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The reading room - books on business, management, productivity and so forth...

Jkhan82

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Books that I've read and always recommend are: The Success Principles by Jack Canfield ( I've read tons of books, I wish I would have found this sooner, Jack Canfield takes best of every book and pieces into togather. Honestly if your just going to read 1 book..this would be the one.) Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham, really pushes you to pursue what you want to do in this one life you have. Rework by Jason Fried, Amazing book about starting and running a internet business but the advice can apply to anything. Crush it! by Gary Vaynerchuk, love him or hate him, he's book will really put you in the forefront of getting your name out and making yourself a brand. Google his Web 2.0 Expo NY video, you'll get a hint of his persona and what he's all about! Love it! Awakening The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins, first self development book I ever read and I still go back to it over and over. It's one of the best selling books of all time. ( Actually few spots below the Bible..I'm not joking) hmmm I'll add to more books that really helped me to start my business, though not your business style books. I think everyone in the world should read them, nothing is more important then a positive attitude in life to accomplish anything..anything well at-least. Spiritual Book: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle Novel: Alchemist by Paulo Coelho I've read over 100 plus books..these I've returned to over and over again. Also those who don't have much time to read or aren't really into reading much check out philosophers notes, 100 self development books summed up into 3 page pdf's, really well produced, I loved it. www.philosophersnotes.com Enjoy!
 

stayclassy

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I read Brain Rules at the beginning of the year, what a great book!
 

APK

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Originally Posted by Jkhan82
Crush it! by Gary Vaynerchuk, love him or hate him, he's book will really put you in the forefront of getting your name out and making yourself a brand. Google his Web 2.0 Expo NY video, you'll get a hint of his persona and what he's all about! Love it!

I sat down with this at a Barnes & Noble one lonely Saturday night last fall and wasn't impressed. I read about half of it, before realizing the rest probably wasn't worth the time. It read more like a parody of a book from this genre with the author's constant boasting, setting up non-applicable situations and interspersing the phrase "crush it" on a comically frequent basis.
 

Matt

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I'm working my way through The 80/20 Principle at the moment.

Not all that impressed, but still giving it a shot.

I am about a third of the way through. So far it boils down to:

'here is the 80-20 rule' 'it is powerful' 'it happens a lot, there is imbalance in the universe' 'it's not always 80-20, sometimes its 83-14'
'here is the 80-20 rule' 'it is powerful' 'it happens a lot, there is imbalance in the universe' 'it's not always 80-20, sometimes its 68-11'
'here is the 80-20 rule' 'it is powerful' 'it happens a lot, there is imbalance in the universe' 'it's not always 80-20, sometimes its 91-26'....

On the recommendation of both PersonalMBAdotcom and ArtisanFandotgov, I read Made to Stick. That was really good...
 

bbaquiran

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Just finished Seth Godin's All Marketers are Liars. I thought it was good, and will check out his other books. Brain Rules is next.
 

bbaquiran

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Originally Posted by Thomas
Also have read:

Good to Great
The Goal (also highly recommend, even though it reads somewhat like a novel)
One Phone Call Away (good for networking, even though the author Really Likes Himself)
Small Giants
Predictable Surprises
On Writing Well (fantastic)
Win Friends and Influence People
- and there's one also about public speaking that Dale Carnegie wrote, that too is great.
Speak like Churchill, Stand like Lincoln (more for speaking than anything)
StrengthsFinder (um, not worth it IMHO)
48 Laws of Power (Did not like)

There are a few more that aren't coming to mind (posting from the office right now), and a few I've yet to read, including First, Break all the Rules, and Creative Destruction. Not sure when I'll get to them.


Strengthsfinder and First Break All the Rules are from the same person and are basically saying the same thing. IMO the main value of Strengthsfinder is in the online exam.

The Goal looks like it would be interesting if I were in the manufacturing field, not technical software development. I can get it for cheap at my local bookstore. Do you think it would be helpful?
 

Matt

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Originally Posted by bbaquiran
Just finished Seth Godin's All Marketers are Liars. I thought it was good, and will check out his other books.

Brain Rules is next.

I'm kind of the opposite
smile.gif


Started All Marketers Are Liars yesterday. Did Brain Rules a while back. Great read.

Just finished 80/20 Principle. It is a book that absolutely lives up to it's premise. I could have ignored 80 percent of it, and missed no less than 20 percent of what it had to say. It definitely had some good points, related to business and careers, but made a pretty hideously misguided attempt to relate its premise beyond business.
 

yerfdog

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Originally Posted by Matt
On the recommendation of both PersonalMBAdotcom and ArtisanFandotgov, I read Made to Stick. That was really good...

Just read this. I agree it was very good.
 

ShaneB

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It's very difficult to 'read business' because business skills are tacit, i.e., they're not really factual in anyway. To be honest, I wouldn't bother with any MBA businessy stuff because a lot of it is trash written by professors, sure, there will be a few nuggets here and there but for the most part it's either a) commonsensical b) utterly worthless. Business is best learnt tacity, through experience - infact, that's the only way to learn it (asking questions etc. as you actually do the thing).

Saying that, however, what ARE good books to read are those things that ARE factual - books on tax, law, fiancee - these compliment beautifully anything you learn tacitly.

Those sort of books are usually voluminous but well worth the money, infact, considering the pagination, they're dirt cheap.
 

runsurfswim

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Strategy, by Liddel H Hart
Outliers is great, with an appendix called "Talent is overrated"
When I find the time, I'm going to look for my technical books in university bookstores. It seems to me that most books at Barnes and Noble on business resemble an owner waiving a stick before a dog and saying, "Do ya want it? Do ya? Yeah? It's a stick boy! Do you want it?"

And I only say that because I've read some, while trying to work ****** off in a small business with a lot of potential, and found myself useless. Perhaps it wasn't the books, though. </full disclosure>
 

matik23

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Not sure if it was mentioned, but kind of underrated is The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. Good stuff Highly recommended.
 

hannibal06

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Originally Posted by cross22
Very good idea Matt. I will give you a rather unconventional one "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World". It is a story about a Microsoft executive who quits to advance a cause. The book is not tree-huggy and is in fact a hard core management book despite being an enjoyable read.

+1 !

While the elements of the "story" were quite moving, there was indeed a lot to be learned. I found the insights into Steve Ballmer's managing habits intriguing as well - would you happen to know an interesting read about him?
 

v0rtex

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Two more votes for Cialdini's Influence and Dale Carnegie.

The E-Myth Revisited is about how to build systems to run a company, which was the "a-ha" moment for me in working out how people scale businesses.

Alan Weiss' "Million Dollar Consulting" is about how to run a solo consulting practice but would also be applicable to management. His advice about focusing on (and charging relative to) the value provided to the client completely changed the way I approached my work (I work in a highly technical field, helped me to realize I needed to focus on solving high-value client problems and not just implementing technology, which anyone can do).

Reading Four Steps to the Epiphany right now, which is about shifting Product Development to a more agile Customer Development approach - build a beta, attract customers, build product around what they want.
 

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