When I was contacted to review Phil Town’s latest book, Payback Time, I was thrilled. I read his first book,Rule #1, and when I used the principles he outlined, I actually made quite a lot of money investing in individual stocks.

In the past year, I’ve done more investing along the lines of How A Second Grader Beats Wall Street and have made a lot of money there as well. But I’m currently in the process of selecting some businesses to investigate.

The book’s major premises:

• Price and value are not always in sync. Having worked as a commodities buyer for several years, I can readily testify to this.
• Mutual fund managers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
• Once you determine a business’ value, if its stock goes on sale, buy more. Town calls this “stockpiling” (essentially, it is a buy low and sell high strategy which so many people know, but fail to do).
• Invest only in businesses you actually understand. Really. If you don’t have a genuine understanding of the business, or at least a deep interest, don’t invest.
• Make sure that business has a strong competitive advantage.
• Investigate the management like you own the company … as a stockholder, you do.

So what is “payback time”?” It is the price of the business that will be repaid in X number of years out of earnings the business generates. If you spend $27 per share on a stock and it earns $3 per share, it should have a 9 year “payback.” Town recommends only buying stocks with a payback of 10 years or less. The lower the better.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket. –Andrew Carnegie (worth an estimated $250 billion in 2009 dollars)

This isn’t active trading. Town recommends sitting on the sidelines and keeping your money in a savings account when the business you’re interested in is not on sale. It is a conservative, “watch that basket” type of investing.

Should you buy Payback Time? If you’re interested in value investing and have the time, resources, motivation, and inclination to research different businesses, you would probably benefit from this very interesting, very well written book.

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I’ve fallen behind with my reading and still have about 7 more books to review, but I did some quick reads of three books this week:

In Master Your Debt, Jordan Goodman presents readers with some of the best debt elimination and reduction tips, and credit management that I have read in long time.

He packs the book with more than just information on mastering your debt, he also gets readers to fill in various worksheets to see where they can make changes to their financial lives. He covers credit reports, how to fix credit errors, how to select and properly use credit cards, and a great chapter on understanding mortgages. If you didn’t know what an ArcLoan, a Harmony loan, a HELOC, or a reverse mortgage is, you will after you read Chapter 5!

If it has ANYTHING to do with debt, from student loans to car loans to mortgages, Goodman has it covered. Since we live in such a debt laden society, this book is a great resource to help you understand debt and master it. I really liked his formula for becoming mortgage free in only seven years – that one idea is worth the book right there.

In Who Owns The World: The surprising truth about every piece of land on the planet, author Kevin Cahill presents the first comprehensive land ownership survey of all 197 countries and 66 territories in the world. You’ll never believe who the world’s top landowner is. Care for a spot of tea?

If you’re interested in geography at all, you’ll be fascinated by the fact that only 15% of the world’s population owns land. The author believes (as do I) that these staggeringly low numbers of landowners is possibly the single greatest cause of poverty.

So who are these huge landowners? Here is the top 5 with the number of acres they own and the approximate value:

Yes, Queen Elizabeth II owns ONE SIXTH of the land mass of the earth. Staggering isn’t it? That’s three times the size of the USA.

Speaking of the USA:

• The largest landowner in the US? Surprise, surprise – the US Federal Government.
• The largest corporate landowner? Plum Creek (a lumber company) with 7.3 million acres in 19 states.
• The biggest private landowner? Ted Turner at 1.8 million acres in 7 states.

This was a very interesting book with much more than just charts and graphs. The author explores how land ownership actually changes a society for the better.

How To Achieve A Heaven On Earth is a compilation of essays edited by John Wade. After asking himself how “a” heaven on earth could be achieved, he set out to read what other people thought about the subject and this book was the result. With articles and essays from a wide variety of people from different walks of life (from George Bush to Tony Blair to Paul Prudhomme to Alice Schroeder), the book has a distinct leftward slant but it isn’t too over the top. The chapters include peace, security, freedom, democracies, prosperity, spiritual harmony, racial harmony, ecological harmony, health, moral purpose and meaning, and individual paths to heaven on earth.

