I promised myself a long time ago that if I saw a book that interested me I’d never let time or money or anything else prevent me from having it.
– Ryan Holiday, American author, entrepreneur and digital media strategist
Books HLB Recommends
Winning The Game of Stocks!
This is the book that has the single and greatest influence on Heartland Boy’s investment strategy. One of the first few books that Heartland Boy picked up, but the only one that truly inspired him into action. Indeed, it is so well written by Adam Khoo that almost any novice investor with no knowledge in Finance can understand and execute his strategy easily. Heartland Boy was able to replicate Adam Khoo’s Value Momentum strategy and achieve results that beat the market for 2 consecutive years already.
Available on: Amazon
Secrets of Self Made Millionaires by Adam Khoo
Financial abundance was a powerful concept that was unheard of until Heartland Boy picked up this book at the age of 19 while serving his National Service. It ignited the FIRE in him that achieving financial freedom in Singapore was a possible dream. Some of the techniques taught by Adam Khoo that were subsequently applied by Heartland Boy in his life were:
- Learning to differentiating between needs and wants
- Selling to large audiences without increasing costs proportionately
Learn and follow the 9 habits of self-made millionaires in this book and kickstart your own financial freedom journey!
Available on: Amazon
Gone Fishing With Buffett by Sean Seah
This book helps to reinforce the Fundamental Analysis (‘FA’) element in Heartland Boy’s investment strategy. The writing is clean and simple to understand, and makes this almost the de-facto “Warren Buffett 101” investment strategy book. The investment principles stated in this book are essentially gleaned from Warren Buffet but contextualized to Singapore. If you are new to stock investing and want to learn from the ropes of investment guru, Warren Buffett, this is a great book to start with.
Available on: Amazon
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
Perhaps the greatest lesson that Heartland Boy gained from reading this book was on developing a long-term strategy that allowed him to sleep soundly at night. To be honest, while this is a timeless classic by the godfather of Value Investing, this is a book more suitable for experienced investors who are looking to brush up their fundamental analysis concepts.
Available on: Amazon | Book Depository
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Heartland Boy absolutely loved this book for it asks questions that the common man will never ever think of. More importantly, it opens up his perspective into the realm of social and behavioural economics. Heartland Boy used to recommend this book to his Economics students. This book may have no direct relevance to what were taught in class, but it illustrates that Economics can benefit society in ways beyond the student’s imagination. Even if you are not an Economics student, this is a book that will keep you company on a lazy Sunday.
Available on: Amazon
Show Me The Money (Book 1) by Teh Hooi Ling
If Heartland Boy ever needs statistical evidence of certain investment strategies, he will reach out to this book immediately. What works even better is that data in this book is Singapore-centric, and based on Heartland Boy’s experience, such long-drawn data is often not available online. Did bonds, stocks or gold perform better in the history of Singapore? Does buying stocks with a low price/book ratio generally beat the index? Heartland Boy fine-tuned his investment strategy by learning from the historical data in this book.
Available on: ST Press Books
Real Estate Riches by Ku Swee Yong
Heartland Boy was brought up with the concept that location, location, location are the 3 most important factors of property. Well, this book debunks that notion by illustrating how shallow that thinking is. Swee Yong sets Heartland Boy on a firm footing by highlighting the importance of demand and supply in the real estate industry. Ultimately, Heartland Boy emerged with an improved notion– “A property has real value only when it is well-used”
Available on: Amazon
The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Heartland Girl picked up this book during her last year of university and has read it countless times since. Even though a number of business ideas, concepts, and marketing strategies covered in this book are probably irrelevant now, this is the book to start with when it comes to learning how to build passive income. The Four Hour Workweek was where Heartland Girl learnt about lifestyle entrepreneurship for the first time, and it challenged her perspective of what being ‘rich’ meant, other than acquiring physical wealth.
Available on: Amazon
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a very specific task-management system created by David Allen. It aims to help you manage the different aspects of your life effectively, and is based on scientific research on how the mind functions. Heartland Girl uses ideas from both GTD and Personal Kanban to form her own personal productivity system. She believes that even though different individuals prefer different organizational styles, building a personal productivity system that works well for him or her is something worth investing time in.
Available on: Amazon
