Top 5: Favorite Books for Business, Wealth, and Success

What's up you guys? It's Graham here. So, I get asked all the time what my favorite books are and what books I recommend you guys read if you're interested in making money or growing your wealth.

These are my top five books that I love and would highly recommend you guys read if you're interested.

So, the first book I recommend is called "Your Money or Your Life." Now, this book is interesting because it breaks down the relationship that you have between your money and your time. The way it does this is pretty interesting. So, let's say right now you're making $20 an hour and you go out tonight and you spend $40 on dinner. This book breaks it down that that dinner just cost you 2 hours of your life because you make $20 an hour. You spent $40 on dinner, so therefore, that dinner basically costs you 2 hours. It's a pretty interesting way to start to look at things—that everything you buy costs you time.

So, let's say that $100 pair of shoes that costs you 5 hours of your life at a job to own those shoes. Now, you shouldn't necessarily view everything in your life in terms of how many hours it's going to cost you. You have to be enjoying what you're spending your money on, but at the same time, it's super important to be vigilant about what you're spending your money on and, in reality, how much that's really costing you in terms of your time.

Now, I'm a huge proponent on this because I really enjoy saving and investing money that you earn, and it's so important too because you can look back at all the years you've spent working and look at what you have to show for it. It's so unfortunate that so many people are making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but at the end of the year they have absolutely nothing to show for it. They have no savings; they own nothing; they have no assets, and instead, all the money's blown. So essentially, all the time they've spent working and growing their business and spending their lives making money is, at the end, somewhat worthless because you really have nothing to show for it.

Now again, I totally don't recommend you just be a hermit crab spending no money, but at the same time it's important just to be aware of what you spend and how much that really ends up costing you in terms of your life. I totally recommend this book; it will definitely open your eyes and maybe change your relationship you have with money.

So, the second book for me was definitely a game-changer. This is a book I picked up when I was 15 years old. I read it cover to cover in about a week, and it blew my mind; I'm not even joking. That is "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. This is like one of these mega compilations of the book, but basically, any "Think and Grow Rich" book is pretty much the same by Napoleon Hill. You might even be able to YouTube that "Think and Grow Rich" and get the full audiobook for completely free.

I would recommend paying attention to this one or listening to it all the way through on YouTube. This is one of these books that definitely blew my mind when I read it and has made such a significant impact on me today. It's a little bit in line with a book called "The Secret," which is basically you think your own thoughts and you can manifest everything around you through your thoughts. Now, I definitely agree with this to a certain degree in that I believe you can manifest your own reality starting with your thoughts, but I don't believe your thoughts are enough.

So, for instance, if you want a million dollars, I don't believe that you could just wish your way to a million, but I do believe starting with your thoughts and believing you can make that and believing that could be a reality for you can therefore lead you to other things that you would do to make that money. But, I do believe it all somewhat starts in your mind, and that's the first step to really realizing something that you want to achieve.

Now, "Think and Grow Rich" is done really well in that it breaks down everything so specifically about what a lot of successful people have in common—that they first believe they can do it, they go out, they have a definite goal, they make that goal a reality, they're so tunnel-visioned into what they want, and a lot of the principles mentioned in this book I've seen throughout a lot of the successful people I've met and worked with. They all have very similar things in common, and they all have tunnel vision when it comes to what they want and what they want to achieve. So definitely, "Think and Grow Rich" is 100% a book I would recommend everybody read or everyone listen to on YouTube for free. Just type it in: "Think and Grow Rich audiobook." I'm sure you'll be able to find something.

Now, the third book I recommend I don't have on me right now, but it's called "The Millionaire Next Door," and this is another book that I read when I was really young. I think I was about 12 or 13 years old. I found this on my mom's bookshelf one day, and like, yeah, I saw "Millionaire" on the cover, and I'm like, oh, I kind of want to read this book. I read it, and this is one of these books too that really shatters all your preconceived notions about what it means to actually be a millionaire.

For instance, a lot of the millionaires out there are not very flashy. They don't wear gold Rolexes, they don't drive brand new Mercedes, they don't live in huge mansions. A lot of the millionaires that you see just are average Joes that happen to have saved a lot of money and somewhat live under the radar. Even me, for example, even though I drive around like a Lotus Exige on the weekends every now and then, most of the time I'm driving a Toyota Prius, and I don't do anything too flashy. It's not like I'm going out wearing like head to toe Gucci or like Louis Vuitton and all that sort of stuff. Like, I definitely appreciate the quality of a lot of these things, but at the same time, I'm bigger into saving and investing rather than trying to do things that other people might see as flashy or doing things that would try to impress other people with how much money I have.

