Books That Will Change Your Life in 2023

this is 302 books one of the most requested videos is show us your bookshelf I don't actually own any bookshelves the floor will have to do this video I want to do two things first I want to give you a bit of a tour of all the books you can pause it at any time during this video if you want screenshots and to see everything I've read some of these books I have read cover to cover multiple times and others I've read a few pages wasn't feeling it and walked away from Life's too short to finish every single book you read if you're not feeling it but the second is I want to break down seven non-fiction categories show you the books I've read from them and which ones I'd recommend for you let's get into it the first category is self improvements I looked it up before this video guess how many self-help books are published every single year over 15 000 and maybe you can relate but I think the reason they're so popular and there's so many published especially nowadays is because psychology just reading that can be really dense same with philosophy same with even spirituality so having this whole like pop psychology self-improvement wave where they're able to pair some ancient ideas I.E stoicism Buddhism even with modern stories examples metaphors very easy to consume I personally love this category it inspires a lot of my videos and work I do and I've learned a ton through pop psychology self-improvement that said there are some great ones that I want to mention to you first up in this whole self-improvement I guess pop psychology movements this one's old it's psycho cybernetics by Dr Maxwell maltz I believe it was written in the 60s and it's inspired the works of Jim Rohn Tony Robbins actually gave a quote on the back here Wayne Dyer Maxwell maltz the short on him and why I recommend it is he was a plastic surgeon and this was pretty like bbls and lip injections he was one working with like deformities with people like oh I'm so ugly and I have no confidence because my nose is three times the normal size or I have a huge scar through my face right so he would do his job give them an objectively beautiful face and fix their deformities people thought that that's what they wanted that yeah okay now I'm gonna be confident but what he found is that a lot of people got addicted to the plastic surgery because they still didn't accept themselves even after it was done in short it's not what you see in the mirror that dictates your confidence more what you hold in your mind your vision of yourself I really should have thought about how I would stack these before I made this video it's a giant Jenga game where if I pull one the whole thing Falls over another book that's fantastic is called the happiness hypothesis this is by Jonathan Heights an author who I have several of his books and I really enjoy this merges modern science with ancient wisdom from Buddhism stoicism and other thought leaders as well very palatable very easy to read and one I would definitely recommend for you as well this one is fantastic it's called the courage to be disliked it's a book that has been talked about a lot over the years gotten a lot of Buzz I love psychology okay Freud Carl Young Jung depending on how you pronounce it and there was a third guy in that camp called Alfred Adler in my opinion he's very underrated Freudian noon thought that everything you are is a collection of your past so past traumas if you're attracted to someone at an early age that dictates who you're attracted to in the future they didn't say this directly but nature is essentially more important than nurture Alfred Adler said no I don't agree that we're not drawn from past causes rather we are drawn towards goals that we ourselves set so this book explores those Concepts and even more but it's written in a way that is very palatable and easy to digest not just a psychology textbook next category relationships no one is taught how to be in a relationship it's something thing you have to seek out learn through lots of failure and heartbreak yourself that's why I think it's really good to read a few books at least on how to be in a relationship what makes good ones and what's funny is like in your 20s the relationship skill of attracting people and dating and learning how to talk to women in my case right if you're a young guy out there that's a very different skill than how to be in a long-term successful relationship and what you have to watch out for is in my opinion getting all your relationship advice from the internet and videos because what I've noticed just in the bubble is it's very quick sound bites the quickest sound bites are the most inflammatory and sometimes they don't even help how to tell if your partner is a gaslighting narcissist who love bombs everyone wants to manipulate now and it's very catchy for views and attention but I think it's pretty dangerous because it plants in people's minds to look for the worst in people when they're dating and a lot of that doesn't contribute to a happy fulfilled relationship you might self-sabotage a really good person in a relationship you might not even getting one because you're so paranoid about getting hurt again back on the rails guys you know it's good if you got the double copy this book right here I read in my 20s the way of the superior man by David dieta I've recommended this a lot on the channel it doesn't mean Superior over others or Superior over women even it means the most Superior version of yourself but this book supports beliefs that I buy into like how men and women are equal but different and that if you try to sterilize polarity that charge of up down male female positive negative east west north south there are two sides of the same coin but you need different sides so this book is what first opened my eyes to that and how to play in the masculine feminine energy Dynamics very well written short concise easy to digest and I think does a good job explaining a lot of these complex subjects classic book The Five Love Languages if you haven't read this book