Whether it be REI, Personal development, leadership, mindset, etc. - what book has impacted you in a major way and why? Looking to add some recommendations to my reading list!
Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
5y
Top of my list: Your Money or Your Life by Vicky Robin/Joe Dominguez. It was the first time that I made the connection (which always nagged at me inside) that money = life energy. It forced me to think about how can you create money streams that minimized the amount of life energy that was needed to produce such.
After that: The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley. Talk about demystifying the idea of wealth and who has it!
Also on my recommended list: The E-Myth Revisited. Those 3 books will really get your mind right.
1) Rich Dad Poor Dad 2) Richest man in Babylon 3) The 48 Laws of Power 4) Principles - Ray Dalio 5) The Alchemist (This is not a RE book but it is a great read which teaches you to trust the process, constantly learn and enjoy the ride while chasing your goals.This would be my #1 if the list was not RE related)
This is great. When I read Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen shortly after college, it was the first personal development book I read. It found it useful and practical, but it was the first time it occurred to me to continuously invest in my own personal development. That book lead me to read so many others (many which others have already commented on).
The same goes for 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I haven't really implemented anything in that book, but it was the first time it occurred to me that I do not need to slave away at a job for 40 years. Shortly soon after, I discovered something that really struck home: the blog, Mr. Money Mustache. I've read every single article he's written (400+?) and it's completely shaped how I view my finances. I have always been somewhat frugal, and that blog gave me a direction - a purpose to being frugal. Thinking about retirement in my 20s has gotten me some weird side glances from anyone I share that with, but it fuels a very important question: "What would you do if money was no object?" A very personal question, and one that cannot be: "watch tv all day", it's a good question to keep asking myself. While pursuing financial freedom is a worthwhile goal, it is not the end goal, but only the beginning. It's also helpful to remind myself that luxury is not the end-goal (at least for me) but pursuing meaningful projects. A bit of a ramble here, but I'm sure many people on this forum can probably relate...
Multifamily Syndicator · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
5y
@Jamie Fankhauser As an avid reader, I am constantly looking for books that just opens up a part of my mind I never even realized existed lol. You can tell I love reading lol!
For me, The 5AM Club by Robin Charma is one of those books for me. The way the book is written is just captivating, and anecdotally, you can follow the story from start to finish while staying engaged.
The biggest impact for me was understanding that it is not just about Mindset. Everyone talks about Mindset (including me, lol).
Yes, Mindset is great and all! But haven't we all met someone with "good mindset", yet we can still sense that a lot is missing from that person.
And I think those "missing parts" are the other elements we all often forget as we go through life, and these are Healthset, Soulset, Mindset, and Heartset. It need not be one or the other, but a more holistic approach to living a more fulfilling life. Check it out!
Rental Property Investor · Rome Italy · Member since 2020 · 42 posts · 19 votes
5y
@Jamie Fankhauser
I’m sure you already read it because it is a classic, but the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is by far the book that changed my perspective both in my personal and business life.
The underlining concept of finding a balance between getting high results from an asset without neglecting the asset itself is so valid, in my opinion.
Rental Property Investor · Hugo, MN · Member since 2014 · 283 posts · 257 votes
5y
Rich Dad Poor Dad is what kicked everything into motion for me. I never even considered that people could earn money without working a job or at least running a business. Without reading that book, I don't know if I ever would have started doing any real estate investing.
Rental Property Investor · NJ · Member since 2020 · 56 posts · 53 votes
5y
1) Set for life by Craig Curlop was the one that got me thinking the right way. 2) That followed by Rich dad poor dad and the Millionaire real estate investor. 3) Miracles morning millionaires is a cool one too. Building wealth one house at a time is a good simple read to bring you back to earth after spending too much time listening to podcasts and reading about complicated strategies
Specialist · Santa Ana, CA · Member since 2020 · 25 posts · 16 votes
5y
Top 5 Books 1. Flow: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Taught me that life is a journey and that I should be spending my time on growth instead of squandering it (TV). 2. Willpower: John Tierney and Roy Baumeister Taught me the importance of willpower: for achieving my goal, or at least proactive measures preventing me from destroying my goal. 3. Principles: Ray Dalio Evolve or die, life is a journey of evolving, pain + reflection = progress, face harsh realities, etc 4. Deep Work: Cal Newport Learned about deep focused work, distraction and multi-tasking is detrimental 5. Steve Jobs: Walter Issacson His story resonated with me very deeply, as he has a purpose greater than wealth or prestige. Steve is simply a product guy, and all he wants to do is build great products for the consumers.
