You simply can't expect to accomplish your big goals in life if you are playing small To transform your life therefore, you must embrace the life of an eternal student. Over the last 25 years, I've read nearly 1,000 nonfiction books, and these 10, for me, are the most powerful and life changing of them all. Before we dive in, I want to give a quick shout out to Shortform for sponsoring today's video, but more on them later.
First up is The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann. This is a book I finished in one evening. It is a short book written as a parable, but it will completely transform the way you think about success and how you approach life.
Society tends to admire success oriented people or go-getters. In The Go-Giver, however, the authors turn this idea on its head by arguing that you should make giving rather than getting your first priority in business and in life. And success will then follow.
One of the five laws of stratospheric success that we learn is The Law of Value, which states that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. The idea here is that excellent customer service never goes out of fashion because the experience people have with you matters. In other words, money is an echo of value.
It is a reflection of the value that you bring into people's lives, not just in business, but in your personal interactions with others too. You should give not as a strategy, but as a way of life. When you do, you become a person of value and people will want to do business with you and help you in your own journey.
So the question is: “How can you add value to someone's life today, however small? ” Keep this in mind. Reaching any goal you set takes 10% knowledge.
The other 90% is people skills. When you understand and appreciate this, you become a magnet for opportunities and success will become inevitable. The Third Door by Alex Banayan.
This has got to be one of the most entertaining, addictive and inspiring books I've read and one which ignited my creativity to think different in everything I do. The book talks about success being like a nightclub with 3 doors. The first is the main entrance through which you enter by working hard and playing by the rules.
The line to this door is always crowded and moves slowly. The second door is reserved for VIPs, millionaires and celebrities and is off limits to ordinary people. The third door, however, allows people like you and I to skip the line, find hidden opportunities and think outside the box.
It argues it's the best and really only route to getting ahead of the crowd. And there are some wild stories that are shared of how successful people took The Third Door, such as how film director Steven Spielberg became the youngest studio director in Hollywood history. Spielberg boarded a tour bus at Universal Studios Hollywood, rode around the lot and then jumped off, sneaking into a bathroom and disappearing behind the building.
He watched the tour bus drive away, then spent the rest of the day on the Universal lot. Wandering around, he bumped into a man named Chuck Silvers, who worked for Universal TV. They spoke for a while, and when Silvers found out Spielberg was an aspiring director, he wrote him a 3 day pass.
On the lot, he would approach Hollywood stars and studio executives and ask them to lunch. He snuck onto soundstages and sat in editing rooms, soaking up as much information as he could. Chunk Silvers eventually became Spielberg's mentor.
He advised him to stop schmoozing and come back when he had a high quality short film to show. Spielberg, who had been making short films since he was 12, began writing a 26 minute film called Amblin. After months of directing and editing, he finally showed it to Chuck Silvers.
It was so good that when Silvers saw it, a tear went down his cheek. Silvers reached for the phone and called, Sid Scheinberg, Universal TV's vice president of production. After Scheinberg watched Amblin, he offered Spielberg a 7 year contract on the spot, and that's how Spielberg became the youngest major studio director in Hollywood history.
Aside from the incredible stories that fill the book's pages, The Third Door has plenty of lessons for you to absorb, with the big insight being that you never get to the top alone. To become successful, you need to reach out to others for help. Whether that's finding an inside connection like Spielberg did.
Being part of a mastermind group, working with a mentor or coach, or taking people who are ahead of you in the field you want to succeed in out for lunch. So when you think about your goals in life, who is one person you could reach out to to ask for help? The Teachings of Billionaire Yen Tzu by Colin Turner.
These are actually two books - Volume 1 and Volume 2 - that I came across at the beginning of my transition from employee to entrepreneur. The book presents the wisdom and philosophies of fictional billionaire Yen Tzu, who founded an academy in ancient China over two and a half thousand years ago. It is a book that you can flick through and no matter what page you land on, there is a piece of wisdom there to inspire you.
Here are 3 to give you a flavor of what to expect. Number 1: “The person who never makes mistakes can never achieve anything worthwhile. ” So if you don't risk failing, you'll never truly succeed.
Don't fear failure, fear, regret. Because failure is part of the journey towards success. It shows you the way by showing you what isn't.
Number two: “If you become internally driven rather than externally influenced for your security needs, then the ego is out of a job. ” The idea here is that happiness comes from within and not from something or someone outside of yourself. It begins with you.
Number three: “To have the virtue of patience. It is important to acknowledge obstacles as opportunities to strengthen you, not as indication of failure. ” This is a great reminder that there is no such thing as an overnight success, only over time success.
There will be obstacles along the way. If you have the humility to learn from them, however, they will help deepen your resilience and equip you with the strength to become stronger as a result. This book is written in a very unique way, short form style, with each chapter presented in bullet points.
