My All-Time Favorite Books
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is setup up as a conversation between a man and a gorilla. It digs into the behavior of man as a race. Why do we think that we own this planet? Why do we have to destroy it? What will have if we keep going at the pace we’re at now? Easy to read and a wake-up call for all human beings.
How not to die and How not to die cookbook by Dr. Michael Greger is about how your health and longevity is by and large mostly determined by your diet. Lots of ideas on how to improve overall well-being and giving you the best odds of being alive long enough to enjoy the company of your great grand children.
Lessons of history by Will Durant is a condensed review of world history. As the saying goes, history tends to repeat itself, and here’s to making sure you learn from the lessons of the past.
Switch by Chip and Dan Heath is an amazing book on human psychology and how the rational mind competes with the emotional bind for control. It also comes with a roadmap for how to implement change whether it be in your personal life or in an organization. Add The culture code by Daniel Coyle to the mix and you have yourself a powerful toolkit.
Atomic habits by James Clear is about how to break bad old habit and establishing new and powerful ones. We all have the same 24 hours available each day. What we do with them makes the difference in the qualities of the lives that we lead.
Buy then build by Walker Deibel is about how most startups fail. Statistically the success rate is a lot higher for acquisition entrepreneurs. This book will walk you through the steps of buying an existing, established business.
Am I being too subtle by Sam Zell is an amazing book packed with lessons from one of the best real estate investors there has ever been.
Excellence wins by Horst Schulze is about how the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain came to be and the guiding values and principles that has helped it become one of the most recognized brands in hospitality. This book is full of great advice and suggestions and should be required reading for anyone working in the service industry.
What it takes by Stephen Schwarzman tells the story of how Blackstone became the biggest alternative asset manager in the world. It is fascinating to read, especially if you do any kind of investing.
The Wealthy Gardener by John Soforic. Written as part novel, part guidance from a father to his son. Although the title sounds like it’s purely financial advice, it includes so many pieces of good advice that parents should share with their children.
Principles by Ray Dalio is a compilation of ideas and strategies on running your life and business shared by the founder for the world’s largest private hedge fund.
Sell like crazy by Sabri Suby is a step-by-step guide to selling any product or service online. How to setup up funnels and add value for your audience. How to give before you take. Great if you’re looking to learn about online marketing or starting a new business.
Shoe dog by Phil Knight is story of how Nike sportswear came into existence. It is funny, well written and lets you understand that you can build great things even though you’re swimming against the tide or were not blessed with the best skills in life.
Can’t hurt me by David Goggins, who is a former Navy Seal, is about overcoming adversity, building discipline, controlling that inner voice and understanding that you and your body are capable of so much more than you might believe.
Never split the difference by Chris Voss is about negotiation. Tips and tricks you can use on your wife, the car dealer, a terrorist, a politician or with any other person / situation. Great mix of theory and practice from some of the world’s conflict zones.
The new confessions of an economic hitman by John Perkins is about the dirty games played by government organizations and huge corporations in order to dominate smaller countries and take advantage of their resources. Mind boggling to say the least.
Speculator and Drug Lord by Douglas Casey are two novels in the same series about a young kid who ventures into risky business deals and takes on Big Pharma, gold miners, tax authorities, African militia, and so forth. Amazing entertainment and well worth reading.
Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall taught me a lot about the evolution of running and helped improve my own speed while avoiding injuries. It’s a semi-scientific approach combining with some of the best storytelling I’ve read in a long time. An absolute pleasure to read.
Hormegeddon by Bill Bonner is in many ways a controversial book that explains how too much of a good thing can lead to disaster. Case studies include the government, healthcare, economics, military and energy. Bill has such a humorous way of writing about dry subjects that it becomes a joy to read about. An eye-opener and probably one of the most important books I’ve ever read.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel is a very different business book that forces you to look at industries and ideas in new ways. A glimpe into the thinking of one of the smartest investors in Silicon Valley.
What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars by Brendan Moynihan shares a very interesting story about how money and emotions are interrelated. It has taught be stay disciplined in trading and investing when emotions take over. Sometimes it’s better to accept a loss and move on.
