MacGetIT: An Entrepreneur and his Mac

After reading a number of book lists and seeing Ryan Healy’s list I decided to produce my own book list of books that have influenced my life in profound ways. But first, what got me interesting in reading.

When I was in high school I disliked school, and my parents sort of knew it. As a gawky teenager I was not the best student. But then after I enlisted in the Air Force I was sent to Utah and connected with Pastor Charles E. Clark of Salt Lake Bible Church who awoke my intellectual curiosities, not only about the Bible, but also about learning.

Move forward into college and you had to read, but it was not for pleasure but to pass the tests. It was read a book, flush your brain for the next class, read the next text book. But there were points at which I did learn things that caught my fancy.

Fast forward to Squadron Officer School in Alabama while stationed in Germany 1987-90, a Lt. Col during a “no holds barred” class discussion stated that we should be on a reading program for self development. This was backed up by my commander in Germany where he was always passing information to me to read.

Skip forward to last year. Was at my local Barnes and Noble and had a number of books that I was looking at to purchase and a Chinese man sat next to me with a larger stack of books. We began discussing the merits of books and learning and  he asked me if I read a lot of books. I stated matter of factly “I work on reading a book a month!” He came back, “You’re too slow, you need to read a book a week!!” Damn, I was not as fast as I thought, at least compared with him.

While I have kept up with my pace of a book per month, I have not been able to keep up with the book per week pace. But what I have heard is that about only 5% of Fortune 500 CEO’s read books to expand their mind and develop themselves. This is contrary to what is experienced in Japan, as per this article in Success magazine by Darren Hardy.

So, here is my list, the first book is the best, the rest are in random order:

• 40 writers “moved by” God, The Bible – the greatest purpose, people, process, psychology, business and organizational book around!
• Andy Stanley, Visioneering
• Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start
• John C. Maxwell, Failing Forward
• John C. Maxwell, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics
• Michael E. Geber, The E-Myth Revisited
• Michael E. Geber, E-Myth Mastery
• Marcus Buckingham, Donald O. Clifton, Ph. D., Now, Discover Your Strengths
• Jim Collins, Good to Great
• Jim Collins, Built to Last
• T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
• Seth Godin, Tribes
• Christine Comaford, Rules for Renegades
• Larry Julian, God is my CEO
• Robert A. Watson and Ben Brown, The Most Effective Organization in the U.S.: Leadership Secrets of the Salvation Army
• Thomas J. Stanley,  The Millionaire Next Door
• Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen, The One Minute Millionaire
• Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen, Cracking the Millionaire Code
• Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline
• Max Depree, Leadership is an Art
• David Allen, Getting Things Done
• Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Necessary But Not Sufficient
• Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Critical Chain
• Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal
• Masaaki Imai, Kaizen
• Fredrick Pl Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month,
• W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis
• Zig Ziglar, See You At The Top
• Edward De Bono, Six Thinking Hats
• Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese
• Michael Hammer, Beyond Reengineering
• Ken Blanchard, Gung Ho!
• Ken Blanchard, Raving Fans
• Ken Blanchard, Whale Done!
• Malcolm Gladwell, Tipping Point
• Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, Power of Full Engagement
• Tom DeMarco, Slack
• Tim Sanders, Love is the Killer App
• Donald Wheeler, Understanding Variation: Key to Managing Chaos
• Ed Oakley & Doug Krug, Enlightened Leadership
• Tom Rath, Donald Clifton, How Full Is Your Bucket? (During my college days a pysch professor gave me a tape of a presentation since he knew that I was going into the Air Force as an Officer. The audio presentation was the same one described in the beginning chapter of this book. My mouth dropped open after reading just the first few paragraphs of this book.)
• Jeffrey Gitomer, Little Red Book of Selling
• John Wooden and Steve Jamison, Wooden on Leadership
• Napolean Hill, Think and Grow Rich
• Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson
• Leonard Read , I, Pencil
• Eric Raymond, The Cathedral & the Bazaar
• Dan Roam, The Back of the Napkin
• Rabbi Levi Brackman, Jewish Wisdom for Business Success

There are more, but these are some of my favorites. What is interesting is when you read so much, only a few people care to know, and less to understand what I have read. Only fellow readers understand. If you read the “About Me” page you’ll see why I love to read.

Hope you enjoy the list.