Money System – How to Maximize Your Savings

We continue in The Money System That Never Fails with how to maximize your savings, one of the most crucial elements of the overall system.

The Money System That Never Fails is now available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.

The_Money_System_That_Never_Fails_Cover

If you missed the first chapters you can view them here:

  1. Introduction
  2. Money Offense and Money Defense
  3. Most Important Part of the Money System
  4. Mental Accounting and Different Perceptions of Money
  5. Essential Accounts
  6. Optional Accounts

I just covered three necessary savings accounts, and six optional ones. First off, you may be thinking that that is a lot of accounts! And it is compared to an average person. But the question to ask yourself, is do you want average results? If we look at wealthy people, we’ll typically see money spread out in many different places…and this is before we even look at investing or business accounts!

Remember that most of those were optional. It is better to start on the easier side, and go with just those three essential accounts. Once you’re used to the system, and saving, then you can add more later.

The main question to ask is, “What percentages go into these savings accounts?” Along with that, you may be thinking: If you have all these different accounts and you’re saving to each one of them, how is there anything left to live on?

The answer is by starting small. There is a systematic flow to all of this. The flow is like this:

Remember, the savings must come off the top for this system to work. That is part of what makes it never fail.

If you’re currently living paycheck to paycheck like most Americans, or even worse, living off 110% or more of your income by using credit, this can be a tough pill to swallow. In these cases, you need to start real small. But you will still start saving.

When it comes to the Wealth Capture account, the standard number used is 10%. So, 10% of your income goes into savings. If you are not currently saving that may be a big chunk. And you may feel the difference when you start doing.

The most important thing (in the beginning) is not the amount, but the habit of doing it. If 10% is too much you can do 5%, 1%, even a fraction of a percent. If you’re up to your eyeballs in debt, just do ½%. This amount isn’t going to make a difference to you, nor the creditors, but the act of doing it can begin to turn things around, because of how it changes your habits, your mindset and your relationship to money.

The fact is, when you’re starting out, it is best NOT to feel the pain of savings. If it is a noticeable difference, you’re more likely to tap into it, or abandon the system. If you have to struggle to save, you’ll likely quit at some point. But if you can do it effortlessly, it is more likely to stick.

Then over time it builds. You increase your savings by a percentage point here and there. Once the amount starts to grow it is hard to not get excited by it and want to do even more. And once you really get going, 10% is too small. If you’re doing well, you can go with 15 or 20%. With these larger amounts, aggressively saving, you can watch your wealth soar.

But the Wealth Capture account is just one of several accounts. What about the others? They don’t all need to be 10%, nor the same amount. Some of them, like the SHTF fund or the Health Savings Account, also have a cap on how much you need or can put into them. You have to look at several factors.

As an example, currently I am putting 20% into my Wealth Capture account, 3% into my Vacation account, and 3% into the SHTF fund/Save to Spend combo I previously mentioned.

When you’re starting out, if you can only put ½% into each of these three accounts, that’s what you’ll do. Just know that it will grow over time.

Right now, making these transfers is one of the first things I do every Saturday morning, for the income that came in the previous week. If I happen to be traveling, or otherwise unavailable on that day, I’ll do it as soon as I can.

I use a spreadsheet to total up the income I made both personally and in my businesses. Using formulas to calculate the percentages, these then get totaled and I know how much to move into each account.  You can find a copy of the Weekly Savings Template here.

Note that you’ll find a simple version in the first tab of that, and a more complex version complete for businesses in the second tab. We’ll revisit the details of that later.

My big aim is to save 50% of my money. I was doing this for a little while earlier, but my expenses have since changed. Now, this wasn’t all permanent savings. Some of the savings are earmarked for later expenses, but still it is fun to see how quickly your wealth adds up when you aggressively save like this.

I think 50% savings is a good goal for anyone to aim towards. But please, do not jump into doing this. Let the snowball roll until it grows and begins an avalanche.

Remember you need multiple accounts, one for each specific purpose. You can use your own bank. You can use multiple banks. Personally, I have most of my accounts at https://www.marcus.com (and this is where I’ve been setting up the latest ones).

