What books should I read if I want to be successful?

April 19, 2008 10:16 PM

What books should I read if I want to be successful?

I'm looking for books that will help me learn pragmatic skills that will make me more successful in different areas of my life: organizational skills, personal finances, leadership skills, relationships/handling conflicts/networking, life decisions, problem solving skills, and so on. (These are all things I want to start focusing on more.)

Some books that fit the bill:
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion
Getting Things Done
Smart Choices
How to Solve It

Any recommendations?

(FWIW, I am a college student planning to go into the business world.)

posted by wireless to grab bag (21 comments total)

Sometimes your liberal arts classes can help in that category. For a social science class, I took a class on "Human Relationship Skills Counseling" where I learned some stuff about how to listen well. One of the required books for that class which I need to spend some time rereading is "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
posted by toaster at 10:21 PM on April 19

I cannot recommend highly enough The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Although nothing beats marking up your own copy, there is a great audio version read by the author. Inter-library loan it.
posted by keith0718 at 10:51 PM on April 19

If you're going to do anything involving the stock market, you should read A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
posted by lore at 11:00 PM on April 19

A lot of the kind of thing you're interested in comes mainly from life experience. If you set yourself up so that you spend a few years doing different kinds of jobs, interacting with different kinds of people, doing challenging things (this may not mean prestigious things), you will be much better prepared by your late-mid 20s to be a real leader than if you spend a lot of time reading leadership books. (I mean, books are great, read them by all means, but don't expect that reading the books will give you the same people-skills that you would get by spending a year as a wilderness guide or hotel concierge or volunteer coordinator in a soup kitchen.)

While you're in college be sure you get a good grounding in science and math. Those disciplines are built around constant problem solving, and having good knowledge there will make it harder for people to BS you.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:02 PM on April 19

Here are 3 books I read recently that really stick out in my mind:

Founders At Work
Mavericks At Work
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

Although I think the best (and simplest) book I have read is ex-Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson's "Unwritten Rules of Management" They used to give away free copies, but unfortunately, it looks like the dont anymore. If you poke around the web you might be able to find them. Its a small grey spiral bound flip book thats easy to read and very pragmatic.
posted by jmnugent at 11:18 PM on April 19

The Prince
posted by mr_roboto at 11:39 PM on April 19

mr_roboto beat me to it. Ah well: Castiglione's Book of the Courtier.

(And if you wonder: Ecc 1:9.)
posted by holgate at 12:22 AM on April 20

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius

I think Joel Greenblatt is great--his track record as an investor is incredible. He's definitely the real deal and his other book is good too. But it's not exactly "personal finance"--Greenblatt talks about a very narrow selection of potential investments. It's a fine choice if you've got the basics down and want to explore strategies for individual stock selection. Otherwise, I'd recommend a book that talks about investing with a broader perspective. Something like Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor or David Swensen's Unconventional Success.
posted by mullacc at 12:37 AM on April 20 [1 favorite]

I've actually found that reading books that tell you what to do turn me off. I enjoy books that make me feel good, that inspire me without telling me where to go.

Paolo Cohelo's The Alchemist pointed me on the direction toward success. Realizing your Personal Legend is what it's all about.
posted by nobleporpoise at 1:23 AM on April 20

Getting to Yes and Getting Past No are great books on cooperative negotiation, and helped me tremendously in getting agreements with people.
posted by lord_yo at 1:26 AM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
posted by triggerfinger at 3:09 AM on April 20

How to Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, by Harvey Mackay. He's got a newsletter that's inspirational as well, you can sign up at his website.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:22 AM on April 20

The Art Of War
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:06 AM on April 20

Never Eat Alone for networking. I just finished this and I was amazed at how much it reframed the subject for me. My old impression of networking was all about cheesy Brylcreemed salesmen or desperate people shoving their resumes at you. This book totally turned my head around on that.

A few good communications books - Tongue Fu and Difficult Conversations.
posted by cadge at 6:16 AM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor.

At least for me, most books on investing are either chest-thumping about luck or nattering on about how the efficient market precludes anyone from beating the S&P 500. "Intelligent Investor" is the bible of Warren Buffett-style value investing and was first published in 1949. This edition has great commentary at the end of each chapter by Jason Zweig about developments since publication (Enron, for example) and how Graham was proven right.

It's a beast of a book, but you will have a far stronger understanding of the philosophy of risk and reward.
posted by cr_joe at 6:42 AM on April 20

E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
The Relationship Cure by John Gottman
The Integral Vision by Ken Wilber
posted by zeek321 at 7:25 AM on April 20

Good to Great shows how some companies supercede mediocrity and find lasting success. What I found especially valuable was how Jim Collins compared these companies with their less successful industry brethren.
posted by princesspathos at 7:36 AM on April 20

Can't go wrong with a classic: How To Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:14 AM on April 20

QBQ (The Question Behind The Question)
posted by robinrs at 9:00 AM on April 20

If you find yourself involved in the stock market, either as an investor or a professional, Elder's Trading for a Living gives you more insight to the psychology of the professionals in the market than anything else you can read.

On an entirely different note, Fred Brooks's The Mythical Man Month should be a must read too, even for business-people with no interest in technology. Most, if not all, of the concepts in this 30+ year old text on the software engineering process still hold true today (because, really, it's a book about the psychology of group projects, and not a book about OS/360). That fact alone should make it more than notable.

People who work well with other people are more successful than those people who just Get Things Done, and people who are good at getting other people to work well together are the most successful of all. Understanding group dynamics and being able to pragmatically guide collections of people (together) towards the same end goal almost always equals "Success" -- whether that's as a politician, advertiser, investor, poker player, or river raft guide.
posted by toxic at 12:15 PM on April 20

Personal MBA
posted by rhizome at 5:19 PM on April 20