Books for the Ages

John Wooden said, "Five years from now, you're the same person except for the people you've met and the books you've read." I have found this to be true in my life, so much so that I have been thinking about how to help my children, ages 13 and 15, accelerate their personal growth plans by reading great books.??

I wanted to consider the books most impactful on my journey to age 46. I attempted to select the ideal books to read at specific ages. Here's what I came up with:?

Age 13 - How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie

I can't think of a more critical book for every human to read outside of The Bible, and I wonder how much trouble I would have avoided at age 13 by understanding the book's lessons. Perhaps my favorite lesson learned is that you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get others interested in you. This lesson alone has helped me have amazing conversations and make friends quickly.??

Below are some of my other favorite lessons:

• The "desire to be important" is one of the most crucial human wants that is seldom gratified.
• Become genuinely interested in other people so they like you and?

help you succeed.

• Offer a sincere smile to make others feel better, and good things will follow.
• Allow the other person to do most of the talking. It will be cathartic for?

them and may make them eventually open to your points.

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Age 15 - Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

There are many good goal-setting books, but this is perhaps my favorite. I believe age 15 is the ideal time to learn the basics of goal setting.

Here are some of my favorite learning lessons:

• Track one habit for a week. Ideally, choose one that has the greatest control over you.
• Focus on why-power, not willpower, because why is so much more powerful. ?My dad was a marathon runner and he would also tell me that willpower only got him so far – it was his vision to run the Boston Marathon in three hours that gave him a why for all the training.
• Write down your top three goals, then describe what bad habits might sabotage your progress in these areas.?
• Ask yourself, if I only did three things today, What are the actions that would?

produce the most remarkable results in moving closer to my goals?

• Log all new ideas, ah-has, or insights (keep all the journals) at the end of each day.

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Age 18 – Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason

This short book was the material for a college personal finance class I took as a senior. I wish I had learned it earlier. My favorite lesson from the book is "a part of all you earn is yours to keep. For me, every dollar you make means you keep 10 cents for saving and investing before spending the other 90 cents.??

Here are other favorite lessons:

• Ensure a future income. Every person gets old. Make sure your income will continue without work. I especially love this one because I get to help clients come up with a future income strategy. I want each person to have an income they never outlive.?
• Learning to?invest wisely?and use compound interest to your advantage is essential. The idea here is to have your money do more so that you can work less.??
• Increase your ability to earn. Improve your skills. As you perfect your craft, your ability to achieve more increases. There is no superior investment that you can make than in yourself. Earlier in your career, you should reinvest some of your income into yourself to improve your future earning capability.??
• The more we know, the more we may earn. The person who seeks to understand more of their craft can make more.

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Age 22- The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwarz

The Magic of Thinking Big?by David Schwarz was the first book I read by choice that wasn't a novel or sports book (all other books were forced upon me by school - and usually, I reverted to the cliff notes version!). It would be an understatement to say that this book had more impact on my future thinking than anything else outside of my wife and a couple of critical mentors.

Reading this book awakened something within me, forcing me to think and act differently about my career and life. Suddenly, I had a lot of optimism for the future and confidence to try to do something meaningful with my life.?

The biggest takeaways from this book for me:

• The difference between high achievers is they think "five times bigger" than the rest of people.
• Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement - on the other hand - fertilizes fear.
• Your appearance talks to you; it also talks to others.? As a side note, I have a friend who only has five suits, but they are all very nice. ?He replaces his least favorite suit every year with new one, typically more expensive than the year before.? He has found this gives him more confidence to get in front of people than anything else.?
• Defeat is only a state of mind and nothing more.?

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Age 25 – Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

I love this book. I think this book gave me the confidence to start my firm. I like how Sivers encourages you to build your utopia when you start a company.

Here are some of the critical lessons learned from this book:

• To grow your business, focus entirely on your current customers. Just thrill them, and they will tell everyone else.
• Ideas are just a multiplier of execution. The most brilliant idea is worthless with no execution.
• There is a considerable advantage in having many tiny customers. You can fire any individual client if you keep your customers happy.
• Be incredibly clear in your writing. Leave no room for confusion.
• Pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. I'm paying a lot of attention to this one right now. Many things that excited me in my 20s and 30s now drain me. Fortunately, I work with people who love doing these things that I now find draining.??

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Age 30 – Atomic Habits by James Clear

This book is a game-changer if you haven't checked it out yet. Age 30 seems to be an appropriate time to tackle it.? ?

There are too many nuggets to mention, but these are the lessons that spoke to me the most:

• You don't rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems
• The reward of good habits is in the future; the reward of bad habits is in the present
• Habits are significantly more important than goals
• 40-50% of your daily activities come directly from your habits
• Every action you take is a small vote for the person you are becoming

I have found that focusing on the proper habits and systems is more important than setting big goals. For instance, I know that about 8-10 habits are critical for me to have success, including exercise, meditation, on time with my wife, fun activities with my children, writing, connecting with my team, and personal development

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Age 35- Essentialism by Greg McKeown

I connected with this book because I felt ashamed about my choices earlier in my business career, where I chose work over family - which happened to be aroun age 35. This book helped me create a framework for how I live and balance our work and family.

Here are the best things I got from this book:

• Almost everything is nonessential.
• The busier and noisier life gets - the more you need time to think. There is an excellent story about Ghandi; his schedule was so busy he told his handlers that he needed an hour a day to meditate. They tried to cut it out of his schedule because he was too busy; he told them that if he is too busy to meditate for one hour, he probably needs two hours to meditate then.
• Plenty of of play is critical for success.
• Saying no is an essential skill. Get good at saying it in a graceful way.
• Multi-tasking is possible, but multi-focusing is not.??

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Age 40- From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks

I'm currently obsessed with this book. In fact, I found it to be the most important book I have read in the last few years. I wrote about this in a previous post - YOU CAN FIND IT HERE:??From Strength to Strength?

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Age 45 - Die With Zero by Bill Perkins

I'm very high on this book right now, as well. I think age 45 is a great time to read it, too. In one sentence, I take this from the book - Strive to Strike the right balance between spending on the present and saving smartly for the future- aim to spend on things that create memory dividends and make the most impact right now.

I also have a previous post about this topic you may find worth checking out:?Should you Die with Zero?

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Looking ahead to my older years

I gravitate to more biographies and historical novels. My current focus is on reading all the U.S. President biographies in order. Reading 46 biographies will take years, but I am gaining a great historical perspective and am enjoying the journey. So far, Grant by Ron Chernow has been my favorite presidential biography.?

?I think we can gain some wisdom about reading from the great Dr. Seuss, who said, "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go,".? So now, I’ll ask you – what books have impacted you and what is on your future reading list?

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