It is easy to set up. The online portal is easy to use. And, at the time of writing this, they give 1.4% interest rate (actually it looks like they just raised it to 1.5%). While this isn’t great, it is far better than most banks offer. By all means, if you have a local credit union, or something else that offers something better go for it. But at the time of writing, this is my current recommendation.

Two Business Building Interviews

Wanted to share two recent podcasts I was on where I discussed building my businesses, ecommerce, among other things.

First up is Your First Thousand Clients with Mitch Russo. I had the pleasure of meeting Mitch at a recent Maverick event in Vermont and was happy to be asked onto his podcast. If you’re not familiar with him, you ought to be as he has quite the business pedigree, including being CEO of the joint venture between Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes. He just recently launched Results Breakthrough, to harness the power of accountability.

Your First Thousand Clients, Mitch Russo, Visualizing Success Affects Your Way Of Doing Business, Logan Christopher

65: Visualizing Success Affects Your Way Of Doing Business with Logan Christopher

Second up is the eCommerce Evolution podcast with Brett Curry. For the past couple of months we’ve been working with Brett’s agency OMG Commerce for running our Google Adwords at Lost Empire. In this interview, after initially talking about some feats of strength, we dive into how I’ve grown our ecommerce store to seven figures and aiming for more.

Episode 40 – Amazing Feats of Strength and eCommerce Growth with Logan Christopher of Lost Empire Herbs

I’ve always enjoyed being a guest on podcasts and plan to do even more in the future.

Reading Plan Final Analysis

At last, the final part of the 72 books in 2017 analysis. Spent more time on this than I initially planned, but I learned some things along the way…and I hope you did too.

In the previous articles – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – I mentioned each category of books. And there are different ways I can categorize besides topic. This article looks at this list in a few different ways.

Re-Reading Books

Another category I can look at is which books did I read, that this wasn’t the first time reading.

If a book is really good, you can’t possibly get everything out of it, in one read.

The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner

It was necessary for me to read this book for the second time, in help with writing the chapter on heart intelligence and perception for my book, Powered By Nature. This book is not an easy read, but is very dense in both some of the science, and the meaning behind it.

I believe this book would change most people’s view of nature if they read it, as it’ll open you to a new way of seeing the world that is downplayed, or said not to exist, in the standard Western viewpoint.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

I think this was my third read of Essentialism. It’s a pretty quick read with an important topic, especially in this day and age. It’s all about getting down to what is essential in business, in life, in everything you do. There is a good chance I’ll be reading it again in 2018, as each time I do I feel like it helps me to strip away another layer of un-essential things.

Scaling Up by Verne Harnish

This book is a roadmap to running a successful business. It is dense with specific things to do, recommended resources and examples. This was my second time reading through it and I’ll definitely be reading it again this year.

Basically, we’re using it as our bible for growing Lost Empire Herbs and have been since I started using it. It was also great to hear a fellow business owner I know that had just sold his business for 9 figures that he also used this as his main roadmap.

If you’re aiming to build beyond a small business this can be a great help. (But it is not good for lifestyle type businesses…just too much that wouldn’t be relevant.)

Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson

This was my second read through. I was looking for just a refresher around money and liked this book the first time through. I figured I had grown since several years ago when I read it, so it would reveal something new to me.

The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing

I hadn’t actually read this translation before, but I had read a different version of the Tao Te Ching. I was beginning my day with a passage every day, which is not a bad when to start the day.

The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

A quick read, but full of wisdom. Although it is mostly about fighting, of which Musashi was one of the greatest ever, the principles apply to many other areas of life. But you’ll have to do some work in translating it to those areas.

Reading Multiple Books by an Author

Comparing how many authors I’ve read multiple books versus a single book I come up with the following for authors I’ve read two or more books from:

  • Dan Simmons
  • Richard Louv
  • Stephen Harrod Buhner
  • Rupert Sheldrake
  • Yuval Noah Harari
  • Perry Marshall
  • Douglas Adams
  • Steven Kotler
  • Tim Ferriss
  • Michael A. Singer
  • Russell Brunson
  • Les McKeown
  • Nora Gedgaudas
  • Dave Asprey
  • Dr. Joseph Mercola
  • Napoleon Hill
  • Michael Masterson

That’s 17 authors out of 63 or about 25%. (I counted two or more authors for one book as one author.)

