I've read 613 business books - these 16 will make you RICH

so one of the greatest investors the world has ever seen recently passed away at the ripe old age of 99 years old and if you were to ask most people on the street they would have no clue who this guy was but Charlie Munger was revered in the world of Finance as a sort of business Yoda and he said something once that's really stuck with me he said in my whole life I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time none zero and this is proven true time and again in my own

personal experiences but something I really struggled with at the beginning of my entrepreneurial Journey was just figuring out which books are actually worth reading I mean a book can transform your life but the harsh truth is that most books are nothing more than 300 pages of fluff surrounding one interesting idea well I'm here to cut the fluff and I'm going to share with you some of the books that played a pivotal role in my life and that I've used over the last 12 years in building a 100 million dollar Empire [Music] [Applause] now on a

side note I recently did a video breaking down the 12 books that I reread every single year so I'm going to leave those off this list but you should go check out that video when you're done with this one to see my 12 favorite books of all time all right for this video I'm going to break these down into categories based on what I call the four spheres of influence which are mindset health wealth and skills so let's dive in with the first sphere of influence which is your mindset the first book on the list

is from one of the grandfathers of the stoic philosophy senica this book is called called letters from A stoic now stoicism has gained a lot of popularity over the past decade thanks to the efforts of guys like Ryan holiday who've done just an incredible job translating these ancient works for modern audiences and don't get me wrong those books are great but if you really want to understand something you got to get as close to the source material as possible for instance if you want to learn economics you go read Wealth of Nations and Communist Manifesto

if you want to learn about biology and evolution go read the Origin of Species or the e day of creation reading from what's called primary sources is the best way to build up a lattice work of understanding around a topic because you're starting at the ground floor in building up your own knowledge base rather than just relying on somebody else's interpretation and then summary of that topic so if you really want to learn about the stoic philosophy I recommend you go straight to the primary sources one of which is this book Letters From A stoic

by senica one of the things I love about it is it's just a treasure Trove of wisdom broken down into easily Digest ed sound bites and this is one of my all-time favorites we are more often frightened than hurt and we suffer more from imagination than from reality all right the next book for developing your mindset is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz I think the world would generally be a better place if everybody was required to read this book as a child the lessons are simple yet profound and universally applicable they are be

impeccable with your word do not take anything personal do not make assumptions and always do your best now you might hear those and think those are incredibly simplistic and there's no reason to dig any deeper but in my experience the most impactful lessons in life are the simplest my favorite lesson from this book or at least the one that's played the biggest role in my life is that first one be impeccable with your word truly I believe that you could accomplish literally anything in the world if you just do this one thing become the type

of person who always does what they say and this does doesn't just apply to the things we say to others in fact the most important promises are actually the ones we make with ourselves and yet those are the ones we most often break I can't overstate how big of a problem this actually is because when we break the promises we make with ourselves we pay a price that's really hard to see in the moment it's the price of your self-esteem because at the end of the day self-esteem is just the reputation you have with yourself

you cannot break the promises you make to yourself without consequence you will always know and that's why it's so damn important that you become impeccable with your words the next book on our list is the 12 rules for life by Jordan Peterson now Jordan is a bit of a lightning rod for drama and I know he's not everybody's cup of tea however I personally find his perspectives and insights to be deeply well considered well thought out and in good faith which means I believe he's genuinely trying to have hard conversations in Earnest so that we

as a global Collective can move forward toward a better and brighter future now regardless of whether or not you agree with his political beliefs I think there's a lot to learn from him in regards to self-mastery after all he's spent 30 years as a clinical psychologist trying to help people become better versions of themselves and this book is just a distillation of all that learning into Simple Rules we can use to govern Our Lives my favorite of the 12 rules is this one compare yourself to who you were yesterday not to who someone is today

this is a lesson that I pretty much have to relearn every single day all right the fourth book on this list when it comes to developing mindset is aptly named mindset by Carol D this is one of the most important books on the topic of mindset and I do not say that lightly in it world-renowned psychologist Carol DW introduces the world to a simple yet profound concept called the growth mindset now to really understand the growth mindset you have to understand its antithesis the fixed mindset the fixed mindset is the belief that our traits our

characteristics and our skills are fixed and unchangeable people who say things like I'm just not a math person or I'm bad at learning languages are falling victim to the fixed mindset the growth mindset by contrast believes that anything can be learned and developed so instead of saying I suck at this and therefore will always suck at this the key to the growth mindset is a simple word called yet yet changes everything when you say I'm not good at math yet you're signaling one of the most important beliefs any of us can adopt which is with

enough time effort and intention you can master practically anything now there's a lot more Nuance to this book than I can give Justice here so definitely go check it out in the meantime let's move on to our second sphere of influence health I have read hundreds of books on exercise and nutrition over the years and without a doubt the best book I've read is outlive by Peter AA this book lays out a comprehensive framework for Not only living longer but living better I mean what's the point of living until you're 100 if the last 20

