EP 477 – My Most Impactful Books

Without doubt, books surely supply you the knowledge you need for surviving life. In this episode, Scott Carson breaks down the most impactful books that have had an influence on his life as an entrepreneur. Starting from famous books by Robert Kiyosaki and Napoleon Hill down to other books from other businesses, Scott leads us into a world of insights that we would never have otherwise. Do yourself a favor and read on and find one that could have an impact on your life.

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My Most Impactful Books

I thought I would talk a little bit about the most impactful books or the books that had the biggest impact on my life as an entrepreneur. When I was sitting thinking about this topic, I’d be like, “The five most impactful books that have made the most amount of a difference in my life,” and I kept adding books to it. I’m going to go with a little Feng Shui and stick with a positive number. Eight is one of my favorite numbers, hence the top eight books. I love all of these. I started thinking about the books that I recommend the most out to people that asked me, “Scott, what’s the book that you’re reading?” I’m reading One Million Followers. It’s a great book but it’s not the top eight as of this point.

I’m constantly reading. I’ve got quite a bit of books at the bookshelf. I got a bunch at the house as well too. As Greg Reid is famous for saying, “Leaders are readers.” We’re constantly reading in a variety of different ways. I’ve always been a big reader. I read a lot of books in high school, in junior high and stuff like that. During the summers, I would go through the whole Hardy Boys series and Nancy Drew series. Those are great books for kids. I’m going to the library with a library card, checking out five or six books, bringing them back to the hardware store that my dad ran in the house and read those books. I’d go back in another week or two weeks later and swap them out for five more. I’m a big fan of books. What hits me most of the time is motivation, business books that have helped my business. When you think about the fact that Warren Buffett reads on an average of four to six hours a day, you should give some thought to this.

These eight will probably not surprise many people. You’ve probably heard of them. This is not meant to be a regurgitation of somebody else’s stuff but I wanted to share the impact of mine. What I would love is if you’re reading this, drop me a line with what your favorite book is. What’s your top two or three if you want to? What do you like? I’d love to hear that stuff and we’ll work on a surprise for many of you. First and foremost, one of the books that made the biggest impact on my life was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Like many other real estate investors and entrepreneurs, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, who co-authored it. It made a big impact on me.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I can remember sitting on my couch, a new kid out of college, graduated and married reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad on the couch on a Saturday or Sunday and not being able to put it down. It awakened some of the things in my mind. I’ve always considered myself a hard worker. I always did a good job. The jobs most of the time is about 95% and we take about 5% of the slack off. I always pride myself on being a good employee. Maybe my entrepreneurial raising, my parents being entrepreneurs or business owners drove a lightning rod through me and realizing I need to focus on something else. That’s led to me looking for the entrepreneurial spirit of things. Many people do that. It leads a lot of people doing things as far as trying to do something on a side hustle, whether it’s selling vitamins, drawing circles, doing Amway or Quixtar and some other multilevel thing. A lot of people do a lot of things to pay the bills, whether it’s vitamins or whatever it might be, HGH cream and a variety of different things. That book helped lead the way to a lot of things.

Think And Grow Rich

The next book is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I’ve read Think and Grow Rich at least probably once a year for many years. It’s an easy read. It’s still very beneficial for anybody out there. It’s one of the books that we give away a lot. Whenever I go to Half Price books down the street, I’m constantly going to see if there’s any of those available. I usually grab three or four of them off the shelf. It’s something I usually like to give away as a high school or a college kid. My employees have full access to our library and stuff like that. They can pick whether they want to and bring it back. I like to give it away. You bought it, give it to somebody else and you think would make an impact with it. It’s still beneficial to help you identify that if you’d want to get ahead in life, you can’t be doing the same old, same old. It’s the biggest thing that comes around with it is the effect of the mastermind principle that Napoleon Hill talked about and how effective it is. It’s an amazing book. I know it’s usually a top three or top four for most of my friends and entrepreneurs out there.