Some of them were first time and multiple books this year (Louv, Harari, McKeown). Others I had read before and read new or different books this year.

Late in 2016 I remember going back to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. That’s when I thought, why haven’t I read everything this guy put out. So I did. If you like and author, and gain from their material, why just read one book?

Authors I Have Met

It was interesting to look at how many of these authors I have met.

  • Dave Asprey and Logan
    Meeting Dave Asprey at a Conference

    Kevin Feinstein

  • John Perkins
  • Tim Ferriss
  • Rick Smith
  • Dave Asprey
  • Bryan Franklin
  • Michael Ellsberg
  • Richard Branson
  • Charlie Engle
  • Russell Brunson
  • Dr. Mercola

Looking over the list all of them were at various events, from small foraging classes with Kevin Feinstein, to traveling to the Amazon and Guatemala with John Perkins. Most of the others were at various conferences and were mostly brief meetings, like a hello and a handshake.

On that note I have also seen Greg McKeown and Verne Harnish speak at events but didn’t have a chance to meet them.

And while I’ve never met with Elliot Hulse in person, I have spoken with him for an interview.

Reading Plans for 2018

I hope you enjoyed this five-part breakdown. It was interesting for me to do as spending this much time analyzing what I read revealed a few ideas to me that I otherwise would not have had.

Here are some of my plans for what I’ll be reading throughout 2018.

  • More fiction. I’ve got no plans to stop or slow non-fiction, but aiming for a stronger fiction:non-fiction ratio than 5/72 this year.
  • More diverse reading covering a wider-range of topics.
  • More biographies.
  • More re-reading. I like new books as I get the joy of learning something new, but with all that I have read I have a really good idea of which books are worth re-reading. So, probably more than 6 re-reads in the next year.
  • Since in previous years I had read sooooo much on the topic, recently I’ve got away from reading much about strength and fitness. In 2018 I’ll bring it back in.
  • And since I’m having a baby, while I’ll shoot for 72 books or more, I fully recognize that I may not have as much reading time as I did in 2017. So I will be gentle with myself if my list next year is only half as big.
  • On that note I plan to be reading a few books about parenting too.

Jim Kwik, the memory expert, has said that “Readers are Leaders.” I fully embrace that statement. I feel like the reason I have been successful in many areas of life is because of my constant learning. Not only that, but I enjoy reading. When joy and learning go together big things can happen.

What about you? What are your reading plans for 2018?

How to Read 72 Books Per Year

Before we dive into the final bunch of books I read in 2017, I received this question from James that I’d like to cover:

“How did you manage to read that many books in one year and able to soak them all in?”

This is an excellent question, with multiple aspects to it.

First of all, reading is a habit for me. There are times when I get away from it, but I regularly read each day.

Secondly, I read quickly. I covered speedreading as one of the tools I use to learn fast here. 

As for my process, after I finish working for the day, I like to relax by reading. Although I’m underlining books, and sometimes taking notes, it’s much more passive than active to me, hence I find it a relaxing activity.

At any time I am typically reading 5-8 books, usually on different topics (like one business book, one health book, one fiction book, etc.). What I like to do, though this doesn’t happen every day, is to read one chapter of each. This keeps my interest up when otherwise just reading through one book, if it’s not exciting, might be a drag.

That being said, when I do find those fascinating books I do have times where I set aside all other books and purely focus on one.

On Sundays, which right now is usually my only day I take completely off of work, I spend more time reading than usual. I often aim to finish at least one book each week and would take the time on a Sunday to finish off one of my 5 to 8 I am reading.

As mentioned, I underline and take notes while reading. This helps to “soak it in.” And if I want more soaking I will review all my underlines and notes after finishing the book, and then something like a week to a month later. (This helps lock it in…which to be honest I don’t do as much as I’d like.)