Ordered from how useful it has helped me. Regarding "fun" books, then I wouldn't say there are many.
Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes
5y
The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley. I took to the book and then read everything Stanley has written. It's all related to the same, in-depth study of how people accumulate wealth, a project he carried on for decades and now continued by his daughter.
There were certain parts of the book and the rest of Stanley's writing that just didn't apply to me at the time I read it: discussions of how owning a big, opulent primary residence screws you financially, why teaching your adult children to rely on you financially can be a natural inclination but a very bad idea, and one of the ideas that Stanley pounds home again and again -- wealth allows you to seize fleeting opportunities that others cannot take advantage of. At the time, of course, I didn't have any real money and didn't know anyone who had managed to amass a good amount of it.
And then the years started passing, and one by one, almost all of my lifelong friends and many of my family have fallen into exactly the same traps.
In the age of Lyft and the $89 tow-anywhere AAA membership, people who live in densely-populated cities spend an insane amount of money on late-model cars that they don't need. The usual excuse is safety and reliability, the real reason is that they crave the appearance of wealth and status that come with "a nice car."
They raise their kids in McMansions, ugly monstrosities built, wired, and plumbed by minimally-qualified tradesmen just across county lines with all kinds of wild problems due to poor design and engineering. They can barely afford to pay their mortgages and taxes there and live in perpetual fear that they'll have to downgrade or move their kids out of the school system they're in, an unthinkable loss of social status.
As their kids grow, they unthinkingly strengthen then strong and weaken the weak, culminating in too many avoidable instances of weak, brittle, fearful young people of privilege who are unable to deal with any sort of real adversity and only really do anything when faced with the possibility that inaction might significantly damage their own precious social status, documented daily on Instagram, Facebook, etc.
So in my private life of old friends and family, I find myself somewhat hemmed in by incredibly hard-working people who care a great deal about social status and constantly make utterly inane excuses about why they're all so damned broke as they drive massively depreciating cars and live in houses that are dumpster fires of various expenses. They never have any money to change anything in their lives, and when they borrow, they borrow big to drive themselves even further down the same dead-end path they've chosen.
And these people make real money! I've never come close to a six-figure income from a job. I have some friends raking that in, hoping the company they work for doesn't go belly up, hoping telecommunication advances won't source their job to IT teams working in India for a fraction of what they cost to employ here. They talk about what they make and you read their complaining social media posts about never being able to put anything by and wonder how deep the mind control runs in their brains.
What are you supposed to do when the guy you went to college with borrows $200K to turn the two-story ballroom of his $900K house into a 3 bed, 3 bath addition? You should have heard his wife shriek when I brought up the possibility of moving his five kids into a reasonably-priced 4-bedroom in a C-class neighborhood, maybe take a purpose-built duplex and temporarily convert it to a larger single-family so that when they kids leave, they have something they can rent out. What? WHAT? DOWNGRADE? What are you saying about retirement? 10% of our combined income into the 401K to get the match is FINE! We'll work 70 hours a week until we're 67!
It's incredible. Chapter and verse, Stanley tells you like it is, and you question it, "No, it can't really be so..." and then some years pass as you're paying attention and you realize we live in a society that really does keep us broke by playing all day on our vanity and silliness, siphoning away our wealth-creating power with ridiculous ideas they brainwash us into.
My wife and I recently went through COVID-19 -- it's one of the reasons why I haven't been very active here recently. My case wasn't good. It was very much an opportunity to reflect, as I lay gasping for breath at home and for a few hours in a hospital bed. I don't need a GoFundMe to pay for my hospital bill, for my lung CT scans, for my respiratory therapy. I made choices years ago that took care of that. I don't make important health choices out of stark terror and lack of liquid funds. I have a feasible retirement plan that doesn't involve Alpo, I know where my money's going when I'm dead, I have years of runway set aside in case something happens to us. I don't fight with my wife about money. It's a damn sight better than what most people have.
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