koby

You become what you read ! Last year, I was interested in creating a new business or a side hustle as you can read everywhere. It’s mainly due to the pandemic and the work from home. I decided to use this new free time as much as I can. For me it’s 2 hours saved per day : 10 additional hours per week. It’s just another free day for me each week. WFH is fantastic !

I’ve already read many books and articles about productivity, creating good habits, time management or list of great tools around productivity. Last year, I was focused on online business and especially the mindset required for this kind of activity. You can create a business from almost anything, you could have some professional or artistic skills. It could be valuable but it requires a process to package it as a product and sell it on the Internet. I had to learn new things. I found the books below very inspiring : you become what you read.

show your work

Show your work by Austin Kleon

Probably the best book I’ve read last year. It’s not so long and I do prefer this kind of format. Very often, books about productivity or personal improvement have many great ideas that can be written in 100 pages but the author writes them in 300… Not so productive in my point of view.

This book is about documenting and showing your work. The main idea in showing you work is not to show it to become famous, no, you show it to others but you do it for you. The author suggests that you should buy a tiny bit of the Internet just to publish your work. You can buy a domain name (like yourname.com) and create a blog, a picture gallery, a website or anything else. The point is just to share part of your work to the maximum number of people. As you will publish it to the world, it will encourage you to do it right, to think twice about what you want to publish. This is a great exercise for your brain and it will help you to go deeper into your thoughts. If you’re reading this post, you can see that I’ve followed this advice … As many many other guys.

OK so you now have your own space on the Internet and you are ready to show your work. But do you have to show all of your work, of course no. The idea is to document what you are doing, to choose what is worth publishing. As you can read everywhere on the Internet, you have to choose your niche. I prefer to talk about your interests, I think it’s a good start and then you can be more specific. For me, it’s about music and writing. My point is to show the link between them and also to explore other possibilities in these two fields.

You don’t have to be an expert or a Genius as explained by Austin Kleon (the author). Just explain your process of learning, how do you progress in this category, what tools did you find that helped you in your work. At the beginning, don’t think too much about your audience, don’t fear to have good or bad comments, just share with sincerity. He advises also to share small parts everyday or at least to think about it at the end of the day and take some notes about what you’ve done or achieved during the day. You can gather all of your notes and select what is worth publishing once a week for example.

It could seem obvious but with small steps all in the same direction, you can achieve a lot. Someone else in the same field as you can see your very little own space on the Internet and can decide to reach out to you and bring more expertise or collaboration. Even if nobody reads it, this process will help you to achieve great progress in a domain that you have chosen so you will improve. Definitely it is worth the try. I highly recommend this book, it really has the power to change your life or at least your vision of your life.

the millionaire fastlane

The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

What a great book ! The road to become a millionaire… It sounds interesting, isn’t it ? The author, MJ DeMarco is rich, very rich like big money. His story as he describes it, started when he was young. He saw a man driving a Lamborghini. He was fascinated by this man. How do you gather so much wealth ? What is the process to become a millionaire ? As most of the young men, he said to himself : I want the same car. The difference with us is that he did it. In this book, he shares everything that helped him to achieve this. Even if you don’t aim to be a millionaire, everything in this book is worth reading. I’m pretty sure you'll start a new business just after reading the last page of this book.

It’s difficult to summarise this book as it contains so many interesting concepts. Some of them are basic but well explained. For example, you need to understand if your product has a high margin but can be sold to few people or if it has a low margin but can be sold worldwide : scale and magnitude. The law of effection. What I keep in mind : impact millions and make millions. It’s simpler than that.

In other words, the author explains how to grow your money tree. Yes, your business can be a money tree. In fact, any business has been made for money, the only difference between them is how you make them grow. You can start your business with an idea not so great, I mean an ‘ok’ idea because wealth is a process. You do not need to find the perfect new idea to become a millionaire. Just grow your money tree, follow the process, respect certain rules, certain mechanisms. I repeat, wealth is a process and a process can’t be outsourced, you have to do it by yourself. Follow the rules to become a millionaire, everything is in the book.

That sounds so easy but following this process is hard and you need to keep up working and improve it on your journey. For MJ DeMarco, what is important, it’s also to be on the right road. He explains there are three roads : sidewalk, slowlane and the fastlane. You definitely need to be on the fastlane. Sidewalk : poverty. Slowlane : mediocrity. Fastlane : wealth. This is really the main point of this book and I recommend reading it to find out how to switch from the slowlane (where most of us are stuck) to the fastlane.

The last advice I remember from this book is to learn basic financial management. If you have no financial plan, it’s a first class ticket to the sidewalk. So please read this book, start a business, even with a not so great idea, follow the process of wealth and drive on the millionaire fastlane. A very inspiring book.

financial freedom / epargnant 3.0

Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier Epargant 3.0 by Edouard Petit

Financial freedom is a bestseller but to be honest, I didn’t really enjoy reading this book. Like many other books about productivity, personal improvement, life’s lessons or how to grow your business, the main topic is the same : someone has been successful, he founds a system that works well so several years after this person writes a book to share his knowledge to the world… and be also more rich and successful if the book becomes a bestseller.

