Read about our pricing and services
List Price:
| Price | Quantity |
| $19.96 | 1-24 |
| $17.47 | 25-99 |
| $14.97 | 100-499 |
| $13.72 | 500-999 |
| $12.23 | 1000+ |
Bulk discounts are non-returnable. | |
Customize It
FREE US Ground Shipping on 25+ copies
Hardcover
240 pages
ISBN 9781591844648 Published Jan. 2012
Portfolio
See all formats
Tweet
Posted Dec. 31, 2012 5:41 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
We move a whole lot of business books around the world from our humble offices here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each and every month, we compile our sales numbers and release a bestseller list to recognize the books that are heading out to businesspeople, business schools, and entrepreneurs to help spread ideas, solve problems, promote change, and inspire leadership in the business community. We’ve now compiled those numbers for the entire year, giving weight to both total sales numbers and how long each book stayed on the list (and at what number) and are happy to announce
the bestsellers of 2012.
- From Values to Action: The Four Principles of Values-Based Leadership by Harry M Jansen Kraemer, Jossey-Bass
- What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful (Revised) by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter, Hyperion Books
- New Power Base Selling: Master the Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition by Jim Holden & Ryan Kubacki, John Wiley & Sons
- Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business by Frances Frei & Anne Morriss, Harvard Business Review Press
- End of Business as Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution by Brian Solis, John Wiley & Sons
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick M Lencioni, Jossey-Bass
- Taking People with You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen by David Novak, Portfolio
- Stewardship: Lessons Learned from the Lost Culture of Wall Street by John Taft, John Wiley & Sons
- Relationship Economics: Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts Into Personal and Professional Success (Revised, Updated) by David Nour, John Wiley & Sons
- Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath, Gallup Press
- 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, & Jim Huling, Free Press
- Conversations That Win the Complex Sale: Using POWER MESSAGING to Create More Opportunities, Differentiate Your Solutions, and Close More Deals by Erik Peterson & Timothy Riesterer, McGraw-Hill
- Own Your Success: The Power to Choose Greatness and Make Every Day Victorious by Ben Newman, John Wiley & Sons
- Business of Being the Best: Inside the World of Go-Getters and Game Changers by Molly Fletcher with Justin Spizman, Jossey-Bass
- The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India by By Michael J Silverstein, Abheek Singhi, Carol Liao, & David Michael, Harvard Business Review Press
- The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy by Jon Gordon, John Wiley & Sons
- Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World by Gail F. Goodman, John Wiley & Sons
- The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg, John David Mann, Portfolio
- Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen, HarperBusiness
- Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World's Greatest Companies by Jim Stengel, Crown Business
- The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World by Daniel Yergin, The Penguin Press
- The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money by Carl Richards, Portfolio
- How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership by Marilyn Carlson Nelson with Deborah Cundy, McGraw-Hill
- Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--And Secretive--Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky, Business Plus
- How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything (Expanded) by Dov Seidman, John Wiley & Sons
To see what thought leaders and business people are digesting and suggesting every month, you can follow The 800-CEO-READ Business Book Bestseller List on our website.
Addressing The Behavior Gap in the New Year
Posted Dec. 28, 2011 12:03 p.m. by dylan
In - 800 CEO Read Blog
We don't recommend too many personal finance titles around here. The last one I can remember us being really excited about was Lee Eisenberg's The Number, which came out in 2006 and didn't do as well with the general readership as we thought and hoped it would.
Financial literacy is a immensely important topic, but most personal finance books are rather dense—as well-written, easy-to-understand and exciting to read as the assembly instructions to the bar stool you just got for Christmas. They're also very often written by folks who are just "selling water by the river," bottling a resource you could easily get for free if you'd just take a few more steps. And at other times, their message just seems to be painfully obvious—such as in the lovely little video below.
And that's the honest ones. The darker side of the field is filled with get-rich-quick schemes and late-night infomercial charlatanry.
But every once in a great while a diamond comes out of the personal finance rough. The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money by Carl Richards is one such gem. And if getting your finances in order is on your list of resolutions for the New Year, it's coming at the perfect time—January 3rd.
Richards coined the term "behavior gap" to describe the difference between average investment returns and investor returns, which are much lower. And he makes a persuasive case that closing this gap doesn't require learning a secret financial formula or finding the perfect investment—which he argues does not exist abyway—but overcoming irrational instincts and finding balance.
I don't believe that there is a secret to getting rich. But in the end, financial decisions aren't about getting rich. They're about getting what you want—getting happy. And if there is a secret to getting happy, it's this: be true to yourself.
That sounds somewhat out of place in a book about finance, but it's a vitally important core to have. (And, though this book doesn't address larger financial issues, I think the same could be said for the finances of any company large or small, and any country in the world.) Perhaps the best advice he gives in he book is to "Focus on your own behavior, not the market's behavior:"
"Have you seen what the market is doing?" People often say this when they are in a state of shock or exhilaration. They're ready to go to cash until things "clear up," or they're preparing to load up on stocks before it's "too late." Notice the implication that the market is "doing" something right now. In reality, we only know what the market has already done.
The Behavior Gap won't show you how to predict the market or get rich quick—not financially anyway. You'll learn what financial matters you can control and which you can't, what you should plan on and what you shouldn't, and that it's okay to make mistakes from time to time, because you will. It provides a framework and a mindset with which to approach your financial life that enriches the quality of your life as a whole—the best return on investment I think you'll be able to find. Instead of providing easy answers, it prompts you to ask the right questions. After all, only you can be an expert on what you want, and only you can find it.
It won't identify your behavior gaps, but it will help you identify them for yourself. He addresses this reality in the book's conclusion:
I wish I could be more specific about how to solve your problems, but because I don't know you personally, I can't give you specific advice about your individual behavior gaps. Remember: taking financial advice from a stranger is dangerous.
It is that honest, sober and reasonable assessment&mash;along with the questions and tools he provides for you to make your own personal assessments—that makes The Behavior Gap so valuable.
I don't know about you, I'm tired of personal finance (all finance, really) being treated as if it's a game we're all playing, tired of all the yelling, bells-and-whistles, irrational exuberance and (by-turn) panic. I'm tired of feeling as if I need to be plugged into the news 24/7, seeking out the advice of analysts and gurus who seem to be only pretending like they know what they're talking about to keep my head above water. That makes some people happy, and I wish those people all the money and happiness they can possible hold onto, but it makes me nauseous. As Dan Heath says in his blurb for the book, "Carl Richards is the anti-Jim Cramer," and that's exactly what I'm looking for.
If you feel similarly, and improving your financial outlook (in the best sense of that word) is on your list of resolutions for the New Year, The Behavior Gap is the first book you should pick up in 2012.
