7 Finance Books That Changed My Life

hey everybody welcome back to whiteboard finance my name is Marco and I'm here to help you master your money and build your wealth in today's video I'm going to show you seven different finance books that will change your life completely if you take the time to read or listen to them these seven finance books definitely change my life and they gave me a roadmap to build a successful future for myself and my family so the format that we're gonna present these books in is pretty simple I'm basically gonna dissect these into three different ways so out of the seven books we're gonna start with what it's about who it's for and then my takeaways from each one of these books you can see all the actionable steps that I got out of them I'm not gonna ruin the plot of the books I'm just gonna pick out one or two things that actually help me so without further ado let's get into it so these books aren't an order of you know best to worst but I definitely wanted to start with my favorite so number one is gonna be the richest man in Babylon by George s claisen or George as class and not exactly sure how to pronounce that last name but basically this is a fictional story about a king in the city of Babylon trying to make the rest of his subjects or the rest of the population of the city become as financially wealthy as the richest man in Babylon so he calls the richest man in Babylon asked him hey please do your civil duty and teach the rest of the people of Babylon on how to become as wealthy as you did so he basically takes all these principles the richest man in Babylon does on how he became wealthy without coming from anything he was not born wealthy he was not born from a king or you know someone that's super wealthy he's just the guy that used these seven different principles on how to attain wealth and how to keep it so basically who this book is for is gonna be for people that are looking for personal financial advice told in an engaging story so the cool thing is is that it's fictional but it's told in a way that you can completely relate to it okay and then also who it's for is for people that are looking for solid principles on how to acquire money manage money and kind of how to keep your money and make your money grow so it's very good for financial management and then my takeaways what I learned is to keep the vain of you know the whiteboard going it's important to write these down so one of the key takeaways was keep one tenth of all you earn and pay yourself first okay that's kind of where this concept of paying yourself first came from I think it's from the richest man in Babylon because that book was written in the 20s the second takeaway is work hard to improve your skills that way you're always increasing your value in society aka learning how to get paid more and that way you can ensure a future income because wealth is the result of a reliable income stream and then finally number three for my takeaways from the richest man in Babylon is you cannot arrive at the fullest measure of success until you crush the spirit of procrastination within you so don't procrastinate so when you have a youtube channel sometimes you can find yourself getting super lazy or demotivated and this is my full-time gig you know I'm a full-time youtuber and I take a lot of pride in my work sometimes you procrastinate hey your buddy invites you to the Browns game your buddy invites you to the Indians game either way you got to not procrastinate and you have to stay organized and on top of your job whatever that may be so number two is one of the best books ever created on studying millionaires actual millionaires in the United States and that's called The Millionaire Next Door so this book is about showing you simple spending and saving habits and also telling you what to avoid like buying new cars and they backed us up with all different percentages so for example 80% of America's millionaires are first generation rich it's not like they inherited this money contrary to popular belief 20% of millionaires are actually retired in this country and 50% of millionaires owned a business of some sort so this isn't necessarily just you know running the next Microsoft or the next Apple or Facebook a lot of these people are blue-collar they were plumbers they were electricians they were contractors a lot of the book studies you know immigrants as well so this is super eye-opening because everyone thinks that you know to be a millionaire that means you make a million dollars a year and you know you drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis which is completely not true so who is this book for The Millionaire Next Door is pretty much for people that are already in the middle class or trying to get there however they want to be like stealth wealth ok and let me write that down because this is a pretty interesting term that I picked up recently stealth wealth is discussed in this book by the person having you know a million dollars in their retirement account or in their bank account or some sort of investment account and they drive a used Honda or a used Toyota or a used cargo van that they use for their contractor job right so stealth wealth is kind of like the person that lives next door that has a million dollars that you would never guess hence the title The Millionaire Next Door so my main takeaways from this book is that they live well below their means okay millionaires budget so I'll just draw like a little sheet here for budgeting meaning that they know where their money is coming in and where it's going out and they also plan their investments so I'll have like a brain here does that look like a brain or like a cloud maybe a walnut so anyway they plan their investments ahead of time and they don't make irrational decisions on following all bitcoin is blowing up the stock market's blowing up you know you gotta invest here or here's the next big thing they have a plan and they stick with it and also this pains me actually because they don't buy new cars so I don't buy new cars I would never advocate that you buy a new car but basically it's saying how most millionaires in this book owned used Honda's & Toyotas they never bought new cars and that's advice that I've advocated for on this channel for a long time number three is a book that I read while I was in college a long time ago this one is called the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham Benjamin McGrath for those of you that don't know it was pretty much warm Buffett's mentor okay and he's the one that created the concept or not created but followed heavily the concept of value investing and if you can see that that was probably following my face but this says the definitive book of value investing so this is also referred to as the Bible of investing and what it's about is basically explaining how value investing works value investing is basically focusing on companies that are worth more or have higher intrinsic value than what their trading price currently is so you're looking at long term profits you're ignoring the