How To Master The Art Of Selling

Next one I would say is probably as impactful for me, would be How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins. I love Tom’s story. I read it and I realized something in his story in the book. He started off as a new real estate agent and how he worked his way, how he had to go to his first listing appointment on his bicycle wearing his band uniform. It was a comedy of errors but he still succeeded. That’s an important principle that most of us need to realize is that we all start doing the same thing. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. We all start off brand-new. It’s totally up to you to overcome those obstacles. It’s totally up to you to master the art sales. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a little bit of work on your part to master yourself and to master your craft. Many people get sick and tired of not having any patience. They don’t take the time and constantly bounce to something else. That’s the important thing. People need to realize that you can take time. It’s been around for many years.

I had a good chance of meeting Tom Hopkins one time in Austin, Texas. I talked about that in a previous episode. That was one of the most important things that came up to me is I got a chance to meet him and spend almost an hour with him one-on-one. That was a difficult time in my life. I’m going through a low spot, finances weren’t doing well and things weren’t going well at the time. When I had a chance to meet Tom Hopkins, it was one of the most impactful moments of my life to this point.

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor

About the same time, a guy in Austin came out with a book called The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller, maybe you’re familiar with him. He also wrote The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, which is a great book as well. I’ve also read that book even though I’m not an agent. What’s interesting about The Millionaire Real Estate Investor is he talked about real estate investing in the finance side and in the second half is he interviewed a bunch of other investors. This is pre-2008, pre-downturn. If you go back into that, I had a chance to meet some of those real estate investors in there. I was in Houston and Dallas at other events. Unfortunately, many of them lost their shares. Many of them had rental portfolios and other things that absolutely bombed. Unfortunately, things went south for them. They either had to do something else or have a business. One of the guys I looked up to and I have a chance to meet him, ended up going into social media and running a marketing company with his huge portfolio that went south. The lesson I learned from it more than anything else is looking back at it afterward. I was excited about a chance to meet and pick their brains but also learn that not everything is always going to be rosy. Not everything is going to be perfect. You have to make sure and plan for the good ups and downs as well.

The E-Myth And The E-Myth Revisited

Another one that is very important to me that I read about the same time and continue to read it several times is The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. They’re great books talking about how we as entrepreneurs struggle with the three hats that we constantly have. Not everything is rosy. The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that can focus on the forward-thinking aspect of their business, being able to delegate the other two hats, research and development and also customer service. A lot of entrepreneurs when we get into things, we get excited. We’re all moving forward, but we’re not such good in the paperwork of the little details after it. I know that I struggle with some of those things. I have to outsource those things because I’m not going to sit back and take the time for me individually, go back in and figure out my books. I’m not going to take the time to go back and figure that out.

That’s why I have somebody that handles that stuff for the office because I know what my strengths and weaknesses are. You need to be focusing on your strengths. Either outsource or delegate the weaknesses to somebody in your staff or a vendor to help you keep going forward. That’s where so many entrepreneurs get burned out. They try to do it all themselves. We’re all visible control freaks. The thing you’ve got to keep in mind is you’re one man or one woman. Do what you do best and try to outsource the rest if you can. E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited are phenomenal books for you to take a look at. I highly recommend it. I got a chance to meet Michael Gerber in an event a while back as well. He’s a nice guy.

NCS 477 | Impactful Books For Entrepreneurs

Impactful Books For Entrepreneurs: Everybody is looking for leadership. It’s up to you to lead because if you don’t lead, they’ll listen to somebody else.

The next two books I’m going to talk about, I’ll start with the first one is Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. It’s every 30-something male’s man crush. It talked a lot about getting your message out in a noisy social media market. I still think it’s a phenomenal book for those that are transitioning from a full-time job or career into entrepreneurship, whether it would be in real estate investing or something else. Make sure to take the time to read that book probably once and go back and read it again twice, six months later. There’s so much great information in it. Especially if you’re brand-new, go back and gloss over things that you may not understand, you may not be using or you’re maybe new to social media. It’s a very valuable book. Gary Vaynerchuk out in New York has done a phenomenal job. He’s one of the top social media personalities or icons out there. He’s done an amazing job growing VaynerMedia, Wine Library TV and done some amazing things out there. A part of seeing him do things in Wine Library TV is part of the reason that led me doing so much video early on. This guy is chewing on rocks and tasting wine and spitting it out telling you if he likes it or dislikes it and being his honest self.

I sure as I can do some amazing things on video and I can do some things. That’s an important book. For many people, it’s a little bit bigger than the others. It’s taller and stands out a little bit but you can get it in Barnes & Noble. Occasionally, I’ll find them in Half Price books as well. I’m glad to grab a couple of those anytime I see those too because they’re valuable enough to give away for students and other people out there as well.

Another one, which is probably an easier read than most of these others, is a book called Tribes written by a guy named Seth Godin, baldhead guy and colorful glasses. Seth is one of my favorite authors and also one of the guys I love to listen to the most. I got a chance to listen to him at the Infusionsoft Conference a few years ago in Phoenix, followed him online and in a variety of different things. Tribes talks about how everybody has a tribe, whether it’s our friends or families or coworkers or college buddies or drinking buddies or peers in the offices, people we do yoga with or people at the gym. We all have tribes and everybody’s looking for leadership. Everybody out here is looking for somebody to lead us and it could be in a variety of ways. It could be the downward dog at the Yoga Studio or being the boss and leading your employees or leading the PTA or leading your kids or being a leader in the community.

We all have different tribes and you’re either a leader or you’re a follower. In some tribes, as we all belonged to different tribes, we are the leaders. Other times, we’re the follower. The thing you’ve got to realize is everybody is looking for leadership. It’s up to you to lead because if you don’t lead, they’ll listen to somebody else. There’s a line from the American President movie with Michael Douglas, “In the absence of true leadership, people will listen to the loudest person.” That quote stuck with me ever since I’ve read that book. I love reading that book. It’s a phenomenal book. I recommend it all the time. If you’re coming from an introvert aspect of things and you’re not comfortable going in, you can still lead in your actions. You can still lead in what you’re doing marketing-wise. You can still lead to your actions on how you work with other people. You don’t always have to be the vocal, loudest person but you can still be the one that’s providing good quality info and good quality leadership.

For new entrepreneurs, it’s one of the most valuable things especially coming out of a career path or making a change and you’re becoming more of an entrepreneur or solopreneur business owner. Tribes is one thing to think about. You have to realize we all have tribes and you have to get out to them. That’s why Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook and Tribes entangle each other as two of the best books you could read as an entrepreneur outside of the traditional Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Think and Grow Rich. There are a lot of great action items in there that can help you grow yourself, help you grow your business and help you take on the right mindset as a marketing entrepreneur.

Outwitting the Devil

The last one is a book that I absolutely adore. It’s probably the book that we’ve given away the most. We’ve bought tons and tons of copies of this. It’s Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. It was written back in 1938 and was not released. Many of you probably heard the story that his wife, Mrs. Hill, did not want to release the story because back in 1938, it’s a little bit more controversial than it would be now. It’s a story basically where Napoleon Hill is interviewing the devil about what makes the devil successful in the world. The devil talks about how he’s able to get people to drift, to get those would be successful to not be successful by having them focus on other things by drifting away from their main cause, by getting out of their lanes and by being unfocused, chasing multiple rabbits. The people that are the most successful in life are the ones that make the most positive impact in life because they’re focused, they’re not drifting, they say no to a lot of things and they have sole focus going forward and get rock and rolling.

