Some stuff I recommend in no particular order. Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Books
Michael Gerber – The E-myth Revisited
A great book on the difference between a business and a job. My view on this has mellowed in recent years. I think Gerber’s arguments are solid, but I think it’s ok to have a job so long as you’re clear that you have a job not a business.
Tony Buzan – How to Mind Map
An inspirational, teeny weeny, easy peasy, little book by Tony Buzan which will literally change your life. Mind mapping is a totally revolutionary and yet completely natural and simple way to commit your consciousness to paper.
Robert Kiyosaki – Rich Dad, Poor Dad
A great book on the difference between the rich and the poor. If you want to make money, read this book.
George S. Clason – The Richest Man in Babylon
A great book explaining very simply, in story form, the key to accumulating wealth. It’s very simple. Simple, not easy!
Malcolm Gladwell – The Tipping Point
An inspirational book about how ideas and trends spread like viruses, and a detailed analysis of that process.
Malcolm Gladwell – Blink
A second inspirational work form Malcolm Gladwell about the power of rapid cognition, otherwise known as gut instinct.
James Surowiecki – The Wisdom of Crowds
A life changing book on how the decisions of many people can be aggregated to produce very accurate choices. For example, if you ask a room full of people to guess how many balls are in a jar (privately, by writing the answer down, without talking), the average of the guesses will always be very accurate (within 10%). This book is highly recommended.
Software
Some packages I use and recommend.
FreeMind
Mind mapping is a revolutionary concept, this package is a simple, intuitive, open source mind mapping tool. I highly recommend it.
6 Comments
hi, i loved the mindmapping stuff – there is a fair amount of serious research about it as well as several groups doing a fair amount of development. Some have been using touchgraph technology for mapping eg ceryle – i have a copy of the beta since it has been abandoned (guy was writing his thesis and gave up – life bit him hard)
Also there are a number of programs out there to help with creating the maps. eg Axon (commerial – i like but well beyond my means), freemind (freeware but somewhat limited), CMAP Tools (free – this is the one i like best)
Inkscape: a painting/drawing program that can do something similar.
A number of writing programs include mindmapping.
good luck and have fun
kelly
Gladwell has a new book out. Have you read it? I just saw it yesterday. I’ve read both tipping point (on your recommendation) as well as Blink.
@Rob – Former Fat Guy: I have just read Outliers, it’s also a great book. Another excellent work from Gladwell. In a slightly different veign to his others, it perhaps doesn’t help us interact with the world more easily, but does help us understand it I think.
Callum, I’ve just started reading (and will likely very soon finish) /Rich Dad, Poor Dad/. I’ve had ideas along these lines before, but I feel as though it’s really helping me think lucidly about money.
Thanks a LOT for the recommendation,
mc
oh, and you have to get The Magicians Way by William Whitecloud. Brilliant stuff
Just snapped it on the Kindle, thanks for the recommendation. I’ll let you know what I think once I get round to it…