So there are many great books out there for any entrepreneur to read in general, but I chose 10 specific books for young or teenage entrepreneurs to read. And I chose 10 different subjects and topics for you to read and study before you become an entrepreneur or if you're already on the journey of becoming an entrepreneur. So, with that being said, the 10 topics will be very simple. Clarity, economy, enemy, your inspiration, strategy, playing hurt, long-term thinking, discipline, system and being duplicatable, and innovation. So with that being said, let's get right into it.
10-Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The book is by Peter Drucker, Its title is Innovation and Entrepreneurship And Peter Drucker in general he has a lot of great books for you to read. If you study Peter Drucker, you will learn a ton about hiring, firing, marketing, strategy, advertising. I don't agree with everything he believes in, but he has a lot of great things that will make you think and get creative about what is the formula to being innovative or creative, all this other stuff that different people have used in the past. He covers that in the book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
9-Made in America
Is a book on system, and duplicatable. Let me tell you why I think it's very important for a teenage or young entrepreneur to read a book on this and that book is Made in America. It's the story of Sam Walton. The reason why I love Sam Walton the most when I talk to a young or teenage entrepreneur, the reason why I think it's the best book for you to read or study, the best person to study, here's a guy named Sam Walton. There was nothing special about him. In 1962 it was the year of the super discount stores. That's when K-Mart was founded. Wal-Mart was founded. Target. All of these guys all got started in 1962. And Sam Walton used to own one of these Franklin stores and then he started Wal-Mart. In the first five years K-Mart opens up 250 stores and Wal-Mart only opened nine stores. Fast forward to today. K-Mart's out of business. Wal-Mart's got 2.2 million employees worldwide. He has four kids. Each of them are worth a minimum of $40 billion, today. If he was alive today he would be worth $160, two and a half times Bill Gates. So you want to study Sam Walton because there's nothing special about the guy. He's not somebody where you may study someone and that guy's an absolute genius. Sam Walton was a simple guy who was a hard worker and he always looked for ways to make his business better. So Made in America for me would be number nine on the list. I almost thought about putting it in the top five but it's number nine on the list, with systems and duplicatable.
8-Lean Startup
For discipline, I chose Lean Startup. Lean Startup teaches you when you're younger and you're just looking at business, thinking I can't believe if I could only get some money for my mom, my dad, some investor, some venture capital angel that gives me a quarter million dollars, I can start my own business. And you haven't yet tasted the idea of making your money. If you truly are an entrepreneur watching this, and you're 13, I guarantee you've made some kind of money. You've sold cookies, shirts, something you've sold. If your blood, if you're one of these folks that's an absolute entrepreneur since you were a kid, you probably already sold something. If you're someone that's going to be an accidental entrepreneur from watching something like this, and you become inspired by it, you got to learn some of those concepts of making the money and how to stay lean so that you can turn this $200 into $400. And money's all about doubling your money. So how can I make this $400 into $800? $800 into $1600 $1600, $3200, $6400, $12,000, $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, 200, 400 million dollars. That's a Lean Startup, it teaches you how to stay very disciplined.
7-Snowball
Long-term thinking is a think that a lot of young and teenage entrepreneurs, especially today, you need. I'll tell you why today. Many, many years ago, when there was no social media or YouTube, or Instagram or Snapchat, people weren't as much in a hurry or impatient as they are today. So for long-term thinking, I chose Snowball by Warren Buffett because even though Warren Buffett today is worth 60, 70 billion dollars, at 52, he was only worth $50 million. Now you may say, "$50 million is a lot of money." Not compared to $60 billion. So he went from 52 years old at $50 million to now having $60 billion. It requires a lot of long-term thinking. I think one of the best places I went, I went to Venice, Italy. One church I went to that was 330 years old. And when you were reading the story of it, it took 80 years to build. And the man who designed this thing to build, he knew he was 50 years old, what he wrote up, he's never going to see the final product. And most likely, his kids are never going to see the final product. The only people that were going to see the final product was his grandkids. When you study Warren Buffett, you will learn about long-term thinking where it may be helping you in some of the decisions you make, about hurrying, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. You become aggressively patient. You're still aggressive. But you're patient for your business to be built. It's a very important concept to pick up as a young, teenage entrepreneur.
