Book Review - Who Will Cry When You Die (Robin Sharma)

Who Will Cry When You Die (Robin Sharma) is a good book to read when you are traveling on public transport. Inside the book, it contains snippets that allow you to improve your lives, living a more fulfilling life.

What strikes me is the title of this book. For many book lovers of self-help books, you would realize that this title have some striking resemblance of certain content in Stephen Covey's 7th Habit of Highly Effective People. In the 7th Habit book, Stephen Covey ask us to imagine what our ideal funeral would be, what type of speech would our family members make, what is the strength of relationship we share with those making a speech in your ideal funeral. So when I saw this book, I immediately bought it off the shelves without consideration for the price. Haha! Impulse buying.

Anyway, I have no regret buying the book. Inside the book, it contains many short stories or actionable (and low costs) items where we can immediately implement it in our life and see immediate results.

I would recommend readers to buy the book and carry with it if you are taking the public transport, as all Singaporeans would know how long we have to wait for our public transport.

I give it 4 stars out of 5 for the many actionable items inside that can improve our lives. So what is your ideal funeral and Who will cry when you die?

Book Review - Dollar Crisis (Richard Duncan)

Dollar Crisis (Richard Duncan) are for those serious investors who wants to know what are the current economics trends in the world. It talks about what happens when the US flood the world with US dollars (do note because of the current credit crisis, there will be another tsunami of US dollars flooding the world. OH NO! *Slap forehead*)

Sounds like you need to be an economist to enjoy the book? Nope, it cannot be a best seller if that is the case right? All serious investors at any level can enjoy this book because the writings are simple if you have been following the newspapers.

Of course I do not deny that economist would have a better insights as to what this book has to offer. Best part of the book is it predicted the credit crisis that is happening now. Read page 189 for more details once you have bought the book.

For the economist out there, this is the usual fight between which approach to the economy is good. Keynesian or monetarist? Round XXX! Fight! (Cannot remember how many times they contest each other)

The book serves its purpose for the savvy investors in providing the causes, consequences and cures for the US dollar flood. Investors are strongly encourage to get the book and read, or should I say 'devour' it!

I give this book 3.5 stars out of five. Not a fun read for any laymen but a must-read for serious investors.

Book Review - Four Hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss)

Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss is the book for you if you hate your job now or you are tired of the rat race and want to find the solution to get out of it.

In the book, there is a step-by-step guide to get yourself to work from home, assuming that you can do that without violating any company's policy. Once you are able to work from home, you can start to work on the plans that are stipulated inside the book.

Part of the plans is to start a program and then turn it into autopilot so that it can generates passive income for you. What struck me to buy the book is because of its title. Yes, everyone is looking forward to working only 4 hours a week. What if I tell you, this 4 hours work is the maximum you would need when the business goes to autopilot. Would that not be more attractive to you? Inside, Timothy Ferris also shares more insights into his life as to how to save more money while travelling, only possible given the lifestyle he has worked hard to get.

When reading this book, I am amazed at the solutions he used to get himself out, how he test out various aspect of his business such as marketing, customer service to improve his returns and all these test are carried out at the lowest costs.

This is definitely a must-have for those who really want out of the rat race or am tired of being at the mercy of a greedy people's mistakes.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars for the implementable solutions that is presented. Hurry get the book, read it and most importantly take actions. The consequences is much higher if you do not!

Book Review - Business Journey to the East (Wee Chow Hou, Fred Combe)

Business Journey to the East by Wee Chow Hou, Fred Combe is the book for you if you answer "Yes" to the following sentence:

1) I want my business to succeed in Asia.
2) I do not want to risk the chance of making a fatal mistake when doing business in Asia.
3) I want to know what are the pitfalls of doing business in Asia.
4) I want to know how to gain the upperhand in negotiating with my Asian partners.
5) I want to know if I need a good voice when singing together with my Asian business partners.
6) I want to know more about the "face" concept and guanxi.

This book is especially written for Westerners who are interested or are doing business in Asia, especially Mainland China. It can open anyone's horizon and rid some perceptions that people outside Asia or even those inside Asia have.

This book can help you to cut short the time to build guanxi in Asia, avoid or reduce the costs of corruptions and teach you the importance of learning body language and reading people. This is a must for all executives who have business in Asia or are Operations Head in Asia. A strongly recommended book.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars for easy reading (since it is written for business executives) and good contents that even Asians would find it a joy to read.



Other related books

Book Review - How to Lie with Statistics (Darrell Huff)

How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff is a book for you if you ever have this feeling when you look at a survey results, you are shocked by it. The results are out of your expectations. Or when you look at a certain diagrams, you are shocked by the extent of it. Or you are curious to know the trick behind how marketers, politicians and any other people that uses data, use visual presentation, survey methods and statistical methods to get the desired results they want and 'market' their ideas to you.

It is a very simple to read book, even non-statistician would have enjoyed this book immensely. Aptly describe by the author Darrell Huff, this book is for the laymen to learn some 'self-defense', not to be easily deceived by tricks.

I am a statistician myself and I have benefited greatly from this book. Not that I would use this tricks to deceive people but it opened up another world for me. Yes, being a statistician I am less easily deceived by the survey results published in the newspapers but this book also includes visual presentations as well which statistician might have overlooked its importance.

I strongly recommend this book to all people, so that we can have a better representation of the world and not be easily swayed.

For this book, I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars for its easy reading for both statisticians and non-statisticians. It is a good weekend-reading book.