It’s unusual for me to recommend a book. Not because I don’t read them (I LOVE BOOKS!), but because my criteria for what constitutes worthwhile pass-a-long material is pretty high.
Moreover, when I DO recommend books, people tend to view it as an “all or nothing” recommendation. So if there happens to be 80% phenomenal content but one or two psychotic rants within the book, I wind up with people thinking there’s something wrong with me for suggesting it. Now I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong with me (my Mom will counter that for you in a heartbeat!), but people take my recommendations to mean I want them to “swallow the book whole”… and that’s a dangerous thing to do, even for the world’s greatest masterpieces.
It’s the rare person, indeed, who knows how to “separate the baby from the bathwater” in a book, and can take a recommendation from a trusted source in that light…
Nevertheless once in a while something comes along which makes me want to take the risk.
A mastermind buddy of mine bugged me to read this particular book for months, and at first I was just kind of annoyed. (Like you, probably, I’ve got a LONG list on my Kindle I’m itching to get to, so sometimes I cringe when someone wants to put one at the top of the pile)…
But because this particular buddy has been very influential to me over the years…
Because he’s been a very good friend and teacher to ME…
I humored him.
And I have to say I’m thrilled that I did!
I wasn’t immediately thrilled, mind you… the first 75 pages or so are very typical, rah rah, get you excited about making lots of money kind of stuff. In fact, if it weren’t for the source of the recommendation I would never have gotten beyond this…
And the NAME of the book was, in my estimation, just plain stupid. It makes it seem like a bunch of “me too” prairee poop which generally makes me nauseous.
But once I got beyond these things…
I felt like I really understand what Jim Rohn meant when he said a book was the BEST return on investment you’ll ever get. “Someone puts 30 years of their life experience into 300 pages and sells it for $30”, was Mr. Rohn’s exact quote, I believe.
So…
Wait for it…
Without further fan fare, the incredibly stupid name of this phenomenal book is…
FAST LANE MILLIONAIRE by MJ DeMarco.
Here’s a guy who lays out what it took to build a lead-generation company from the ground up…
With a distinctly different philosophy of business, customer service, and wealth acquisition.
And I’ve got to tell you, if you calculated the ratio of the number of times I plan to read any book to the “stupid-ness” of it’s title and then plotted the results on a two dimensional graph, this one would be a total and complete outlier.
But I’ve also got to tell you the title will grow on you as you go through the book. As will the author.
Key insights which changed this old man’s perspective on a number of important issues were:
- The critical difference between consumption vs. production focus as an entrepreneur…
- The 5 criteria to build a business foundation that leads to a high-liquidation event…
- How to use customer service insights to beat your competition…
- When and how to ignore your competition…
- The downside of business plans and business planning
- And several more.
I have NO relationship with the author, just think it’s worth your time, despite the ridiculous title and the first 75 pages or so.
Like my grandfather used to say “Meg fractem un quano bezzo!”
Dr. G 🙂
PS – Been working on my product and service catalog lately. More to come soon. Have a look if you haven’t recently please 🙂