Books we’ve been reading this year

For something different this week, I thought I’d share with you some of the books I’ve been reading over 2017. Some of you may know we’re big readers, always looking for the next new idea to move our business forward or improve what we do for our clients.

The New Gold Standard – Joseph Michelli

This book by the people at the Ritz Carlton hotel group is all about creating an amazing client experience. We were prompted to learn more about this when we heard the story about Joshie the lost giraffe – even if you don’t buy the book, this shorter article is definitely worth a read.

The Investment Answer – Dan Goldie & Gordon Murray

This one’s been around for a while but we re-visited it this year as we were looking for an investment book to share with clients. Dan is an ex-professional tennis player. He actually beat Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon in 1989! Today he’s a very successful financial planner based in California. This short book (it’s only about 80 pages) mirrors our own investment philosophy and is a useful and easy read for those wanting to learn more about evidence-based investing.

Unshakeable – Tony Robbins

Many people know of Tony Robbins as a world-famous motivational speaker and mentor to the stars. What you might not realise is that in the last few years, he has taken a real interest in personal financial planning and investment management. This book builds on the principles of his earlier book, Money: Master the Game which is a much longer read. Like us, he also has some pretty strong views on how active fund managers consistently underperform the market.

The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod

The Miracle Morning shows how a morning routine built around 6 key practices; silence, affirmations, visualisation, exercise, reading and scribing – can help you get more done and live your best life. It’s tough and means getting up really early, so the good habits fell away to nothing pretty quickly! Maybe one for the 2018 resolutions.

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management – Kevin Kruse

I came across this book when someone recommended I listen to Kevin’s podcasts. It’s a summary of his research into the time management skills of some of the world’s most successful people. I liked this one so much the whole team read it, sharing our thoughts in our weekly team meetings. I’ve been working on keeping the first two hours of the day free for my ’most important tasks’ and scheduling all my to-dos rather than keeping a list.

What the Heck is EOS? – Gino Wickman & Tom Bouwer

EOS is the Entrepreneurs Operating System. We’ve been running our business on EOS for over 4 years, since we read the original book – Traction. Level 10 meetings, Weekly Scorecards and the Vision/Traction Organiser have all become part of the Cooper Parry language. This follow-up is a great read for employees of companies who follow the EOS model. If you’re a business owner, I’d recommend first taking a look at Traction by the same author.

Enough – Paul Armson

Paul Armson is a former financial planner, now an industry speaker and consultant who, like us, promotes lifestyle financial planning. The most important thing about financial planning is understanding your required lifestyle and whether you have too much, too little, or just enough. Where most advisers get it wrong is that they think clients are interested in the products. A few of our clients have told us that the book really helped them focus on what is important to them.

Find Your Why – Simon Sinek

Many of you will have seen Simon’s famous TED talk, or read his 2011 book, Start With Why. This follow-up is more practical and shows an individual or a business how you can discover your why by following some simple steps. Incidentally, Cooper Parry’s why is to Disrupt, to Lead and to Make Life Count.

Odds On – Matt Hall

Another investment book, autobiographical in style, telling the story of how an advisor became disillusioned with Wall Street and stumbled on the emerging evidence-based investing world; similar to our own story at Cooper Parry Wealth! By chance I bumped into Matt at a conference in California, where we talked about him one day coming here to present to our clients.

Forever Young – Oliver Kay

I couldn’t have a list without a football book, although I’m anything but a Manchester United fan! This award-winning book by Times journalist Kay tells the story of Adrian Doherty who played in the same United youth team as Ryan Giggs but sadly didn’t achieve his level of success.