4 LIFE CHANGING books for 2024

IN THIS ISSUE 

7 min read

• 📚 Reading for personal growth

I've come to realize something after having met literally hundreds of successful entrepreneurs over the years: reading more doesn't make you better, reading better makes you better.

Instead of reading simply to read, try implementing this system:

Read, Reflect, Integrate, Repeat.

Read the book. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you do it, but make sure you understand it.

After you’ve understood it, start thinking about how this matters to you.

When you see a connection to yourself, apply it to your own life. Remember, there is no point of reading a book if you’re not going to apply it to your life.

The last step is just to repeat. You can re-read, re-reflect, and re-integrate. The more times you read a book, the better you understand it.

With this in mind, here are 4 books I believe to be exceptional for personal growth.

THE MOST TRANSFORMATIVE

The first book on this list is not only one of the greatest books ever written, but it's also one of a kind:

it's the personal journal of a guy who was the most powerful man in the world thousands of years ago.

And the beauty of this book is that this man, a Roman Emperor, wasn't writing for an audience.

He never intended for this book to be published. In fact, he would probably be mortified to learn that it was.

These were simply the internal thoughts of a man wrestling with the question: What's it mean to be a good person, and to live a life of value? 

This was a man who had the world at his fingertips but who understood the only battles actually worth fighting and winning were the ones being waged inside with his temper, his ego, his pride, his place in the universe.

And perhaps most remarkable of all is just the simple and eloquent way in which this book is written. For instance, he says this:

So simple, so accessible, and so easy to understand, which is why Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is perhaps one of my favorite books of all time and the one that inspires new wisdom and insight every single time I read it.

FOR MONEY, BUSINESS AND HAPPINESS

Now, the second book on this list is filled with incredible wisdom that you can instantly start applying to improve your life in business.

The book is called The Almanac of Naval Ravikant and it's simply a collection of blogs, tweets, and podcast interviews featuring that modern-day entrepreneurial philosopher, Naval Ravikant.

Now, if you're not familiar with Naval, he's a prolific angel investor and one of the most highly regarded entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley over the past two decades.

And what makes him so interesting is just his ability to distill complex topics into simple sound insights that you can easily carry with you and apply in all sorts of situations.

One of my favorites is this:

His most famous piece of writing is a tweet storm called How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky, and it is an amazing guide to building wealth and happiness.

FOR INFLUENCE

Alright, now the third book on our list encompasses a framework to understand why humans do what humans do…

Which is important because I believe every single one of us has a core desire to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, to connect meaningfully.

I mean, there are very few feelings in the world worse than being in a room full of people you love and respect and yet feeling absolutely invisible.

This book, Influence by Robert Cialdini, gives you the tools necessary for communicating your message to the world both persuasively and with impact.

In particular, it teaches the six weapons of influence, which are:

• reciprocity

• commitment

• social proof

• liking

• authority

• scarcity

For a more in-depth dive, I highly recommend going through this book.

FOR CLARITY OF THOUGHT

Alright, moving on, our fourth book is about a brutally basic concept that I found to be the main difference between average performers and elite performers.

The reason I reread this book every single year is that its core lesson is one that I personally struggle with.

I find it valuable, therefore, to annually revisit this book and put this concept back at the forefront of my mind.

The book is called The One Thing by Gary Keller, and it can be summarized with these words: “What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction.

Now, in my personal pursuit of greatness, I've come to realize that the thing holding me back from achieving all my goals is not that I don't have enough time; it's simply that I don't have enough focus, specifically enough focus on the right things.

This book provides a framework that's going to help you figure out what that most important thing is so that you can move towards it with clarity.

Now, personally, I like to reread this book at the beginning of each year when I'm sitting down to set my annual goals because it helps me get into the right mindset for planning what I'm going to focus on.

With that in mind, I do hope that you take this list of 4 books and you read and reread them periodically to remind yourself of the many beautiful lessons each one has to share.

THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE?