I’ve always believed your life is changed by the books you read, experiences you create and the people you meet. Today, I still embrace reading at least one book per week sometimes more (sometimes less).

Here are the most important books that I’ve recommended, sent to my team, talked about or ones that had an impact on me this past year.

#1: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business by Ari Weinzwieg

My favorite book for 2010 is from the co-founder of a company that INC magazine described as “The coolest small business in America”.

I met Ari at the recent INC500 conference and his message really struck a chord. Perhaps you’ve heard of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, MI or the Zingerman’s group of companies. They’ve built a totally unique business and service culture there that thousands of people have studied their companies. (It’s weird – as soon as I started studying Zingermans random people were sending us Zingermans delicious food. Odd but yummy coincidence for sure.)

Just one of the sections I’ve found incredibly compelling in the book is Ari’s concept of Visioning for the future. It’s been proven that when people use visioning instead of simply problem solving, energy levels increased, innovative ideas flowed and people were excited about eager about their future. What’s more, visioning also gets you clear on what you do NOT want to do in your business so that you can easily turn away, seemingly, golden opportunities that come your way. I’ve sent copies of this book to our team and now before we begin a major project or hire a key team member, we work on visions first. If you missed the interview I did with Ari on visioning you can check it out -
link: http://www.surefiremarketing.com/zingermans/

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Note: I’m planning on leading my Millionaire MasterMind group to a “field trip” at Zingermans for our first meeting in April 2011. If you’d like to be considered for the group – see details here.

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#2: Brains on Fire by Phillips, Cordell, Church & Jones

I’m not sure where I stumbled onto Brains on Fire blog – but I’m glad I found it. Brains on Fire has some really awesome stuff when it comes to creating movements for your customers, advocates and zealots. They’ve done a superb job of breaking down the 10 elements that go into the mix for creating movements and tight communities.

With traditional media having less impact it may be time for marketers to stop defaulting to the yo-yo of advertising campaigns and instead really look to “ignite” a word-of-mouth movement. Some of the advice here really hits home for the conversations that are taking place around your business or brand driven from the bottom-up.

The Brains on Fire crew hands you 10 rules for how they’ve engineered self-sustaining and extremely passionate (and successful) movements like the Fiskateers and Rage against the Haze for anti-smoking in South Carolina. Those are the two you hear the most about in the book and both are worthy of case studies by themselves. Fiskateers took a 360-year old company that makes scissors and helped double their profits by tapping into advocates in key markets. If you read this book with an open mind you might just see some significant changes to make in your marketing and business.

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#3: The Business of Happiness by Ted Leonsis

I read this book early in 2010 and really enjoyed it on a lot of levels. In fact, I got so much out of it – it went out to Maverick1000 members along with my exclusive interview with Ted.

In fact, Maverick 10000 member, Kim Pingleton, told me this book was one of the most impactful for her this year.

Many of us think if we can just be successful in business, we’ll be happy. But all too often we see this isn’t the case — AT ALL. There are plenty of miserable rich people — you probably even know some.

There’s another theory though — Being Happy Leads To More Success!

In case you aren’t familiar with Ted – he is an Internet industry pioneer who helped build AOL into a global phenomenon. He is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold multiple successful businesses over three decades, culminating with the recent sale of Revolution Money to American Express for $300M+. Plus, he’s the owner of two successful sports franchises, including my favorite team, the Washington Capitals.

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Side note: Ted Leonsis will be one of the featured keynote speakers at Underground 7 on March 3-5, 2011. High caliber guests like this are just one reason the Underground is THE top learning and networking event for online marketers – and it’s SOLD-OUT each year.

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#4: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Passion, Profits and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

Keeping on the same theme of combining happiness with business – my friend and former Underground® 4 & 5 keynoter, Tony Hsieh’s outstanding book on his story building Zappos and “delivering happiness”.  I’ve learned so much from Tony especially about how critical core values are for your company. Quite frankly, I sorta thought most of that stuff was bullshit or only for big companies to create meaningless ones like Enron’s use of “integrity” as a core value.