years of your life are spent in absolute misery unable to get out of bed and do the things that you love that is not a life I think anybody wants for themsel so it's important you start doing the work now but that begs the question what exactly should you be doing right now to ensure you live a long healthy awesome life well Peter rtia breaks it down into core categories including exercise sleep nutrition mental health and relationships this book is a tour to force but written in a way that you can start applying immediately and

because this book is so damn good it's the only one I'm going to recommend in this section so let's just move on to the third sphere of influence which is wealth money is by far the thing that caused me the most stress in my life it's probably because it's the one that impacts pretty much every aspect of our lives and yet it's the one that if you're like I was you know the least about so let's take our heads out of the sand and change that by learning the rules and strategies for winning the money

game to do that I'm going to break this down into two different parts we have basic money knowledge and then Advanced money knowledge okay so we're going to start with basic money knowledge because you can start applying the lessons from these books to your personal financial situation immediately the first book Is the psychology of money by Morgan howel the first step in winning the money game is just to change how you think about money and this is so important because most of us have accumulated all sorts of unhelpful baggage and misguided beliefs around money that

are unconsciously sabotaging our efforts to get ahead listen how you think about money influences how you feel and ultimately act around money and unfortunately most of us were taught how to think feel and act towards money by people who were not winning the money game as a general rule do not take advice from someone you wouldn't trade places with which means don't take Financial advice from somebody who isn't winning the money game if you do you're going to adopt their same thoughts beliefs and actions that are keeping them from winning the money game so step

one on your financial journey is to break this cycle and learn a new way to think around money which is where this book comes in psychology of money here's one of my favorite quotes from this book saving is the gap between your ego and your income all right now the next book in developing your basic money knowledge is I will teach you to be rich by RIT sethy this is one of the very first books on personal finance that I read when I decided to turn my life around all those years ago now the beauty

of this book is that it's not just Theory REM lays out a stepbystep plan with actionable next steps you can start taking today to automate your finances and this is important because as RIT himself says in the book it's more important to get started than to spend an exhaustive amount of time researching so read this book understand the plan and start implementing I promise you're going to be further ahead in 6 months than you are now all right so the third book on basic money knowledge I'm going to share with you it has practically zero

actionable steps but it is my all-time favorite book on the topic of money it is called how to get rich by Felix Dennis so most of the people writing books on money are either millionaires or want to be millionaires very very very few billionaires have ever written books on money and so when they do it's generally worth paying attention to what they have to say now unfortunately most billionaires are actually kind of lame and they have zero personality so the books they write often suck but this is not one of those books this book how

to get rich by Felix Dennis is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read and I'm not just talking about money books here the reason this book is so well written and interesting is because Felix Dennis spent his entire life immersed in the publishing industry and he did some pretty wild things with his life now you've maybe never heard of Felix Dennis but chances are good you've heard of his magazines like Maxim or men's fitness or computer buyer this book is the rambling insights of a man who managed to Summit the money mountain and

then spent the last few years on Earth just sharing what he learned along the way of all the lessons he shares in his book my favorite is the following anyone not busy learning is busy dying for as long as you Foster a willingness to learn you will ward off sclerosis of the brain and the hardening of the mental arteries Curiosity has led many a man and woman into the valley of serious wealth all right so now that we've laid the foundation here are three books for developing your Advanced money knowledge first up is economics in

one Lesson by Henry Haslett I'll be honest I did not enjoy learning about economics in high school or college it always seemed like this overly convoluted and esoteric way of understanding the world that politicians and economists created just to make themselves feel smart and important and that may be true but it's also true that economics impacts absolutely everything we do in life it's everywhere affecting all things at all times remaining ignorant of that truth only makes our lives harder than necessary and it puts us at a disadvantage AG relative to those who do understand economics

so do yourself a favor arm yourself with a basic understanding of Economics by checking out this book It's relatively short it's easy to consume but it packs a mighty punch all right the second book on Advanced money knowledge is taxfree wealth by Tom Wright all right all right I can see your eyes already glazing over At The Mention Of taxes but listen up because one of the most important lessons to be learned when it comes to winning the money game is this it's not about how much you make it's about how much you keep and

like it or not the biggest expense you will incur in this lifetime are taxes so if you want to keep more of what you make you must develop a basic understanding of taxes now unfortunately most books written around taxes are about as exciting as having your teeth drilled at least with this book taxfree wealth it feels like they gave you some anesthesia so go check it out okay now the last book on our quest to develop Advanced money knowledge is what every real estate investor needs to know about cash flow by Frank gallinelli don't be

deterred by the title of this book it it's actually really really helpful even if you're not interested in real estate in fact if you're any sort of entrepreneur I highly recommend you check out this book because accounting is the language of business the better you speak the language the better you'll be able to communicate with the locals okay so as you might imagine the problem with books on accounting and finance they're often very dry and boring and I'm not going to pretend like this is a riveting Frolic through fields of Dand lines but here's what