and you're in a relationship man this is a game changer the five love languages are just that there are five see if I can do it affirmations physical touch acts of service gifts and quality time just like there are multiple languages in the worlds there are multiple ways people speak and receive love once you know yours and once you know your partners you understand each other much better and then you're able to speak their love language and get across to them how to communicate that you care so good book concept has definitely stuck with me a decade plus later if you do plan on getting married one day I think this book does a good job going over seven principles of making marriage work it's written by John gottman who has a lot of great research on relationships long term happy couples because let me ask you a question if you want to get healthy do you study sick people no you would study healthy people if you want to get rich do you study poverty no you study people who have done it so with relationships why are you studying the people online who are unhappy single talking about how the other sex just wants to manipulate you and use you when it comes to relationships you want to learn from people who are happy and successful at it and these guys have definitely done the work and studied them so I got a lot of great insights from this and it was a very interesting read I'd recommend it this category is philosophy it is so much more beneficial going to what I call primary sources instead of secondary or tertiary sources you may notice that a lot of the new self-help books published in the last 10 20 years are pretty much just regurgitated stoicism Buddhism old American literature talking about ideals Rewritten and it's more palatable for the mainstream the problem is that you have someone's interpretations in a watered-down version of what the authors were trying to say so you'd really hear the real thing if you got it from The Source wouldn't you well in that way I think that philosophy and old books old classics which I'll give you in a minute are that primary source and you can interpret it from them this is Marcus aurelius's meditations almost a cliche at this point to recommend it because it's very well known and talked about this is one of the most recommended books by like hedge fund managers and really I mean top of the top success people they'll recommend this book over and over again explains stoicism very very well Sigmund Freud civilizations and discontents I love this it's more of a essay instead of a full book says that life is very hard so most people COPE in one of three ways distractions intoxicants and I forget the third but we're probably coping with that too essential writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson I love Ralph Waldo Emerson he is one of my heroes didn't necessarily write books but he wrote a ton of essays as you can see with this Beefcake right here if you're new to Emerson would highly recommend this book it's self-reliance you can get an audio copy as well it's around one or two hours depending on what speed you listen to it I listen to this every single year the main idea is that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little Minds doing something because that's the way it's always been done we know in a business is very toxic you show up to work you have a better way of doing something and they tell you this is the way it's always been done you're like what that that's stupid that doesn't make any sense sense we do this with ourself we're creatures of habits and most people are operating through life on momentum an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon an outside force you know that principle don't you that's what so many people do with their life and they're kind of just sleep walking through it I digress I won't lecture you I'll let him do the lecturing fantastic book self-reliance last one I'll talk about briefly is Ayan Rams The Fountainhead I read this in college and it is on my read list for this year it's about a young architect who's an innovator and he's coming up with a lot of resistance on conventional standards I.E that's the way it's always been done so this is a story form that was written in the 40s by Iron Rand she also wrote Atlas Shrugged I can't wait to read this again and uh yeah get some lessons from it Gotta Throw Nietzsche in there another one I'm going through again his ideas are very far out favorite quote by him the snake that cannot shed its skin must perish meaning don't be afraid to shed yours this one's a double tall stack okay can't fit it all onto the stool spirituality I guess you could wrap religion in here as well absolutely love reading about spirituality religion even ancient civilizations like everything out there that's pretty woo and hippie I'm all about I don't subscribe to particularly one religion but I think reading old religious texts just to have an understanding of all of them of the major religions is a good idea so we got the Bible right here got the upanishads very fascinating bhagdavagita loved this book right here this one's probably the best known of the Indian scriptures if you haven't read it it's more of a story based with Arjuna and Krishna and they're having conversations and lessons on a battlefield so very different than some other religious texts why is it on a battlefield if it's a religious text I'm not an expert on it but one of the interpretations is that the more important battle is the one we're all fighting within between your higher and lower self and then from Buddhism we got the dhamapada I love Zen Buddhism although I'm not a practicing Zen Buddhist lots of amazing Spiritual Development in this book for sure and then some other non-religious but spiritual teachers that have helped me always been a big fan of Osho I did know about the rolls royces he had something like 53. gifted to him man had style I rest my case look at those Shades and if you're new to o'sho I would start with this book on maturity most people think that they mature as they grow older but