Everybody drifts. Let’s face it. Every day there is a lot of temptation out there. Some people would say it’s a devil but my temptation is, “I want to start this or I want to do this.” Years ago, I was in North Carolina in a coaching call with a dentist. The dentist is a pretty successful dentist in a small North Carolina town but he also raised horses. He also wanted to raise chickens. He wanted to be a note investor. He wanted to do a lot of other real estate stuff. He was all over the place. I went out and tried to spend time with him. He also had a couple of kids. These kids were the worst brats, loud and all over the place. There was no type of organization to it. I’m like, “You have to be focused. If you’re letting your kids run wild and you’re doing all this stuff, you’re all over the place. There’s no way you’re going to be able to focus on real estate. Something has got to give.” It was the first time I gave that book away. I sent the book to him and he sent me a letter and say, “Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I know I need to focus a little bit more on some things.”

Think And Grow Rich: Three Feet From Gold

It was written and not released. Don Green, the CEO of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, I heard the story from Mr. Green himself and Greg Reid with the Napoleon Hill Foundation and Think and Grow Rich “Stickability” and Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet From Gold. That would be my number nine book, Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet From Gold. He was talking about how he found the manuscript and gave the manuscript to Sharon Lechter, co-author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and a variety of other books. Sharon rewrote the manuscript but left it pretty much the same but simply added in paragraphs and things how she thought Napoleon will think of the story. It’s an amazing book. Everybody we’ve ever given it to is like, “It is impactful. There are lightning rods that drive home.”

I remember reading that book the first time, circling things and highlighting passages in the book. I’ve read that book so many times and we give a lot of them away. I wanted to save that one for number eight or number one if we did a countdown because it was impactful not only reading the book. I also have the opportunity through Greg Reid out in San Diego to have a chance to meet Sharon, hang with her and talk with her about the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Sharon is one of the kindest and most giving individuals out there. She has a big heart, not only for entrepreneurs and doing the right thing but also for financial literacy. She’s got a huge movement going on in Arizona and different parts of the country trying to help get kids and everybody else be financially literate. That’s one of the biggest hurdles to wealth is if you’re not financially literate, you get stuck in your crappy paycheck to paycheck and rat race life.

Getting a chance to meet with her, I was very honored for that. Sharon asked me to reach out to a close friend of hers to help them purchase the second mortgage on their house. They were in a bind. They were upside down, as many people in Arizona. I was able to reach out and help negotiate that down on behalf of her friend. I felt honored that Sharon would trust that information with me and be able to talk about it. One of the great things about that was a chance to meet Sharon who rewrote the book and brought it into the real world. There’s a movie that’s in the works, Outwitting the Devil. Hopefully, they’ll get it out soon.

Impactful Books For Entrepreneurs: Books and podcasts are two of the last freedom of speech avenues that we have out there.

Books have a big impact on me. As Charlie “Tremendous” Jones is famous for saying, “In five years from now, you’ll be the same person except for the people you meet and the books that you read.” Pull a book that’s a one-stop reading or it’s a book on an airline or it’s a book that I’ve written and given away or it’s somebody else’s book. Anytime you can listen to somebody, you’re listening to what you’re reading. You’re reading your environment. You have to take that time to listen in to it and realize it may not always be what you want to hear. Sometimes it’s important to hear what you need to hear. It’s not what you want to hear. Nobody wants to have yes men and yes women and things that we read all the time.

I don’t watch CNN or Fox News or things like that. I watch a lot of the comedians on both sides of the landscape on what’s going on. I was watching John Oliver. I don’t agree with all the things that John says. I find it comedic. Both sides are right and both sides are wrong. What we have to do as individuals is to listen to both sides, come up with our own story and come up somewhere in the middle. That’s the same thing with books. Books are great for you to come up with your own take. Oftentimes, a lot of smarter people than myself are taking the time to listen what they have to say, reflecting upon it, “Do I agree with this? Do I disagree with this? Why do I disagree with this? What are the valid points?” Taking what you learn and applying it in real life. That’s not always the easiest thing to apply what you learn in real life. Sometimes we come from a spot where we’re struggling to make that next step, struggling in a job that we dislike, struggling to find our voice or struggling in a variety of ways financially, emotionally or relationship-wise. Sometimes you’ve got to take and pull your own head out of your orifice, reflect back and read a little bit. Sometimes you have to take the time to do that.