current market conditions and you're just looking for winners or kind of that diamond in the rough so for those of you that don't know warren buffett is pretty much one of the most successful investors of all time and this is pretty much the basis of his investment philosophy so who is this book for this book is pretty much for active investors who are looking to invest in individual companies or under priced companies if you believe in efficient market hypothesis where you know the market is always priced efficiently and all the prices are correct then this doesn't necessarily apply even though I wouldn't necessarily agree with that this is still a great book to figure out you know metrics and criteria on defining undervalued companies so my three takeaways from this book is pretty much there's three principles to investing let me write these down real quick the first one is analyzing for long term ok this isn't for people that are gonna be swing trading or getting in and out of trades the second is protecting yourself from losses okay and then the third is sticking to a strict formula so I'll just say having the discipline to know what your criteria is and sticking with that okay the second takeaway was never trusting the market okay because the market sometimes gets overpriced so this isn't mentioned in the book but I believe sometimes that the market gets blown up by bubbles because of social media so look at like Bitcoin for example two years ago that went through the roof because it was on LinkedIn it was on MSNBC it was on all over the TV and social media so people get FOMO which is fear of missing out and that's why you can't necessarily trust the market on how things are priced and also sticking to that strict formula gives you kind of like that discipline to be able to invest in what you believe in and what you know so warm buff he's very famous for saying that he doesn't invest in companies that he doesn't understand and this is basically where I think he got it from from the intelligent investor and sticking to his investment formula and criteria so next on the list at number four is not necessarily a finance book but it kind of falls into this category this is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill this was also written a long time ago and his sold you know I had to leave millions of copies worldwide thinking Grow Rich is essentially a curation of 13 common habits shared by wealthy and successful people so this person Napoleon Hill studied 500 individuals over the course of 20 years and distilled their habits into those 13 things so I'm not going to tell you necessarily what those are because I want you to read the book but this book is essentially for people that are looking to get into the right mindset of being successful sometimes there's you know certain people that are taught you know you can't do this because of where you're from or where you're born or the color of your skin or your gender or whatever that doesn't apply ok I know that's a that's a reality in life but if you follow these mindset tips you can achieve pretty much anything ok so my take up my three takeaways from this book and I pretty much practice them until this day are this so the first one is building an unshakable belief in yourself ok this is pretty much having the confidence to present your opinion and not bending to you know certain people so like if you look at the comments section of some of my videos it's a disaster okay it's a war zone but you know if I wouldn't have made the video if I didn't believe in what I was saying so you know it's it's good to be courteous and to be nice but you know at the end of the day my positions I believe in them unless you can prove to me factually otherwise so believing in yourself number two is be so this is maybe the wrong way to word this but be stubborn and stick to your decisions okay so sometimes if you know you're right you need to be able to be a leader and stick with your decisions okay sometimes you know everyone in the world ninety-nine out of a hundred people may not agree with you but if you know what you're talking about you know what you're doing you're confident you know you have to be kind of stubborn with sticking with your decisions so say for example my last video on Dave Ramsey and his credit cards you know most people love that video but there's definitely you know I'd say one out of ten people that completely disagreed with me and that's okay I believe in what I said in that video and I believe I'm a hundred percent correct because I presented a fair argument now if you can actually show me proof as to why I'm wrong with certain things I'm 100 percent all leaders and that number three is joining a mastermind okay so mastermind is being with successful individuals that are like and similar to you maybe working within your industry or where you kind of want to be so say for example I was just at a conference called fin con it was thin con 2019 it was in Washington DC and it was about two thousand other financial bloggers youtubers you know podcasters and it was almost like a really big mastermind or a conference of like in similar people so I learned so much there and just I got to meet like Graham Steffen I met meet Kevin I met Nate O'Brien who I've already known but there's just a lot of people there that you know whose opinion I respect and who I watch on YouTube and it got me closer to these people and we shared some ideas about YouTube and things like that so definitely mastermind with where you're trying to go or where you want to be so speaking of Dave Ramsey I'm gonna recommend Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover so I agree with pretty much 99% of what Dave has to say credit cards not being one of them however most of the things that he talks about I believe applied to a great majority of the population it's a great way to live your life so the total money makeover is pretty much a book about how to get out of debt and also how to eliminate that I'm using small little steps called his baby steps so you can build the financial future of your dreams using these seven baby steps so I guess who this book would be for is kind of like beginners and finance or people looking to get out of debt and build that strong financial future and just overall it's a good way to live your life so my main takeaways from you know Total Money Makeover I'd say the first one is getting $1,000 in your emergency fund sometimes being an entrepreneur I just want to go a hundred miles an hour and just you know spend all my money on building businesses or investing or you know checking out the next cool idea that my friend may have and giving him some cash to start up that idea however you need to have a thousand dollars put away in an emergency fund that way it'll give you peace of mind to pay off debt okay so once you do that you can actually start paying down that debt that you may carry beginning with the smallest all the way to the largest he calls this basically his snowball method some people don't agree with this because they want you to pay off your highest