The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late


Michael Ellsberg - 2011
    The reality: The biggest thing you won't learn in college is how to succeed professionally.Some of the smartest, most successful people in the country didn't finish college. None of them learned their most critical skills at an institution of higher education. And like them, most of what you'll need to learn to be successful you'll have to learn on your own, outside of school.Michael Ellsberg set out to fill in the gaps by interviewing a wide range of millionaires and billionaires who don't have college degrees, including fashion magnate Russell Simmons, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and founding president Sean Parker, WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg, and Pink Floyd songwriter and lead guitarist David Gilmour. Among the fascinating things he learned: How fashion designer Marc Ecko started earning $1000 a week in high school with his own clothing business, and later grew it into an empire. How billionaire Phillip Ruffin went from lowly department store employee with no college degree, to owner of Treasure Island on the Vegas Strip. How John Paul DeJoria went from homelessness to billionaire as founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems Hair Care Products.This book is your guide to developing practical success skills in the real world. Even if you've already gone through college, the most important skills weren't in the curriculum-how to find great mentors, build a world-class network, learn real-world marketing and sales, make your work meaningful (and your meaning work), build the brand of you, master the art of bootstrapping, and more.Learning the skills in this book well is a "necessary" addition to any education. This book shows you the way, whether you're a high school dropout or a graduate of Harvard Law School.

Debt Is Slavery: And 9 Other Things I Wish My Dad Had Taught Me about Money


Michael Mihalik - 2006
    Does it seem like you never get ahead financially? Does debt cause you worry and anxiety? Do you want to gain control of you money and your life? This book will teach you how to: *Change the way you think about money *Release yourself from the slavery of debt *Gain Control of your finances *Buy back your life and freedom *Recognize and resist the constant attempts to separate you from your money *Find a job that fulfills you *Produce income without trading away your time *Achieve your financial goals Nobody should be a slave to their finances. Read this book and transform your life!

Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor


Jeremy Miller - 2016
    Over the course of that time—a period in which he experienced an unprecedented record of success—Buffett wrote semiannual letters to his small but growing group of partners, sharing his thoughts, approaches, and reflections.Compiled for the first time and with Buffett’s permission, the letters spotlight his contrarian diversification strategy, his almost religious celebration of compounding interest, his preference for conservative rather than conventional decision making, and his goal and tactics for bettering market results by at least 10% annually. Demonstrating Buffett’s intellectual rigor, they provide a framework to the craft of investing that had not existed before: Buffett built upon the quantitative contributions made by his famous teacher, Benjamin Graham, demonstrating how they could be applied and improved.Jeremy Miller reveals how these letters offer us a rare look into Buffett’s mind and offer accessible lessons in control and discipline—effective in bull and bear markets alike, and in all types of investing climates—that are the bedrock of his success. Warren Buffett’s Ground Rules paints a portrait of the sage as a young investor during a time when he developed the long-term value-oriented strategy that helped him build the foundation of his wealth—rules for success every investor needs today.

DIY Financial Advisor: A Simple Solution to Build and Protect Your Wealth (Wiley Finance)


Wesley R. Gray - 2015
    By way of background, a family office is a company, or group of people, who manage the wealth a family has gained over generations. The term 'family office' has an element of cachet, and even mystique, because it is usually associated with the mega-wealthy. However, practically speaking, virtually any family that manages its investments—independent of the size of the investment pool—could be considered a family office. The difference is mainly semantic. DIY Financial Advisor outlines a step-by-step process through which investors can take control of their hard-earned wealth and manage their own family office. Our research indicates that what matters in investing are minimizing psychology traps and managing fees and taxes. These simple concepts apply to all families, not just the ultra-wealthy. But can—or should—we be managing our own wealth? Our natural inclination is to succumb to the challenge of portfolio management and let an 'expert' deal with the problem. For a variety of reasons we discuss in this book, we should resist the gut reaction to hire experts. We suggest that investors maintain direct control, or at least a thorough understanding, of how their hard-earned wealth is managed. Our book is meant to be an educational journey that slowly builds confidence in one's own ability to manage a portfolio. We end our book with a potential solution that could be applicable to a wide-variety of investors, from the ultra-high net worth to middle class individuals, all of whom are focused on similar goals of preserving and growing their capital over time. DIY Financial Advisor is a unique resource. This book is the only comprehensive guide to implementing simple quantitative models that can beat the experts. And it comes at the perfect time, as the investment industry is undergoing a significant shift due in part to the use of automated investment strategies that do not require a financial advisor's involvement. DIY Financial Advisor is an essential text that guides you in making your money work for you—not for someone else!

Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor


Seth A. Klarman - 1991
    The myriad approaches they adopt offer little or no real prospect for long-term success and invariably run the risk of considerable economic loss - they resemble speculation or outright gambling, not a coherent investment program. But value investing - the strategy of investing in securities trading at an appreciable discount from underlying value - has a long history - has a long history of delivering excellent investment results with limited downside risk. Taking its title from Benjamin Graham's often-repeated admonition to invest always with a margin of safety, Klarman's 'Margin of Safety' explains the philosophy of value investing, and perhaps more importantly, the logic behind it, demonstrating why it succeeds while other approaches fail. The blueprint that Klarman offers, if carefully followed, offers the investor the strong possibility of investment success with limited risk. 'Margin of Safety' shows you not just how to invest but how to think deeply about investing - to understand the rationale behind the rules to appreciate why they work when they work, and why they don't when they don't.

The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World's Greatest Investor


Robert G. Hagstrom - 1997
    Buy it and read it." -Kenneth L. Fisher Forbes The runaway bestseller-updated with new material included for the first time! "The Warren Buffett Way outlines his career and presents examples of how his investment techniques and methods evolved and the important individuals in that process. It also details the key investment decisions that produced his unmatched record of performance." -from the Foreword by Peter S. Lynch Bestselling author, One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street ." . . an extraordinarily useful account of the methods of an investor held by many to be the world's greatest." -The Wall Street Journal "Robert Hagstrom presents an in-depth examination of Warren Buffett's strategies, and the 'how and why' behind his selection of each of the major securities that have contributed to his remarkable record of success. His 'homespun' wisdom and philosophy are also part of this comprehensive, interesting, and readable book." -John C. Bogle Chairman, The Vanguard Group "It's first rate. Buffett gets a lot of attention for what he preaches, but nobody has described what he practices better than Hagstrom. Here is the lowdown on every major stock he ever bought and why he bought it. Fascinating. You could even try this at home." -John Rothchild Financial columnist Time magazine

The Bank Investor's Handbook


Nathan Tobik - 2017
    Perhaps you thought of grocery stores or something sexy like internet retailing, but chances are you didn’t think of banking. Yet, most likely you interact with a bank every time you’re paid and when you pay your bills. Banks facilitate the flow of money through the economy and even if you don’t interact with a bank daily, the businesses you deal with on a daily basis do. For all the interaction people have with banks, few understand how they work or why they work. Even fewer understand why they should consider including bank stocks in their investment portfolio. There are a lot of misconceptions about banks, including understanding what they are and what they do. For many people the word “bank” evokes images of receiving a toaster upon opening an account, or thoughts of security related to the storing of precious items in a safety deposit box. Others might go further and tap their inner Michael Moore and talk about how banks are greedy and evil. It’s our belief that banks aren’t just places to store idle savings (on which you receive virtually nothing in interest) or to cash checks, but that they should be an integral part of an investor’s portfolio. The goal of this book is to provide you with a foundation and framework with which you can both begin to understand banks, but also learn the basic tools used to analyze banks as investments.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life


Alice Schroeder - 2008
    The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”Although the media track him constantly, Buffett himself has never told his full life story. His reality is private, especially by celebrity standards. Indeed, while the homespun persona that the public sees is true as far as it goes, it goes only so far. Warren Buffett is an array of paradoxes. He set out to prove that nice guys can finish first. Over the years he treated his investors as partners, acted as their steward, and championed honesty as an investor, CEO, board member, essayist, and speaker. At the same time he became the world’s richest man, all from the modest Omaha headquarters of his company Berkshire Hathaway. None of this fits the term “simple.”When Alice Schroeder met Warren Buffett she was an insurance industry analyst and a gifted writer known for her keen perception and business acumen. Her writings on finance impressed him, and as she came to know him she realized that while much had been written on the subject of his investing style, no one had moved beyond that to explore his larger philosophy, which is bound up in a complex personality and the details of his life. Out of this came his decision to cooperate with her on the book about himself that he would never write.Never before has Buffett spent countless hours responding to a writer’s questions, talking, giving complete access to his wife, children, friends, and business associates—opening his files, recalling his childhood. It was an act of courage, as The Snowball makes immensely clear. Being human, his own life, like most lives, has been a mix of strengths and frailties. Yet notable though his wealth may be, Buffett’s legacy will not be his ranking on the scorecard of wealth; it will be his principles and ideas that have enriched people’s lives. This book tells you why Warren Buffett is the most fascinating American success story of our time.