Tony is a firm believer that a happy culture creates profits and not the other way around. Pick this one – it’s a pretty fast but extremely engaging read.

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#5: Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise by Andy Nulman

I think incorporating surprise into your business might just give you the most important (and totally overlooked) advantage for your business today.
It’s the ‘zag’ while others ‘zig’ that makes your product or service buzz-worthy, spreads positive worth-of-mouth and bonds customers like cement to you.

I stumbled onto an outrageous book called “POW! Right Between the Eyes! Profiting from the Power of Surprise” written by Andy Nulman. As soon as I read it I knew we share some common “DNA” as I’ve been talking a lot about my concept called Astonishment Architecture™ lately.

Andy has been a ‘surprise marketer’ before the term even appeared. He’s the former (and now current again) CEO of the ‘Just for Laughs’ comedy festival in Montreal (the largest comedy event of its kind) and founder of mobile entertainment company, Airborne Media, which he sold for nearly $100M.

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#6: 59 Seconds: Think a Little Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman

Though not technically a business book, I really enjoyed 59 Seconds by Prof. Wiseman, because it takes scientific, peer reviewed researched on areas like happiness, creativity, goal setting, motivation, decision-making and more. It gives you proven research on what works and what doesn’t in these areas. The concept of the book is to take one of the main concepts – show the best peer reviewed research and then provide a 59 second action you can take.

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#7 Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter

This was a book recommendation from Maverick 1000 member, Kevin Wilke, while thee for our World Cup and Safari expedition in South Africa. I really, really liked this book. Previously I’ve grasped the importance of systems but never had the desire or motivation to get them implemented. This book has changed that for me.

I have a confession here – I hate systems but I realize how important they are. In fact, there’s an interesting section on systems in Ari’s book (#1) that talks about systems freeing you up to be more creative. I like that.

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#8: Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky

I like this book because it gives a framework around taking ideas and actually implementing them. As entrepreneurs, we often don’t lack for ideas but rather clear execution. This has a great left-brain/right-brain sort of process to it that works in the real-world.

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#9: Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon

Written by one of the most popular Harvard Business School professors, Different is exactly that. It’s a good take on how to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace by being different. Most businesses talk about being ‘different’ but so many fall into the trap becoming mediocre because they look at their competitors and try to copy some of their strengths. This only leads to being average across a bunch of different aspects instead of being unique in just 1 or 2 differentiable points.

This book is a fairly easy read and not a dull, boring college textbook.  And as one reviewer on Amazon said, just skip the Harvard MBA and get this book!

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#10: Unfolding the Napkin: The Hands-On Method for Solving Complex Problems with Simple Pictures by Dan Roam

Financial Times, Businessweek and Amazon named Dan’s “Back of the Napkin” book their ‘book of the year’ in 2008 and this the follow-up “How To” manual for solving problems and communicating with simple pictures. I admit it – I love doodling and I really get excited about these kind of hand drawings. In fact, I’ll make a prediction that the kind of powerful Powerpoint video sales letters you’ve seen a lot of in 2010 will be eclipsed by the effectiveness of these kind of drawings (even if you cannot draw).

What’s been inspiring you? Leave a comment and let me know which ones you’ve read or which ones I should have added to the list.

If you’re an entrepreneur ages 13-23 (or know one) this is a golden opportunity…

We’re in search of the next generation of young thought leaders and mavericks ready to make their own rules and build their online success story. 10 select individuals will get the ultimate young entrepreneurial experience at the upcoming Underground Online Seminar® 007.

Every year since 2003, the sold-out Underground Online Seminar® has provided high-level Internet marketing information from real-world, in-the-trenches presenters quietly making their fortunes online. It’s become the top networking and learning event for Internet marketers with presenting attendees such as Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, Mike Faith, CEO of Headsets.com, Darren Rowse, ProBlogger.com, Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com, Gary Vaynerchuk, author of “Crush it” and Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.org.

