I picked up this book thinking it might help me. But I found it mostly a collection of miscellaneous tips of financial disciplines. All of them make sense but nothing really earthshaking. The “Without Risk” title attracted me but I don’t think the author really delivers that, at least in the normal sense of “risk free.” A few interesting things: the author were taught affirmation at his young age by his Dad. It doesn’t hurt to start this as early as possible. The author is a lawyer and he was modest enough to seek the advises from his wealthy clients on how they became rich. The author’s father is a real estate developer and he was taught the investment benefits of the real estate investing. The book is full of individual strategies that may serve as a good reference source. A summary of the book is as follows:

Escape from the artificial wealth trap with the ESCAPE plan:
E. S. C. A. P. E.:
Envision wealth for your life:
There are 15 strategies here for you to envision your wealth. The more important ones include 1. determine what you want and create a dreams list, 2. use positive affirmation, 3. eliminate negative thoughts, 4. create a “values” list. 5. create a visions board to visualize daily, 6. write out your goals and pledge statements, 7. eliminate destructive values, 8. spend the majority of the time on those goals and objectives that are most important to you, 9. being each day and end each evening with a visualization of your goals.

Strategize: Planning your work and then working your plan
There are 18 strategies suggested by the author: 1. determine your current fiscal condition and where you stand financially, 2. create a good record management system, 3. give yourself a complete fiscal fitness examination, 4. prepare a family financial statement, 5. identify and evaluate your expenditures, 6. prioritize your expenses and rank them by necessity, 6. determine which expense can be reduced (or eliminated) immediately, 7. identify negative money mindset obstacles (like deprivation of food diet), 8. set goals for eliminating any negative spending habits, 9. establish wealth accomplishment objectives for yourself, 10. create a cost estimate for accomplishing your dreams and objectives (order from the left side instead of the right side of the menu), 11. measure the distance for the trip to your real wealth destination, 12. set reasonable timetable for arriving at your destination. 13. spend at least one hour per day brainstorming your voyage to Real Wealth, 14. plan your work, and then work your plan.

Create:
Winning the credit game and dealing with debt.
Lots of tips on handling debts

Creating immediate income:
Understand the differences between making money and building wealth and then focus on doing BOTH. Create more income streams and by making good choices on where and how you send your money.

Increasing cash flow with money-saving strategies:
Some good advises: Don’t establish a budget; follow an “expense plan” instead. Don’t buy wants on credit. Avoid adopting the “arrogance of poverty mindset.” (status-minded). Stop financing vacations that you can’t afford. Tie in vacations with business trips.

Saving money by managing insurance:
Purchase life insurance only to replace the lost income or services of a provider. Buy only term life insurance and devote the rest of your financial plan to prosperous living. Never buy universal or variable life insurance as an investment vehicle.

Making your life less taxing.

Making money while you sleep on the internet and eBay:
Affiliate yourself with other companies to make money as the middleman if you have not yet developed a products or services of your own.

Create income with real estate:
4 kinds of profit in real estate: 1. appreciation, 2. principal reduction, 3. cash flow, 4. tax deductions.

Accumulate
Decide on a particular investment area and develop a fundamental understanding of that area. (Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.) Work to increase your “wealth sustainability level.” (ability to sustain the level of wealth that a person enjoys over an extended period of time.) Adopt an attitude of wealth inevitability.

Investor mindset means having a comfort level with, and emotional detachment from, the process the investing. 1. Have a solid understanding of the stock market. 2. Set your objectives effectively. 3. Invest safely. 4. Make a commitment to working your plan for investing and to not let emotions get in the way. Save 20% of your annual salary as “attitude” money. Do not fall for Roth IRA conversion.

Preserve
Create an estate plan. Form a legal entity for operating your business. Change the nature of your income from earned to unearned. Protect your wealth by protecting your health. Hire your children “tax-free.” Zero out your corporation at the end of the year to avoid double taxation (pay salary instead of dividends). Use S-corporation to avoid self-employment taxes. Establish a revocable living trust to provide for your beneficiaries, avoid probate, and reduce or eliminate the estate tax.

Execute
“The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.” Make small changes that can yield big payoffs.