Get the Hell Out of Debt: The Proven 3-Phase Method That Will Radically Shift Your Relationship to Money


Erin Skye Kelly - 2021
    She was tired of listening to middle-aged men in suits tell her to consolidate and refinance her debt when all that seemed to happen was she’d end up in more of it while they profited from it. When Kelly figured out the two most important tools to money management—and started achieving massive results—other women wanted to join in on the debt-free journey. With her sense of humor and straight-shooting sensibilities, Erin began transforming lives. This book is not only a step-by-step process that will walk you through how to pay off your debt—it’s a deeply personal journey centered around changing your mindset. As you master each of the three phases through repetition, you will create your own financial freedom, allowing you to live debt-free forever and create wealth and abundance that will positively impact your life—and the people you love and serve. No matter how much consumer debt you carry, this book is a judgment-free zone from cover-to-cover. Your dreams are welcome here.

Acres of Diamonds


Russell H. Conwell - 2008
    This book shows how to find a fortune-if you know where to look. Conwell believed in the philosophy that "all good things are possible." hence, he opened the doors of opportunity for untold millions. Acres of diamonds echoes his core belief that each of us is placed here on Earth for the primary purpose of helping others. Conwell was a minister, the founder of temple University and two hospitals where no one was ever turned away for lack of money. He was also a famous lecturer. In his lecture, the story is told of a man who sells his farm to travel far and wide in search of diamonds. There is a moral to the story in Acres of diamonds, a story which Conwell presented as a lecture to more than 6, 000 people.

The Abundance Code: How to Bust the 7 Money Myths for a Rich Life Now


Julie Ann Cairns - 2015
    Julie Ann Cairns takes you through the “7 Money Myths”—an extremely common set of subconscious barriers put up between you and your attainment of abundant wealth and freedom—and helps you banish them, so that your subconscious “code” can come into alignment with your conscious goals for financial freedom. If your underlying programming does not support your goals—and it probably doesn’t—then Julie will show you how to get out of your own way and finally access the life you have always wanted.You can be successful, you can be wealthy, and you can make money without expending physical effort or sacrificing too much of your precious time. You can become financially free with the luxury of choice. It’s all possible for you, but conscious goals and knowledge are not enough to make this happen—you also need a set of supporting subconscious beliefs in order to ultimately prosper. If you have tried and tried to attain financial freedom but are still struggling, then this book will provide the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for.

Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio


Michele Cagan - 2016
    Investing 101 cuts out the boring explanations, and instead provides a hands-on lesson that keeps you engaged as you learn how to build a portfolio and expand your savings. From value investing to short selling to risk tolerance, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and concepts that you won't be able to get anywhere else. So whether you're looking to master the major principles of investing, or just want to learn more about stocks and bonds, Investing 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

Indian Share Market For Beginners


Vipin Kats - 2013
    The book explains in easy manner the various investing avenues that you have, the advantages and disadvantages of each. It gives the overall picture of the Indian market.Here are some of the topics that are covered in the book:• Finding and choosing a broker - Online vs traditional broker• How to invest, how much to invest and investment goals• The difference between mutual funds, index funds, and ETFs• How to make your first tradeQuick and easy to read, this will help you start trading and gives you that basic knowlegde that is required before you select a stock to trade

How to Worry Less about Money


John Armstrong - 2012
    John Armstrong turns these approaches upside down, and looks not at money itself, but at how we relate to it and the meaning we attach to it. How does it drive us and frighten us? Can it change the world for the better? And how much do we actually need? Offering surprising and helpful new insights, this book will encourage you to redefine your feelings about money, and ultimately enable you to discover what is really important to you in life.

Debt-Free on Any Income


Lyle Shamo - 2004
    Authors and money-management experts Lyle and Tracy Shamo say, "Like it or not, meeting basic needs has nothing to do with poverty and everything to do with how well we manage our money." In this practical guidebook, the authors will help you take control of your money, teaching you how to pay off your debt-including your mortgage and car loans- and stay out of debt. Advanced computer software (included on a CD-ROM that comes with the book) will help you assess your financial status, learn more about where your money is going and discover how to channel it to the right places.