"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who doesn't read, only lives one" - George RR Martin
I like reading. Why? It’s simple. For me, reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
I’m going to mention each book one by one and I’ll then give one major takeaway from each one so you can get a bit of a preview of what you’re getting yourselves into.
1. Money - Rob Moore
Before we get into it, think about your financial situation for a moment.
Are you super happy with where it’s at right now?
If you’re like most people, you’re probably struggling to get ahead.
The idea of a substantial savings account or a rainy day fund may seem like a far-off dream.
But if personal finances gets you down, there’s hope.
This book is for everyone who spends their life working hard for money instead of having money work hard for them.
The book explores how having ingrained and negative attitudes toward money can hold you back and sets out formulas to help you take control of your finances.
One key takeaway from the book is to calculate your income-generating value, or IGV.
This is how much an hour of your time is worth.
To calculate your IGV, add up the full number of hours you work every week, and not just time spent at your job.
Let's say it adds up to 50 hours including any side hustles, property or interest from savings accounts.
Any time you spend devoted to money counts.
Let’s call it £1,000 a week.
So your IGV is calculated by dividing 1,000 by 50 which works out to £20 an hour.
Ok so what’s the point?
So if there’s an opportunity that allows you to generate more than £20 an hour, then you should probably go for it.
Why? Well when you accept chances like these, you’re technically increasing your IGV.
If on the other hand, if something comes up that is less than your IGV, in this case, you could ask yourself if you can pay someone else to do it for less than £20 an hour.
So essentially, You need to find out how much an hour of your time is worth, then do more of what makes that number go up.
Second book on this list is
2. The One Thing - Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
It’s all about harnessing the power of focus.
A really simply way to approach productivity by focusing on the one most important task that needs to be done.
On the flip side, the majority of people think that they are able to multitask and by definition, maintain focus on more than one thing simultaneously.
Multitasking actually divides your attention, and this can have a number of negative knock-on effects.
In modern society, we are constantly being pulled in different directions by competing sources of information, all vying to get our attention.
In my work for example, I could be documenting by hand in a patients notes, before having to check some blood results on the computer for another patient, and then I might get asked by a nurse to see an unwell patient and at the same time my bleep is going off because someone on the other side of the hospital needs some pain relief.
You are constantly being distracted and this can really impact your performance.
Doing one thing at a time is not a bad thing. You’ll actually get more done.
This will hopefully remove the term “multitask” from your vocabulary.
Because in my opinion, its not a thing, it’s more of a myth.
Our brains are designed to focus on one thing, before switching to another.
Remember, focus is the absence of distractions.
Ignore the noise.
The next book is the
3. Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Eric Jorgenson
This book is 200 pages of pure wisdom that stems from a tweet storm Naval made a few years ago titled “How to get rich without getting lucky. “
He’s a successful entrepreneur, investor and an icon in silicon valley startup culture.
There’s amazing insights about building wealth, decision making and how you should be aspiring towards a meaningful, happy life.
There are so many takeaways from this book I might have to make a separate video on it but the thing that resonated with me the most is where he said “no one can compete with you on being you” - it highlighted the importance of being your authentic self.
Embracing it as no one can compete with you on it.
I thought about this before I posted my first video, who should I be like on youtube?
How should my videos look?
What should I say?
When really the answer was in plain sight.
You have to be you.
Great read. Highly recommend
4. The Unfair Advantage - Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba
Life isn’t fair.
You can let the unfairness of life put you off from trying something new, or you can focus on developing your own unfair advantages to stack the odds in your favour.
Which is what this book is all about.
One big takeaway from this book is the 5 significant advantages the authors identified that can help you to stand out from the marketplace.
Together they form the acronym: MILES.
Money
Intelligence and insight
Location and luck
Education and expertise
Status
Having some of these unfair advantages can give you speed and help catapult you into the stratosphere.
At the start of the book they give the example of Evan Spiegel, who you probably know was the co founder of Snapchat, who’s net worth hit $1bn aged 24.
He himself said that he got really really lucky. and that life isn’t fair.
So who was he?
He grew up in a wealthy and privileged household in LA.
He was private school educated.
Had private tutors.
He had family connections to venture capitalists, had access to money and important mentors right from the beginning.
He then went to Stanford, where he met one of his cofounders who could code, and they were at the right age to see the visual communication expansion.
Mobile tech enabled you to take relatively good quality front-facing pictures and video at the time.
It might be easy to think oh well it was probably just because of the access to money they had and sheer luck.
I think they executed amazingly well on a very timely product.
Good book, couple of hundred pages - useful especially for those thinking about starting a new venture like a business or a youtube channel.
We’ve talked about multitasking, we’ve talked about money, let’s talk about discipline.
5. Discipline is Destiny - Ryan Holiday
So the last book on the list is discipline is destiny by Ryan Holiday.
Self-discipline is not about depriving yourself of things, it grants you freedom.
This is a brilliant book with some really hard-hitting principles about becoming more disciplined. The book is full of anecdotes, stoic concepts and ancient stories.
So how did this book impact me?
Well before the turn of the year I said to myself that I will try to focus on developing good daily habits like meditating, eating right, reading more and exercising.
But it’s easier said than done, in the age of alibis we give ourselves the easy way out and say ah I’ll go to the gym tomorrow or nah I’ll pick that book up next week when I’m not so busy with work.
Ryan talks about Lou Gehrig.
I’ve probably butchered the name.
A baseball icon who played over 2000 consecutive games for the New York Yankees.
He played through injury, through pain, broken bones and illness.
His nickname was The Iron Horse.
You think that it was based on one moment of sheer inspiration?
Nope. Consistency was his superpower to success.
There were probably players with more talent and skill but nobody outworked him, nobody cared more about recovery, and nobody sacrificed more.
He showed up every single day for 17 years straight.
Think about this for one second.
What could you accomplish if you could be more disciplined?
What greatness are you leaving on the table?
In a world full of temptation, distractions and excess, choosing between vice and virtue is a dilemma we all face on a daily basis.
We were meant for more than merely existing.
By Doctor Zobir