Winners will be chosen based on an application process and a panel of distinctive business judges for a VIP experience at the upcoming Underground event, March 3-5, 2011 in Washington, DC. If you’d like to apply (or know someone this is a fit for) please check out all the details here.

Quite frankly, one of my favorite things is getting back feedback and success stories from our previous Underground scholarship winners and see how they progress online. (And even if you don’t fit the 13-23 age group – I still love hearing so many of the success stories that come out of Underground.)

If you haven’t signed up yet – this is a good time to get in before the final early-bird discounts and bonuses expire.

I’d imagine you’ve heard of Tim Ferriss, right?

He’s the author of the #1 best-selling 4-Hour Work Week that really made a huge impression on so many people. Tim and I have known each other before the 4-hour success and the guy has always been fascinated with experiments and “life hacks”. (Oh, and random 80′s break dancing too – but that’s another story.)

Tim’s latest project, The 4-Hour Body, has been the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers and NASA scientists to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim’s been fixated on one life-changing question:

“What are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?”

Imagine if it’s possible to —

• Reach your genetic potential in 6 months?
• Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours?
• Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing? (Hello? The Holidays are a perfect chance to experiment with this.)
• Reverse “permanent” injuries and much more.

In fact, there are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects. This is one of the reasons Wired magazine has called Tim “The Superman of Silicon Valley” for his manipulation of the human body.

I got Tim on the line and grilled him about these optimal tweaks. Yes, this wasn’t the typical business-oriented teleseminar I normally put on but the topic was one that I believe can have a significant impact on your life (hence — your bottom line) that it’s too important not to make happen. (Though I did slip in a bunch of questions around personal productivity and even how to create a top blog that Tim answered.)

And in case you’re wondering if this is some thinly veiled ‘pitch’— sorry to disappoint. Of course, Tim mentioned his new book The 4-Hour Body that’s already a best-seller. (There is a special deal for a lost chapter for our readers – if you pick up 3 copies of the book and send the receipt to yanik@fourhourbody.com – they’ll get it off to you.)

To listen to the exclusive interview please click the links below

Yanik and Tim, Part 1

Yanik and Tim, Part 2

Yanik and Tim, Part 3

To download the whole audio file in a high quality mp3, please right click this link and choose “save as” to save this file to your computer. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

A few days ago at the very bottom of a somewhat long note about 3 ways to work together one-on-one with me in 2011, I mentioned I’m putting together a BETA program to co-create information products with a handful of people.

The response to that option has been quite lively!

In case you missed it – I wanted to highlight here on the blog before I send out details and open up the program this week.

Co-create your Information product with me

I think it’s probably safe to say that I’ve been involved in just about every aspect of info marketing. Everything from $17 ebooks to Audio, Video, Teleseminars, Home Study Courses, CDroms, Resell Rights, Licensing, Software, Live Events, Coaching programs, etc.

And with my some increased availability I’m looking for no more than 10 people (maybe less) to actually co-create, and possibly even co-author, information products with me depending on the subject matter.

Who could this be for?

• Subject matter experts, trainers, consultants or coaches.
• Authors looking to escape the “book store” trap.
• Information marketers or content publishers who want a breakthrough in the size, scope and impact of their business.
• Business owners who are achieving exceptional results in their industry, marketplace or business and would like to sell or license their methods, systems, techniques to others.
• Someone extremely serious (with the resources) to get their idea out there with my help.

I have to warn you – this will not be a cheap program but a lopsided amount of your investment will be via a profit-share side – so that I’m working with you to make it a winner.

I’ll be there guiding you through each major aspect from product creation, operations, launch and profit maximization. (Note: I will not be doing it all for you, but I will be there at your side for every critical aspect. Plus, there are built-in aspects of connections, relationships, introductions and the possibility of promotions direct from me to get you started with a bang!)

How to get details:

If you are interested in details – please send a blank email to:
workwithyanik@aweber.com and then confirm you want details.

I’ll be most likely releasing particulars this week and opening the door for applications.