that's not true because you can grow in age but not maturity and vice versa so this book explores what it means to grow up not just grow old very funny author as well on spirituality in uh Wu being out there I think Zechariah sitchens has written some very interesting books about ancient civilizations and alternative explanations which is a topic I could geek out on I absolutely love it rather it's true or not I just find it a very curious and fascinating subject so uh reading books on that Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock is another great one as well next category we got biographies so stories of people that have achieved some sort of success this is a category I started reading in the last five years and the more I read of it the more I like it I honestly wish I would have started reading biography sooner because if you know how our brains have evolved we've not evolved to just memorize facts and logic which is why memorizing for a test when you cram it is so hard to take tests because it's literally just memorization but we're wired for stories most of human history was passed down through oral traditions and stories or myths if you know anything about screenwriting it's you know that's what Hollywood is built upon Even in our last category spirituality a lot of those great texts are written in story form not just for the sake of writing but because they know perhaps intuitively before we had tons of research on it that that's how you remember things so one of the best hacks if you want to remember good lessons and see them in action is to read biographies my favorite one that I've read is Steve Jobs I talked a lot about this last year hearing how Steve built the first trillion dollar company and what an innovator he was and also it didn't gloss over a lot of his shadow side how he can be overbearing at times difficult intense it felt very honest and not just like sugar coated plus I'm a huge Apple user and fan as well so it was fascinating and very interesting to hear how he built apple and his Evolution throughout the years on that note Steve was famous for gifting a book the most to friends family people who knew him in fact at his funeral when he passed away there was a copy of this biography in every single person's gift bag autobiography of a yogi Yogananda I gotta be real here okay I gotta be honest I have not read this in its entirety I think I made it probably 70 pages in before I just stopped reading it for some reason life got in the way so this is one on my list to go through and read this year because I just hear it's fantastic it's mind-blowing it's amazing another Walter Isaacson biography on Leonardo da Vinci who is also one of my Heroes those are good places to start in my opinion my back is screaming we got one more category on money and business marketing is money important in your life absolutely and I get it like money when you don't have it it's really intimidating like I didn't grow up rich I was in debt for most of my 20s I lived very humbly in fact my first apartment I shared with two other people so there's three of us and it was a one bedroom so we were each paying like 200 a month for and uh even now I live below my means could save significantly and the good news here is you don't have to obsess over finances in fact the most important thing is that you just get started as they say time in the market beats timing the market here's a couple recommendations for you psychology of money this thing is a fun non-boring non-snews fest non-data driven like analytical you're looking at spreadsheets for 300 Pages view of money wealth and finances absolutely devoured this book I'm gonna reread it this was fantastic and easy to consume unshakable by Tony Robbins I'm a huge Tony Robbins fan and I think he did an amazing job compiling a very complex subject for the mainstream and the masses if you don't have any Financial experience you can read this book and probably learn a ton you know it's good if we got a double copy this one I will teach you to be rich by ramit Sadie I've recommended this for years and it still holds up I give it to a lot of clients when they ask like how to get started with money if they have money issues be because it's so practical and he's very funny it's not a snoozefest finance book like some others you could read this and be in a totally different Financial spot in 10 20 years do not underestimate the power or sell yourself short of I don't have enough money to invest some old school like 1900s American mindset books on money that I have really enjoyed uh two of them the first is the science of getting rich by Walter Wallace D wattles I believe his name is really short book just on that topic what is the mindset of the wealthy the richest man in Babylon this book drilled into me it's not about the money you make it is about the money you keep especially with business you'll hear people flexing oh we made two hundred thousand dollars last year right but if they only kept 2 000 of it they really made 2 000 bucks in fact the person who's working in nine to five that saves 10 is actually richer at the end of the year so this book tells you that portion of everything you make is yours to keep pay yourself first if you want to set yourself up this year and make it the best year you want to reinvent yourself you want to experience an identity shift in 10 weeks a link down below our program metamorphic where you can get a free coaching call with one of our coaches and we can hear more about you see if it's a good fit see if we can genuinely help you and tell you a little bit more about how that would come about what I'll do now is link up right here the three best lessons I learned from reading all 300 of these books as we said a lot of them can say the same three things thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next video till then stop settling start living see ya

Channel: Clark Kegley

Views: 248,850

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Id: _o8-txpi9Jw

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 17 2023