You Can Do It Too, Rachel Bridge

Published by Kogan Page

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Success tips

Rachel Bridge is the Enterprise Editor for The Sunday Times and she has already written two best sellers on the topic of entrepreneurial success – How I Made It and My Big Idea.

In her previous books she documented 70 successful entrepreneurs and their ideas. Here she looks at ‘20 essential things every budding entrepreneur should know’.

Chapter by chapter she explores these essentials, illustrating them with examples from successful business peoples’ experiences. Each chapter culminates in a more detailed success story in which a self-made millionaire emphasises the ‘lesson’.

Many of the fabulously successful featured will be familiar names, for instance James Murray Wells of Glasses Direct and Hilary Devey of Pall-Ex who featured recently in The Secret Millionaire on Channel 4.

Sometimes of course she states the blindingly obvious - for example, you need to know what you are trying to achieve or you should be careful who you take on as partners – but other chapters reveal things that may not instantly come to mind in the flush of entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

There is also a heartening tailpiece that completely goes against much of the advice given. Edward Perry persevered with his ready-meals company Cook against all the signs that it was a loser – his family didn’t want to invest, the banks turned him down and his first attempts were, by his own admission, ‘terrible’. But he believed in his idea and soldiered on. He now has 21 shops and a projected £18 million turnover for 2008.

Once again Ms Bridge has written a highly interesting and, for the budding entrepreneur, valuable book.

Success. The best of Napoleon Hill, Patricia G Horan

Published by Vermillion

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Updated guide from the master

Napoleon Hill was the granddaddy of the personal success movement. An international best-selling author, his books have never been out of print and many, if not most, of today’s personal development gurus owe their incomes to his ideas.

Patricia Horan has combined several of Napoleon’s winning formulae to produce seventeen ‘key laws of success’. Oh well, it makes a change from the more usual seven laws/habits/strategies of this and that.

There is nothing new in this book, but the old ideas are somewhat refreshed by the attentions of a 21st century eye. A useful addition for a collector of such ‘wisdom’ and a very good introduction for someone new to the field, it contains such hardy perennials as
• The Master Mind – group effort outpulls solo slogging
• Having a goal – if you don’t know where you are going …
• Imagination – the starting point for everything
• Overdelivering – surprise and delight your customers
• Learning from your mistakes – failure is the best teacher
• And a lot more.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think it makes a worthy companion to the Master’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D Wattles

Buy it now for $1!

Long before Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) was even a twinkle in anyone's eye, Wallace Wattles (you couldn't make up a name like that, could you?) was busy scribbling away at what would become his most popular work.

Born in Illinois shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Wattles lived much of his life in poverty, yet mysteriously he died a wealthy man. He attributed his riches to his discovery of the principles outlined in this book.

So is this simply another self-delusional piece of new age fluff aimed at the lazy and the greedy? Maybe not! Certainly, when you boil down Wattles' recipe it seems to be simple enough; decide exactly what you want, keep it in the forefront of your mind at all times, believe you will achieve it. Plus one other vital ingredient - do something about it! The twist from Wattles is that he claims his methods guarantee success, and he himself is the proof.

Published a year before his death in 1911, Wattles' book long predates other self-help gurus such as Napoleon Hill, W Clement Stone, Norman Vincent Peale and, of course, Rhonda Byrne.

The outstanding merit of Wattles' work is its brevity. He says much that the other say (have copied from him?) but has his own endearing style.

Worth a look - even if only from curiosity to see what an original has to say.

50 Prosperity Classics, Tom Butler-Bowdon

Published by Nicholas Brealey

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

How to attract, create, manage and share prosperity

Well, he’s done it again! How he manages to read so many books is a mystery. This is the fifth of his ‘Classics’ books which means 250 leading examples of self-help, success, spirituality, psychology and now prosperity manuals neatly summarised for us.

How many books must Tom have read to distil these collections? Thousands is the answer; and we should be truly glad that he has because this series represents an invaluable short–cut for the seeker of enlightenment.

With regard to the latest entrant, it is a cornucopia of wisdom expertly appraised and delivered in a digestible format. From world famous classics of the genre to obscure ‘worst sellers'; from Carnegie and Hill to Branson and Trump, Tom Butler-Bowdon has scoured them all to bring us this invaluable reference work.

Treat it with respect. It will point you to those authors who speak your language; those writings that could spark off your own innate ability to create for yourself a prosperous life in all senses.

I really can’t put it better than John Randolph Price (one of whose books features so maybe he has an axe to grind), “A treasure chest of golden nuggets to use in realising a life more abundant.”

Your Money and Your Brain, Jason Zweig

Published by Souvenir Press

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Subconscious triggers that control investment behaviour

Who’d have thought it – neuroscience can make you a more successful investor!

This fascinating, though not always easy, book attempts to explain the weirdness of the stock market and those who invest in it from the standpoint of evolutionary biology and psychology.

Apparently, our human proclivity for finding patterns even when none exist causes us awful problems as we try to predict what is coming next for our stocks. Equally, rationality and emotion, wrongly mixed, can be disastrous.

With the help of brain scans and interviews with scientists at the forefront of neurological research, Mr Zweig shows why we over-estimate gains and minimise possible losses as we decide how to build our portfolios. )At the same time I found he opens up some interesting possibilities that have nothing at all to do with investing.)

So if you want to know why you keep taking profits too early and hang on to crashing stocks too long or you’d like to learn how being happy can make you richer I suggest invest (geddit?) in a copy soon. Your bank balance may appreciate (sorry!) as you “become a smarter more successful investor the neuroscience way.”