Nobody Recommends Books Anymore
I didn’t read a single book that wasn’t set by a teacher until I was 26 when I read The Four Hour Work Week… the book that set me off on this ‘be your own boss’ trajectory. I quit my job and moved to Thailand not long after.
Since then I’ve made it a daily habit to read at least one page of a book. Any book fiction or non-fiction.
In the age of ever-shrinking attention spans reading a book has proven to be one of the best habits I’ve been able to keep.
It allows you to immerse yourself in the author’s mind. Experience the lessons they’ve learnt over their lifetime. Priceless.
Yet we find ourselves drawn to Reels and YouTube videos that always seem to overpromise and underdeliver.
Layer AI on top, and no one’s sharing book recommendations anymore. AI just summarises it for everyone.
But it doesn’t feel the same. Does it?
So here’s my top 5 books list. And funny enough, not one of them is about ecom.
I only noticed this too when I wrote them down… every single one took something away from me rather than handing me a tactic.
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Not the property stuff. The cashflow quadrant. Kiyosaki explains the whole thing in story format, which is exactly why I can still remember all of it.
And it’s what made me stop and go… “I’ve got a business, but essentially I am the business… Something’s wrong here.”
Every cog in that machine needed to run without me.
I’ve made a thousand decisions since then that I couldn’t have explained at the time, and all of them were pointed at that.
Rich Dad Poor Dad took the business from depending on me to survive and thrive.
Extreme Ownership took the blame. I use it with my daughters (my teen rolls her eyes whenever there’s another ‘dad-lesson’), as well as with my team.
Honestly, it’s the same thing.
It’s very easy to be the victim which gets you absolutely nowhere.
But if you can look at a situation that didn’t go well and frame it as “What could I have done differently that would have led to a better outcome?”
… now your brain’s actively working on making it better.
Two things happen at once. You’re fixing it (so it doesn’t happen again), and you’re training your brain to not take the easy ‘victim’ path.
Building a StoryBrand knocked the wrong paradigm out of me.
(I’m halfway through reading this one but it’s definitely earned its keep in the top 5.)
We see our own business from a completely different angle than our customers do because we’re in the thick of it. We’ve got a biased perspective because it’s our creation.
In reality, our business doesn’t matter. No one cares if we shout about how good we are.
They (our customers) are on their own quest with their own agenda, and we’re just the guide. Not the hero.
They are the hero in their own journey and it’s our job to guide them.
Once that clicked, I understood how to talk to them. I knew what to show them and when.
And I understood that the products we sell are one small stage inside a much longer journey.
Customers aren’t buying a product, they’re buying an emotion.
Life 3.0 took the AI FOMO.
When you look back on something you can see it much more clearly, the whole shape of it.
But when you’re inside it you’re clouded…
You don’t have all the information, things move too fast, and you can’t work out what’s up, what’s down, what you need to act on and what you can ignore.
I’ve been swept up in AI this year, building AI agents and whatnot. That work was needed and I’m glad I did it.
But that book gave me a feeling of calm about the rest of it.
Digging deeper and pushing harder with AI to keep up isn’t going to move the needle.
So when something new drops that I feel I need to get onto, I understand better how it fits in the big scheme of things.
And Derek Sivers took the yes.
Hell Yeah or No is the short one, and a lot more spiritual than the rest.
One lesson: Don’t take on everything. Only the things that actually matter. Something I have to constantly remind myself of.
That’s my five. Each one I reflect on in situations weekly, if not daily. They’ve all shaped who I am and how I make decisions.
Not one of them told me how to run an ad, price a product or find a manufacturer.
The list, if you want to grab them
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
- Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
- Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers
And The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, the one that started all of it.
— Matthew
