5 Investing Books You Need to Read in 2022

So one of my big 2022 goals is to read more books to try and build my knowledge on investing, business, and entrepreneurship, and so on. I figure a lot of you guys that follow my channel are probably looking to do the same thing in 2022.

So in this video, I wanted to share five of the most influential business and investing books that I personally have ever read that have honestly helped me go from working a sixty thousand dollar a year physiotherapy job to becoming a multi-business owner who works for himself.

And by the way, I'm going to be giving away my own copies of these five books to someone who comments the code word at the end of the video. If you did want to get serious about this and actually improve your earning power and put the financial wheels in motion this year, then make sure you stay tuned to the very end.

Let's now start with, in my opinion, one of, if not the most practical books ever written about human interaction. That book is "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. An interesting fact: Warren Buffett himself frequently acknowledges that he attended a course by Dale Carnegie and actually hangs the certificate of completion in his own personal office.

I saw an ad in the paper for the Dale Carnegie course, which worked on developing your ability to speak in public. If I hadn't done that, my whole life would have been different. So in my office, you will not see the degree I got from the University of Nebraska, but you'll see the little award certificate I got from the Dale Carnegie course.

Dale Carnegie ran courses about building self-confidence and being a better public speaker. He first published "How to Win Friends and Influence People" in 1936 as a comprehensive guide to, you guessed it, helping you win friends and influence people.

More specifically, the book teaches you simple mannerisms, strategies, and tactics you can employ in your communication with other people to help them like you, respect you, and listen to you. Very simple strategies as well, like ensuring you use their name when you speak to them or talking to someone in terms of their interests as opposed to your interests.

Letting the person feel as though an idea is theirs, even if it was your idea. Honestly, this book is jam-packed with very simple social tips that, after reading it, completely changed the way that I talk to people. It's kind of embarrassing, but after I read this book, I realized that I really used to be a terrible communicator.

I was making every mistake in the book. You know, for example, when I didn't agree with someone, I'd argue and argue with them until I got my point across. Bad strategy. After reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People," I actually learned that you can't win an argument.

If you're arguing with someone, you've already lost. Because even if you know that you're right, the other person is defensive, then they turn dismissive. They can be embarrassed by being told that they're wrong, and if that happens, they aren't going to change their viewpoint to your viewpoints.

So anyway, honestly, it's a great book and I think you should definitely, definitely read it. Whether you're a business owner with clients or you're an employee that wants to get in with your boss, seriously read this book, implement the strategies, and you'll be the life of every party. It really will help you out.

So I have to strongly recommend "How to Win Friends and Influence People." From there, I also wanted to recommend another business and I guess communication book that is more focused on the realm of negotiation, and this is "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss.

This is a book written by an ex-FBI hostage negotiator who retired from the FBI to start a company called The Black Swan Group, where he teaches business owners the same skills of negotiation used by the FBI. This book really gets into the nitty-gritty of the tactics that you can use in negotiation scenarios.

It covers how to navigate business discussions and mold them in your favor without getting offside with the person on the other side of the table. For example, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" focuses on things like being sincere, showing genuine appreciation, and appealing to someone's noble motives, whereas a book like "Split the Difference" focuses on conversation tactics such as mirroring and labeling.

It teaches you how and when to use different tones of voice or how to ask calibrated questions to get the other party to start to do your negotiation legwork for you. It teaches you a lot about controlling a discussion, which is very important for, obviously, people in business, but it's also important for employees.

For example, as an employee, your annual performance review is of critical importance to getting a pay rise. How are you going to shape that conversation in your favor without ticking off your boss? How nice would it be to go in armed with the tactics that will help you control that discussion? It would be very nice.

So if you're an employee or a business owner with clients or doing deals with other businesses, I really highly recommend "Never Split the Difference." I really liked reading this book.

Then moving on to a book that really helps you form powerful money habits, I have to recommend "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason. First published in 1926, this book is a series of parables set in ancient Babylon, with each story teaching you a different lesson in personal finance.

