Dan Martell - November 16, 2015


5 Books That Changed My Entrepreneurial Life


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

214.52577

Word count

1,149

Sentence count

65


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about the 5 books that have most impacted my life and how they have changed my life. These are the books that I ve read and the people that have inspired me along my journey.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.360 Five books that changed my life.
00:00:02.820 You know, I get asked all the time,
00:00:04.360 Dan, you talk about reading,
00:00:05.880 but what are the books that you've read
00:00:07.060 that have really impacted your life?
00:00:08.180 That's what I wanna share with you guys in this video.
00:00:11.040 You know, I remember it was, I was 23 years old,
00:00:14.160 living in Ottawa, working for the government.
00:00:16.820 I didn't have a business, I was just consulting on contract.
00:00:20.440 And I had previously tried building two companies
00:00:23.280 and completely failed.
00:00:24.400 17, I started Maritime Vacation.
00:00:26.180 Then I did again with NB Host when I was like 19.
00:00:29.060 and then I was just doing contract work,
00:00:31.320 trying to find my way, and everybody kept saying,
00:00:33.760 you gotta read books.
00:00:36.040 So I was just so not a reader.
00:00:38.140 At that point, I never read a book in my whole life,
00:00:40.120 and I figured I was sitting there at this place
00:00:41.880 called the Rideau Centre, and there was a Chapters,
00:00:43.980 which is a Canadian version of Indigo Books,
00:00:46.280 and I walked in, and I said, all right,
00:00:48.380 let's look at these books.
00:00:49.660 And I was so not a reader that my first book
00:00:53.760 was an audio book, and it was the title that got me,
00:00:57.240 but it literally changed my life.
00:00:59.200 I listened to it, I pretty much binge listened to it
00:01:01.220 over the next three to four days
00:01:02.380 and that's what I wanna share with you
00:01:04.120 because that sent me down a trajectory
00:01:05.700 and a path that really changed my life.
00:01:07.420 I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the books
00:01:09.200 and the people that inspired me along my journey
00:01:12.140 and that first book and it's the first one
00:01:13.860 I wanna share with you guys out of the top five
00:01:15.580 is called Love is a Killer App by Tim Sanders.
00:01:19.060 What an amazing book and really to me
00:01:21.380 it was the right book that I needed to read
00:01:23.220 at that moment in my life.
00:01:24.760 Tim argued that you needed to acquire knowledge
00:01:27.180 and really for yourself and your customers.
00:01:29.900 He talked about your network as your net worth.
00:01:32.340 And then he also shared his ideas around being a love cat
00:01:35.160 or somebody that gave value
00:01:36.480 and was just a good person in the world.
00:01:38.280 And I really resonated with me
00:01:39.620 and I pretty much took what he said in those books
00:01:41.980 and just did it.
00:01:42.720 So that was the first book.
00:01:43.600 The second one that really had the big impact on me
00:01:46.340 was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
00:01:49.180 As I kept reading other books,
00:01:51.060 they kept referencing this one.
00:01:53.320 I don't know if you guys have heard of it,
00:01:54.400 But it is arguably the first and the oldest personal development book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
00:02:00.740 And in there, the chapter that really kind of resonated the most with me was the chapter on finding a partner
00:02:06.660 and how valuable and important it was to find somebody that would support you and be on the shared journey to build a better life.
00:02:14.880 You know, so Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich, number two, top most important, change my life kind of books in my personal journey.
00:02:22.820 The number three is Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins.
00:02:26.180 I don't know if you guys have ever listened.
00:02:27.560 I listened to the audio book again.
00:02:28.940 It took me a while to finally figure out how to read books.
00:02:32.260 But that book, I remember I was driving for 12 hours
00:02:35.160 from where I lived in New Brunswick, Canada, to Montreal City.
00:02:40.060 And it was almost like, it was the perfect book for me to read at that moment.
00:02:45.100 I was just kind of really questioning myself.
00:02:47.640 I was starting to build my company.
00:02:48.920 I didn't know how to really do it.
00:02:50.180 And it was all these limiting beliefs that Tony really talked about in Awaken the Giant Within.
00:02:55.320 So I want to share that one.
00:02:56.420 That was number three.
00:02:57.660 Really, truly transformational book for me.
00:02:59.880 Number four, another one that just really took things to the next level was The E-Myth by Michael Gerber.
00:03:05.680 If you've never read it, it's all about Sarah's Pies.
00:03:08.440 And his argument is you want to build a franchise prototype.
00:03:11.720 So maybe you've heard of franchise systems.
00:03:13.420 And even if you have no aspiration whatsoever to build a business to be a franchise,
00:03:18.120 thinking of the way to build those businesses
00:03:19.940 because many of the biggest companies in the world
00:03:22.640 are franchises, McDonald's, et cetera.
00:03:25.400 So he talked about building systems,
00:03:27.480 repeatable, scalable systems.
00:03:29.400 And as a computer geek, that's kind of my background,
00:03:32.240 it resonated with me.
00:03:33.420 So number four is The E-Myth by Michael Gerber,
00:03:36.640 change the way I build companies
00:03:38.300 and just look at strategy in general.
00:03:40.400 And number five, one of the most impactful,
00:03:44.460 when I think of just like continuously week after week,
00:03:47.460 thinking and implementing the strategy is a book called Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.
00:03:52.300 That book, as an introverted, nerdy, not outgoing geek that used to sit there and write code,
00:03:58.600 that book argued that I really needed to start surrounding myself with other people that were
00:04:03.320 going to support me in my mission. And getting out and breaking bread and bringing people together
00:04:09.040 was just such a light way and simple way of doing it. It's something that I continue to do. When I
00:04:13.380 travel, I organize breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Every week, minimum, I organize a
00:04:17.540 founder's lunch. All taught to me over 10 years ago by Keith Ferrazzi's book, Never Eat Alone.
00:04:22.480 So again, I want to recap the top five books that have meaningfully changed my life. And I've read
00:04:26.740 hundreds of books over the years, but these are the five. When I think about it, they really stand
00:04:30.940 out. Number one is Love is a Killer App by Tim Sanders. Then it's Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon
00:04:37.800 Three is Awaken the Giant by Tony Robbins.
00:04:40.500 Four is The E-Myth by Michael Gerber.
00:04:43.280 And five is Never Eat Alone by Keith Frazzi.
00:04:46.500 And if you asked me, if you forced me,
00:04:49.040 and you twisted my arm to pick a number six,
00:04:52.300 I'm gonna throw out there Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
00:04:56.020 From a marketing point of view, pound for pound,
00:04:58.220 if you get that right about building a business
00:05:00.680 that's remarkable, then everything else
00:05:02.460 takes care of itself.
00:05:03.440 I wanna thank you guys for watching this video.
00:05:05.700 I wanna ask you guys to subscribe to the feed
00:05:07.780 and share this video.
00:05:08.820 If you know that there's somebody out there
00:05:10.040 that's struggling to even start to read,
00:05:12.380 share this video with them
00:05:13.420 so that they can maybe get inspired
00:05:15.340 by some of my selections.
00:05:16.840 And I wanna challenge you guys again
00:05:18.480 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,
00:05:20.540 and I'll see you next Monday.