Reading is perhaps the most cost-efficient way to acquire new knowledge and skills. It is fundamental to gaining financial literacy, which is critical to building wealth. For certain people, reading might appear to be a little tedious at first, but you need to make the effort. The reason is simple, readings books will make you rich!
Ask yourself the following question, and don’t lie to yourself. Do you really want to get rich? Or do you want to watch another silly cat video online? Do you want to take your life to the next level? Or do you want to continue scrolling aimlessly through your social media feed? If you’re ready to invest a little bit of time and effort, congratulations! You’re in the right place. If you read just a couple of the books I will recommend, financial success is almost inevitable!
Books are extremely powerful, and the reason is simple!
The most successful “subject matter experts” write books about their craft or expertise. Whatever the topic might be: stock investing, real estate, entrepreneurship, personal development. Successful experts are literally giving you “the recipe” of how they obtained “the results” you desire! Take the recipe, read it, and apply what you learn!
These books provide incredible insight directly from the leading source on that topic. You will get prime, unfiltered information, that will help you along your journey. Information that can help make or save millions of dollars throughout your career. And the best is books are a complete bargain, you can buy them for an extremely affordable price! These books add massive value to society, but you won’t gain any of their advantages if you don’t read them.
Additionally, Books are a great way to speed up your learning curve. Meaning, that aside from gaining the capabilities to make more money, books will enable you to make money faster! By reading an expert’s book you can gain the insight they have acquired throughout their entire lifetime in a month!
Reading is also a great way to learn from the mistakes others have made, so you don’t lose your money or time. This means financial books are actually a double whammy: they are both offensive and defensive. They will set you up for financial success, as well as help you avoid failures along the way.
I have never heard of an “ultra-successful” person that doesn’t constantly read and read substantially.
Successful individuals are constantly improving and acquiring new skills. This is true, regardless of the industry they operate in.
Just to name a few billionaires as examples:
- Mark Cuban reads 3 hours per day.
- Bill Gates reads 50 books per year.
- Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day.
- Elon Musk is the most extreme example. When he was growing up, he read more than 10 hours per day and taught himself Rocket Science through books!
3 Tips on helping you start or increase your reading:
1.) Treat reading as an investment:
Change the way you look at reading, it is not a “chore” or “homework”. Think of reading as an investment in yourself, like going to the gym, or cooking healthy food! If you believe it is beneficial to develop your biceps or butt, think for a minute how beneficial it is to develop your brain! If you’re willing to invest in the gym an hour a day, invest in the library the same amount of time!
You don’t have to read solely about money. You can read about topics that you’re passionate about. This will make reading entertaining and fun. For example, you can start reading about fitness. Reading can help you obtain better results at the gym in less amount of time. With the time saved from your new-found efficiency at the gym, you could probably read even more. Books create a virtuous cycle fueled by enabling you to work smarter not harder.
2.) Make reading a habit:
You can start small, and build from there. Start by reading 15 mins a day. After a month or so you can bump it up to 30 mins per day. After a year, you will easily read an hour a day which is much more productive than spending an hour a day on Netflix.
Science has shown that if you repeat the same activity for approximately 66 days it will become a habit. If you do it consistently for 3 months, it will become part of your lifestyle. Meaning after only 3 months you will have so much “momentum” the new “behavior” you adopted will be automatic. Sooner rather than later reading will become second nature to you!
3.) Develop your discipline:
Avoid, making excuses, you do have time! If the most successful (and busiest) people in the world, set aside time to read, YOU can do it too. If they consider it a good investment of their time, you should consider it as well.
Cut back the Netflix, cut back your time on Instagram, cut back the time on Youtube! Decline pointless social gatherings that will not add value or enrich your life. Become disciplined, and avoid procrastination.
Your future self will thank you for this. But, don’t take my word for it, here are some other peoples’ opinions about reading:
“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” Napoleon Bonaparte
“The more you learn, the more you earn.” Warren Buffett
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The man who does not read, has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” Mark Twain
My ACTIONABLE Tips:
Take action and buy a couple of great books from the list below. START TODAY! The following “library” should help you increase your financial literacy. Think of these books as insightful “stepping stones” on your money quest.