As I said, reading is a habit for me. And it’s been a habit since back in high school. I’ve never stopped reading (as so many people do) so I’ve continually gotten better at doing it, by actually working to refine my process.

Guess what? Writing about it here has strengthened my process even more!

This is the last post covering the breakdown, by subject matter, of the 72 books I read last year. Previous articles here – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3.

Books about Writing

Writing Books

  1. Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner
  2. Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
  3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
  4. The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri

As I worked on my biggest book project ever, Powered By Nature, I felt like I was fully stepping into being an author. Yes, I had written books before, but I felt this was more as an info-publisher, for business, rather than as a real author. Everything I had done up to this point was self-published, with the exception of Mental Muscle, published by Dragondoor.

So, as I stepped more into being an author, I wanted to learn more about writing. As mentioned, I love Buhner’s work, reading three of his books this year. Rather than health and nature, in Ensouling Language he takes the same depth to the topic of writing.

All of the other three books I read about in Tools of Titans, recommended by one or more people. Very different, but each is good in its own way.

I thought Daily Rituals was fascinating as it looked at the creative habits of writers, artists and more of many famous people from history up to the present. Very interesting to see the differences, and also to help pin-point what works well for yourself.

Ancient Wisdom Books

Ancient Wisdom Books

  1. The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing
  2. The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
  3. Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Perry Marshall (author of Evolution 2.0 which I read this year) makes the point of reading books made before the printing press was invented. In order for those works to be preserved manual copying needed to be done. Lao Tzu and Musashi fit this. Goethe does not, though his writings certainly are older than every other book I read so I added it to this category.

Biography Books

Books Biography

  1. Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
  2. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
  3. The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
  4. Running Man by Charlie Engle

These books could have been added to other categories, such as business for Chouinard and Branson. Then self-help or business for Singer, as there are elements of both. Plus, I did put his other book The Untethered Soul in the former category.

Running Man, I’m not sure where I would put. There’s a fitness element, but largely that is not what the book is about. I met Charlie at an even and actually just interviewed him to dive deeper into Mental Toughness, which a man who ran across the Sahara desert certainly has! That will be released soon at Legendary Strength.

So, in this and the previous article I’ve covered each of these categories and the books in it.

  • Fiction (5 books)
  • Nature (9 books)
  • Shamanism (2 books)
  • Science/History (10 books)
  • Self-Help (8 books)
  • Business (13 books)
  • Health (9 books)
  • Biography (4 books)
  • Ancient Wisdom (3 books)
  • Writing (4 books)
  • Finances (5 books)

There is one last article to come, which will share a couple other ways I looked at these books, and my reading plans for 2018.

Health, Nature, Shamanism and Science Books

This is the ongoing analysis of the books I read over 2017. This title might seem like an odd grouping to most people, but there is actually a strong thread throughout.

First, if you missed the previous posts here they are:

Now, more on that strong thread…

A lot of what I read this year was to aid in the writing of my own book, still in the works, Powered By Nature. In the following lists, every italicized book title was quoted, referenced or otherwise utilized for this purpose. As you can see, across the four sections it’s most of them.

And really many of them could have been put in the other categories. You’ll see I actually did put Sheldrake into two different categories. Most of the nature books were heavy on science, and about the health impact of nature, which is the primary goal of my book too.

Nature Books

Nature Books

  1. The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
  2. The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
  3. What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
  4. Vitamin N by Richard Louv
  5. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
  6. The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
  7. The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
  8. The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
  9. Survival Handbook by Peter Darman

Buhner is one of my favorite authors. That’s also why I read his book about writing too. More on that later.

I won’t go into the amazing details of all these books. You’ll have to wait for Powered By Nature for that (or read all of these).

But I will mention The Bay Area Forager. Actually before I read this book I did a foraging class with Kevin Feinstein. That class, then using this book for more and as a resource guide, helped me up my foraging game in 2017, which should grow even stronger next year. I’m doing this as a way of building a closer connection to real food and where it comes from, especially in the wild.