As a Man Thinketh by James Allen is a small book about the great power of the mind. It includes a lot of timeless principles and is a book that I will be re-reading for the rest of my life.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber because I sometimes feel like I get out outsmarted by my 2-year old daughter. This book has improved my communication with children immensely, but also helped me understand how their minds work. A must-read for any parent.
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike is a book about eight business leaders that you, except for Warren Buffet, have probably never heard of. Yet, they created some of the most prosperous companies the world has every seen and treated shareholders better than any of them could have ever hoped for. Here’s the recipe.
Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived – Laurence Shames & Peter Barton is in many ways a sad book. It tells the true story of very successful man, Peter Barton, and what happens when he finds out that he is dying of cancer. How does his priorities change? What becomes important? A very candid and tear-pressing story that makes you value the “small” moments in life a little more.
Shadow Divers and Pirate Hunters by Robert Kurson are two amazing books that both follow deep wreck diver, John Chatterton in his underwater explorations. Both are thrilling real-life stories and history classes at the same time. I read Shadow Divers first and started Pirate Hunters the following day. Exciting books that are hard to put down once you’ve started.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert B. Cialdini is relevant for anyone involved in any kind of selling or negotiation. Lots of practical examples and fun to read. To be honest, I’ve haven’t finished it yet, but is has proven too good not to add to this list.
Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa is an epic novel about the samurai era in Japan. As one of the most sold books ever in Japan, this is a most for anyone fascinated by Japanese culture.
Brain Rules and Brain Rules for baby by Dr. John Medina offer interesting insight into how our brains work, as kids and then later as adults. How can we improve learning for our children? What happens to our brains when we watch TV? What happens in your brain when you learn to play an instrument? This book answers those questions and many more.
Investment Biker by Jim Rogers. I love investing, traveling and motorcycles. What better than a book that combines all three?
The Little Book That Still Beats The Market by Joel Greenblatt offers timeless advice about to find a business and estimate its value. Relevant to beginners as well as expert investors.
High Income Retirement by Dr. David Eifrig & Brian Hunt was my inspiration to start options trading. The conservative techniques that this book teaches works, and can be applied by anyone looking to generate extra income with their savings. I’m 40 years from retirement, but still use these strategies to generate $1000-2000 of income per month
Nuts: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin Freiberg is an encyclopedia of good ideas, many of which can be implemented in any business. A fun and entertaining read.
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. The story of how an Australian drug addict ends up as a medic in an Indian slum, before becoming a Bollywood movie caster and eventually ending up smuggling weapons to Mujaheddin freedom fighters in Afghanistan. A must read!
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull is the story about how Pixar came to be and how their different style of managing their creative talents has produced one of the most success businesses in animation history.
Man’s Search For Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl is about the author’s experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. How does one find meaning in life when everything seems hopeless? Who survives and who does not? A gruesome, yet amazing tale.
Choose yourself by James Altucher is a wakeup call to everybody who are still stuck in the employee mentality. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to implement some changes in their life.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is an amazing novel about what happens in society if a government suppresses its most productive individuals. A long and hard read that took me months to finish, but was worth every minute. If you don’t have time to read the 1000 pages, then do yourself a favor and read this passage called “Francisco’s Money Speech”. Not for communists nor ultra socialists.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain because I grew up in the restaurant business and Anthony’s tales of the industry are both hilarious and scary at the same time. His style of writing makes me jealous yet leave me craving for more.
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie is a fast read with timeless principles about how to improve your social interaction.
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson is one of my all-time favorite business books. It’s impossible not to admire Richard’s balls, entrepreneurial spirit and positive outlook on life. A massive inspiration of mine.
The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz because it helps you overcome personal boundaries that usually only exist in your head. Why dream of running 10K if you can actually achieve a marathon? Why buy an apartment to rent if you can buy an entire apartment building to rent instead? An empowering book and very easy read.
Colombia tools
I thought it would be helpful to create a list of resources, listing all of tools I use for living in Colombia and living the digital nomad lifestyle. I’ll keep adding to the list as I learn more. I recommend bookmarking this page for your reference and convenience. Enjoy!
Real Estate
Fincaraiz is the best platform for real estate listings all over the country. All the local agents upload their listings here. I also use their site when selling my own apartments, instead of paying 3% commission to an agent.
Classified ads in El País is a another good place to find houses and apartment, but only for Cali and surroundings.