Lots of research into human sexuality including orgasm, penile enlargement/implants, hormone effects, clitoris stimulation, and etc. Most of them are overly detailed and researched. Author’s comments in the footnotes are often full of tongue-and-cheek to draw quick laughs. It’s good to be not too serious about this topic. I’m not sure I’ve gotten much except the following: human sexuality is a lot more complicated than our primate relatives, the science behind impotence and the functions of erectile penis, orgasm and the G-spot, orgasms for paraplegic seems gives us clues how it’s connected to the brain, sexuality experiments in Islamic countries could be a risky undertaking and even in a free country like USA it could be problematic, and etc.

Daniel Pink came up with this comic version of career help book. It’s rather interesting to read a self-help comic book. Instead of a big genie from rubbing an oil lamp, the hot Asian girl can do just as well by the cracking noise of breaking away the bamboo chopsticks. I like the fact that I can finish the book in an hour or so and it was entertaining as Johnny kept running into difficulties at work. And the Dianna genie, kept coming out to give a lesson and have it written on the whiteboard.

The key teachings are as follows:

1. There is no plan. No need to plan too much ahead. It’s not flexible enough for today’s ever changing world.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. Don’t try to work on improving your weaknesses but instead work on making your strengths stronger.
3. It’s not about you. Try to serve others instead of serving yourselves.
4. Persistence trumps talent. Persistence will get you ahead more than talents can. In a way, this sort of contradicting with #1.
5. Make excellent mistakes: Learn from your mistakes and make the best of them.
6. Leave an imprint: Seek meaning for your life.

I thought this book was going to teach me how to control the mass behavior to my liking. I was a little disappointed from the book that there are just a few things you can control: your beliefs, behavior, and influencing the words of mouth out there. In a way, this trend works to the favor of social networking like Facebook and Tweeters, who really have the channels to the words of mouth. No wonder Facebook is worth $50B as of today.

A summary of the books is as follows:

‘I’ is an illusion. We’re more ‘us’ than ‘I’ – our memory and decision-making have tricked us.

The 7 principles of Herd Marketing:
1. Interaction.
a. All mass behavior is the result of interacting individuals within a specific context. We do what we do largely because of other people. b. Organizations are built on the interactions of individuals. c. Understand the rules of interaction, which generate the complexity of the behavior that you are studying.

2. Influence
Peer-to-peer, consumer-to-consumer influences are more important than “persuasion.”

3. Us-talk
WoM (Word of mouth) Facts: 1. WoM is more important than other purchase influences. 2. WoM is getting more important over time. 3. WoM operates in both B2B and B2C. 4. WoM is a global – not just a US – phenomenon.

4. Just Believe
Be interesting and hold beliefs that engage us. 1. Be who you are. 2. What do you believe in? Find it and live it. 3. Act like you mean it (and don’t act like you don’t …).

5. (Re-)light the fire.
Make it personal to live your beliefs. Otherwise cynicism, within or without, will unpick your vestal virgin impersonation.

6. Co-creativity
Use the herd’s desire to co-create – it’s part and parcel of our human herd nature. It challenges our assumption of control; the warm, comfortable felling that we’re in control.

7. Letting go
Human herd behavior is complex and systemic, the illusion of control is both largely unhelpful and misleading. You have to get used to being out of control. The best we can hope to do is cast a pebble on the water. Choose the pebble wisely. Choose how to throw it but once the stone leaves your hand we have to let go.

This is the latest book by Dr. Dan Ariely. I enjoyed his previous book titled “Predictably Irrational.” And I like that the author used lots of experiments to prove and disprove his hypotheses. This is as scientific as you can get on social science. Though majority of the concepts have been covered before by Ariely or other authors, the ones that stood out for me are: 1) Inverse-U shape on compensation, 2) Hedonic adaptation (spread out joyful experience and get painful work done in one chunk), 3) People who are dating should be treated as “experience goods.”

The book is summarized below:

Lessons from procrastination and medical side effects:
The irrational forces help us achieve great things and live well in a social structure. The author’s ability to associate painful injection with enjoyable things (like watching video) allows him to survive through his rehabilitation period after his 3rd-degree-burn accident.

Defy logic a work:
Paying more less: Why big bonuses don’t always work
More bonus doesn’t always yield good results – inverse-U shape. Sometimes it could even yield negative result due to the distraction. Offering smaller, more-frequent bonuses might help.