There are some great ideas but they can be explained in a few pages. The main idea behind the book is to gather 1 million then live on the interests with the help of the compound effect. The compound effect… a fantastic concept, approved by Einstein himself so it must be great :) The author provides some hints about how to gather 1 million dollars. Great advice but not so realistic to achieve for anybody in my point of view. The main drawback of this book for me is due to too many figures included in the books. I mean, OK it’s a financial book so I expect to see some numbers but not so many. It depends on your expectations when you read this kind of book. You can follow step by step what is inside or you can read it to get great ideas. I prefer the 2nd option. Maybe I’m too lazy to follow exactly every advice and every exercise provided by the author but I prefer to read to get great ideas from others. Then I summarise all these great ideas in my brain, after this I write about it (in a blog post) and apply it to my way of life. It’s up to you. What’s good about this book : you definitely need to have a financial roadmap in your life. Even if you don’t aim to be a millionaire, at least you need to not waste your money and use it to have great experiences, emotions and memories. In the end, this is what is really important, isn’t it ?

If you can read a book in French, I recommend this book : Epargnant 3.0. It’s a cheap book, not long but it provides really good financial advice. A friend told me about this book. I was not aware of the concept of an ETF and how to invest in trading (for French citizens). I haven't started to invest yet but I will do, for sure and I will probably write about it so stay tuned ;) If you want to invest in something that provides 7% each year for decades, read this book and have a look on the author’s website : https://www.epargnant30.fr/

one million followers

One Million Followers by Brendan Kane

You get the point only with the title. This book has been written by a master of social networks. If I remember correctly, the author says that you can reach one million followers in 3 to 6 months. He succeeded in achieving this… So he wrote a book about it. Do you see a pattern in all the books mentioned in this blog post ?

The book is really good, it’s inspiring, it gives you new ideas, exactly what I’m looking for. I’m not saying that I would like to reach one million followers, why not, but as described in the book, it requires learning a lot of mechanisms, it requires a huge amount of time for testing, trying and analysing the result. In fact, I think he describes how to be a marketing manager in our new connected world or some kind of advertising expert.

It’s not my kind of stuff. At least, it’s interesting to understand the basics of social networks. If you are not an expert just like me, you can find in the book how to optimise your posts even if you don’t publish every day (as recommended by the author).

For reaching one million followers, you also have to deep dive into facebook ads (see my previous post about it). I should have read this book before trying it myself as a newbie. Without marketing, it’s very difficult to sell something. Without facebook ads, it’s nearly impossible to gain visibility on FB/Instagram. Their business is really well done, it’s almost perfect, I mean Meta (ex Facebook) is part of the GAFAM in less years of activity than the others. We should say the GAMAM now :)

Brendan Kane (the author) should update the book to include TikTok. As far as I understand, this is the top growing social platform. Yes I can provide advice to a social networks expert :) The book is not only focused on FB/Instagram. It’s really about building an audience in a professional way. It provides marketing advice for people like me without any experience in selling products on the Internet. It’s not a step by step guide and as explained I do prefer this kind of book. It’s inspiring, it makes me aware about the absolute need of marketing/advertising on the Internet if you have something to sell. It’s a modern and professional marketing book.

It’s really not something I’m interested in learning but it’s great to have some basic skills (in any field in fact). In our new connected world, anything is a product. If you are an artist or if you have something to sell, you have to package your stuff as a product. I’m not sure this is a good thing. I do prefer to focus my time on creating content but without tools to build an audience, to gain visibility, it’s almost impossible to share something to the world. Even if you create great content or great products, if nobody is aware of it, it will be like shouting out in an empty room.

the 4-hour workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

Last but not least (sorry for the cliché), the 4 hours week by Tim Ferriss. This book is a best seller, which means that many people have read it. Many people have also written about it. Many youtube videos have been made about it so I won’t be long : It’s an absolute must read !

The book is a little bit outdated, you may not like how Tim writes, you can also disagree with the concept of outsourcing everything in low cost countries… but Tim is a visionary, he opened the door to the concept of digital nomad : work everywhere in the world just from your laptop. He also extended the concept to automate and outsource most of the tasks needed to run his business. Way before the pandemic and the work from home era, he had this brilliant idea to use the Internet to create a remote business. He was so great in optimisation that he was able to work only 4 hours per week.

When he wrote the book, it was a good idea to use human resources in low cost countries, globalisation was at its peak. He was just a smart move. Today, you could have concerns : climate change and the pandemic have modified our vision of the world. The main idea of the book is still valid and appealing. Do you want to work from a 5 stars Hotel in Bueno Aires (for less than 800$ per month), check your email twice a week, provide high level requests to your remote assistant and spend most of your time dancing Tango… Tim wanted that and he did it.

The book is about finding what life you want to live, balancing the time between work and personal life, controlling your work as you wish and not being enslaved to your work. It’s the most inspiring book I have read. The book is about freedom and some kind of minimalism. Just grab your laptop, 2 shirts and trousers and go live for three months in another part of the world. Spend less time on your work and enjoy new great experiences which will stay in your memory forever. I don’t know about you but to me, it sounds like a great way to live.

koby

#books