Top Shelf Reading Picks:

A friend sent over a copy of Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity, by Trump University. Despite sporting a picture of His Royal Trumpness on the front, it’s only edited by The Donald. It’s actually a compendium of essays from individuals who I assume teach intermittently at Trump U.

All right, I confess. I’ve always been intrigued by Trump, so I was a bit disappointed. You see, I loved the early seasons of The Apprentice and even enjoyed contributing to former wannabe-apprentice Amy Henry’s book, What It Takes: Speak Up, Step Up, Move Up: A Modern Woman’s Guide to Success in Business. Hmmm. Wonder what she’s doing now? I did a quick scan of Amazon reviews and noticed some people slamming her for writing a book despite finishing fourth. My thoughts–if you ever have a chance to write a book for whatever reason, do it! And, to anyone who rags on someone for finishing fourth, I have one word for you – Daughtry.

But, I digress. Back to building wealth the Trump way.

While part of me was looking forward to a big dose of Trumposity, I wasn’t totally disappointed to be hearing from some different professors, most of whom put a softer edge on the view from Planet Trump. The book is divided into seven sections:

1. Think Rich: How to Unleash Your “Inner Trump�
2. Plan Smart: Your Playbook for Financial Success
3. Act Now
4. Be the Boss: The Entrepreneur’s Path to Wealth
5. Own Property: The Real Estate Path to Wealth
6. Invest in Wall Street: The Stock Market Path to Wealth
7. Protect Your Wealth

It’s probably not surprising that my favorite part of the book was Donald Trump’s intro, where he sets forth 12 skills you need to be successful. Most of it is common sense and nothing new (just delivered in the way one would expect of Trump): Think big, take risks, etc. But, what caught me were the lines about being tenacious: “Very few things of worth are easy achievements. That’s just the way it works.� So very anti-The Secret that I loved it!

Another short sound bite from his intro that I found intriguing was his take on negotiating. It’s really not what I expected.

Negotiating isn’t about calling all the shots–it’s about ability: the power to convince people to accept your ideas. Present your ideas in a way that won’t intimidate them. Let them think the decision is theirs. Bulldozing people into accepting your ideas is a recipe for disaster.

If this is the definition of negotiating, then I’m actually pretty good at it. As a born marketer, I spend most of my time convincing people that my ideas were really theirs to begin with.

Of interest in the next chapter, “Learn Millionaire Habits” by Marshall Sylver, the author actually talks about the importance of balance. He states that you need to create and maintain mental, physical, relational and financial balance (in that order). Guess that’s a millionaire mindset because that’s certainly not what we learned from the billionaires.

I didn’t find much new in most of the other chapters that involved reducing your debt, creating monthly financial statements, investing in real estate or the stock market, but that doesn’t mean you won’t.

The best part of the book besides Trump’s intro was the Opportunity Screening Checklist in the “Start Your Own Business” chapter by Michael E. Gordon. While it is meant to help you preview entrepreneurial ideas, I found it useful to run my own business plan through it.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: If you haven’t read a book on managing your personal finances, this one is pretty useful as it covers all the bases, and the addition of the entrepreneurial chapter is a bonus for those with their own businesses.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert was one book I’d been avoiding, as I tend to shy away from anything “spiritualâ€? (See my post, “That’s The Secret?”) or reeking of an “Oprah” pick. But it finally got enough recommendations from people I trust that I just had to pick it up. And I’m glad I did, because this became my second book in my “what does religion have to do with entrepreneurship?” series.

Eat, Pray, Love is the story of a woman who recovers from her divorce by eating, praying and loving again while she traveled the world–specifically to Italy, India and Indonesia.

Again, this is not a book for entrepreneurs, but it did give me some entrepreneurial inspiration. The author was often making choices that did not follow the normal path of getting married, having children, etc. This is similar to the life of an entrepreneur, who steps out of the “norm� of corporate America to try something new and different. It’s a very hard thing to do and with every new entrepreneur I meet, I try to feel him or her out as to whether he or she can handle a day where everyone tells them they’re crazy, nuts and/or completely wrong. (I had one of those the other day and, fortunately, today was quite the opposite …)

But, this book had one section that really struck me as a great entrepreneurial lesson. The author is a lover of language and words and, while she was in Italy learning Italian, her friend told her that there is always one word to describe a city. The one word to describe Rome was “sex.� She decided the one word to describe New York City was “achieve,� and LA was “succeed.� Other people in the book contributed their suggestions that Stockholm was “conform,� and Naples was “fight.�

I thought about this with regard to Boston (my current town) and the word that popped into my mind was “provincial� as in “something that lacks urban sophistication or broad-mindedness.� Hmmm. Not a great place for me to be launching a global business, is it? But it might explain why my biggest supporters have usually been outside this province that natives like to refer to as the “Hub of the Universe.�

Fortunately, my business is internet based, so my location is fairly irrelevant. Yet, in the book, the author took this concept beyond cities and onto individuals. What is the one word for you or your family? And, this is where I want to challenge entrepreneurs: What is the word for your company? Does it match the one for you? I once did a similar exercise and came up with the word “catalyst.� I like to make changes and empower others to do so, too. And I try to make my company live up to that, too. And, hey, why not be a catalyst in a provincial town? It could be interesting.

So, what’s the word for you and/or your company, or even your city?

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: This book is a really fun and entertaining read and, as for the spiritual aspect, it’s not too “New Agey.” I was won over by the author’s first “conversationâ€? with God, which was kind of a matter-of-fact interaction from the floor of the bathroom where she had been sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the night over her inability to make a major life decision. The great commandment from “Godâ€? was a simple statement: “Liz, go back to bed.â€? Sometimes we all could use such a reality check.

My last few posts were about political books, so I figured, what better time than the present to bring up some books that tackle the topic of religion? Seems many of our politicians can’t separate themselves from their religious backgrounds/beliefs, so it kind of goes hand in hand these days.

What do books about politics and religion have to do with entrepreneurship? Technically, nothing. But one thing I’ve found is that most of my best inspirations and ideas have not come out of books that teach “entrepreneurship.� Why is that? Because, being an entrepreneur is about thinking differently.

If all you do is follow the checklists set forth by others in entrepreneurial books, then are you really being entrepreneurial? Or are you going along with the crowd? Not to knock those books, as they are helpful for many reasons. But, often you need to come at your ideas from a different angle. And this month, for some reason, I’ve been reading two books that have a bit to do with religion–one angle I rarely consider but, needless to say, it got me thinking … Here’s the first book.

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
The other morning my son came into the kitchen and announced, “Mom, you have a really bad book.â€? Oh, dear, I thought. Did I leave Anais Nin or Colette lying around again? But then I quickly realized that his reading skills weren’t quite at that level, so I knew that he had to be referring to Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great. Now, I had this book on my reading wish list since the day it was published, as I like any book that questions the status quo (especially the religious one). Unfortunately, I find Christopher Hitchens at times incomprehensible (as in this case) and not very amusing. (Hence an earlier post about “Why Christopher Hitchens isn’t funny.â€?)

So, I love the concept of the book, but found it torturous to read and admittedly gave up after a few chapters. (Life is too short to read books that don’t grab me and suck me in!) However, I enjoyed the conversation with my son about how it’s OK to question the idea of God. And this book in particular focused on how people use the concept of God for their own purposes or to be exclusive of others and, in those situations, God is not great.

Then somehow we got onto the topic of the Pilgrims fleeing England in search of religious freedom, and I noted to myself (not to him) the contrast with today, where certain groups want to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us. Add to this the fact that we were founded as the United States of America, under a very different governmental structure than ever before (how entrepreneurial of them!), yet now we’ve gotten back to the government proposing the equivalent of a “thought-crime� bill that would enable it to prosecute anyone criticizing it. (Thanks to my friend George over at “I’ve BeenMugged� for bringing that to my attention.)

Which brings me right back to my theory: Once the rebels become the ruling class, then they’re no longer rebels. Hence, the best entrepreneurs cannot simply follow an entrepreneurial handbook, because once they do that, then they are no longer innovating. And this is why I tend to look elsewhere for inspiration and ideas.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: Great concept (challenging the status quo); poor delivery (Hitchens is not my messenger of choice here).

Book Two coming later this week: Eat, Pray, Love.

While I’m on the topic of politics (must be that it’s November), I figured I’d mention my thoughts on one book by a political candidate that was compelling enough for me to pick up. I was very glad that I read Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama before tackling the Audacity of Hope (I later listened to the Audacity of Hope on CD and it didn’t have the same impact).

One might argue that Obama might have been contemplating a run for the presidency back when he wrote Dreams from My Father. (Surely we all know that many of our presidential candidates started contemplating their future the day they were pulled out of the womb.) However, this book does not seem calculated in any respect. What it does do is introduce us to an individual who has had quite an unusual life, and how he’s faced race and poverty issues both in the U.S. and abroad. His description of life in Hawaii and Indonesia are as compelling as the details of the work he tried to do in the slums of Chicago. And, of course, I have a fondness for any son raised by a single mom who turns out better than OK. Whatever your politics, it’s important to get to know the people who may be leading your country, so if there are books authored by them, it may help you form your own opinion on them.

The Top Shelf Bottom Line: No matter what your politics, we all should know a little bit about the individuals who may sit in the Oval Office. While I’ve only read/listened to the two Obama books, I intend to pick up most of the rest as the candidates are narrowed down.

• Barack Obama – Dreams From My Father; Audacity of Hope
• Rudy Giuliani – Leadership

• John Edwards – Four Trials

• John McCain – Faith of My Fathers

• Hillary Clinton – Living History; It Takes a Village

• Mitt Romney – Turnaround: Crises, Leadership, and the Olympic Games

In the meantime, if any of you have read any of the above, please give us your review below!

But, who can’t resist being told they’re “Totally Fabulous”. So, it was a nice surprise to find that the Upward Action blog gave Top Shelf Reading Picks a Totally Fabulous Award (Created by the folks over at Totally Fabulous).

So, it seems I need to pass it along to other blogs. While I have a bunch I like, I’ll have to narrow it down to a few of the entrepreneur-oriented ones that I check in with regularly that may not be on everyone’s radar screens, but that I think are “fabulous” in their own way:

Shifting Careers

Reinvention Marketing

Lipsticking

SEO World

Check them out for yourself.