interest rate debts first regardless of the amount but I still think that this is a great way to eliminate your debt my wife and I actually did this she had some student loans a car loan and also some credit card debt when I when we got married and we just knocked all that out using the snowball method and then finally growing your emergency fund so basically once you pay off your debt you're going to start adding to the thousand dollars till you get to three to six months of living expenses okay so that's pretty much it's not the entire Total Money Makeover in a nutshell it's only three of the steps however those are three important steps that I took away from the book okay number six is the Bogle heads guide to investing okay this is written by a two gentlemen and it's based off of John bogles philosophy of investing if you don't know who John Bogle is he's the founder of Vanguard pretty much the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to index funds ETFs you know retirement accounts things like that so this was written by Mel Lind our tailor Larimore and Michael LaBeouf if I pronounced that correctly and these people have a cult following if you haven't already check out the bullheads community online this book is basically a guide on how to invest your money written on the philosophy of Jack Bogle so the book basically starts with the basics of investing and gradually moves on to you know intermediate and advanced topics they explain the ins and outs of each of these investments but it's an overall philosophy and one for you to follow using kind of like the Vanguard products so it's not like you know a sales ebook or it's like hey invest in XYZ but it's got to be all in Vanguard they do talk about that but they talk about why this investing philosophy works so this book is for the beginner to an intermediate investor and this is more for index fund investors not necessarily active investors so my takeaway from this book was pretty much I've been investing with Vanguard since I was 18 years old so I didn't start investing with Vanguard because of this book I picked this book up later but this kind of solidified by my choice and it's kind of why I'm still with Vanguard you know 13 years later at 31 years old and then also I used a lot of their ETFs and their target date funds okay and then also some of their index funds as well so a lot of stuff they'd mentioned in this book I'm already personally invested in anyway and vice versa sometimes I invest in stuff because of the book sometimes I just add more to my current positions because I heard about them in the book and I was already investing in them anyway okay so number seven I could not find my copy of I don't know why I must have given it away to someone or maybe someone who's borrowed it never gave it back but this is going to be Rich Dad Poor Dad if you haven't heard of Rich Dad Poor Dad you're probably living under a rock and you need to buy this book immediately so basically Rich Dad Poor Dad is about a kid growing up it's actually about Robert Kiyosaki growing up and he has two fathers not like a stepdad biological father situation but basically a poor dad and a rich dad so the poor dad is you know college educated you know goes to work eight to five hard worker believes in education believes in you know the American dream of owning a home and all that and then the Rich Dad is kind of like completely the opposite he talks about owning assets / liabilities so this book is perfect for the typical American consumer that only knows about you know swiping the credit card and incurring debt and purchasing liabilities as opposed to assets so assets are things that bring money into your wallet my abilities are things that take money from it so this would be perfect for people that are looking to invest in real estate or just pretty much understand hey you know the more assets I have the quickly Ike the more quickly I can build wealth and the more quickly I can build passive income working for me to ultimately achieve financial freedom Robert Kiyosaki primarily talks about real estate in this book as I mentioned and I do have a couple takeaways from this book I ultimately invest it in three rental properties because of this book so I'll just call it like three houses I ultimately sold these just because made some money on them and I didn't want to deal with those tenants just yet anymore I will ultimately get back into real estate but not not quite yet but that actually this book spurred my interest in real estate at a very young age okay I also read this book when I was 18 it's an old book and then also this book taught me how he basically said how his wife I'll draw a little Mercedes symbol it's a big symbol can you conceive and see it's a convertible if you guys can't see that okay this is like the wind blowing this is her hair this is terrible so her white or his wife basically paid for her Mercedes using the cash flow from her assets okay so from her rental properties or from the businesses that she owned so he's a person that preaches hey you can have the finer things in life if you have the assets in the passive income to back it up and to pay for it so that was an excellent take away from Rich Dad Poor Dad and I highly suggest that book if you haven't seen it or read it already so there you have it everybody those are seven finance books that help change your life completely if you follow the principles in those books there is no excuse or no way that you will not become financially stable or financially wealthy the biggest thing with those books is actually sitting down and reading them if you're not a reader if you're kind of like me and you want to actually listen and turn your car into a classroom or your cell phone into a classroom check out the link below it's a link to audible it's Amazon's basically audiobook service so if you sign up for that link I get compensated at no additional cost to you and it's a great platform and you do get about one or two books a month using that but don't quote me on that so if you got value out of this video please send it to one friend who needs to become more financially literate financial literacy is not taught in schools and I think that's intentional so help spread the word using these seven books and the link to this video thank you so much and as always have a prosperous day credit cards are bad do not use the devil's plastic you will go into debt forever what really Dave [Music]

Channel: Marko - WhiteBoard Finance

Views: 83,344

Rating: 4.9665651 out of 5

Keywords: 7 finance books that changed my life, best finance books, best financial books to read, best financial books for beginners, best financial education books, best financial advice books, best financial freedom books, best financial management books, best books to read for financial success, financial books that changed my life, financial books you must read, total money makeover dave ramsey, think and grow rich, rich dad poor dad, whiteboard finance, millionaire next door

Id: R1JWmP84K28

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019