I’ve made millions of dollars online — but I didn’t do it alone. In fact, no one can do it alone. When you’re just starting out on any business venture, it helps to have mentors to guide you. People who have tried, failed, and forged through for success. It’s not always possible to have a mentor, however, which is why it’s great when someone distills their experience — or the experiences of other people — into a book. For years, I’ve read at least a book a week, including these five books that made me a millionaire. It puts me inside the mind of experts and advanced thinkers, exposing me to new ideas and ways of thinking.
As an entrepreneur, books are one of the best investments you can make in yourself. They’re inexpensive and are often packed with knowledge and actionable advice you can use to learn, grow, and improve yourself. In this post, I’m going to talk about five books that made me a millionaire before I turned 30. I may have read them when I was young, but they can help people of any age become more successful.
If I could have five books, forever, without any others, these would be the five. You may not have heard of some, but I promise you they will absolutely change your life.
1. Atlas Shrugged
This novel took me six months to get through. I first read it on my honeymoon in Greece and could not put it down. It was that gripping and effective.
People have made movies based on this book. They’re all terrible. Stick with the original work if you want to absorb the key concepts and messages in its pages.
The main concept you should take away from this book is to shift your mindset in life from being a consumer to being a producer. Most people drift through life endlessly consuming things: TV, food, clothing, or cars. The producers in this world are the ones that make all the money.
This is something of a controversial book, but those are the ones most worth reading. Find this one today. It will take some time to work your way through it, but it will change the way you think about life.
2. Breakthrough Advertising
This is the “Bible” of everything you need to know about advertising, sales, marketing, and persuasion. That’s a market flooded with resources and books on these topics, but this is the top one. Today you’ve got so many people telling you how to make money online. If you ask most of them, they’ll say this is on their bookshelf.
It’s hard to find. I used to flip them for $300 a copy, dropshipping them from the direct supplier. That’s how in-demand it is.
This is a masterclass in so many topics related to effective advertising, like writing copy. When I go through my copy of this book, every page has highlighted text on it. It’s dripping with value.
A word of warning: it’s not a book you go through and read 20 pages at a time. You’ll find it better to read one page, let the concepts marinate in your head, and then go to another page the next day.
3. No B.S. Wealth Attraction
The author of this book, Dan Kennedy, is someone I consider a mentor. He’s a legend in terms of not just marketing and advertising but also mindset and money.
This is my favorite book of his many great ones. It will help you shift your “lack of abundance” mindset when it comes to wealth and money. Kennedy’s words show that creating wealth is about much more than action, though that’s a huge part of it. It also greatly depends on how you think about money and your ability to create wealth.
Kennedy also offers a six-hour video crash course on YouTube. I highly recommend checking that out, as well.
4. The 48 Laws of Power
Robert Greene, the book’s author, has some other phenomenal work about social dynamics. This is a tough book to get through, as each chapter contains a different lesson packed with dense details. It contains stories from throughout history meant to demonstrate Greene’s specific point in each chapter and is dry at times.
So how can you make it through this book, which can sometimes feel like a history or social studies textbook from high school?
My recommendation is to get the audiobook to follow along with the book as you’re reading it. It teaches a lot of valuable best practices in how to succeed in today’s world.
Plus, listening to the audiobook helps the stories resonate more as you experience them in another format. The lessons are well worth experiencing, so do whatever you can to get your hands on and read this book. (If you love audiobooks, that’s a great way to get through any of these five books that made me a millionaire.)
5. The 12 Month Millionaire
This one is a big book that is also controversial. Written by Vincent James, it has valuable lessons on every page.
Why is it controversial? It’s because the author went to jail. But that doesn’t mean you should discount his experience and knowledge. In this book, he documented exactly how he made $100 million. He outlines the steps he took to build wealth quickly.
I’d say those are lessons worth learning, no?
It’s hard to get your hands on a copy of this one. You may have to find a PDF copy on eBay. There’s a good reason why it’s so in demand, though. It provides you with a blueprint for how to make $100 million.
That’s not to say it will be easy for you after reading this, but it at least gives you the informational infrastructure you can use to succeed.
I can’t recommend these five books that made me a millionaire highly enough. Reading them in and of itself won’t make you wealthy — you still need to take action. But they’ll give you plenty of useful life lessons and best practices you can then leverage into creating your own empire.
If you’re looking for more valuable insight into how to make money online, subscribe to my YouTube channel for more tips. Also, sign up for this exclusive free webinar on the simple eCommerce funnel I used to create a full-time income online.