Review – The Wealth Taboo
Review / March 27, 2018

Review: Just over a hundred pages is a plenty for a scientific thesis or any other format that presents one particular tiny detail with maximum depth. What can we find between the just over a hundred pages of The Wealth Taboo? The history and mechanism of the global banking system, how to read a balance sheet, personal finance and common financial instruments, the proper mindset, ways to generate income (with examples from a photography business), how to get a loan, the basics of networking, entrepreneurship, portfolio theory, the mechanics of inflation and how to find your purpose. The framing story of The Wealth Taboo is about Aguirre meeting his friends (he calls them his ”little friends”) for a picnic, and generously teaching them the most basic personal finance in a way that is both jovial and patronizing. The friends (they seem to be young adults based on what they do) ask questions so imbecilic that for a long time I thought they were young children. Or dogs. Nothing in The Wealth Taboo is wrong. But none of the many topics raised by the book is explained in satisfying depth. Readers with very little financial knowledge will take away some phrases…

Review – The Richest Man in Babylon
Review / March 23, 2018

Review: The Babylonians invented money. Unfortunately, not enough of it. The Richest Man in Babylon tells the secret how to acquire wealth, no matter what your current situation is. Does that sound too good to be true? Author George Clason chose to reveal the secret to through a series of unrelated fictional stories of rich and successful Babylonians. In the first story, we learn about the “seven cures for a lean purse”. The second story states the “five laws of gold”, which are basically the same thing. The other stories in The Richest Man in Babylon just hammer home the same points several times more. In a nutshell: keep ten percent of your income, reduce your expenses, invest profitably and get the advice of people that are experts in whatever investments you consider. Easy enough, almost trivial, but indeed the foundation of a future fortune. It is astonishing that not more people live that way. One question The Richest Man in Babylon leaves unanswered is how to spot and identify the good investments. Giving money to a brickmaker to purchase jewels is presented as an example of a stupid investment, because a brickmaker does not know enough about jewels. Then…

Review – Unlock your Business Voice
Review / March 8, 2018

Review: Simon de Cintra wants to help you unlock your business voice. What does that mean? Something about communicating better and getting heard. Like, when you are a subject matter expert you could learn to appear more leadershippy to add some gravitas to your speech. Something like that. How do you unlock your business voice, whatever that means? By applying the My Business Voice Methodology®. How do you apply the My Business Voice Methodology®? By using VOICE. The acronym stands for Vocation, Observation, Intention, Casting, Experiment. Let me quote from Unlock your Business Voice for you to clear things up: “The  first part of the My Business Voice Methodology®, Vocation, is all about choosing your mindset and therefore your role in any piece of communication that you deliver. This will, and indeed should, vary depending on the situation, but absolutely not according to the personalities involved.” Got that? Did you understand, what the vocation part is all about?  Well, I did not, so let’s have a look at the full programme to see if we can deduce the meaning of unlocking your business voice: “VOCATION – my new role requires me to contribute to strategic and therefore potentially ambiguous conversations,…