Classified ads in El Tiempo for real estate listings in Bogotá.
Classified ads in El Colombiano for real estate listing in Medellín.
Expense calculator for buying real estate in Colombia.
Supernotariado for downloading Certificados de Tradición y Libertad.
XE.com is the best currency converter available. I use it to figure out when it makes sense to bring in dollars or euros for investments purposes.
AirBnB for renting out property short-term to tourists and business people in Colombia.
Before buying anything, please read my article on how to buy property in Colombia. It will save you a lot of trouble.
Life in Colombia
Duolingo for learning Spanish (or any other language) is an amazing free tool that helped me improve my skills considerably. Their app for smartphone also works well. Bueno, entonces is another fun way to learn to Spanish, although with an Argentinean accent. The teaching revolves around conversations between a British student who is falling in love with his Argentinean teacher. Especially good for auditive learners.
Como es Pa’ Hoy is an event calendar for all of Colombia’s big cities. A good place to stay up to date with shows, concerts, etc.
Plan Ciudad is an event calendar specifically for Cali. The agenda is full of both free and paid events in the city and worth checking out for both residents and visitors alike.
Colombia Reports for news in English. For Spanish, I prefer El Tiempo, Portafolio, El Pais and Semana.
Linio is the Colombian knock-off version of Amazon. Sometimes they sell the exact same stuff for almost the same prices, saving you waiting time, overseas shipping and import duties. Although they don’t have the massive selection that Amazon does (Duh!), I’ve had great experiences with them.
TuCarro and sister site TuMoto are the best sites for buying and selling vehicles here. They force the sellers to take GREAT pics, which really help us as buyers. Wish there was a similar service for real estate listings.
When shipping from the US to Colombia, I recommend Giro Express and J&D Cargo Express as the cheapest and fastest solutions. I wrote an entire article on the subject, that you can find here.
Maps.Me is the best navigation app for Colombia and many other developing countries. It beats the sh*t out of Google Maps and Apple’s own map by running completely offline, thereby saving you gigabytes and data roaming charges. The app is free and works for iPhone and Android. A blessing in disguise.
Bogotastic is a great blog and resource about life in Bogotá. It is written by Jade – a Frenchy-Gringa with a curious approach and very positive outlook on her expat life in the Colombian capital. Highly recommended.
Tools for blogging and living the digital nomad lifestyle
Below are all of the tools that I use to run my blog. I took me months of research to figure out which service providers to use.
I use the WordPress platform for all my blogs and websites. I’m no computer programmer and don’t write any code, but I’ve found it to be surprisingly intuitive and easy to get started. First off, I chose a hosting solution – the best are listed below. To avoid programming, I then bought a theme for my website through Themeforest (I bought the Fox Magazine theme for $44). Buying a theme, which can be activated with one click once you have a hosting plan and a domain, means that someone has already done all the programming for you. All you have to do is insert content and customize colors, fonts, etc. to suit your taste.
Most reviewers agree that the two best hosting providers for WordPress websites are: Dreamhost and Bluehost. The services and prices that they offer are pretty similar. All of them allow you to install WordPress with just 1-click, offer unlimited hosting space, unlimited email accounts, great speed along with good and responsive customer service. Prices start at $3.95 a month for shared hosting, which is all you need until you have at least 15.000 daily visitors. You can buy your domain on their sites as well.
Yoast SEO is one of only two plugins that I’d recommend for you to install on your blog / website. It does an amazing job at making your website visible to search engines and helps you improve your traffic tremendously. It’s free and easy to work with and can be installed directly from the plugins link in your WordPress Dashboard.
SumoMe is the second plugin that I recommend. Their apps, which are mostly free, help you collect email addresses from your readers as well as provide tools for your users to share your content. Once you have the plugin installed, you can choose which apps you would like to install as well. I only use the free list builder, which is the pop-up that you experience on my website.
The cool part is that when someone subscribes to your newsletter, you can have SumeMe automatically forward the email address to your mailing list with either Aweber or MailChimp. Both are options for helping you send out newsletters and they are among the very best in the business. The reason that you need a professional service for this procedure, is that it guarantees delivery of your content and provides you with important statistics. If you send a newsletter to 3.000 people from you Gmail account there’s a very big chance that most of it will end up in people’s spam folders. Aweber is probably the best product on the market. They have the best tools, mobile app and integrates well with other products. But MailChimp is free until you have 2.000 subscribers.