The book is easily read in snippets since there are 101 essays covering these topics, but personally, I’m not looking for heaven on earth because it isn’t here on earth.

Perhaps we could get closer to “heaven on earth” if some of these wealthy landowners would sell/grant/transfer/give land holdings to ordinary citizens. I’m not holding my breath …

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When I was asked to review Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, I was a little apprehensive. I thought it would be about how everything with all food production was overly capitalistic and wrong, but that wasn’t the focus of the book at all. The author made it clear that he would confront some “urgent but inconvenient” truths about what we eat and where it comes from. The book was more of an indictment on simplistic thinking and the food police who constantly seem to direct our attention on the wrong things. For example:

Food Miles: Easy to understand but a worthless measure

Better than using the number of miles from “the farm to the fork,” the author presents a better evaluation called a life-cycle assessment (LCA). Why are “food miles” not the best way to evaluate the environmentally responsible way to eat? Because they’re only a tiny fraction of the energy used to get food to your table. But it feels good, saying you only eat locally produced food, doesn’t it? That means no seafood in St. Louis, no bananas in New York, and no fresh fruit in the winter for anyone.

LCA’s are a much better way to look at our food. Ironically, LCA shows that it is four times MORE energy efficient for Londoners to dine on grass fed lamb from New Zealand than locally. Though it seems incomprehensible, the comparative advantage of growing lamb on the other side of the world outweighs the fuel and transportation costs of shipping it to London.

And lamb isn’t the only product that falls into this category.

Localism is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle.

Stirring up an organic panic

Here’s a news flash: organic practices can’t feed the world. It’s all basic math. Scientific studies consistently produce lower yields between 25 and 82 percent. Therefore, to produce enough food, farmers would need that much more land to sustain current production levels.

The underlying temper of our times is that anything processed or industrialized can be seen as adulterated and harmful, while anything that appears to be natural or close to nature can be regarded as pure and uncorrupted. The reality of contemporary food production, whether organic or conventional, whether large-scale or small, stubbornly fails to follow this purified/corrupted script.

The author lists several “organic” practices, one of which the use of sodium nitrate. This product, mined in South America, is considered natural and is used to grow winter vegetables in dry soil. Used as a soluble fertilizer to enhance the soil’s nitrogen content, organic farmers seem oblivious to the mining and shipping costs to the environment, the groundwater pollution sodium nitrate causes (artificially beefs up the nitrogen and phosphorous in soil), as well as its detrimental effects on soil salinization. Still, it’s “natural.”

A judicious use

McWilliams impressed me. Although he and I disagree about the causes of global warming (or the lack of global warming), I was impressed by his willingness to search for the truth, even if it didn’t fit his version of reality. That’s the mark of a real journalist. He ended the book with several very good conclusions:

• Go beyond food miles
• Go beyond organic and conventional methods
• Judiciously use biotechnology
• Judiciously use chemicals
• Reduce tillage
• Integrate livestock and plant crops
• Explore more freshwater aquaculture

We have a lot of people to feed. Just Food is a great way to point us in the right direction.

Buy or don’t buy?

If you’re concerned about the environmental effects the production of your food is having on our world, you’ll enjoy reading Just Food. I’ve never been that concerned myself, but I still enjoyed reading it anyway, mostly because I felt that the author was real, honest, and willing to change his way of thinking if the facts presented themselves accordingly.

If you would like to win my copy (which I received free from the publisher – thank you Little, Brown & Company), just leave a comment on this post.

Note: I received this book gratis from the publisher.

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A friend asked how many books I had read over the past few years, wanting a recommendation for something to read over the holidays. I had to pause a few minutes to think about the answer and was more than a little surprised to tell him the number: fifty-four — since January of 2008.

“Fifty-four?” he asked, “Well, which were your favorites then?”

“That’s almost like asking which of my three children I love the most,” I kidded. “I’ll make a list and email it to you.” This article is the result of that email (and these are in no particular order).

My Favorite Books

I’ve reviewed most of these on The Wisdom Journal. Feel free to check out my Book Reviews category.