And this is also one of these comments I would get a lot on YouTube: like, "Bro, if you actually have a million dollars, why aren't you going and—like why aren't you driving your Ferrari? Why don't you have a Lamborghini? Why do you only have a Lotus?" And it's one of these stupid misconceptions that just because you have money, you should be spending it on wasteful things. And I totally, like I said, I totally appreciate a Lamborghini, but at the same time, I also more appreciate saving and investing that money and growing it into something bigger than just buying a Lamborghini because I can.

And that is such an important aspect of becoming wealthy is not doing something just because you can. Just because I could spend $10,000 a month in rent leasing a really cool home in the Hollywood Hills—just because I could do that doesn't mean it's a smart move financially. And just because I could wear head to toe in Gucci doesn't mean that's a smart move financially.

So the book "The Millionaire Next Door" really breaks it down and shows you that most of the millionaires—80% of them—are first-generation wealth. Most of them are business owners; most of them don't work in anything flashy. Most of them aren't actors or like tech moguls or anything like that. Most are totally average, and they just have very good spending and saving and investing habits. That is one of these books that I totally recommend you read because it really shows you what it's like to actually be a millionaire.

So the fourth book I recommend isn't so much about the millionaire mindset as it is about practical ways for you to think about generating some passive income and doing things that don't require a lot of your time. With that said, "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss is definitely one of my favorites for this exact reason. Some of this book might honestly be a little bit dated, even though it's a somewhat recent book compared to "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. This book is really good at getting you to think about other ways that you can start making money outside of your normal day job.

And this is why this book is so important because Timothy Ferriss goes into ways that you can do online marketing or sell products online, do drop shipping, and do things that don't require 100% of your time that you can make some passive income on the side with. In my opinion, this isn't so much of like a how-to guide as it is a book just to start getting you to think about other ways you can start earning money.

So the fifth book I recommend isn't so much about financial literacy as it is about mindset to be open to something like that, and that book is "Awaken the Giant Within" by Tony Robbins. Now, regardless of what you think about Tony Robbins, I'm a huge fan. I have read most of his books; I have listened to almost everything he has on YouTube, and I really enjoy it. Now, this is another book I think I started reading it when I was like 15 or 16 years old, and it's made a huge difference. Where it's made a difference is in your limiting beliefs.

And again, regardless of what you think about Tony Robbins, I do personally believe that many people have these own barriers that they created in their head. A lot of the things that people do, they just self-sabotage in one way or another. And in this book, it's about realizing what your limiting beliefs are and overcoming those to achieve something much greater than what you're used to.

It was the same way for me; for instance, I mean, I definitely hit an income plateau when I was like 19, 20, 21 years old that I couldn't quite break, and part of that was in my head, where I believed that like a 20 or 21-year-old shouldn't be earning x amount of money. In some way or another, I was somewhat capping myself at how much I was making because I would hit that and then think, "Ah, you know, it's—I shouldn't be making this much money; this isn't right. For a 21-year-old, this isn't like—it's not okay; I don't have permission to make a certain amount of money."

And in a sense, I would just somewhat get lazy once I hit that amount and think like, "Oh no, no, I already did good enough for myself because I've already made this much; I don't need to make anymore because any more than that would just be—that would just be absurd, so I'm going to stop there."

And it's about realizing what that limiting belief is, overcoming that, and then growing to something even better from there. Tony Robbins, in that book, goes into ways that you can realize these limiting beliefs and then shatter them. Not only that, but Tony Robbins was someone who came from pretty much nothing and grew a huge empire on his own, and everything he has to say I really enjoy.

So with that said, these are my top five books between growing wealth, business, and mindset that I would highly recommend you look into. Now, in my opinion, these books are all a great foundation. These are less about how-tos and more about just creating the solid foundation for you to go and build something up from there.

So with that said, I'd highly recommend you look into these books. A lot of them, by the way, are completely free on YouTube. Type in "Awaken the Giant Within audiobook." Chances are you will find it for free on YouTube. Same thing with "Think and Grow Rich." Type that in YouTube and you'll probably be able to find a lot of these books completely for free, so you don't even have to buy them. Just listen to them even when you're driving or working; just have them on playing, listen to it. That's what I do, and it works really well for me.

So then after this video, I'll make a second video talking about my favorite books I recommend in terms of real estate and investing, and a lot of those are more practical than these books I recommended as a good foundation.

So with that said, thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me. Thank you again—by the way, I know we just hit 50,000 subscribers, so thank you so much for real! That is still mind-blowing to me. It's a number that doesn't even seem real, to be honest. But like, seriously, thank you so much! I've really enjoyed making these videos. This, for me, is just a lot of fun—to make these and edit these and respond to comments and all that.

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