The meaning of labor: what Legos can teach us about the joy of work.
Animals tend to prefer “earning” their food and spend their time – contrafreeloading. The need to complete goals run deep in human nature. Even a small amount of meaning can take us a long way. “To make a habit of two things – to help, or at least do no harm.”

The Ikea effect: why we overvalue what we make
1. The effort that we put into something changes us and the way we evaluate that object.
2. Great labor leads to greater love.
3. Over over-evaluation of the things we make runs so deep that we assume that others shared our biased perspective.
4. When we cannot complete something into which we have put great effort, we don’t feel so attached to it.

The non-invented here bias: Why “my” ideas are better than “yours”
Upside: use the understanding of ownership and pride that stems from investing time and energy in projects and ideas, you can inspire yourself and others to be more committed to and interested in the task at hand.

The case for revenge: what makes us seek justice?
The tendency to seek revenge does not depend on whether the agent or the principle suffer. At the moment we feel the desire for revenge, we don’t care who we punish. Remedy by apologize sooner and let time heal the wound. Revenge could be sweet by doing better than the people who did wrong to us.

Defy logic at home:
On adaptation: why we get used to things (but not all things and not always)
“We have only a limited amount of attention with which to observe and learn about the world around us – and adaptation is very important novelty filter that helps us focus our limited attention on things that are changing and might therefore pose either opportunities or danger.” On Hedonic adaptation – the process of getting use to place we live, our homes, our romantic partners, and etc. In the long term, we don’t end up as happy as we though we’d be when good things happen to us, and not as sad as we expect when bad things occur. It’s better to interrupt pleasurable experiences (space out purchases) but not break up annoying experiences (stick with it until you’re done, liking doing tax, house chores). Control the environment may influence our ability to adapt.

Hot or not? Adaptation, assortative mating, and the beauty market
Assortative mating is generally a good description of the way people tend to find their romantic partners. Aesthetic-challenged people may choose to lower their aesthetic ideals or change our sense of beauty.
We have the ability to discover and love the characteristics of our partner, thanks to our ability to adapt.

When a market fails: an example from on-line dating
The problem is that people are treated as searchable goods described by attributes, when they should be “experienced goods.”

On empathy and emotion: why we respond to one person who needs help but not to many
Three main reasons: 1. closeness: proximity to the victim, 2. Vividness (vs. vagueness), 3. Drop-in-the bucket effect. To overcome this effect, one approach is to use Jewish “rule,” “whoever sames a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”

The long-term effects of short-term emotions: why we shouldn’t act on our negative feelings.
We humans have a very poor memory of our past emotional states. So we keep on making the same short-term decisions that can change our long term ones (emotional cascade). And irrelevant emotions can create DECISIONS. Self-herding comes from remembering the speicific actions we have taken in the past and mindlessly repeating them. Before committing to any long-term relationship you should first explore your joint behavior in environments that don’t have well-defined social protocols.

Lessons from our irrationalities: Why we need to test everything.
The upside of irrationalities: our ability to find meaning in work, fall in love with our creations and ideas, our willingness to trust others, our ability to adapt to new circumstances, our ability to care about others, and etc. Overcome our mistakes by running experiments, gathering and scrutinizing data, comparing the effect of the experimental and control conditions. “It is a common sense to take a method and try it: if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This book offers lots of good advises on running a “small” business based on their experience running a small 16-person company called 37 signals. This book is a quick read since it’s got artworks/drawings almost every three pages or so; they surely spice things up a bit. Some of the advises are just common sense but some go against the grain the common beliefs for which they offer good arguments.