How A Second Grader Beats Wall Street

Allan Roth’s book, How A Second Grader Beats Wall Street, is a MUST READ resource for anyone looking to increase their wealth with the least amount of risk and the most opportunity for growth. As a recovering “return chaser,” this book held an “AHA!” moment for me (now it’s one one of my favorite books on investing).

Hindsight is always 20/20. Humans can spot a “trend” that ties in nicely with the financial markets using anything from sunspot activity to migrating ladybugs  and it all is worthless for predicting financial markets.

Just a couple of the ideas Allan Roth covers in this book:

1. You’re paying far more in fees than you realize.
2. You cannot predict where the stock market will be in [insert ANY length of time here].
3. Wall Street gurus don’t know either. They’re just really good at convincing others that they know what they’re talking about. Remember that most “experts” were advising us to buy Lehman Brothers and Wachovia (among others) just days before they collapsed.
4. The fees and taxes we pay cause our real returns to shrink to a fraction of our perceived returns.
5. Our biases (and our financial planner’s biases) can cause us to lose big money over the long run.

Outliers: The Story of Success

In Outliers: The Story of Success one of the most delightful books I’ve read in a long, long time, author Malcolm Gladwell outlines the way people from The Beatles to the feuding Hatfields and McCoys to a struggling family in Jamaica become successful, or don’t become successful (in the case of the feud). More importantly, he argues that the complete story of success, the real underlying story, is much more complex and surprising than anyone wants to believe.

What if none of our assumptions about success were true? What if all of them were true? What if success was a unique combination of luck, skill, talent, common sense, family connections, family history, determination, perseverance, and more? What if there was no one single factor? Are you ready for that?

Debt Is Slavery

Debt Is Slavery was a book that kicked me in the teeth. It is a powerful indictment of how society has come to view the use of debt to buy worthless consumables to satisfy an insatiable need to appear successful. But when you’re a slave to anything, how can you even remotely consider yourself successful?

Author Michael Mihalik did a fantastic job of connecting to me as a reader and he really nailed home a handful of few key points:

• Stop spending money needlessly on things that will become obsolete, things you really won’t use, things you really don’t need, and things that will never love you back.
• Avoid debt like the plague.
• Be frugal and make wise financial decisions.
• Take steps to implement extreme savings in your life.
• Ignore marketing’s siren call. Because the book is so short (88 pages), he is really blunt and to the point. This book doesn’t waste your time and at about $10 or $11 bucks, it doesn’t waste your money either.

17 Lies That Are Holding Your Back and the Truth That Sets You Free

17 Lies That Are Holding You Back and the Truth That Will Set You Free. This is a book that I personally found to be life-changing and it’s power lies in how it changes your perspective on what words I speak to myself. The book’s main purpose is to skewer the societal and personal lies that “hold people back.” What might be holding YOU back? The lies you tell yourself. All through the book, Chandler uses personal and anecdotal evidences to explaining the subtle life-denying power of these lies.

Chandler says that there are “white lies” we tell others to spare their feelings. There are public lies told by public figures. There are lies that we tell to make ourselves look better or get out of work.

Rich Like Them

In Rich Like Them: My Door to Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth in America’s Richest Neighborhoods, author Ryan D’Agostino decided the best way to learn how the richest people got that way was to simply ask. So, he did. Traveling through almost 2 dozen of the richest zip codes, he knocked on 500 doors and interviewed about 50 wealthy people, simply asking, “How did you get to live in a home like this?”

The diversity of responses was staggering, as were the variety of occupations and careers that these wealthy individuals had chosen. Roughly half of them rose through the corporate ranks, got tired of the corporate rigmarole, and struck out on their own to start their own business. His book outlines the responses of the rich to his questions and it is fascinating … and encouraging.

Secrets of Power Negotiating

Ready to stop being a doormat when it comes to the negotiation process? If so, then Secrets of Power Negotiating is for you.

Before reading this book, I was under the impression that negotiation was a process shrouded in mystique. I think that most people approach the negotiation process with a little fear because they worry they’ll be manipulated into making a decision they would not make under ordinary conditions. I now know that there is a specific sequence of events and that there are specific methods to get the other side to agree to your position.

