Smart Couples Finish Rich - by David Bach
Yes, I know you know the basics: max out your 401(k), save money in an emergency fund, don't carry revolving debt. But do you and your spouse actually take all these steps to wealth? If not, let me prescribe a dose of Smart Couples Finish Rich. Introduced to me by a client couple who mentioned it as a key in getting them to stop procrastinating and come in to see me, I favored the book before I even read it. But when I sat down with Bob and we actually went through the exercises, we learned how to talk about money together in a more team-like way and understand each other's different values. A must read for couples who don't look forward to discussing finances with each other.
Getting Things Done - by David Allen
Getting Things Done is a transformative book -- not in the sense that it will develop your spirituality, or help you better appreciate your left and loved ones. No, Getting Things Done transforms by giving you the space to transform yourself in any way. Getting Things Done provides a system that will free your mind from the every day tasks, concerns and lists that keep it distracted like a chattering monkey.
As something of an organization book junkie, I recognized many tips and tools in Getting Things Done that I already use and yet, this is the most powerful "organizing book" I have read. Getting Things Done pulls all those tools and techniques into a flexible system that anyone can adapt to suit them. The key to the kingdom is that the system you create must be comprehensive! It must contain every single commitment you have made to yourself: large or small. My commitments to myself include basic tasks like "return Jon's call before Thursday" but also amorphous and difficult to tackle commitments like "be a good mom, giving enough and more of myself to my children."
By externalizing all of these free-floating commitments, you free your mind to slay in the moment and focus on what you are doing right now instead of the 300-700 things you could be doing right now to fulfill all the other commitments you have made. Getting Things Done demands your time: a couple of days to set up your system and a comprehensive review every week. But in return, your millions of other moments can be spent focused on what is right in front of you. Getting Things Done will not persuade you that "being" is more important than doing it, will not tell you how to align your life with your dreams. But Getting Things Done will finally give you the space you need to do those things and the peace you need to figure out what they are.
Loopholes of the Rich - by Diane Kennedy
Diane, a CPA in Nevada, has outlined many of the tax mitigation strategies that real estate investors and small business owners MUST know about. If you haven't read this book, you'd better have a great strategic CPA!
Own Your Own Corporation - by Garrett Sutton
My NV Colleague, Garrett, has written a comprehensive overview of the advantages of using business entities to save taxes and protect your assets. A must read for anyone with assets!
Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It -
by Diane McGuinness
An excellent primer on the latest scientific research on the way children learn to read. Whole language didn't work. But pure phonics doesn't work either, because it's attacks the problem from the wrong direction. Letters don't have sounds! No...sounds can be represented by letters. Think about the letter f. Yes it only makes one sound. But if you teach it that way you have to also teach that the letter combination ph makes that sound. So does ff or gh (at the end of words). Gets pretty confusing when you get through the whole alphabet and all its variations. But how about if you understood that the f sound can be made by several combinations of letters? You start with speech and then you teach kids how to represent sounds and how sounds are most often represented by others. I'm not doing the book justice. Read it yourself. You will be delighted by the intelligent romp through linguistics and the powerful arguments made for a phonemic approach to teaching reading. If you love the book, buy Reading Reflex by the same author for the nuts and bolts.
Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America - by James Webb
Diedre has been enjoying Born Fighting for its insights into the history and path of the Scots-Irish. If you have Scots-Irish ancestors or are interested in one of the key groups that helped influence modern American culture and politics, this is a great read!
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