The advises stand out for me are:
1. The “real” world may not be real. Don’t use it to justify for not trying starting your company.
2. Learn from your success and do it better rather than learn from your or others’ mistakes. Failure is not a prerequisite for success. “Evolution doesn’t linger on past failures, it’s always building upon what worked.”
3. On planning: it’s all guesswork. “Working without a plan may seem scare. But blindly following a plan that has no relationship with the reality is even scarier.”
4. On growth and size: “Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination in itself… Anyone who runs a business that’s sustainable and profitable, whether it’s big or small should be proud.”
5. Be a starter (not entrepreneur). You just need an idea, a touch of confidence and a push to get started.
6. Make a dent on universe: If you want to do something, do something that matters.
7. Scratch your own itch: Make something you want to use.
8. Draw a line on the sand: “When you don’t know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable.”
9. Don’t look for outside money for the following reasons: a. you give up control, b. “cashing out” begins to trump building a quality business. c. spending other people’s money is addictive. d. you have no leverage. e. customers move down the totem pole, f. raising money is incredibly distracting.
10. Start a business, not a startup. “A business without a a path to profit isn’t a business, it’s a hobby.”
11. Embrace constraints. Use them to force creativity.
12. You’re better off with a kick-ass half than a half-asses whole. Start chopping.
13. Be a curator: Stick to what’s truly essential.
14. Focus on what won’t change. Things that people are going to want today and ten years from now.
15. Don’t get obsessed over tools.
16. Sell your by-products.
17. Reasons to quit: Ask yourself: Why are you doing this? What problems are you solving? Is it actually useful? Are you adding value? Will this change behavior? Is there an easier way? What could you be doing instead? Is it really worth it?
18. Find a judo solution – one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort.
19. Make tiny decisions so you can afford to change.
20. Don’t copy, be influenced.
21. De-commoditize your product. Make you part of your product or service. Make it something no one else can offer.
22. Pick a fight with your competitors. Taking a stand always stand out.
23. Under-do your competition. Do less than your competitors to beat them.
24. Say no by default. Don’t believe that “customer is always right” stuff.
25. Let your customers outgrow you. You can’t be everything to everyone. Companies need to be true to a type of customer more than a specific individual customer with changing needs.
26. Build an audience. Lucky companies have fans. Share information that’s valuable and you’ll slowly build a loyal audience.
27. Out-teach your competition: Teach and you’ll form a bond you just don’t get from traditional marketing tactics. Great chefs give away recipes in cookbooks.
28. Get behind the scenes. Give people a backstage pass to show how your business works. They’ll develop a deeper level of understanding and appreciation for what you do.
29. Emulate drug dealers. Make your product so good, so addictive that giving customers a small, free taste makes them come back for more.
30. Everything is marketing. It’s the sum total of everything you do.
31. On hiring: Do it yourself first. Hire to kill pain. If you lose people, don’t replace him/her immediately. Pass on great people you don’t need. Hire slowly to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers.
32. On resume: check the cover letter and trust your gut reaction.
33. With a small team, everyone must work, not delegate work.
34. Higher great writers. Great writers know how to communicate.
35. Own your bad news. It’s better be you who’s telling the bad news.
36. Put everyone on the front line. No one should be shielded from criticism.
37. You don’t create a culture, it’s a by-product of consistent behavior.
38. Decisions are temporary. The ability to change course is one of the big advantages of being small.
39. Policies are organizational scar tissue – codified overreactions to situations that are unlikely to happen again or collective punishment for the misdeeds of an individual.
40. Writing for one and sound like you. Think of one person to write email to.
41. Be aware of the 4-letter words: need, can’t, easy, and ASAP.
42. Inspiration is perishable. Grab it and put it to work on ideas that are immortal.

This is a reasonable good listen, though it’s hard to follow exactly on audiobook with so many details and there is no book version. This was more a coaching seminar than a book. Summary is below:

“Hidden” from the non-academic world. There were shrunk down to 7 to be achievable within the shortest amount of time. Criteria: can survive in 7 days in a strange city. Motivation: a compelling reason why – reason – will – and emotion: determined, disturbed (arouse). Deconstruct and Re-construct.

1. Reason why – big enough reason to change (not enough to appeal to emotion). Facts gives us the reason to justify our decision – reality check. Head can’t go with the heart without reason – rationalization. Disturbing questions to ask – use logic to create cognitive dissonance – demolish old beliefs. Exercises: track a journal of reality. Practice shift to long-term goal – zoom in/out. Taking elevator of emotion down: take note of the emotions. Track the opportunity costs of taking no actions – danger of being naive.

2. Changing the belief, attitude (expectation, and value). If we don’t expect success, we’re not getting it. “Impossible is over-rated.” “Change your though and you change the world.” Have I tied my top goals to my believes and values? 3 Kinds of beliefs: probability, social (expectation of others), and ability (our capability to actually achieve our outcome. Realistic feasible plan helps to increase the probability. Detailed plan, scenario analysis help with the ability belief.

