Recession Survival: Everything You Need to Know Is in These Books

I’m super excited to share eight books that will help prepare you for 2020’s recession. Of course, you have action to take and changes to make to adjust to current economic and social circumstances.

I’ve mentioned this in previous articles such as “Warning: 5 Reasons the 2020 Recession Will Be Far Worse Than 2008,” which is jam-packed with educational links on learning how the economy works, and “5 Lifestyle Changes to Make Now to Build Wealth in 2020,” with wealth exercises to help challenge readers to grow and expand their chances of success in 2020.

So, I’m assuming by now you get that 2020 is not your typical year and therefore we need to approach this year in an unconventional way. Getting caught up on valuable education is a big part of this. We need to get ourselves mentally and physically ready so we can tackle this year head-on and achieve success.

Here are a few books that will help you prepare to crush it in 2020.

1. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

By T. Harv Eker

First off, we need to get our heads right. If we don’t have a success mindset, then we are not going to be in the right position to succeed. This is always the #1 book I recommend to everyone as it literally changed my life.

Before I read this book, I was stuck in a career that I despised for 17 years. I was living a life of mediocrity and the thought of who I would be in my 50s or 60s if I kept heading in the same direction, to be honest, scared the living crap out of me.

However, once I read this book, it opened my mind, created massive shifts in my success mindset, and set me on an 18-month path of obsessive education on how to become financing-free.

My wife and I explored all possibilities in real estate, business, and the stock market. After 18 months of spinning plates (because I was trying to do too many things at once) I laser-focused on mobile home park investing. Two and a half years later, my wife and I retired from our day jobs and became financially free. This book was the largest contributing catalyst to all that happening.

So what’s the book about?

Each of us has a success thermostat. Like an air conditioning thermostat, the temperature it’s set on will determine the temperature of the room. To explain this in financial terms, if we mentally feel comfortable earning $100,000 a year, then even if we earn more money one year, we will likely lose any additional money or subconsciously sabotage things and come back to earning $100,000 a year, as that’s all we are really comfortable earning.

On the flip side of that, if we retrain our brain for $1,000,000 a year to be the new comfortable, then we have room to sustainably make more money and live into our financial goals free of subconscious sabotage.

All of us have conscious and subconscious programming towards our sentiments of wealth and making money. This book literally gives us the opportunity to wind back the clock and be aware of the programming that surrounded us as children. Once we understand how wealthy people think and get real with the negative wealth mindset that’s holding us back, we can metaphorically pull out the weeds (the negative wealth mindset) and replace them with a new success mindset.

I get it, you’re probably thinking, “I don’t have any negativity towards wealth, success or making money.”

So, to get real on this, let’s do a quick test.

Ask yourself, are you currently financially free? Have you already achieved your financial goals?

If the answer to either of those questions is “no,” then I have to tell you, my friend, that you do not have a success mindset. The only true test of having the right success mindset is living the results that we want for ourselves. If you are not quite there yet, then you have work to do.

The good news? This book does exactly that. The first half of the book trains the reader on how successful people think. The second half has 17 wealth exercises that will literally put you through the process of pulling out weeds and reprogramming yourself for success.

This is how I went from a negative net worth to financially free in two and a half years. If you have not read this book, then do yourself (and your family) a favor and read it.

T. Harv Eker achieved New York Times bestseller status with this book and he did that because it’s so valuable and well-written, and because he has a real knack for taking complicated topics and making them simple and fun.

I can recommend this enough. If you don’t have a copy, stop right now and order one.

Did you buy your copy yet? Make sure you did…

2. Who Moved My Cheese?

By Spencer Johnson

This book is simple. You can read it in about the same amount of time it would take you to watch a movie or make a stylish cheese platter; it takes less than a few hours. It’s as easy to follow as a children’s book, but has a profound message.

Have you figured out that this year is full of change? Unless your head has been in the sand, then I’m assuming so.

Change is part of life, and 2020 is full of change. As successful investors, we need to be aware of this and adjust accordingly. This is a quick, simple, and fun read and it will set your mindset to adapt for change. You could knock this book out quickly on a Sunday morning or one night before bed (or you could even read it while you’re eating your delicious cheese platter).

3. Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant Guide to Financial Freedom

By Robert T. Kiyosaki

So I’m assuming you are one of the 32 million people that have already read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad. If you haven’t, then make yourself the 32,000,001st person that does.

Another of Robert Kiyosaki’s easy-to-understand and easy-to-read, yet highly impactful, books is CASHFLOW Quadrant. This book takes a look at the four quadrants we can be in when we make money:

“E” for Employee – You have a job.
“S” for Self-Employed – You own a job.
“B” for Business Owner – You own a system that works for you.
“I” for Investor – Money works for you.

In the “E” and “S” quadrants, you trade time for money. This is a poor and limited way of thinking.

People in the “B” and “I” quadrants leverage their business or their money to do the work for them. This is a rich person’s way of making money, as it provides the possibility to make unlimited amounts of money. As long as you are working on your business. not in it, then you can own as many businesses as you desire. And the money you make, if re-invested wisely, can then earn you more and more money.

This book will program you to spend more time in the “B” and “I” quadrants instead of being a slave to time and money in the “E” and “S” quadrants.

4. Think and Grow Rich

By Napoleon Hill

If you are already one of the 120 million people to read this book since it was written in 1937 then you know why I’m recommending this book.