Shamanism Books

Books Shamanic

  1. Psychonavigation by John Perkins
  2. Illumination by Alberto Villoldo

Seeing as I’ve traveled to both the Amazon jungle and Guatemala with him, I’ve read over half of John Perkins’ books. Very entertaining author with subjects that are important to me.

Science/History Books

Science Books

  1. The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
  2. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  3. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
  4. Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
  5. Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
  6. Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
  7. Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
  8. Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
  9. Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
  10. Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

One of the hardest chapters for me to write in Powered By Nature is the one about The Fall of Nature/The Rise of Scientism. It was Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set Free that opened my eyes to this idea, which I read the previous year. (The synopsis is materialism as a philosophy has a strangle hold on science and the worldview of many things and is not actually scientific in it’s approach.)

While Sapiens and Homo Deus are conventional science, everything else listed here is not. They either detail the problems of science, alternative (but superior and actually fitting the evidence better) theories, or both.

Evolution 2.0 looks at the whole idea of Darwinism vs. Creationism as a false divide, and what the evidence is actually showing.

Trust, Us We’re Experts is about how industries can muddy the scientific waters, and have done so over and over. Everyone knows that Big Tobacco did this. Few people realize how pervasive it has been in the past, and still is today.

Rigor Mortis covers the difficulties of scientific experiments, even when it is not purposefully mislead. From the conventional side of things, it still shows the major flaws in what we call science.

The Fourth Phase of Water shows just how wrong the conventional understanding of water is. Water! If we don’t have the most common and foundational molecule right, how much can we trust more advanced things?

Nor is it just science, but other fields like archaeology too, as covered in Magicians of the Gods, which shows a preponderance of evidence for rewriting human history from what we’re all taught as the mainstream view.

I am thoroughly enjoying this topic. The more I dig in the more I see how flawed so much that we accept without question is. Since we live in the “scientific age,” I feel this is must-have knowledge to be able to successfully navigate the world. I plan to write more about this topic in the future.

Health Books

Health Books

  1. Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
  2. The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
  3. Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
  4. King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
  5. Head Strong by Dave Asprey
  6. Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
  7. The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
  8. In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
  9. Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Once again, plenty of science in pretty much all these books. And the crossover between health and nature books is fairly arbitrary.

You’ll notice that a lot of them lean towards the high fat diet or ketosis. That’s something I’ve been exploring and is trendy now, so new books on the topic have been coming out and I’ve been reading them.

But these aren’t all diet books. Some are about things likes light and how it affects you, and movement.

There is one more post about the categories in books, then a final post covering a different way of look at the complete list, as well as thoughts on my reading for 2018.

Business, Financial and Self-Help Books

In the previous post, I listed out the 72 books that I read in 2017. In this post, I continue my analysis of them. I won’t address every book, more the groups of them, with some call-outs to the most impactful.

(That being said, if you have questions about any one, feel free to ask in the comments below.)

My biggest category was business…

13 Business Books

  1. The Great Disruption by Rick Smith with Mitch Free
  2. Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree
  3. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff and J.J. Sutherland
  4. Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
  5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
  6. Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
  7. Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
  8. Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
  9. The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
  10. Predictable Success by Les McKeown
  11. No by Jim Camp
  12. The Synergist by Les McKeown
  13. Key Performance Metrics by Bernard Marr

Business is a broad category, and these books run the gamut.

Predictable Success as the most impactful as it changed how I look at business, as well as giving a big picture gameplan that has already turned out useful. I wrote about Predictable Success in this previous post.

Though not on the same level, The Synergist, his follow-up title was also good.

Who by Smart and Street was another impactful read. This details an extensive hiring system, proven to work great, that we have starting using as best as we could at Lost Empire Herbs.

Another favorite was Hacking Marketing. This came right after Scrum and is about that same topic. However reading the former was more applicable to me, using it inside marketing team, rather than in software development, where it was created. This is still an aspirational read as we haven’t quite got there, but the idea of it excites me.

No by Jim Camp was another great one. Famous email marketer Ben Settle kept talking about it and I see why. I haven’t studied negotiation much at all. But I applied just a few principles from this book and landed a high-dollar client without really even trying, by going for the no.