My best investments or lifestyle decisions stem directly from the concepts I learned from these books. A lot of the articles I’ve written on my blog are the direct result of applying the knowledge/perspective I gained. These books have given me invaluable lessons for my financial journey.
Some of them focus on the technical skills you need to master to achieve wealth. Other books focus on developing the right mindset you must adopt. No matter where you’re on your journey, there is certainly a book that could help you in this collection.
I am not going to summarize each book because a short paragraph will simply not do them justice. I will leave you with my favorite lesson and quote from each book. Think of this as a little “sneak peek” of each of the books.
My advice is for you to never stop learning! Aside from the following books you can also complement with online courses. If you’re serious about making money, I think it is in your best interest to also check out my article about the Top 8 Online Learning Platforms!
TOP 15 Books to read and learn about money:
1.) The Millionaire Real Estate Investor – Gary Keller
Favorite Lesson: This book is a fantastic introduction to Real Estate investment. Even though I already owned investment properties when I read it, the book taught me to think BIG. The book emphasizes on scale: Big Goals, Big Models, Big Success. It taught me how to develop a defined set of criteria to buy more Real Estate assets and expand my portfolio.
Favorite Quote: “Instead of forgetting your dreams and living within your means, try pursuing the means to live your dreams.”
2.) The Millionaire Next Door – Thomas Stanley
Favorite Lesson: Millionaires usually leave way below their means. Despite their high income and high net worth, they are extremely frugal. The average millionaire focuses on building wealth, not status.
Favorite Quote: “It’s easier to accumulate wealth if you don’t live in a high-status neighborhood.”
3.) The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
Favorite Lesson: A true masterpiece written by Warren Buffet’s mentor. It taught me there is a big difference between investing and speculating. It presents solid concepts regarding Fundamental Analysis and thinking long term. Intelligent investors should do a thorough analysis of the prospective assets they want to buy. You have to evaluate the prospective company’s financials and business practices.
Favorite Quote: “The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.”
4.) Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
Favorite Lesson: Rich people don’t work for money. Rich people make money work for them. Rich people invest their money in assets, and those assets produce more money for them. Poor people will never achieve wealth because they are consumers. They buy liabilities (that cost money), not assets (that generate money).
Favorite Quote: “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.”
5.) How Rich People Think – Steve Siebold
Favorite Lesson: The wealthy think making money is very simple once the right principles are in place. Conversely, the middle class thinks making money is very complicated. I found this book’s structure to be conceptually very similar to “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. Because it also contrasts “the wealthy” with “the middle class”. But, it provides an alternative angle/perspective, I really enjoyed this one!
Favorite Quote: “Commit to investing at least one hour per day studying subjects that will help you move closer toward your ultimate vision.”
6.) The 4-Hour Workweek – Tim Ferris
Favorite Lesson: This book taught me how to be efficient with my time. Many people working 9-to-5 are extremely inefficient, and waste a lot of time being “busy”. One of the key ways to become more efficient is to prioritize critical tasks and avoid (or outsource) menial tasks.
Think about how many pointless meetings you attend per month. How many long meetings could’ve been replaced with emails or short phone calls. This book teaches you strategies to minimize wasting your time with “unnecessary” chores.
Favorite Quote: “Focus on being productive instead of busy.”
7.) Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Favorite Lesson: This book helps you establish what I call “S.M.A.R.T. Goals”. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time constrained. It is not enough to say “I want a lot of money”, that is too broad of a statement. You have to be specific and stipulate how much money you desire, and by when you’re going to obtain it. You also need to determine what specific actions you’re going to execute to obtain that money.
