THE

CHIP WILSON

LIBRARY

Why this book?

Like the “Psychology of Achievement”, by Brian Tracy below, “Seven Habits” is a study of the actions all successful people operate under without knowing they are doing it. The Habits are usually learned over a lifetime but knowing this up front is a short-term hack for a life of success. As knowledge of the Habits creates exponential health and happiness the results are a longer, healthier and more fun life.

Why this book?

Like the “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, by Stephen Covey, below, this book is a study of actions of successful people and how they subconsciously operate. The key concepts are why people do and do not set goals and the law of attraction setting out that a person attracts into their sphere the same type of person they are. This is an 8-hour audio that distinguishes integrity, communication, family, philanthropy and religion.

Why this book?

Is a story of the struggle between a futuristic, functionally creative architect and the offsetting power forces of old media and those who fear change.

Why this book?

This is a fun fiction book and the theory of constraints and is a must read for anyone who manufactures a non digital product. This book provided insights as to how I could use sourcing and production as a competitive tool to manipulate margins. The ideas this book has will be hated by public companies who are incapable of lowering margins to win a long term competitive battle and may be one of the reasons private companies outperform public companies.

Why this book?

It distinguishes that “good” is the enemy of “great”. It distinguishes what the 5 levels of leaders with a level 5 leader as someone who develops a successor better than they are. Finally, Jim Collins displays the intersection of three circles: 1. What a company is best in the world at 2. What the company is passionate about and 3. What is the economic engine. The greater the overlap of the three circles the better the success of the company.

Why this book?

Setting aside the political football this book evokes, this book champions the entrepreneurial drive to invent products and run a great company. This includes rewarding employees who are responsible, who do not complain, who move to action and think for themselves as partners and equals. Not that it should matter, but the female protagonist of the book refuses to think of herself as anything but powerful in her business thinking while embracing her femininity and sexual desires as pure nature.

Why this book?

This book merely states that an entrepreneur is not someone who is in control of their time and lives. But to build a lasting successful company where the entrepreneur can direct 5 year strategy and not be a slave to operations, the entrepreneur should set the company processes such that the company could be franchised. This is not a book to suggest the company should be franchised.

Why this book?

This book describes how a product or brand is used by a very small group of fanatic consumers sometimes described as a tribe. This tribe easily communicates between each other and because of their authenticity slowly leaks the attributes of the products out to people just outside their ring. The ring gets large enough until the whole world suddenly wants the product.

Why this book?

This book defines the culture and work ethic of the world’s most successful sports team, the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. This book provides the perfect analogy to the lululemon culture and people development program.

Why this book?

A 1960’s period story of 6 teenagers who escape from different situations from different parts of the world to meet in a drug and bar town on the coast of Spain. The group travels to Portugal, Mozambique and then to Morocco. The juxtaposition and background of the 6 teenagers provides a glimpse into the Vietnam war, black struggle, elitism and growing up in the 60’s.

Why this book?

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor. He's on an unusual guest to find out whether he is capable of true love. Don Tillman has never been on a second date. He is is a man who can count all his friends on one hand and whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner.

Why this book?

I listened to this by audio, and it was surprisingly spectacular. It is a fictional story of music set in Spain and spanning generations. The fictional content was given approval from many of the worlds great musicians.

Why this book?

The ultimate fantasy in three novels. I suggest university students should never pick up the first book a week before final exams.

Why this book?

I got this book while listening to a Tim Ferris podcast with Mark Zukerberg. I now know why he changed the name from Facebook to Meta. This book provides insight into the metaverse future we will experience. The book is fiction and a fun listen.

Why this book?

A simple but also complex book of a life of the working class in Korea and Japan. The book focuses on class struggles of between cultures and income classes.

Why this book?

This is a comedy that sets out life survival mechanisms of 18 year old pilots in WW2 who are forced to fly excess bombing missions over enemy flak until ultimately they know in a week or month they are sure to die. This is a story of leadership ineptitude and the sacrifice of young lives to gain power and acknowledgement.

Why this book?

After 2025 this book will no longer be relevant. It is the story of young 20 years old’s in the PE digital world of Silicon Valley and how they unwittingly find themselves in the middle of the AI race between America and China.

Why this book?

A book that never wants an ending. Breaking out from an Australian prison, the protagonist makes his way to India and whilst hiding, survives in the Indian underworld.

Why this book?

Pure entertainment I suggest is digested by audio. This is a book reminiscent of Charles Dickens era of crime and destitution in London leading to a life of imprisonment and survival in Hobart Australia.

Why this book?

The best spy novel ever written. What I love about John Le Carre is his English mannerism of the understatement. A reader must drive the plot forward, not the author.

Why this book?

An entertaining historical fiction of sexual orientation mixed in with the rise and fall of Detroit as a city. Ramifications of strong unions, racial strife and white flight to the suburbs.

Why this book?

From man’s beginnings in Ethiopia, the book describes how the world expanded from France to Asia and then how the Spanish conquered central and south America with decease and guns.

Why this book?

A present day Guns, Germs and Steel, this books lays out the future power of countries by providing a thesis of why geography and governance will have some countries rise and other fall.

Why this book?

A true story of a Polish army officer is arrested after WW2 and send for torture in Moscow and then to a Siberian prison camp. The author and partners escape and rather than head for the ocean they go over the Gobi desert and the Himalayas into India.

Why this book?

A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX.

Why this book?

A book written by three key people behind redefining longevity and health science. Dr. Peter Diamandis from the X-Prize, Dr. Harari who has pioneered placenta stem cell treatment and the motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

Why this book?

This is the lifetime story of a young boy who struggles through communism with the opportunity to go to university only to get set back via the cultural revolution. The boy ends up at an American university and writes his biography.

Why this book?

I still don’t fully understand the whole concept, and I wish a person would rewrite this book in updated language. Many Machiavellian principals’ have been used against me in life and I wish I had understood how people gain power and keep power as an art form.

Why this book?

I like this book because it showed how a new coach for the gold winning Fiji rugby team turned the team into a world champion by using the existing culture rather than trying to change it. A great book for leaders coming into a new company.

Why this book?

This is a pure book on the art of leadership. This autobiography offers the opposing view of another great book called “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. Winston Churchill in the sunset of his life ends up being the perfect person and the perfect time to lead the Allies to victory over the Nazis.

Why this book?

When Peter writes about the future, his books can be out of date before they are published, which is of course the point Peter wants to make. Most people think growth is linear because of thousands of years prior to 1980 it was. This book provides insights as to how to think in a new era.

Why this book?

An insightful life and business book describing how easy it is to deceive ourselves of obvious lessons.

Why this book?

An early 1900’s story of fortitude and incredible hardships caused by the capture of an exploration boat to Antarctica caught in ice for three years.

Why this book?

I laughed so hard while listening to this book. Dan is the consummate anti new age male who crosses the bridge to self development kicking and screaming.

Why this book?

The dramatic, untold story inside Apple after the passing of Steve Jobs by following his top lieutenants—Jony Ive, the Chief Design Officer, and Tim Cook, the COO-turned-CEO—and how the fading of the former and the rise of the latter led to Apple losing its soul.

Why this book?

In my opinion, Tim is the best read and most prepared podcaster in media. He has a focus on personal development and his intellectual format easily attracts the most interesting people.

Why this book?

Guy interviews entrepreneurs who have built world class brands ands expose the stiff climb to success built on many failures, lack of funding and the belief of people who said “it is a stupid idea”.

Why this book?