“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death” – Albert Einstein
“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” – Sarah Caldwell
“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.” – Samuel Johnson
“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” – William Arthur Ward
“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” – Benjamin Franklin
Being curious and interested in learning all the time is one of the most important things in life. You never get too old to learn. One of the best ways to learn is by reading, since you take advantage of the knowledge gained by people you would never have contact with normally.
Many people purchase books. After donating five boxes of books to Goodwill, I decided that it would be much cheaper and less storage intensive to borrow books from the local library. I can get nearly any book I want, read it for up to nine weeks, and turn it back in so others can enjoy the book. I take notes and transcribe those notes into Google Documents. After reading some books, I have decided to purchase copies to keep, but that initial “test drive” provides me with a much larger source of books and knowledge than I would have if I purchased every book. If you would like to purchase any books listed below, the links below will take you to Amazon.com.
Finished reading in 2011
- The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
- Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas by Kevin and Shawn Coyne
- QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life by Donald G. Miller
- Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant by David A. Aaker
- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story by Donald Miller
- Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink by Jeff Johnson
- Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff
- 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business by Jane Applegate
- The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential…in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta
- Buy Now: Creative Marketing that Gets Customers to Respond to You and Your Product by Rich Cesari and Ron Lynch
- Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work by Russell Bishop
- MicroMarketing: Get Big Results by Thinking and Acting Small by Greg Verdino
- Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success by Napoleon Hill
- The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, Revised Edition by Jeffrey Gitomer
- Build Your Own Wicked WordPress Themes by Alan Cole
- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
- American Outlaw by Jesse James
- Retail in Detail by Ronald L. Bond
- Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity by Josh Linker
- Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson
- The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss
- Multiple Streams of Internet Income: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Money Online, 2nd Edition by Robert G. Allen
- Startup Guide to Guerrilla Marketing: A Simple Battle Plan for First-Time Marketers by Jay & Jeannie Levinson
- Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
- Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki
- Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, 3rd Edition by Peter Bevelin
- Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul by John Eldredge
- The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto
- The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it For Life by Twyla Tharp
- Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions by Eric and Ann Maisel
- Dirty Rotten Strategies: How We Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely by Abraham Silvers
- Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie and Cecelia Tichi
- Superconnect: Harnessing the Power of Networks and the Strength of Weak Links by Richard Koch, Gregory Lockwood, and Malcolm Hillgartner
- Before & After: How to Design Cool Stuff by John McWade
- How Doctors Think by Jerome E. Groopman, M.D.
- Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz
Finished more than a year ago (2010 and older)
- The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
- Small is the new Big by Seth Godin
- The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander
- Click: The Magic of Instant Connections by Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman
- Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky
- Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the science of success by Matthew Syed
- Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World by Harold S. Kushner
- The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking by Roger L. Martin
- Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
- Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing: No-Nonsense Rules from the Ultimate Contrarian and Small Business Guru by George Cloutier
- Meatball Sundae – Is you marketing out of sync? by Seth Godin
- Linchpin – Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin
- The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything by Guy Kawasaki
- The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
- The Invisible Gorilla – And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
- Rock, Paper, Sissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life by Len Fisher
- Switch: How to change thing when change is hard by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
- Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley
- The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar
- The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do by Clotaire Rapaille
- Execution by Warren Adler, Larry Bossidy, and RAM Charan
- The Talent Code : Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Anything by Daniel Coyle
- Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Prescription for Improving Your Brain’s Performance by Richard Restak
- SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
- Nudge by Richard H. Thaler
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
- The Secret Pulse of Time: Making Sense of Life’s Scarcest Commodity by Stefan Klein
- Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words by Stephen Young
- Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking by Roger L. Martin
- Firstborn Advantage, The: Making Your Birth Order Work for You by Kevin Leman
- Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling
- The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow
- Napoleon on Project Management: Timeless Lessons in Planning, Execution, and Leadership by Thomas Nelson
- The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
- A Sense of Urgency by John P. Kotter
- 50th Law by 50 Cent and Robert Greene
- How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom by Garry Kasparov
- The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation by Matthew E. May and Kevin Roberts
- What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders by Stephen H. Baum and Dave Conti
- The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
- The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tommy Newberry
- Trump 101: The Way to Success by Donald J. Trump and Meredith McIver
- Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life andWork by John C. Maxwell
- Take Command: 10 Leadership Principles I Learned in the Military and Put to Work for Donald Trump by Kelly Perdew
- Talent Is Never Enough: Discover the Choices That Will Take You Beyond Your Talent by John C. Maxwell
- Leading at a Higher Level, Revised and Expanded Edition: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations by Ken Blanchard
- Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success by John C. Maxwell
- The Politics of Life: 25 Rules for Survival in a Brutal and Manipulative World by Craig Crawford
- Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca
- Starting From Scratch: Secrets from 22 Ordinary People Who Made the Entrepreneurial Leap by Wes Moss
Anxious to start (very condensed; my current list is over 100 and growing nearly every day)
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
- Poke the Box by Seth Godin
- Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod
- Archimedes’ Bathtub : The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking by David Perkins
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack : The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger by Charles T. Munger




