【推荐1】I’ve been reading 100 books per year on average during the past decade. So obviously I get the usual question of what books I recommend. Well, here’re my top 4 favorite books of all times, which influenced me into who l am today.

1. Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

One of the biggest bestsellers of all times. Napoleon Hill spent two decades analyzing over 500 successful men like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and John D. Rockefeller to discover how they did it. The result of Hill’s research is in Think & Grow Rich —13 steps to achieve your goal, whatever it is. All other self-help books are just copies of Hill’s book first published in 1937.

2. Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

Another bestseller and the only self-help book you’ll need next to Think Grow Rich. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon who was amazed that some patients still felt ugly after surgery (外科手术). That’s when he discovered they also needed reconstruction work inside—their “self-image”. Everything about how to use the “mind-body” connection to achieve your goals, and how to feel confident about your body is inside this book.

3. Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

This book drives the point home that success in any field is not determined by genetics or talent but deliberate practice. Colvin uses examples from world class achievers like Tiger Woods, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet, Mozart to prove that they all got theirs through years of practice—the 10,000 hours rule. You’ll reexamine your beliefs about what it takes to succeed and supercharge your motivation after reading Colvin’s book.

4. Mastery by George Leonard.

This book also stresses that practice is the secret of success in anything. Leonard explains that mastership never ends—you will never have perfect technique and be able to stop. Instead you’ll keep learning, improving, and hitting plateaus (瓶颈期). The big point in Mastery is that plateaus are vital for improving your skills and that you therefore must start enjoying them instead of getting impatient or quitting like most guys do.

【推荐2】FReader

A standard reading app for eBooks and audiobooks. FReader supports a variety of formats. The program is very pleasant to the eye and is adjustable to various spectrums (光谱). Apart from being a reading app, FReader has an integrated translator for five languages (English, Russian, German, French, and Ukrainian), making the app attractive to people across the world. You can also select a section of the page you are reading and share it via social networks, Bluetooth, SMS and other methods.

Cool features: Four themes, supports five languages, advanced 3D animations, scans the device for all existing formats, Text-to-Speech.

Business model: Free app. Only a standard free plan is available.

AIReader

Although it can read every type of book, AIReader is specially designed for Sci-Fi lovers. The app doesn’t support iOS but you can open many book formats on your Android phone. This app has enhanced graphical features and a wide range of customization options that focus on providing the best quality for fictional book reading.

Cool features: Text-To-Speech, external dictionaries, advanced adjustment of the visual quality, supports E-Ink devices.

Business model: Free app. AIReader doesn’t sell books, but you can simply purchase digital products elsewhere and upload them to the reading app.

Nook

Nook is strongly integrated with the online store Bames&Noble. You can buy you eBooks anywhere and they will automatically appear in the Nook library. The app supports most eBook formats.

Cool features: Wishlist, ArticleView, Parental Mode for children, customization of all the visual features.

Business model: Free app. With the partnership with Bames&Noble, you can find over a million free books on their website or purchase new titles for the price of as low as $0.99.

Scribd

Scribd has come a long way from the document-reading app it was initially. Today, it is one of the most famous programs with over a million titles in its library. Upon registration, you get a 30-day demo account that lets you read all the books you want for free! Apart from books, Scribd provides comic books, audiobooks articles, scientific studies, court cases and uncommon genres that no other app offers. You can even publish your own book on this platform.

Cool features: Book sync across different devices, audiobooks.

Business model: 30-day free trial. The annually subscription for unlimited access to Scribd’s available material is $59.

【推荐3】Think about how much reading you do every day. When you look at it, you might find that reading is the work-related skill that you use most often!     1     After all, if we can read and comprehend textbooks, then aren’t we good readers? Maybe not. Given the time that reading consumes, it may be a skill that we can and should improve.

    2     It means getting faster and more efficient at reading, while still understanding what you’re reading. Although you spend a good part of your day reading, have you ever thought about how you read? How do your eyes make sense of the shapes of the letters, and then put those letters together to form sentences that you can understand?

Reading is quite a complex skill. It was previously believed that during reading, both eyes focus on particular letters.     3     Scientists now believe that the eyes lock onto different letters at the same time, usually two characters apart. Your brain then fuses (融合) these images together to form a word. This happens very swiftly, as we look through pages of the text!

Many people read at an average rate of 250 words per minute.     4     Imagine, then, if you could double your rate to 500 words per minute, you could read all of this content in half the time. You could then spend the saved time on other tasks, or take a few extra minutes to relax.     5     This leads to better “big picture” understanding, which can greatly benefit your work and career.

【推荐1】In many walks of life and in many situations, persuading people to .do what you want them to do is the key to success. Researchers have looked into different aspects of persuasion and come up with some interesting results which are surely helpful to us.

One advertising copywriter came up with an approach to selling a product on a TV shopping channel via phone sales. Instead of being instructed “Operators are waiting, please call now”, viewers were told “If operators are busy, please call again”. The results were extraordinary. The ad suggested operators weren't- sitting around hoping .people would call. Instead there were so many people: wanting the product that people might have to wait until they could get it.

What role does choice have in persuading people to buy or get something? One study in a supermarket showed the effect of choice. A particular supermarket displayed either 6 or 24 different kinds of jam. The 1arge display attracted more interest than the small one. But when the time came to purchase things; people who saw the large display were one-tenth as likely to buy. If they do buy, they are less content with their selection, even though they have made a good choice. A wider range of choices require more time and effort and lead to unreasonably high expectations.

Another aspect 6f persuasion concerns getting someone to change their mind: It's hard to prove to someone that a previous decision is wrong, and as people get older they get less and less willing to change their minds. People want things to be unwavering; they want their attitudes, statements, values and actions to follow a set pattern. The only way to persuade them to change is to acknowledger this by agreeing that the previous decision they made is a perfectly understandable one. This allows them to focus on your suggestion without feeling their previous decision is wrong. As a result, they may be persuaded to break out of their established pattern.

【推荐3】The market for ride sharing is starting to look like a pie-eating competition where the prize is more pie.

Lift went public on March 29, and the stock (股票) almost immediately went into a quick drop as money-providers noticed that the company hadn’t made any money yet and didn’t have any clear plans to do so.

On April 11，Umber went public in the stock market too. The company said it commands more than 50 percent of the ride-hailing (叫车服务) market in America and Europe and had an operating loss of S3 billion last year, about three times as much as Lift lost.

Think about that: those two companies lost nearly ＄4 billion in a single year transporting people.

What's happening in the ride-sharing market is special in a number of ways.

First, it offers what is called “network effects”: The more riders you have, the easier it is to attract and send drivers, and the more drivers you have, the more riders you will attract. Markets that display network effects prefer to benefit a few players, and possibly only one.

Second, ride sharing has low changing costs. It's simple lo get both apps on your phones, and many riders and drivers do just that, which means fierce competition over every single ride.

There are only two ways that the price war can end. Either Umber and Lift come to some son of agreement to slop selling their services below cost, or at least one of the companies may need to die. And so the pie-eating competition may continue forever, until everyone bursts. There may finally be no route to money for these companies, no payoff tor money-providers. The number of major ride-sharing companies may not be two or even one, but none.