Other People’s Top Book Choices

I love to hear what your top three are out there. Laura Blunk has commented on our Facebook page. Her top three are, “How to Win Friends and Influence People, Psycho-Cybernetics and Outwitting the Devil. One taught me about dealing with others, one taught me about dealing myself and one taught me about dealing with priorities and focus.” I like that, Laura. How to Win Friends and Influence People is a phenomenal book. It’s on my bookshelf. I have not read the middle one. I want to take a look at it. Many people have different books that they love. We’ve all got different books that have impacted us in one way or another. I always try to read a book when I’m looking at books, whether it’s in the airport, which seems to be a lot of the time or Half Price if I’ve got five minutes while I’m getting my mail or Barnes & Nobles if I’m trying to find something. I always try to find something that I can add that’s going to benefit me in some fashion.

I don’t read a lot of fiction although I’m a big fan of Stephen King books growing up, The Stand and It. The Stand was my favorite book for so long with The Dark Half. I’m thinking of so many things, The Shawshank Redemption, Carrie and Christine. I read many of those Stephen King books growing up and it was a lot of fun. I’d dive into them and you’d get lost pretty fast but after a while, we evolve. Our tastes evolve in what we read and what we put into our mind. I am a big believer that books and podcasts are two of the last freedom of speech avenues that we have out there. You can’t go on YouTube and do a lot of stuff like you used to. Especially Facebook, any type of thing, political or even not political got pulled off there for you. Books and being able to podcast and provide that information out there is a valuable thing. I haven’t been a big fan of audiobooks. I want to feel it in my hand, the grittiness of it. I want to be able to turn it. I want to be able to mark it up. I can’t do that on an electronic screen. I want to be able to use my tablet or my phone effectively in the future, but that’s one of the biggest things I like is being able to do that. That’s also why I give on to somebody.

I’m headed to an event in September in San Diego and reached out to the promoter, the person in charge of the event. That would be 100 to 150 people there and a big chunk of us that are attending have books or have written books or have books that are coming out. We’re going to be putting together a nice book signing for everybody or everybody gives copies away. That’s a cool thing for everybody to have is taking some books. I love that about Secret Knock and Greg Reid. He brings in a lot of people that have amazing books and every year I get Outwitting the Devil or The Wish Man from Frank Shankwitz, which is out in movie theaters.

If you want to understand what somebody is thinking, ask them their top seven or eight books and the books that they give away. Books are great. A lot of us want to have big bookshelves and stuff like that. I have many leather-bound books but I’m a big advocate in giving books away. It’s one of the better things you can do, especially if something is important to you and that person you’re talking with is important or you think they’re going to be important and you want to help them in some form or fashion. You’ve got to pass books on. You’ve got to give them because they don’t do you any good or anybody else sitting on a shelf unless they’re a collector’s item. Those first additions you don’t want to give those away.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of the top ten or twenty books out there. I’m definitely thinking one of the top three by Napoleon Hill. There are many books out there. How to Master the Art of Selling, a lot of people are like, “Who’s Tom Hopkins? I haven’t heard of him.” Tom faded off a little bit as he’s gotten older and pretty much retired. He’s still speaking a little bit. He speaks every once in a while. Sales have changed so much with the impact of social media but if you take How to Master the Art of Selling and combine that with the Tribes and Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, you’re going to come out and sit in pretty well. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, he needs to update it with new profiles and new individuals. That’s been the theme for our book, Loan Tales. It’s the similar thing but it’s based on where we’re going with note businesses and focusing on people who have profiles that are doing some things, new and existing investors out there who are doing some things.