Talking of short form. . .
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You will get 20% off. And of course, if you don't enjoy it, you can always cancel anytime. Next up is The Mountain Is You by Brianna Wiest.
In this beautifully written book, Wiest explains that the only thing standing in your way is you and your self-sabotaging behaviors. You self-sabotage when you desire a change in an area of your life but are too afraid to act. And this internal conflict creates a barrier between who you are and who you want to be.
To overcome this, you must understand why you do it when you do it and how to stop doing it. The Mountain Is You is filled with harsh truths that have a way of hitting home such as this one. “Your new life is going to cost you your old one.
It is going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It is going to cost you relationships and friends. It is going to cost you being liked and understood.
It does not matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You are going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward.
Instead of being liked, you are going to be loved. Instead of being understood, You are going to be seen. All you are going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are.
” So the question is: Are you ready to let go of the old to make way for the new? The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. This book argues that the key to financial success lies in understanding human behavior.
And when you understand how emotions and beliefs influence your financial decisions, you will make better financial decisions. One of the big takeaways is that there is an important difference between being wealthy and being rich. If you are wealthy, you have a lot of money in the bank.
This is money you are not using but could use if you wanted to. If you are rich, your current income is high. You have money you are able to spend on expensive items.
This book explains that you can tell whether someone is rich, but you can't tell if they are wealthy. This is because you can see how much someone spends on items, but you can't see inside the bank account to see the money they are not using; their wealth. The world is filled with people who look modest but are actually wealthy and people who look rich but are actually living paycheck to paycheck.
So keep this in mind when quickly judging other people's success and setting your own goals. Because spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen.
This book is a collection of insights on wealth and happiness shared by self-made millionaire Naval Ravikant through his blog posts, X channel, podcast and interviews. On wealth, the big takeaway is that the most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. If you are a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money and you will be able to adapt to whatever challenges the world throws your way.
On happiness, the big takeaway is that you can increase it over time and it starts with believing you can do it. The book explains that happiness is a skill and that a happy person is not someone who is happy all the time. It is someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don't lose their innate peace.
When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you. When playing, however, surround yourself with people happier than you. So use your judgment to figure out what kind of environments you can thrive in and then create an environment around you that makes it impossible not to succeed.
Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday According to Holiday, stillness already exists in all of us, and with some intentional practice, we can reap its rewards. To do so, we must cultivate stillness in mind body and spirit, with the benefit being better decision making and a deeper sense of connectedness to everything around us. The core message here is that stillness is the path to clarity, wisdom and inner peace.
In the chaos of our busy lives, never underestimate the value of stillness, because it is here that we can build a deeper connection with that voice within and the world around us. It is in this energy of stillness that we appreciate that silence is not empty. It is full of the answers that we seek.
It gives your innate wisdom a voice allows your creativity to blossom and brings clarity to your thinking. And as Rumi noted, “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear. ” So make time to be present and still today, because slowing down in a world that is only getting faster is a superpower.
Deep work by Cal Newport. If you're like most people, you are probably easily distracted by wandering thoughts. The pings of notifications on your phone, or the dopamine hits from social media updates while trying your very best to be productive.
If that is you, then this book will show you how to develop the focus required to get ahead of 99% of people and rise to the top of your field. Focus is like a mental muscle. Through deliberate training, you can strengthen your focus and expand your mental capacity.
It is an important reminder that you must make real tradeoffs in life if you want to make progress in the things that matter most to you. So start taking control of how you spend your energy and time, because your ability to manage your focus and attention and not give in to the endless distractions around you will be the difference between where you are today and where you would like to be tomorrow. You must stop believing that everything is important and understand that only a few things truly matter.
And as the saying goes, when you do what most won’t today, you will be able to enjoy what most can't tomorrow. This brings me to my final recommendation, Energize written by this British Asian right here. Energize proposes that energy management, not time management is the key to productivity, because when you feel energized, you become the chief architect of your future.
And there is nothing you feel you can't overcome. Energy really is everything. Without it, you can't get much done.
Without it, you lack focus and discipline. Without it, a better life will remain just a distant dream. If you are to take advantage of the opportunities that arise in life, you must have the energy to do so.
Energize won Book of the Year within the Wellness and Wellbeing category of The Business Book Awards, so it naturally comes highly recommended. I believe that if you were to read these 10 books and genuinely apply the ideas, insights and lessons contained within each, your life will transform for the better. You will notice the difference, and so will everyone around you.
Remember, to be successful in life, you must think and act like a successful person, because before you can do, you must be. You must be ready to go all in to change your life for the better. And if you are, then this video right here is the sign you have been looking for.
Let me know in the comments below what books have changed your life and I will see you in the next video.