Now, if you're someone who doesn't have the best relationship with money, you struggle to save, you never invested before, then I would say this is a really, really good book to start with. As you can tell, it's really short, so you don't have to invest weeks into reading it. You don't have to spend eight hours reading before you start learning stuff.

It hits the ground running with a carefully thought-out step-by-step approach to setting yourself up financially. Another bonus to this book is that it doesn't feel like a textbook; it doesn't feel like non-fiction. It uses storytelling to convey each financial lesson, which, personally, I really like.

You won't be stuck there trying to decipher charts and graphs, and it's thorough. I mean, it covers every personal finance lesson that you need to set yourself up for life. So I definitely recommend this one.

From here, we've got two books left, and these ones are now very stock market specific. The reason I put these in is that, no doubt, the stock market is likely going to play a very large role in improving your financial situation and increasing your net worth over the next five to ten years.

Honestly, it will probably be the backbone of your net worth for the rest of your life, so it's definitely a good idea to learn how to make really solid investments in the market. With that said, book number four is "One Up on Wall Street" by Peter Lynch.

For those that don't know, Peter Lynch is a very successful investor who ran the Fidelity Magellan Fund between 1977 and 1990, and guess what? He averaged—yes, averaged—an annual return of 29.2 percent. This book is an absolute classic. It's easily one of the best stock market books of all time.

There are a few reasons why. Firstly, Peter Lynch is a really good educator, and he's genuinely written this book to try and help people succeed, not just to sell a million copies. The second reason I love this book is that it's written at a level that anyone can understand.

So it's a great first book to read if you're interested in the stock market. For example, this book starts out by talking about getting ready to invest before you even click any buttons. Then it moves on to discuss the characteristics of great stocks and what to look for in a business. It finishes off by talking a lot about investing temperament and the psychological traps that investors tend to fall into.

For example, chapter 12 in this book is called "The 12 Silliest and Most Dangerous Things People Say About Stock Prices." Overall, this is a really fantastic book to help you get started in the market but start out on the right foot. Lynch really makes a point to highlight the traps as well so that you won't make them.

In my view, "One Up on Wall Street" is an absolute must when we're talking about the stock market. Moving on to the last book, I would recommend to really get into the Warren Buffett stock market strategy: "Rule #1" by Phil Town.

Now, I've spoken about this book a lot in the past because this is the first book that I read that really resonated with me as to the correct way to go about stock market investing. The book, for example, goes into the four key pillars of investing—the same four pillars that I talk about on the channel all the time, the same four pillars that Warren Buffett uses in his timeless value investing approach, meaning moat, management, and margin of safety.

For example, you know, understanding the business, checking that the business is within your circle of competence, then looking at the numbers to see whether the company you're looking at has been able to grow uninterrupted and has an obvious competitive advantage.

Then it discusses what numbers you need to look at to assess whether the management has controlled the debt levels of the company and is also putting the money at their disposal towards profitable investments. Lastly, Phil teaches a really simple valuation approach that can be implemented by anyone to get an understanding of what he says is the sticker price or the intrinsic value of a business.

Of course, he also teaches the concept of margin of safety, which is super, super important in stock market investing. So really, this is a great in-depth step-by-step book that teaches you the Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger approach, but it's a really easy read, packed full of examples so that you can follow along as well.

But overall, guys, those are my top five books to improve your earning power in 2022. As I said at the top, I will be giving away these exact books that I have in my hand right now, and to enter, all you have to do is go down to the comments and enter the code word x115-9.

No, I'm just kidding. Just comment "money." Very original! Comment "money"; extra points if you include it in a joke. But if you wanted to pick up these books, by the way, if you just wanted to buy them, I've left Amazon affiliate links in the description if you want to check it out.

But you know, one way or another, just get your hands on these books; I promise you won't regret it. So anyway, guys, I hope you really enjoyed the video, I hope it helped you. Please leave a like on the video if it did or if you found it useful or if you enjoyed it.

Subscribe to the channel if you're new around here; you can check out Profit4 if you'd like to check out the business that I started—links down in the description below. But guys, that will do us for this video. Thanks very much for watching. See you next time.