Why Write Your Own Book

I would love to hear from you. Send me an email, Scott@WeCloseNotes.com. Tell me what your top three books are. If you want to give me more than three, that’s fine but your top three books would be great. A lot of people have a big goal of wanting to write a book, “I want to write a novel. I want to write something that shares my thoughts.” It’s gotten easier and easier these days to write books than it ever was before. We’re so blessed to do that. For me, writing my book was extremely easy. What I did with my book is basically I jumped online. It’s easier for me to tell stories via webinar versus me sitting down and write. Don’t get me wrong throughout college and high school, I consider myself a pretty good writer back in the day. My professors told me. I had a couple of books, a couple of chapters and some other things published in college. I enjoy writing when I do focus on it. I can flex that muscle.

With video, it’s become a lot easier to put a word to paper versus pen to paper. I’m taking the time to record you telling a story or talking about something or a subject that you’re confident in or an expert in. It’s much easier than trying to write it down. That’s what I did. It’s 73 pages of me sharing nuggets and stories about the note business and real estate and things like that into a book. I try not to repeat myself. I was pretty good having an editor that went through that.

People write some books and they’re constantly repeating themselves. At the end of the book, I’m like, “All I heard was the same story five or six times. Where’s the meat?” It’s like that old Wendy’s commercial. We tried to provide a lot of great nuggets in our book but that’s what we did. It was easy, record a couple of hours of video of me sharing stories, nuggets and teaching, taking videos of our trainings and transcribing them via Rev, uploading them, going to Upwork.com, finding somebody to take that, edit it and put it all together. We’re doing that with Loan Tales. We’re excited about that. Putting it into a manuscript or a transcript that makes sense. It sounds the same. It sounds universal. The flow is great. Design a book cover and get it ready for Amazon, which is not that difficult to do self-publishing. These days you can all do that. It’s not that difficult. You never know who you’re going to talk to. I see so many people have books. I love reading books but it’s different. It’s not the same type of business that it was. You’re not going to go get rich selling books unless you’re in rare air.

Impactful Books For Entrepreneurs: If you want to change where you’re going to be at in five to ten years, go read.

I was talking with Jack Canfield at an event, Chicken Soup for the Soul, phenomenal book series in Houston a couple of years ago. He was the guest speaker at the Lifestyle’s Convention. I had a chance to visit with him for about fifteen minutes during his book signing and talking. He was talking about the story that he won his first-ever book deal. He went to have $1 million check. He wrote a check out, put it beside his bed and put it on a ceiling so that was the last thing he saw before he went to bed and the first thing he saw in the morning. It eventually ended up happening. I asked him how much difference it is these days. He’s like, “It’s so much different. You need to take things to a whole different level. If you don’t have a following, you don’t have somebody, a tribe out there or raving fans, it would be a different story. It would be a totally different thing that I would do now versus what I did years ago.” That was important to me listening to him. I’ve got so many of Jack’s books at the house. He’s a great writer and one of my top favorite writers as well for a lot of reasons.

Many of you that have been around me for a while and have heard me talk about pretty much almost every one of these books. As I listen to myself, I hear myself talking and hear the internal dialogue between my ears, I hear these books. I hear these twenty books on a constant basis and we all do that. The idea is whatever you’re reading or watching or listening to, you’re programming your brain. Our brain is a very programmable computer. It’s a programmable piece of software. Each book you read is a bit of code of the software that goes into your brain. It changes the chemistry of your brain. If you look at what people read and the action they’re taking, if you’re stressed out, one thing it rained versus if you’re in a good spot. If you’re on vacation, you’re relaxed versus stressed out at work. It’s two different types of things going on your brain. We have to realize books help us cope with those the most.

I read for the first time in a few weeks. I didn’t even take any books on the cruise. I thought I would spend some time reading on the cruise and I didn’t. There was a lot of stuff that we did. The thing that I want you to realize is if you have a negative outlook, if you’re not liking where you’re at, one of the easiest things that you can do to help program yourself and to help you overcome those obstacles, is look at what you’re inserting into your computer. What code are you uploading? What software are you uploading?

