Here are the books that have guided my education through the years … I hope some of my readers find them useful in their own journey

Note- Most links here lead to the books in Amazon’s catalog. I recommend researching them on Amazon and buying them from your nearest bookstore.

Personal Development

How To Stop Worrying And Start Living (Amazon Link)
This is the only book in the world that I religiously read every single month. And although the book is now 80 years old, I can still read it every month and feel like it was written yesterday. Stress, Anxiety and Worry are an inevitable side-effect of an Entrepreneur’s lifestyle … and learning to overcome these challenges is a necessary part of everyone’s journey to success.

Master Your Mind, Design Your Destiny (Amazon link, also available at most Singapore bookstores)
I’m a NLP practitioner and can truly say that it has transformed my life for the better. For those who haven’t heard of it, NLP is the science of performance - how to control your body & mind to achieve more.This is probably the best summary of how individuals can get more out of their own lives. Plus, it’s written by one of my personal mentors - Adam Khoo.

Body For Life (Amazon Link)
Success comes with a price. And in today’s world, for most of us, our health suffers because of our schedules. And I never even realized this until I read this book - It is by far, the most inspiring book ever written on how to use small changes in your life to dramatically improve your health.

Marketing Classics

Scientific Advertising & My Life In Advertising (Amazon link here, but also available on the Internet for free)
Claude Hopkins’ two books may be 83 years old, but they’re still the favourite books of every successful direct marketer. The awesome principles he outlines are so timeless, that they are just as applicable in 2006, as they were in 1923. The books are slightly dry at times, but absolutely essential for any marketing student to pick up.

Guerilla Marketing (Amazon Link)
There is a fundamental difference between corporations do marketing … and startups/small businesses are forced to do marketing. And nobody teaches us this difference in college. Jay Conrad Levinson’s puts his 40 years of Low-cost, high-impact marketing into this very well written book.

Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got (Amazon Link)
Yet another timeless book .. This time from Jay Abraham - the world’s highest paid Marketing Consultant. This is actually really not a book on marketing specifics, but more on how to structure your business and sales process to maximize your sales. You should read this if you haven’t started a business yet, or are open to some major restructuring.

Sales Copywriting, Web Content and Usability Design

Net Words: Creating High Impact Web Copy (Amazon link)
My favourite book on writing for the web. It is warm, snappy and contains many many valuable lessons. Creates fantastic tips on how to write content that’s readable and informative. A must read if you have to maintain or create a website at any time! It’s full of examples that show that having a different voice, and not sticking to the typical formulaic messages … makes the difference between in a bad website, and a good one.
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Amazon link)
This is the single best book on website design. Period. Whether you’re a copywriter, manager or webmaster, you must use the basic principles in this book to modify your copy for maximum usability. Please stop reading this page, and go buy this book from your nearest bookstore. And make sure every techie, nerd and manager in your office reads it.

Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time (Amazon link)
This book is a little different from the above two … it is actually not revolutionary. It just collects the best principles of copywriting from the last 100 years and presents them for online copywriting. Contains lots and lots of time-tested strategies with examples and screenshots of places they’ve worked. Should definitely be in your arsenal.

Internet Marketing (General Guides)

The Insider’s Guide to Marketing Your Business On the Internet (Manufacturer’s Website)
This isn’t exactly a book … it is a 600 page course on every single aspect of Internet Marketing. If you are just begining in Internet Marketing … this is simply the most exhaustive collection of Internet marketing strategies (probably also the best value - Internet Marketing course).

John Reese’s “Traffic Secrets”
This video course is not for the faint at heart. The 8 DVDs + 7 CDs cost a whopping US$997! But if you already making a tidy profit from your website, and you need the resources to go from Good to Great - then this is possibly the best course on specific Internet Marketing tactics any business can adopt. This was also the first course in the world to sell US$1 million in a single day.