5 Financial Books

In the past, as I detail in the introduction for my money system book, I’ve read a lot about the topic. Now, not so much. Most of these occurred after I had purchased a home and wanted to expand in some new areas.

  1. Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion by Napoleon Hill
  2. The Sale of a Lifetime by Harry S. Dent Jr.
  3. The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg
  4. Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
  5. Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark

Of these, The Last Safe Investment was the most different. Really the concepts transcend age, but especially for any young person looking for an alternative path the the classic college route, this would be a great read. This book challenges conventional wisdom, which makes it great (since so much convention is wrong).

8 Self-Help Books

Self Help Books

  1. The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
  2. The Book of Joy by Douglas Adams, Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
  3. How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
  4. Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
  5. Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
  6. Essentialism by Greg McKeown
  7. The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
  8. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

Looking at it again, I lumped all these into self-help when it really covers a wide variety of things.

Tools of Titans covers lots of major topics so I just lumped it in here. As that is a collection of wisdom from many people, distilled down, I found a lot of useful bits in there.

My favorite of this group was The Great Work of Your Life. This was recommended over and over by Yanik Silver. (Actually half of these books came from him and other Mavericks!) This book is great for you finding more of your purpose or calling in life. I will likely re-read this one over time as there are lots of great stories and ideas in it.

More next time…

I Read 72 Books in 2017

I’ve always been a reader (at least since I learned how).

If you like learning things, I think there is hardly a better way then to get someone’s distilled wisdom in a book. Being an author, I’m biased. But I think it was my love for reading that turned me onto writing in the first place.

My books. Pain in the ass to move, but great for learning.

Based on hearing some people talk about how many books they read in a year, I decided to actually keep track over 2017.

In the end I read 72 books!

This is cover to cover and this is actual reading. (For audio I tend to do podcasts, rather than audio books. Just a personal preference.)

I did not count any books that I only read part of.

I also did not count my own book, Powered By Nature, that I read countless times as I was writing and editing it either.

If you look through the list, you’ll see a fairly wide variety of topics, but certain focal points as well. In this and the following posts, I’m going to dive into my own analysis of this list.

The 72 Books I Read in 2017

This list is in chronological order of when I finished the books.

01 The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
02 The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
03 Psychonavigation by John Perkins
04 The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope
05 The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
06 Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion by Napoleon Hill
07 Ensouling Language by Stephen Harrod Buhner
08 Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
09 The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
10 The Great Disruption by Rick Smith with Mitch Free
11 The Book of Joy by Douglas Adams, Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
12 King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
13 The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
14 Illumination by Alberto Villoldo
15 Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! by Greg Crabtree
16 The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
17 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff and J.J. Sutherland
18 How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields
19 Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
20 Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker
21 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
22 The Tao of Power by Lao Tzu and R.L. Wing
23 Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
24 Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
25 Ilium by Dan Simmons
26 The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
27 The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
28 Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
29 What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
30 Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler & Jamie Wheal
31 Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
32 Vitamin N by Richard Louv
33 The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
34 Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
35 Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
36 Head Strong by Dave Asprey
37 Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
38 Maxims and Reflections by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
39 Daily Rituals by Mason Currey
40 Essentialism by Greg McKeown
41 The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
42 The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
43 Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
44 Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
45 Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
46 Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
47 The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
48 Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
49 In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
50 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
51 The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
52 Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
53 Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola
54 The Sale of a Lifetime by Harry S. Dent Jr.
55 The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
56 Olympos by Dan Simmons
57 Predictable Success by Les McKeown
58 No by Jim Camp
59 The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer
60 The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg
61 The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
62 Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson
63 Running Man by Charlie Engle
64 The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
65 The Synergist by Les McKeown
66 The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
67 Key Performance Metrics by Bernard Marr
68 Survival Handbook by Peter Darman
69 Buffettology by Mary Buffett and David Clark
70 Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
71 Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
72 Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

In breaking down these into categories I come up first with the following:

  • Fiction (5 books)
  • Non-Fiction (67 books)

The five fiction books are:

  1. The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
  2. The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
  3. The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  4. Ilium by Dan Simmons
  5. Olympos by Dan Simmons

You’ll notice Dan Simmons features prominently on this list. These are 3 of his science fiction books (The Rise of Endymion being the final book of 4 in the Hyperion series). The Ilium and Olympos being a two part series. Amazing writer! I was recommended his work last year and glad I read it. Will probably read more from him in 2018.