I plan to move this article to the blue navigation bar and add to is as I read more. Check back often!

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Congratulations to Meg, she’s the brand new owner of In Cheap We Trust by Lauren Weber. Meg, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. In case you missed it, my review outlined how the author dissected the psychology of thrift, from the days (and sayings) of Benjamin Franklin through the Industrial Revolution and the waves of new immigrants to today’s renewed interest in thrift and frugality.

I have many, many more book giveaways coming up so be sure and check back so you can get your name in the running for a free book. Oh, and when I say “free,” I mean it — I even pay the shipping costs to get it to you.

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What’s the difference between cheap and thrifty? What makes society waiver between embracing thrift and frugality and shunning it in preference for luxury and avarice? In her book, In Cheap We Trust: The story of a misunderstood American value, author Lauren Weber discusses these and many other questions as she examines the historical relationship we have with being cheap and thrifty.

Starting back with Benjamin Franklin and his sayings, examining the imposition of cheapness on Jews and Chinese (presumably in an attempt to negate their economic competition), and ending with dumpster diving and hoarding, Weber delves into the psychology of thrift. She asks questions about what causes it, what accelerates it, what it does to us, and how we view our world as a result of it.

I really loved reading this book and I’m sure that readers of The Wisdom Journal will as well! Some of my favorite sections were those written about Benjamin Franklin, who penned so many of our thrifty and frugal sayings. Weber mentions a voyage that Ben Franklin took, noting how he had taken care of all his business prior to sailing. On the voyage, he found himself somewhat bored but still managed to write, examine how the Gulf Stream worked, and notice how the grease dumped overboard behaved on the surface of the sea (remember that this trip took FOUR weeks).

Even after Franklin had published many of his thrift sayings, the book notes that:

[His] essay stood out at the time, with its encouragement of industriousness and thrift, as a piece of uncommonly good sense. But the truest words in the whole sermon might we be the ones at the end, poking fun at the simple fact that, even though people usually know what’s good for them, they rarely act on that information. Franklin knew this quite well: you can tell people to work hard and save their money, but when the markets open, all that good advice drains away like so many shillings in a torn pocket.

It’s a real problem, one I struggle with everyday — doing what I KNOW I should be doing and fighting the urge to be lazy, concerned primarily with my own personal comfort.

Part of our problem with accepting thrift as a way of life stems from the shear abundance available to us. Never before had any people, so steeped in industriousness and frugality as a result of the Puritan and Quaker roots, been faced with opportunities such as those offered by America.

Weber later examines her own history with frugality. Her father would set the thermostat at fifty degrees and, though she resented him for it, later found herself drawn toward frugality like a moth to a flame, walking, for example, thirty blocks to avoid a two dollar subway fare. Indeed, the apple never falls too far from the tree!

This book is a treasure trove of the history of frugality and thrift and would make a fantastic resource for anyone interested in it.

If you would like to win my advanced reading copy (the book will be available in September), simply leave a comment on this post. I’ll select one winner via a random number generator and mail the book to you (I pay the postage). The drawing will be held September 4th. Remember, an advance copy has no page numbers in the table of contents and may actually be altered in its final version!

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I was thrilled when Harper Collins contacted me to begin reviewing their new books but What Makes You Tick was a let down. The book DID make some good points and I’ll review them here.

To begin, the book’s authors, Michael Berland and Douglas Schoen, assert that there is no one way to achieve success, but that success is achieved by enhancing your innate skills. Don’t try change your personality (it never works anyway), but use your own personality to chart your own course.

The book asserts that many people confuse success with winning, and I think that’s a valid point. Though they can be sometimes intertwined, they aren’t necessarily the same. Success is more of an internal, emotional, and personal thing whereas winning is usually much more quantifiable. Winning can be part of success, but it is just functional to successful people and is simply something they do along their path to success.