SmartPassiveIncome is great place full of tips and tricks about how to get started with any online business.
Click Millionaires by Scott Fox. Despite the tacky title, this book was my primary inspiration for starting my own blog. Plenty of ideas and case studies for how to start any online business.
Problogger: Secrets For Blogging Your Way To A Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse is a supplement to the above. The good part about is that it goes into more depth in the part about how to monetize your blog.
Four Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss is for many considered the Bible when it comes to creating a lifestyle for yourself as a digital nomad. It digs into automation and outsourcing and brings plenty of case studies to back up the theories.
Make sure to read my article series on how to earn dollars in Colombia, where I also present a lot of tips and useful tools.
Tools for stock and option trading
Interactive brokers allows you to trade more than 100 markets in 24 different countries. It is my preferred broker for trading US stocks, options and (corporate) bonds. It’s not the easiest platform to use, but they make up for it by being the cheapest. Many of my trades cost less than a dollar and their mobile platform works well. Please note that they require a $10.000 dollar minimum deposit and and have a $10 monthly fee, unless you do a minimum 10 trades a month. It’s a place for active traders.
Nordnet Bank is my Swedish broker for all my European stocks. It’s also where I hold my pension. All account are free to open with no required minimum and commissions are pretty low by European standards.
Tradestops is where I monitor my stops on all my stock and option positions. If you enter your stops with your broker, they become visible to market makers, who can take advantage of them. I just started using them within the last few months and must say that I am very positively surprised.
Yahoo! Finance is where I go for current prices on stocks and options as well as get financial information about the companies that I research for my investing. They also cover financial news. Free and no membership required.
Bloomberg is my supplement to Yahoo! Finance. I used their app for my iPhone for financial news.
Zero Hedge is a financial blog that brings (often times controversial) from all over the world. This page is by and for the ultra libertarians, who believe in the less government interference the better.
Magic Formula Investing is a free stock screener by Joel Greenblatt, the author of The Little Book That Still Beats The Market. I use it as inspiration for finding great businesses, whose stocks are worth buying or sell options on.
Stansberry Research – if you’re really genuinely interested in learning and understanding how the markets work, I can’t think of a better place to start than with Porter Stansberry and his associates. I’m a lifetime member and have access to everything they publish, but I earn nothing by referring you. I’m just a happy customer. It’s simply the best stock and options recommendations along with the most sound advice about investing, asset allocation, portion sizing gathered in one place.
Sign up for a few of their free newsletter like the Digest, DailyWealth, Growth Stock Wire before you decide on any paid service. If you decide to try out one of their paid services, I’d recommend that you start with the Stansberry Investment Advisory ($99 a year) or the Retirement Millionaire ($39 a year). Both are a steal at these prices, even just for the reading and learning value. They have several other publications that cost thousands of dollars a year, but in my opinion, you get lot more bang for your buck in the two newsletters listed above – especially if you are just starting out. Their training center also provides a plethora of valuable information.
Casey Research, founded by Doug Casey, a legend in the natural resource investing has been recently taken Stansberry Research as a partner in his business. Although I don’t subscribe to their paid services anymore, they provide high-quality information for their readers and their free content is great as well. Their sister site InternationalMan has a free newsletter that delivers quality information on, you guess it, internationalization. Stuff like best tax jurisdictions, how to obtain second passports and the likes.
Grant’s Interest Rate Observer by Jim Grant is by many considered to be the one of the very best commentators and newsletter writers on Wall Street. His services are a little pricy, but all analysts at Stansberry Research agree that his publication is the only one that they never miss and episode of.
Stock Gumshoe is a financial blog by Travis Johnson. He reviews stock picking newsletters and with great humor tries to figure out what stocks the different newsletters are pitching in their advertising in order to make you sign up. He is undoubtedly very smart and all you need is a free membership to access his material.
Dow Theory Letters has been written by Richard Russell since 1958. Imagine how long ago that was. My dad wasn’t even born back then. I don’t have a paid subscription to his newsletter, but I recommend that you read his two classic pieces called The Perfect Business and Rich Man, Poor Man. They are free and will give you a new perspective on business and investing.