I kept hearing about The Alchemist so I finally got it and read it. It’s a good parable. Didn’t do a whole lot for me.

The Man in High Castle was probably the only book I read on Kindle this year. I liked the movies based on Dick’s work, but this was my first time reading him.

Overall, I feel this is too little on the fiction side. In the coming year I’ll aim to increase the ratio somewhat.

In the next post, I’ll be going over the non-fiction breakdowns.

  • Nature (9 books)
  • Shamanism (2 books)
  • Science/History (10 books)
  • Self-Help (8 books)
  • Business (13 books)
  • Health (9 books)
  • Biography (4 books)
  • Ancient Wisdom (3 books)
  • Writing (4 books)
  • Finances (5 books)

How many books did you read this year? Answer in the comments below…

Mental Accounting and Different Perceptions of Money

We continue in The Money System That Never Fails with Mental Accounting and Different Perceptions of Money

If you missed the first few of parts you can view them here:

  1. Introduction
  2. Money Offense and Money Defense
  3. Most Important Part of the Money System

One of my favorite books on money is Inside-Out Wealth, by L. Michael Hall. Hall is one of the best writers and teachers of NLP (Neuro linguistic programming). In this book, he details his journey to making millions and applying the methods of NLP modelling to look at it. It is a detailed and complex book, but worth spending time with.

Inside Out Wealth

Money and wealth are both abstract words. While a hundred-dollar bill is something you can carry, “money” itself isn’t. Even more so in this day and age, our money is simply digits on a screen. There isn’t “your cash” sitting inside of a bank vault somewhere. (For every dollar in the bank, in the USA, they’re only required by law to keep 10 cents there.)

Thus, when two people speak about “wealth” they can have very different numbers in their head of what that looks like. Ultimately, there are different images, sounds and feelings that go along with that wealthy lifestyle too.

When we say money, what kind of money are we referring too? We already covered four different types: income, expenses, savings and investments. When you hear or read those words, you may picture those quite differently than if I say “money”.

This is why it is important to get to concrete numbers in your planning. Further, with money we can attach all sorts of other meanings. The chart on the following page comes from Hall’s book, showcasing different frames of money we humans tend to think in.

Have you ever got a bonus or tax refund and felt you deserved something special? Contrast this to your normal income and you can see we easily think about money differently.

How much easier is it to put something on a credit card than to pay with actual cash?

That we treat different types of money differently shouldn’t surprise us. But most people miss this critical distinction. In the end, you shouldn’t fight this. Instead, harness and use it in a systematic way.

Inside Out Wealth Different Kinds of Money

Since we put money into different mental accounts, it’s just a part of human nature and how we think, why don’t we just extend this to physical accounts too? Almost every writer or speaker on the topic of wealth discusses this. Why? Because it works. Find the right model, the right amount and purposes of accounts to suit you.

For the reasons just discussed, it is important to match the real world to your thoughts. We do this by actually setting up different bank accounts for different purposes.

Money that gets commingled gets spent in commingled ways. If both serious and fun money are in the same account, you’ll have no idea which is which. Separate accounts allow you to easily and without effort separate out what that money is for. It gives the money an explicit purpose as is defined by what the account is for.

Ease of use and transferring is important. While we’ll address the specific cases in which you might want money to be hard to access, in general, you want it to be easy.

First, we’ll cover the essential accounts. Then, we’ll move onto the optional accounts. Later on, in the book, we’ll address business accounts. (Even if you don’t own a business, this still might interest you for someday, or just to see the same principles working in something bigger.)

The Money System That Never Fails is now available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.The_Money_System_That_Never_Fails_Cover