6-5-4 strategies: 6 major world views: (Types of Men) aesthetic, life philosophy, reason (hunger for intellectual knowledge) power (personal power), practical, humanatarin. 5 motives behind motivation: who (social), what (sub goals), when and where, why, how. 4 motivation environments: dominant, inducement ,submission and compliant. 1. adventurer, 2. motivator (needs recognition), 3. harmonizer (needs appreciation and control), 4. planner (needs security, definition and follow instructions).

8-step processes:
1. Uncovering your unconscious limiting beliefs – belief assessment – Aristotle treatment. Limiting beliefs: in terms of permanent or temporary. Pervasiveness (universal or specific), hopeless or hopeful. Ask yourself: “What would you lose or what could go wrong if you get what you want?” “What sort of negative things would they say about you if you get what you wanted?” ” What prevents things from changing?” “What blockages cause things to stay the same old ways?” “What past experiences could be spilling over to your presence and future?” “What things are stopping you from getting what you want?” “What appears to be almost impossible to get what you want?” “What seems to always prevent you from reaching your outcomes?” “What are things that would never change for you?” “What the skills or abilities that would prevent you from reaching your outcome?”
2. putting the limiting beliefs to a logical format: premise-> Conclusion.
In view of this fact ______, I conclude that _____.
If _____, then ______.
Because _______, as a result _________.
For the following reasons _______ , consequently _____ .
If we assume ______ , then we can infer ______ .
Since ______ , leads to the ________ .
Assuming that _______ , proves that _________ .
3. re-frame the limiting belief.
4. belief assess. Probability: This goal seems impossible ___ because ____. What could have been if it’s easy? Social: Relation impact? Because? What voice? Ability: What ability do you lack? I need the following skills _____? Decision making process: What assumption am I making? What are my options? What criteria? How do I make progress?
Success language declaration: Base on the probability, I will _________. Based on my positive support system, I will ________. Based on my partnership _____. Based on my detailed plan, I will _____.
5. paradigm shift: What __ , if ___, then ___. What is my current belief. But if it’s possible, then ____.
6. Align your personality.
7. Align with you top two attitudes.
8. Increase your desire to achieve your goals. Crank up the meaning purpose 100 times. What would you have to lose in the attitudes? Visualize a short movie in 30 days in the following areas: beliefs, emotions, social, spiritual, financial, habits, will power, thinking, focus.

3. Clear focus on key issues: Pull, intentionality, effortlessness. Intention is a powerful predictor. Narrow cast – seeing opportunities that others do not see. Do I easily get distracted from my goals? We are what we focus on all day long. Am I following through on my goals? Train our mind to not see the distractions – pure motive (what you’re becoming not just wealth). Baseball analogy: Clear focus on 1st base, beliefs on 2nd base, attitudes on 3rd base, actions on home plate.

4. Spiritual/religion: lots of religion stuff here. Don’t be overly self-reliant. This is a stretch. Be – Do – Have. Who do I need to become in order to be happy?
8 steps: 1. incorporate opportunities to your goal each day, 2. use pre-rehearsal to set your intention strongly, 3. put out reminder to remind you of your intentions to your goals, 4. pick the right people to train you on your goals, 5. determine your core surrender issue and resolve it (fear of control, social rejection, confrontation, unknown and undefined), 6. reflect the metaphor of raising the sail and let the wind carries you, 7. think of the archetypes of gods and confessions daily (journaling), 8. think through stages of moral.

4. Warrior’s Edge Resistance to temptation. Absence of wanting – negation. Maintain your inner drive by ignoring instead of fighting, when facing difficulty. Watch comedy or humor daily.

5. Behavior Congruent: Use music, smell, touch, exercises, laughter and etc. 4-step STOP process: 1). Startle (disrupt, shock, surprise, grab attention, “warning,” “news alert”). 2). Triggering & Transfer (dis-engage, move and engage: attach a strong biological/philosophical driver, like drinking, waking up, to your higher intention). 3). Originality and ROI: reward seeking (feel pleasure & satisfied). What can do I to add something new/innovative to my process? Why is it better? Which one offers the best ROI? 4). Power and Purpose: being soulful, selfless mission, have a problem to solve, not self-conscious ego. Learn Viola Spolin’s acting techniques. Be well disciplined & being honest to all people. Exercises: Teach and mentor someone, assemble peer groups.

6, 7. Some thing to die for and something to live for: “The biggest problem you have is that you don’t have a bigger problem.” How true! Create a genuine mission, something outside of yourselves to live for and die for.