Posts Tagged ‘the dip’

1. The 4 Hour Work Week

How to start your own business, quit your job, work less, outsource your work, learn quicker, have more money and a better life. This book actually does cover it all. Timothy Ferris, the author of this book was fired from his normal $40,000 a year job and went on to start his own internet company. He then perfected his time management techniques and company so that he was only spending 4 hours a week working, but earning over $40,000 a month. This book was an absolute inspiration to me and I actually used the methods in this book to quit my job and follow a dream. You can read the full story of How I Quit my Job In Tokyo and Moved to a Tropical Island here. This book is an absolute have to read. Even if you are happy in your job and life, this book will have tips that can help you make it better.

2. Personal Development for Smart People

Personal Development for Smart People is a new personal development book written by Steve Pavlina. As many of you may already know, Steve Pavlina’s blog Personal Development for Smart People is the largest blog for personal development. It contains a lot of great content and the book is just as good. The book focuses on teaching key principles you can learn to improve prove yourself as a person and then how to apply them to improve the various aspects of your life (career, relationships, making money, health, etc). Another must have for anyone looking for improvement and especially good for those trying to find a direction in their life. See here for a full review.

3. Rich Dad Poor Dad

This was one of the first books that really got me interested in investing and creating other streams of incomes. Unlike the two above books, this one doesn’t really offer much in the way of “how to”, but it was an absolute inspirational book for me. When I first read this, I was working in a low paying job where my income barely covered my expenses. This book gave me the inspiration to keep learning and as I did, my financial position just kept getting better. I think this is an especially great book for high school and college students. I sure I could have read it sooner.

4. The Go Giver

The Go Giver is a cool little book that talks about the benefits of giving and how the rewards of giving can heavily out way the rewards of taking. The plot is in story form and follows a character who is trying to make his way to the top of his company. All he cares about is winning and it doesn’t matter who gets in his way. He has a chance to meet a very successful man who agrees to help him as long as he promises to try each technique he is taught. As he does so and helps various people, he find that pretty soon he has a lot of people who want to help him. This was a simple book, but it has a very important message. I am still amazed each time I help or give and don’t expect to get something back, how somehow it always seems to.

5. The Dip

Written by Seth Godin, one of the top marketing authors, The Dip is a great book to help you achieve your best. The idea behind the dip is to achieve more by knowing when to quit and when to try and become the best. Seth talks about the fact that most of the benefits come to those who make it out of “the dip” and over the hill. For instance, the top salesman will make the majority of the sales, the benefits from learning a new language come to those who stick it out and learn to speak fluently. So in order to get the most benefits and rewards, quit the things you don’t really plan to focus on and put a lot of your time in to the things that really matter to you. The benefits from getting really good at those things will greatly improve your life. You can find a more in-depth review here.

Especially for those of you who are starting new positions, increasing and continuing your knowledge is extremely important. Not only will open up more opportunities, but it will also make your job easier and more fun. Below is a list of sites I have found to be very helpful and that cover a variety of professional topics. Many can also be found on my links page.

• Presentation Zen- Written by the author of Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds. Covers a number of topics from Presenting, design, marketing, speeches, inspiration, and marketing. Garr is one of the best presenters I have ever seen, and I highly recommend his book to anyone serious about being a good presenter.
• Seth Godin’s Blog-Seth Godin’s Blog was introduced to me during a speech by Garr Reynolds. He has written several very successful books such as The Dip, Meatball Sundae, and All Marketers are Liars to name a few. His blogs are very interesting and it is updated often.The main focus of his blog is marketing and design.
• TED-Standing for technology, education, and design; TED is a sight containing all the TED speeches held in Monterey Califonria) online. Covering a number of various topics, the site not only allows you to learn a lot, it is quite inspiring. The videos can also be loaded onto your mp3 player.
• Carrot Culture Blog-This is a blog about the importance of giving recognition to employees and it’s benefit to the company. Offers lots of great tips on how to be a better manager and get better results from your employees by keeping them happy.
• Manager Tools- A site about different aspects of surviving in an organization. It is directed mainly at managers, but can be very helpful from both sides.