6-Obstacle is the Way
Playing hurt, I chose Obstacle is the Way which is a great book by Ryan Holiday. In this book, he explains to you the concept of stoicism. And stoicism is a philosophy that was born from cynicism. A lot of times we call people cynics. The word, "cynic" comes from cynicism. Cynicism used to be a philosophy of people who would sit around and they would say, "Nothing good's going to happen. If your wife's going to leave you, odds are she's going to leave you. If you get sick, odds are, you're going to die. Everything was cynical. So they had this philosophy cynicism and one of the members of cynicism was a guy named Seneca. He said, "I just can't listen to this crap anymore" and he started stoicism. And the first major leader in the world that picked up stoicism and took it to a whole different level was Marcus Aurelius who wrote the book Meditations. He took stoicism to a whole different level. And he ran Rome, he was the emperor for seven years. He was loved, adored, everybody loved this guy, Marcus Aurelius. And Ryan Holiday takes that concept of stoicism and explains it in today's world of business. And he explains to you that challenges are going to happen but the obstacle is the way. I think a lot of times young, or teenage entrepreneurs, the moment you face one challenge or one issue that comes up people get too distracted. Oh, you know it's not for me, I can't do it. Which in reality, obstacles are never going to stop. The moment you identify that, and you know that's a part of life, you will look at obstacles in a complete different way. So Ryan Holiday's book The Obstacle is the Way is number 6.
5-Blue Ocean Strategy
Strategy For a 14-year-old, you'll look at everything and you'll look at it from a different lens than a 38-year-old looks at, or even a 68-year-old or even a 24-year-old. You're looking at it from a complete different lens. Because your generation is changing so quickly, with everything, Snap changes everything, Instagram changed everything, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, everything's changed. You have a lot more access to content today. I didn't grow up watching games on a iPad, and my kids do. I didn't grow up with any of this stuff. I went to school and we had to go to a library to do research on something with newspapers. Today you Google. I didn't go to high school with Google being around ever for me. We didn't experience Google myself. We had AOL chat that came out late in my senior year of high school So when I went to the Army, I still listened to Walkman. When I got out of the Army, it was the first time I listened to CDs. And then most of you don't even know what a CD looks like. Or a Walkman looks like, right? That's what we experienced. So for strategy, Blue Ocean Strategy is going to help your mind think about ways of doing business better that maybe a millennial or a gen x may not even think about. You're going to see things from a complete different lens. So if you can get the strategy down on how it's done, you'll have an edge on everybody else. So Blue Ocean Strategy, a phenomenal book for you to read. I put that as number five.
4-Elon Musk
Inspiration is Elon Musk, the book is called Elon Musk. It's written by an author who chased him down and said, you're either going to let me come and interview you, or if you don't, I'm going to write you based on what other people say about you vs. I can come and interview you and I can tell you what other people told me about you and then you can verify it and give me your story of the version and I'll tell both stories. And Elon agreed. So the author went and interviewed and wrote the book. It's a phenomenal book, good, bad ugly. And you see how this kid was grown, how he was raised and how he viewed things and what books he read growing up and why he was so turned on my certain things and who was his uncle, his father, his parents and what kind of an impact that made in the way he was raised. It's just a very good book to read as a source of inspiration.
3-Outwitting the Devil
Enemy. You need to know your enemy very, very early on. And the book I'm going to recommend on enemy is called Outwitting the Devil. Outwitting the Devil was a book written by Napoleon Hill. I want to say 1929, 1930 that he didn't publish at that time, and years later the book was published by a lady named Sharon Lechter. I think it's Sharon Lechter that the book was published by. And the first time I read this book, I'm going to tell you a funny story. I read this book literally at the bar of PF Changs, on my iPad. The book had just come out, a couple of weeks prior to that. I sat there, and I read the book in one sitting because I couldn't get up. I couldn't get up. I called and I said, "I've got to finish this book." And I finished the book. One by one by one I was going through it and said, everybody needs to read this book, especially the younger generation. So Outwitting the Devil will be your number one enemy. You've got to read that. That will be the number three book.
2- Atlas Shrugged
Economy and I was kind of conflicted on what book to recommend on economy. I think the best book that I can recommend to you on economy is not necessarily like here, go read capitalism, socialism, communism and realize what it is to hire this person, fire this person, why you got to let go of this person, why you want to associate with this. Why do some people become wealthy and some don't. Who do some countries produce more successful people than others. Why do certain philosophies work and don't work. So the book I recommend here for you to read for economy is by Ayn Rand. It's called Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged. Now there's two ways you can do it. You can actually read the book. It's a big book. It will change the way you view everything in life. It's a big book if you read it. And if you don't want to read it, you can listen to it. There's an audio version of it as well. But regardless, it will change the way you view every single thing. You're going to think about John Galt in a different way, you're going to look at the economy in a different way. You're going to look at the people you work with, the friends, family, parents, teachers - you're going to look at everything in a completely different lens when you read this book, Atlas Shrugged. She wrote two books, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I recommend Atlas Shrugged over Fountainhead.