The authors break down successful people into four primary categories:

• Natural Born Leaders – self confident from an early age, this personality type sees a big picture and naturally takes charge. They rarely get stuck on the details and have the innate ability to inspire others. They help other people succeed and fit well within large, complex organizations. They do things faster than the average person and are comfortable delegating. They usually put the company and its needs ahead of personal needs. Examples are Bud Selig of Major League Baseball, Brenda Barnes of Sara Lee Corporation, and Richard Parsons of Citigroup.
• Independence Seekers – wanting to constantly live life on their own terms, independence seekers do what they want when they want. They are very goal oriented and also exude self confidence much like the natural born leaders. Failure is never an option for them and they have a risk-taking, entrepreneurial spirit. They don’t take themselves too seriously and don’t have to be the best, just good enough to meet their definition of success. They thrive on high profile recognition and are more interested in personal success than in organizational success. Examples include Bobby Flay of the Food Network, Heidi Klum of Project Runway, and Sergio Zyman, formerly the Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola.
• Visionaries – doing and seeing what others do not, visionaries have a strong desire for change and ask “Why not?” rather than “Why?” They look at issues from many angles and have a strong creative nature. They believe they were born for a mission and have a relentless drive, regardless of the setbacks that pop up.Less concerned with recognition than with personal fulfillment, visionaries generally prefer to do things themselves and surround themselves with true Kool-Aid drinkers true believers. Examples include Mark Burnett, executive producer of Survivor, Arte Moreno, owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Brian France, CEO of NASCAR.
• Do-Gooders – motivated by their strong moral compass, these leaders are more than comfortable with criticism since they’re working toward a high ideal. They’re naturally optimistic and serious about their work. They are willing to sacrifice, both themselves and others, for what they see as the “greater good.” They also have a strong preference for like-minded people and strongly identify with their cause. Examples include Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Roger Barnett of Shaklee Corporation, and Gwendolyn Sykes, CFO  of Yale University.

All that information was in the first 14 pages, the next 257 pages are “interviews” that read more like a questionnaire answered by the different people that the authors put into one of their five categories. Wait. FIVE categories? I thought there were four! They slipped one in without any discussion of it and made the book a little confusing. The fifth category was Independents Who Follow Their Dreams and that section follows the same “interview” process.

The “interviews” begin with what feels like an introduction at a graduation ceremony, and follows with the interviewee writing about his or her ideas, history, failures, ideas, thoughts, and philosophies. In essence, the book was written by interviewees and edited by the authors.

The interviews are rambling, some are vaguely interesting, many are quite boring. Some are very short, some are far too long, and none really seemed to follow the premise of the book, namely finding out what makes someone “tick?”

Late in the book, the authors reveal their political leanings and it’s the same old, tired, Bush bashing rhetoric. Yes, they actually mention names and say that Bush was a bad, “independence seeker” who lost interest in the Iraq war and Obama is a great, natural born leader who’s election to the Senate was a natural progression in his quest for goal achievement (conveniently forgetting that the highly popular Republican he was running against was caught up in scandal late in the campaign). In reality, Obama fits the classic “do-gooder” profile, serious, idealistic, pursuing what he believes is the greater good over the interests of the organization as a whole, and a management style based on personal contact and connections. Then I read that the authors were Democratic strategists and it all began to make sense. “Natural born leader” is much more flattering. When you look at who all they “interviewed”,” it really shows through. At some point, all this political nonsense needs to end.

Buy or Don’t Buy?

Don’t buy. Period. This wasn’t a particularly inspirational or motivating book and held no information that isn’t readily available on this blog or any one of a number of others.

Hopefully, my first review of a Harper Collins book won’t preclude me from an invitation to review others,. Even though the first 14 pages and the last 6 pages were well written and somewhat informative,  this book struggled to reach the level of “mediocre at best” in my opinion.

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Congratulations to Nate Desmond, the winner of Who’s Got Your Back?by Keith Ferrazzi. Nate sent in the FREE BOOK CODE found at the bottom of my RSS feed and was selected by Random.org as the winner.

Nate writes for Debt Free Scholar, a personal blog about how to get a degree frugally. He writes about different tools and advice to help students with their finances. I know that when I first started college, I had NO IDEA about anything related to personal finance. This site is a great resource for students.