Steph likes to make the joke that I like to watch a lot of violence stuff on TV like shooting them up or action. That’s the thing that I like but I also like watching biographies. I love watching history because history repeats itself. I love watching something about the honey badger on TV. What I want you to get at is take the time to listen to what your thoughts are. Reevaluate where you’re programming. I’ve had some friends that were constantly negative. I paid attention to them and they hadn’t read books in years. They’re playing violent video games. Their programming led to their outlook in life being negative. If you’re struggling with things and feeling things in a negative way, your books can help you out with so much.

Deepak Chopra, we were able to get a chance to see him speak in Austin. I got his book, The Healing Self. It’s a phenomenal book. It has a lot of great impactful points. It’s got a lot of impactful things that has led to me making some changes in what I’m putting in my diet and what I’m putting into my body to help me overcome some things. All because of a book, all because of thoughts, listening and identifying nuggets. I know we’ve got a little bit away from the top eight most impactful books, but I only say this because I would highly encourage you. We need more people to turn the TV off and read a little bit more these days. We need to turn off CNN, Fox News and spend more time listening to real thoughts, listening and reading things.

Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, one of the most impactful thoughts was to meet him years ago at an event talking about how video is where everything’s at and we can all agree to that. Video is where it’s at. If you’re wanting to do something and launch some things, create videos where it’s at. If you’re wanting to use your video to share nuggets, use your video and you have learned from books. Your videos would make that happen. You can be impactful. That helps you grow your tribe and to realize everything is connected. When I sat down and wrote this out, these books did not surprise me. For many of you, it’s not going to surprise you as well, especially Think and Grow Rich. I know we have probably given away hundreds of copies of those books. It’s been one of the most impactful books in all the Note CAMPs and the Virtual Workshops that we’ve taught or the classes that I’ve taught over the years of giving books away. Every time we have something, I’m a bigger fan of giving books away than t-shirts.

Do yourself a favor, make a list of books. Think about it. What are the books that have made the most impact on your life? Write it down and how many of those would you give away? How many of those would you be willing to give to somebody to help them on their journey and to help them on their path to success? If you can do anything for somebody now, give away a book. Give them a book. There’s a Half Price discount bookstore, stop by there and see what’s in there. I like going in. I hit one or two areas. I pull those books. I’ll spend $100 in there. Most of the time, I’ll give them away. There’s one or two that I’m looking for that I’ll keep myself but for the most part, I give away a lot of books. It’s an impactful thing you can have on somebody’s life to give them a book to read.

I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to go out there, take some action and carve out an hour or two. For many of you out there, take some time and get that muscle in your noggin working for it. Get that muscle working and thinking. I guarantee if you’re struggling, the answer is in a book. The answer is out there for whatever you’re focused on, whether it’s Facebook ads. Nicholas Kusmich’s book is a great one to read on Facebook advertising. One Million Followers is good. David Corbin’s Illuminate if you’ve got issues is a great book to read.

I could go on and on of all the books that would be beneficial for you. That’s why I try to find something. It doesn’t have to be too big. We’re not talking about the Gutenberg Bible for you to read but something that you can read in a day or two the worst and go back and reread it. Go back and look at your notes. Always try to carry an index card. When I’m reading a book, I try to have an index card somewhere nearby where I could make my notes. I leave that index card in the book so that I can take the notes out and identify the biggest points, the biggest thing to go back and what I need to focus on. Is this helpful or is this something I need to focus later on?

Hopefully, you’ve got some books that you enjoy. You’ve read some things. If you’re not a reader, I encourage you to pick up a book. Your imagination is powerful and can make many things happen. It’s one of the big things when people talk about going and watching a movie that was based on a book, “It’s not like the book at all. The book is much more powerful than the movie.” Our imagination is much stronger and go do it. Take the time, flex that muscle and get it working. You’ll like the outcome with them. Once again, as Charlie “Tremendous” Jones likes to say, “In five years from now, the only thing that would be different about you is the people that you meet and the books that you’ve read.” If you want to change where you’re going to be at in five to ten years, go read. Take the time, an hour a day, two hours a day or twenty minutes before you go to bed is a great thing for you to do. Go out and make something happen. We’ll see you all at the top.

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