I like about this book it's short it's clear and it's very concise so suck it up buttercup if you want to play the money game at the highest levels this is the price of admission okay now a lot of people like to say that knowledge is power but that's actually not true knowledge is potential power it's useless if we don't apply it now the beauty of Applied knowledge is that it leads to our fourth sphere of influence which is skills now here's the truth I don't actually think reading books is a great way to learn

most skills in almost all cases you're better off just doing the thing and getting more reps after all you can't learn to ride a bicycle by reading about it you just have to go and try to ride the damn thing with that said there are a few skills which due to their nature are kind of helpful to read about especially when it comes to what I call the three legs of business now the way I think about this is that all businesses have three legs of the stool they have a marketing function operations function and

a finance function marketing gets to customers operations creates the product and delivers it to the customer and finance manages the bank accounts to keep marketing and operations out of trouble now we've already discussed the finance leg in the previous section so so let's turn our attention to the skills we need for marketing and operations okay so let's start with two books on operating a business that I've used to build multiple eight figureure businesses the first is traction by Gina Wickman this is the closest thing you're going to find to an out-of-the-box operating system that you

can immediately plug into your business in fact this book will teach you a framework called EOS which stands for entrepreneur operating system and this is a very helpful system especially when you're new because one of the biggest struggles all entrepreneurs ultimately face is a lack of structure you know when you're working for somebody else and collecting a paycheck chances are there's already systems and processes in place all you got to do is follow the system and it will produce the desired result I mean you just show up at this time you do that thing for

this long then move on to that thing for this long and then you you call it a day but you don't have any of that structure when you're building your own thing in the beginning you're going to be tempted to just slap something together on your own and don't get me wrong that can work but when you go that route You're Building Systems and processes for what you can see immediately in front of you and spoiler alert in the beginning of your journey you can't see very far this means you're going to eventually hit an

inflection point where the systems you built to get you here are insufficient to get you there and to be honest this first inflection point is what breaks most businesses if you want to avoid this then just start from day one by implementing a proven process and it might seem like Overkill in the beginning but if you do everything right you're eventually going to grow into it and then you're going to be glad that you did all right the second book that's going to help you with your business operations is called the goal by eliahoo gold

Rat this book is not so much a system as it is a framework for thinking through the the obstacles that are going to keep your business from growing it's called the theory of constraints and like all the best theories it is simple profound and universally applicable the core concept is this every process has a single constraint and the total throughput of the process can only ever be improved when that constraint is removed another way of thinking about this is that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link so all the time and energy

we put into improving any Link in that chain that is not the weakest is a waste because those links are not the limiting factor the difficulty in business in life is that it's not always so clear which link is the weakest so learning to identify the constraint in any system it's one of the most valuable entrepreneurial skills because it unlocks a road map for continual Improvement and therefore growth this book the goal it's going to help you do that so go check it out okay so now I personally lump product design into the operations bucket

and by far the best book I've read on this topic is $100 million offers by Alex Heros if you want to learn how to make offers so good people feel stupid saying no then go grab a copy of this it's like 9 cents on Amazon I wish this book had been available when I started my entrepreneurial Journey as it almost certainly would have helped me get to a $100 million company way faster than we all ultimately did but I'm psyched it's here now because even with a decade of experience behind me I've still learned a

ton in this book that I've used over the past couple of years to make a lot more money than I otherwise would have now speaking of making money the way that you do this in a business is by selling customers a product or service but the question then becomes where exactly do you get the customers well this is where marketing comes in and honestly there's no shortage of great books out there that will help you develop this particular skill but here are two of my personal favorites first is another horoi book it's called $100 million

leads this book only came out a couple months ago so unfortunately it was a little late to help me on my learning curve but damn if I would have had this book 10 years ago it would have saved me so much trial and air not to mention a ton of Heartache because at the end of the day in the life of an entrepreneur there's nothing quite so disheartening is having a great product that you can't find customers for this book is the step-by-step process for generating leads periods there's nothing like it and by acquiring the

skill of generating leads on demand you pretty much have a money printing machine as an entrepreneur you can't afford not to know how to generate leads but once you know how to find them you got to learn how to convert them into paying customers and to do that there is no skill in the world more valuable than copywriting my favorite book on this topic is ogal on Advertising by David ogleby so copywriting is a skill by which we use the written word to influence perception conjure desire and drive action and olivie himself was one of

the grandfathers of this powerful craft he practically pioneered the process by which we engage educate and convert leads into customers using nothing more than the written word and I don't know about you but I find that there's something almost magical about the fact that you could sell practically any product in the world if you just wrote down the right sequence of words on a piece of paper and put it in front of of the right customer at the right time to be a great copywriter requires clear thinking a deep understanding of human psychology and the

ability to communicate a message with impact this book o Leon advertising is a great first step in learning what I consider to be one of the most valuable skills in the world and if you take the lessons from this book you combine it with all the lessons from all the other books on this list then it's just a matter of time until you build your own $100 million Empire so good luck so what are you waiting for go read a book hey what's up guys I hope you enjoyed the video if you did and you

want to go even deeper then you should check out my Weekly Newsletter called the hyperfocused entrepreneur every week I do a deep dive into business investing and personal development to help you on your journey to maximizing your return on life it's absolutely free so go sign up I'll drop a link down in the description I'll see you guys in the next video [Music] he [Music]