Here are a few of his recent posts:

• 9 Little Known Activities to Complete During Summer Break
• Write An Email You Can Be Proud Of
• Book Review: 120 Jobs That Won’t Chain You To Your Desk

Congratulations Nate! I hope you enjoy your new book.

Links to products or services may be affiliate links. See my disclosure policy in the footer of the site or on my About page.

In his latest book Who’s Got Your Back?, author Keith Ferrazzi advises everyone to give up on the myth of the professional “superman” and the culture of the lone wolf who defies all odds and accomplishes great things. The path to success isn’t paved with the bodies of those we’ve stepped on, but is lined with friends, mentors, and especially an inner circle of trusted advisors who will tell us the truth. Far too many times we see CEO’s, government leaders, and professionals at all stages of their career with a go-it-alone mentality. If they DO decide to bring in some outside counsel, it’s often in the form of “yes-men” who will say only what they think is expected or in some self professed “guru” who actually doesn’t have a clue.

The secret to finding the 3 people who will change your life

No, says Ferrazzi, to really achieve that deep level of success we crave, the secret lies in developing a trusted group of advisers who will shoot straight, tell us where we’re wrong, ask the surprising questions that we don’t want to answer, and then provide the feedback to help us overcome those success-destroying habits we’ve developed. The book packs a LOT of information and Ferrazzi follows his own advice by confessing a lot of his shortcomings to readers. The style and pace of the book felt like a blog to be honest. It didn’t feel like the typical self help book that pumps you up and tells you to “go get ‘em tiger!”

The “none of us can go it alone” mantra was reminiscent of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. But where Gladwell pointed out how successful people had a lot of distinct advantages along their way (young Bill Gates having access to computers at a prep school, for example), Ferrazzi would point out that Gates probably had a small inner circle of people he trusted that helped spur him on to develop his company. Who’s Got Your Back? has some great twists on old subjects:

• The Four Mindsets – Generosity, Vulnerability, Candor, and Accountability – and how to use them to your advantage
• Nine steps to building a dream team that will spur you on to reach your goals
• Tactics, strategies, and structures to help you stay the course
• How to use “sparring” as a productivity tool
• How lowering your guard will help you in the long run

Buy or Don’t Buy

I always struggle with recommending a book when there are so many people struggling with their finances, but this is indeed a very good book. If you feel isolated, if you feel that there’s no one you can trust to help you make decisions, if you wonder why you don’t have deeper relationships, this would be a great book to read. It is very fresh and very new and I’m giving away my “Press Release Copy” to one reader who emails the Free Book Code at the bottom of my RSS feed by May 16th. I’ll use Random.org to select the winner and I’ll even pay the shipping charges to get this book to you.

Keith Ferrazzi is also the best selling author of Never Eat Alone.

Links to products or services may be affiliate links. See my disclosure policy in the footer of the site or on my About page.

Congratulations to Clay, winner of, How A Second Grader Beats Wall Street. As I said in my original review, this book is a MUST READ resource for anyone looking to increase their wealth with the least amount of risk and the most opportunity for growth. It is now on my list of favorite books and I highly recommend it. I especially recommend chapter Five for those who think they can outperform the Second Grader’s portfolio (hint: those people are few and far between and unless your first name is “Warren,” and you live in Omaha, the chances aren’t looking too good).

Clay, I’ve sent you a confirmation email, just send me your mailing address by return email and I’ll have te book shipped to you from Amazon (because I’m keeping mine — yeah, it really IS that good).

Here are some other books that I wholeheartedly recommend:

• Debt Is Slavery
• Outliers: The Story of Success
• Rich Like Them: My Door-to-Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth in America’s Richest Neighborhoods
• Secrets of Power Negotiating

Check out these and all my other book reviews under my Book Reviews category.

Thanks Clay, I hope you enjoy your new book, and stay tuned. There are more free book giveaways to come!

Links to products or services may be affiliate links. See my disclosure policy in the footer of the site or on my About page.