I honestly think this is one of the most important aspects of success and I'm glad I read this book. Stoicism is now a daily practice for me and I've seen near instant results. Go read it!
 
@taktikz

Reading that now too, about half way through. Good read so far.
 
This guy on youtube makes some good recommendations

Books that will make you stronger and Improve your life

He has about 10 videos where he recommends 3 books and talks about each one. Here is a list with everything.

Think and Grow Rich
How to Win Friends and Influence People
The Power of Positive Thinking
"Awaken the Giant Within" by Tony Robbins
"Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding" by Arnold Schwarzenegger
"Rich Dad Poor Dad"by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
The ONE Thing
Creative Mind and Success
"The Obstacle Is the Way" By Ryan Holiday
"Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously" By OSHO
"How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People" by Leslie T. Giblin
Moonwalking with Einstein
Tribes
Why We Get Fat

Bodybuilding:
Starting Strength
Overcoming Gravity
Huge in a Hurry

Robert Greene:
The 48 Laws of Power
The Art of Seduction
The 50th Law

Business:
The 4-Hour Workweek
The E-Myth
Zero to One

Masculinity:
The Way of Men
The Way of the Superior Man
Maximum Achievement

Marketing:
The Long Tail
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Age of Propaganda
Cashvertising
Click to expand...


Most relevant to this forum would obviously be the Business and Marketing books.

One thing I would change in that list is definitely Millionaire Fastlane instead of Rich Dad Poor Dad. Most of the other ones I haven't read yet but I have started with The 4-Hour workweek which is pretty good, not everything I agree with but I still found plenty of useful stuff so far.
 
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