1-Drop Out and Get Schooled
And number one is clarity. And I was debating on which book to read, put this for clarity, and the reason why I think clarity I put it in number one is because when you're in school, and you don't really know what you want out of life, and everybody is telling you how you need to live. You need to go to college, get a degree because if you get this. . you'll be successful. You need to go out there and do this, and you're still gullible enough or naive enough, where somebody else can persuade you otherwise. So what I'm going to recommend you is a complete 180 of what everybody else is going to recommend, and I'm doing that intentionally. I'm telling you this in advance, in case you choose to share this list with your parents, which is even a better idea. I'm intentionally wanting to give you the complete opposite argument, because I know you're not hearing it. For you to get clarity. See, if you're raised in a family where everybody is teaching you capitalism all the time, I want you to study socialism and communism to know the opposite. If you're in a family that's raised communism and socialism all the time, and everybody's a Democrat, I need you to study the complete opposite side because I want complete opposite arguments for me to see both sides. I like that. I want to see the complete opposite. If I'm born in a family where parents say rich people are bad people, I want to know why they're saying it, so I want to know why rich people say poor people are lazy and why are poor people saying rich people are greedy. I want both arguments. If I only take one argument, I'm naive. So I'm giving you the second argument of school, and the number one book I'm recommending to you is a book called Drop Out and Get Schooled. I literally just published it last week. On January 25th the book got published. And we've gotten thousands of emails about this book. It's created a lot of heat and controversy around the world, not just in America. It's a simple book to read. It's not a long book. There's a 130-some pages. And it answers the following questions for you. #1 is why do we go to college in the first place? No one even asks that question. Why do you go to college? #2: Who should go to college and who shouldn't? #3: Can I succeed and do great things without college? #4: Why does tuition and textbooks cost as much as they do? #5: How colleges have simply become a big, tax-free business. #6: Are the subjects taught in college sufficient for life or do we need an upgrade? This book is specifically dedicated to all the teenage entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs who are somewhat conflicted and confused. What do I do? I'm 14-years-old. I'm in 10th grade. I'm in 9th grade. Do I go to college? I'm a senior. Do I go to college or not? This will answer the questions. I want to tell you one thing here as well. The moment you read this book, mark my words. You're going to share with your friends, your family, your teachers. I challenge you to give it to people who would disagree with this, to give you their argument. That's what I would challenge you to do. Read it first. Then go to every single one of your teachers and say, "Have you read this book yet? It's causing a ton of havoc. I need you to read it, and give me your feedback because I'm truly thinking about dropping out of college, not going to college after high school. Should I, or should I not? And let them give you their argument. Let your parents give you their argument on the book here. So this will give you clarity and that's why I put Drop Out and Get Schooled first place. Now some may say, "Pat, you chose your own book as first place?" I did. And the reason why I did is because everything in life - where were we this past weekend? We were in Ft. Worth. We had 3,000 of our agents come in and had Magic Johnson as one of our keynote speakers he came out and we interviewed him. Then we got on a private jet. I took 18 of our friends to Vegas. We went and had a good time there in Vegas. We watched Tiesto. And then we came back the following day. We stayed at the Palms Executive - what do you call it? The old Playboy Penthouse. It's a beautiful place. You go in the pool and come out, it's like a drop. You look down. Elevators in the Penthouse. It's just a beautiful place. And somebody asked me the question and they said, "Pat, if you had to say the number one thing for success, what would it be?" I said, "Clarity." Clarity. All this other stuff is fine. That person can be very innovative, but not be clear about their lives. A person can be very systematic and duplicatable, but they don't know don't know what they want out of their lives. A person can have a lot of discipline, but they're still not clear. A person can be long-term thinking, but they're still not clear what life they want to build. A person can be. but are still not clear about what they want to do with their lives. And at your age, the sooner you can get clarity, the sooner you have an edge on everybody else.
So, these are the ten books. This is the challenge I want to give you here on this list. The moment you finish any one of the books, you order and you finish any one of the books. And any time you read a book, post a review on Amazon if you have any other books that we should add to this list, comment on the bottom,and thank you so much.