If you have already read it, I’d recommend reading Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (which sold over five million copies) or, for a more modern twist on similar principles, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

For those who have yet to read this classic book, you are in for a real treat. This book will teach you how to create the circumstances in life that you truly desire. Once you read this book, your destiny is in your hands. How awesome is that!

Inspired by a suggestion from business magnate Andrew Carnegie, this book was written as the result of Napoleon Hill’s more than 20 years of study of individuals who had amassed massive personal fortunes. He saw patterns in all these successful individuals and categorized them into the following 14 “principles” in this book:

Thoughts are Things
Desire
Faith
Autosuggestion
Specialized Knowledge
Imagination
Organized Planning
Decision
Persistence
Power of the Master Mind
The Mystery of Sex Transmutation
The Subconscious Mind
The Brain
The Sixth Sense

If you are ready to take your life and your success into your own hands then look no further than reading this classic book.

5. Investing in the U.S.: The Ultimate Guide to U.S. Real Estate

By Reed Goossens

The title of this book pretty much sums it up. If you are new to real estate and looking to learn the ropes, look no further.

Author Reed Goossens went from slaving at his J-O-B in a confined cubicle to amassing a whopping quarter of a billion dollars (yes with a “B”) worth of real estate under his control in a mere 11 years. I’d never take fitness advice from an unhealthy person and I’d only recommend taking real estate investing advice off someone who has boots on the ground, taking massive action in today’s market. Reed leads by example and this is a solid all-around guide to investing in U.S real estate.

Reed has a great sense of humor and takes what could be an otherwise boring topic and makes it simple, adding a fun twist of humor as his down-to-earth personality comes to light through his writing.

Make sure to also check out his highly valuable real estate podcast with the same name as his book. By now he’s up to more than 200 info-packed episodes on everything real estate.

6. Real Estate is a Team Sport

By John Carney

Slightly thicker and longer than Who Moved My Cheese, this valuable book is still a quick read and easily consumed in one sitting.

Perfect for those who are in the process of building (or reinforcing) their power team, this book lays out the who, why, and how-to of building a successful real estate investing power team.

Let’s be real, we can’t get deals done all by ourselves; we need a team around us so we can take advantage of all that 2020 has to offer. In my opinion, there has never been a more important time to build (or reinforce) your power team so you can ensure you’re setting yourself up for success and not making costly mistakes because things “slipped through the cracks.”

Author John Carney likes to add a sports twist to the concepts of real estate investing which he does in this book and in his Real Estate Locker Room podcast.

7. Raising Capital for Real Estate

By Hunter Thompson

So, you’re good at finding deals, but you need more money to get more deals done. I totally get it.

I didn’t have enough of my own money to get my first deal done by myself, so I quickly had to learn the ropes of capital raising. There is no way I would have gone from a negative net worth to financially free in two and a half years if it weren’t for leveraging the power of OPM, or other people’s money.

The best thing about raising capital (if done correctly) is that everyone wins. You get the deal done that you otherwise couldn’t, and your investors get to be involved in deals they otherwise don’t have the time, experience, or resources to do themselves.

The downside to raising capital is that if you’re not set up to do it properly, then when you need that money the most, it simply won’t be there. The last thing you want to hear when you’re out there raising capital is crickets. And that is indeed what you’ll hear if you are not formally trained to successfully raise capital.

If you want to scale your real estate investing business or fast track to financial freedom, then you’re going to need some type of help getting other investors to bring their money in on the mix. The challenge is, how do we do this legally (breaking the rules here can cost a pretty penny!) and successfully, especially within the tight timeline limitations of your deal?

The answers to this and much more (literally step by step) lie within this value-packed book. Leading by example, Hunter Thompson is crushing it as a capital raiser (aka syndicator) and is detailed yet authentic in his teachings.

Capital raising is not an area where you want to skimp out on getting properly educated. If not properly educated, you could miss out on getting the deal done, or worse, come out of pocket in penalties to the SEC for violating the abundance of rules that come along with it.

If you are even considering bringing someone else’s money into your deal any time in the future, then you must read this book.

Hunter also hosts the Cash Flow Connections real estate podcast that caters to accredited investors looking to invest in recession-resistant investments.

8. 10,000 Miles to the American Dream

By Bryce Robertson, John Carney, Kevin Dhillon, Reed Goossens, Ben Gray, Geremy Heath, Mark Huang, Tim Manson

If you are looking to achieve financial freedom via real estate, then this book leads by example.

Follow the stories of eight Aussies who traveled 10,000 miles from Down Under to the land of opportunities to give real estate investing a crack. With a combined $600 million in real estate transactions and having achieved financial freedom themselves, the self-dubbed #RealEstateMates take a fun and down-to-earth look at the abundant opportunities that exist here in the U.S.

They share their stories of financial freedom and show you inside the niches where they’ve accumulated their wealth. It’s refreshing to get an insider’s look from an outsider’s perspective.

Bonus: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I did not make this #9 because I have not fully completed reading this book and I felt it would be unethical to list it as an official book. Having that said, from what I’ve read so far, this book could not be more appropriate to your success in 2020 given the chaos and disorder that surrounds us (not to mention what’s still to come!).

Fragile people crumble under pressure. This book is designed to have you become anti-fragile, so you get stronger and flourish amidst stress, tension, chaos, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. 2020 is the year to become anti-fragile and although I’ve not fully completed this book, it’s most definitely worth a mention as it reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.

Enjoy reading, and I wish you all the utmost success in 2020!

Read anything good lately?

Share your favorite investing books in the comments below.

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.