Favorite Quote: “The time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”
8.) The One Thing – Gary Keller
Favorite Lesson: This book is a game-changer. It focuses on the concept of extreme prioritization. On doing the single most important thing, which will generate you the most results. Its main concept revolves around the “80/20 Pareto principle”, which evaluates “cause and effect” relationships. This principle stipulates that 80% of the “effects” come from 20% of the “causes”.
A business example could be: 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers. The smart thing to do will be to focus on that 20% of your customers. The other 80% are practically irrelevant to your business.
Favorite Quote: “Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.”
9.) The Richest Man In Babylon – George Clason
Favorite Lesson: I learned that is critical to keep learning. If you want to get rich you need to study, become wiser, and more skillful. Learn skills that are on high demand, and are highly reimbursed by society.
The main difference why some people make $300,000 a year over $40,000 a year is the skills they have learned. Take action, and continue learning!
Favorite Quote: “MEN OF ACTION ARE FAVORED BY THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK!”
10.) Principles – Ray Dalio
Favorite Lesson: Success and Failure are strongly linked together. It is impossible to achieve success without making mistakes and enduring pain along the way. It is critical to learn from the mistakes and come back stronger! Don’t be afraid to try, and “Fail Well”.
Favorite Quote: “Heroes inevitably experience at least one very big failure that tests whether they have the resilience to come back and fight smarter and with more determination.”
11.) A Random Walk Down Wall Street – Burton Malkiel
Favorite Lesson: It is extremely hard to outperform the market, over a long time frame. It is much easier to have a passive approach: simply invest in index funds and hold them for decades. Do this, and you will generally obtain better consistent long-term results. Avoid looking for the next best stock, and engaging in active trading in an attempt to “time the market”.
Favorite Quote: “What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
12.) The Simple Path to Wealth – JL Collins
Favorite Lesson: Money can buy many things, but nothing more valuable than your freedom.
Favorite Quote: “I may not have owned a Mercedes, but I owned my freedom. Freedom to choose when to leave a job and freedom from worry when the choice wasn’t mine.”
13.) How to Stop Worrying and Start Living – Dale Carnegie
Favorite Lesson: Living in the present. You have to leave the past in the past, and stop being anxious about the future. Almost all of our anxiety/fear comes from what we imagine, and will most likely never happen. Distinguish what is real and what is in your mind.
Favorite Quote: “If you want to keep happiness, you have to share it!”
14.) Your Money Or Your Life – Vicki Robbin
Favorite Lesson: This book explicitly correlates the money you spend buying things, with the hours of work you need to put in to buy them. It completely changed the way I looked at consumerism, and money spending.
Now, every time I am considering buying something, I calculated how many hours of work I would have to “trade-in” to buy it. This helps me evaluate if it is “really worth it”.
Favorite Quote: “Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.”
15.) I Will Teach You To Be Rich – Ramit Sethi
Favorite Lesson: Getting started is more important than becoming an expert. It is okay to make mistakes, as long as you get started.
Favorite Quote: “When companies—and people—show you who they truly are, believe them.”
Bonus: Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk (Yes, you read that right).
Favorite Lesson: Fight Club helped me check the consumer lifestyle many of us foolishly partake in. It helped me remove incorrect beliefs about status in our society. It helped me understand that despite what marketers want us to believe, material possessions do NOT define us.
Favorite Quote: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”
Bonus: Traffic Secrets – Russell Brunson
Favorite Lesson: This book gives entrepreneurs 20 valuable secrets to increase their traffic and get their “dream customers” into their websites. The book makes special emphasis on social media traffic. The more “eye-balls” discover your products/services the more sales you will make. The book is written by Russell Brunson, an authority in digital marketing. He is the founder of ClickFunnels, a software company that made over $100 million in revenue in 2019.
Clickfunnels provides entrepreneurs with user-friendly tools to build their “Sales Funnels”. Sales Funnels are strategic websites that enable entrepreneurs to get more leads and optimize their conversion into paying customers. For more info read my article on “What exactly is a Sales Funnel”.
Favorite Quote: “Personalize your content for specific groups of people. If you’re for everyone, then you’re really for no one.”
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