10 Life Changing Books

Given the choice between 7 life-changing books or £25 worth of goods, which would you choose? If it’s the books, then this episode is for you! Jay lists his top 10 most influential books and discusses the impact they have had on his life and 14 years in business, covering everything from spiritual to sales. In this episode I will cover the ten most influential books for me and how important is to always acquire new knowledge and use it at your advantage. You really need to pick up your knowledge wherever you can. I try and consume all the information in the books and I put it into practise. I’ve got a tip coming up at the end about how I’ve used which has really helped me not only read but take on the knowledge and I’ll share that with you at the end. Before we go into books I have a last story I want to share with you, one of my mentors told me this story about a robber who went to a house in the US and the robber broke in and he stole around £25 worth of goods, and next to the goods were seven life changing books from great authors and I thought the problem these days is a majority of people don’t want to take this knowledge that’s already out there. We all want the success, we want it now but really it’s always been out there. It’s all about educating yourself through books, through mentors, through podcasts and taking that knowledge and putting it into action. I listened to that story and thought that’s the majority of people, that do do that and even if the knowledge is right in front of you, he left that knowledge and took the £25 which was probably, wasn’t his biggest win but really if he took those books and educated himself, he could have made so much more. In fact, I guarantee you he’d make so much more. So, there’s a quick story about how we overlook knowledge and look at the short-term gain. The first book I read was The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. Now this is a great book in self-value. I enjoyed this book because it talks about somebody who had all the money in the world, had one of the best jobs, and all of a sudden, his health problems brought him back down to Earth. He had a Ferrari at the time, hence why he’s the monk sold his Ferrari. He then travelled to India to live with the monks. That summarises the whole story. He then got rid of all his materialistic things and was more happy with what he was doing without the flash lifestyle and is more happy with and content with the basics in life. So, book 2; Think and Grow Rich. This book will help you on your journey from mind-sets to creating mastermind groups, from sales. Book 3, The Millionaire Next Door. Because the secret millionaires are the ones which aren’t driving the flash cars, they’ll buy a used car, they won’t buy the most expensive clothes, they’re frugal with their money, they save it, they maintain it and they make good investments. Book 4, The Richest Man In Babylon. It teaches you the value of investing and saving money and accumulating your wealth. Book 5, The Slight Edge. When we’re in business or in life it can get overwhelming and you have days where you don’t feel productive. You get that quite a lot being an entrepreneur, you think that you haven’t really achieved anything. This book teaches you about real growth which comes from little things that are done consistently over time. Book 6, get The Four Hour Work Week with Tim Ferris. Now, I like this book because of the outsourcing aspect. Now, when I was running a recruitment agency 24/7 I was working long hours, we managed 600 staff and it was 24 hours because it was our operation. After I’d read Tim Ferris’s books I realised there were certain things where I needed to switch off. Things like having auto sender for my emails, so once I’d clocked off from my office at 7pm I’d have an email saying “Look, I’ll respond to you tomorrow.” Book 7, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. I think Gary Vaynerchuk was amazing, I’ve got a list of the last four years now. This book is all about giving to your audience first, before you ask. Book 8, Life Leverage, by Rob Moore. Rob Moore is one of my own mentors, he’s mentoring me on parts of my projects that I’m working on. This book Life Leverage is a more recent book that’s been written, and Rob talks about how you can again outsource certain aspects of your life. Number 9, The One Thing, Gary Keller. Again, this is a bit like The Slight Edge, and a lot of the books you read, that I’ve read anyway, they do overlap, but it’s just a different way of a message. Don’t be concerned if you read a book and think that it’s the same thing. A lot of them do say the same things but they’ve got a different way of saying it. Sometimes, a certain one will resonate with you, and other times you won’t really get the concept of the author. Book 10, now I wanted to bring this book on because I truly believe in sales. The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. I think this book is more about getting your mind-set into thinking bigger than what you’ve already got. www.businessmentorpodcast.com