Vacation time has arrived…the family is now in Tuscany in Italy. We rented a vacation house with a pool and jacuzzi. Take a look at our current vacation house in the mountains close to Lucca.
Vacation time is the time where I can grab a couple of books for reading. I don’t like reading all the time in one book. So I grabbed a few books from my library and read as I like..
Below you can find a picture of the 4 books that I brought along.
The 4 Books I am reading…
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Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – Travis Bradberry & Jean Greave
We start with a quote of the Dalia Lama : “Emotional Intelligence 2.0 succinctly explains how to deal with emotions creatively and employ our intelligence in a beneficial way.” Emotional intelligence isn’t my strongest character trait. This is the reason I purchased the book.For the first time ever in a book, TalentSmart’s revolutionary program helps people identify their EQ skills, build these skills into strengths, and enjoy consistent performance in the pursuit of important life objectives. The book contains proven strategies from a decade-long effort to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence. Trusted by upper-echelon leaders inside companies worldwide, these strategies will enable you to capitalize on the skills responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs. It includes a passcode for online access to the world’s bestselling emotional intelligence test, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, which will show you where your EQ stands today and what you can do to begin maximizing it immediately.
Rooted in sound research involving more than 500,000 responses, this new edition of the test will:
–Pinpoint which of the book’s 66 emotional intelligence strategies will increase your EQ the most.
–Reveal the specific behaviors responsible for your EQ scores.
–Allow you to test yourself a second time to measure how much your EQ has increased from your efforts.
The book’s smooth narrative style turns rigorous research into memorable stories and practical strategies that anyone can use to his or her advantage.
With 90% of top performers high in EQ, and EQ twice as important as IQ in getting where you want to go in life, who can afford to ignore it?
Here are two quotes what other people are saying about it:
“Gives abundant, practical findings and insights with emphasis on how to develop EQ. Research shows convincingly that EQ is more important than IQ.”
–Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“This book can drastically change the way you think about success…read it twice.”
–Patrick Lencioni, author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
I also have the two above books in my library.
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The Post-American World – Fareed Zakaria
What Does A ‘Post-American World’ Look Like? This book dates from 2008. We are now 10 years later. A good moment to reflect on what this author wrote…
“The tallest building in the world is now in Dubai, the biggest factory in the world is in China, the largest oil refinery is in India, the largest investment fund in the world is in Abu Dhabi, the largest Ferris wheel in the world is in Singapore,” notes Fareed Zakaria. “And … more troublingly, the United States is also losing its key grip on indices such as patent creation, scientific creations and things like that — which are really harbingers of future economic growth.”
Zakaria, the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and an editor at large for Time magazine, charts the fall of America’s dominance and the simultaneous rise of the rest of the world in his book The Post-American World.
“The result is you have countries all over the world thriving and taking advantage of the political stability they have achieved, the economic connections of a global market, the technological connection into this market,” he tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And we are all witnesses to this phenomenon.”
America, Zakaria says, is also starting to lag behind other countries in education, building a competitive workforce, and fostering new energy and digital infrastructure to support those workers — all markers of long-term economic growth. He says America is now heading toward what he calls a “post-American” world, in which the United States’ share of the “global pie” is much smaller — as the rest of the globe begins to catch up.
“In economic terms, the rise of the rest of the globe is a win-win,” he says. “The more countries that get rich [and] the larger the world economy, the more people there are producing, consuming, investing, saving, loaning money. … If we didn’t have the rest of the world growing, the United States economy would be in much worse shape than it is today.”
But Zakaria cautions that the economic growth around the world — and the benefits that global economic stability create — do not extend to the political arena.
“Politics and power is a realm of relative influence,” he says. “So as China expands its role in Asia, whose role is diminishing? Of course, the established power — the United States. It’s not possible for two countries to be the leading dominant political power at the same time.”
On what might happen if the U.S. defaults on debt
“I tend to think it will be catastrophic. I think, more importantly, there is a high enough risk here that this is surely a game we don’t want to play. … There are events that economics call low-probability, high-impact events that you don’t want to test. You don’t want to see if this is one of those things that is an unlikely situation but once it happens could have a huge seismic global effect, because then the cost of dealing with the after-effects is just cataclysmic.”
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Trade Options with an Edge – Dr. Russell Richards
Dr. Russell Richards reveals ‘Trade Options with an Edge’. This book guides readers in finding effective option trades to maximize their profits. This gentlemen started when he was retired !! Drawing from his vast knowledge gained from many years of trading, trying many different approaches, experiencing success and failures with traditional approaches, Dr. Russell Richards attempts to convince retail investors that they can manage their own money better than most mutual funds, hedge funds or financial advisors. He introduces the tastytrade approach to investing with options in his new book, “Trade Options with an Edge” (published by Xlibris).
According to Richards, options provide the most efficient way to trade equities. If an investor has an edge in an options trade, he will consistently generate small profits much like a casino does. The investor needs only make lots of small trades, each with an edge and manage the trades actively. The investor should expect to generate profits of 1 percent to 2 percent or more each month in any type of market: up, down or sideways. “The approach to trading options is very mechanical. It debunks some of the widely held beliefs about investing,” Richards says. “Instead of focusing on stock selection as the key to making money in the stock market, this book focuses on identifying opportunities that provide an edge. It provides a very mechanical method for selecting strategies and managing positions. “
Informative and insightful, “Trade Options with an Edge” guides readers in understanding how to manage and grow the money that they have. Software to support options trading is provided with the book.
Hardcover | 6x9in | 398 pages | ISBN 9781524538194. Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
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Waarde(n)vol – Ben Granje en Robert Van Beek
This book is a translated and edited version of Loaded from the author Sarah Newcomb. Sarah did put years of research and many checklists in the book to help you discover your relation with money. People treat money in many different ways and gives insights how to build your investments.
In the newspaper De Standaard, there was an interview with Ben Granje. I did meet him on one of the VFB conferences. If you want to read the Dutch article, click the link Interview De Standaard-2016-11-16
Final note
The profession we will do in the future, the society around us, the decisions we make in life largely depends on the information we consume and what we do with it. The person you will be in five years depends largely on the information you feed your mind today….this is exactly the quote that I love and try to execute year over year, day by day. You can always change your life…failure is no option when you don’t quit. Educate yourself ! Whether it is emotional intelligence, investing with options, …there is always something to improve !
Enjoy your vacation and enjoy your reading ! Whether you read fiction or non-fiction, there’s always something to learn ! Until next time….
Saluti dall’Italia…
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