A few years back, I was not having a growth mindset. Like any normal youngster, I used to binge-watch shows, chill with my friends, and was easily wasting my valuable time.
I mean I can count the books on my fingertips that I read, past some years. But I broke the chain, took a decision and that was the turning point of my life. I decided to spare at least 30 minutes every day in reading a book.
Why did I start reading books
A book will contribute to my learning process and will upgrade my skillset. Reading a book creates a discipline of success in your soul. Today, I thank myself for taking that revolutionary decision.
I swear from the time I have started reading books consistently, I noticed that I’m becoming a better version of myself each day. Not only this I also began watching some educational and encouraging videos on YouTube, started up listening to podcasts and audiobooks.
So today I’m going to give you a tour of the 3 best books that I recommend everyone to read. So let’s get started.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
This great book impacted my life to an extent, I can’t even articulate. I know that many of you wouldn’t have heard about the biography of Elon Musk. But for me, this book is a game-changer. In fact, I named my YouTube channel “ProjectElon” after this book.
So there’s a short story behind this, back then I was in a hotel room in Vietnam. There I was sitting with my laptop in front of me on a desk. I was having mixed emotions regarding my new project that I was going to commence.
Well, my new project was starting a YouTube channel. As I said before I was having a kind of nostalgic feeling about this project. You know, before that I have never been into something like creating a channel on YouTube.
At the same time, my heart whispered let’s do it, let’s give it a go. So I started with creating an account on YouTube.
Although I was planning to give my channel a name like “projects”, but unfortunately the name was not available. While I was stuck with the name, all of a sudden, my eyes pointed to this biography of Elon Musk lying on my desk. So that’s how I capture the notion of naming my channel as ProjectElon.
Some key insights of this book
- Great motivator in time management – Back then I was running short of time. I was not able to find free time to visit a gym. So I got to stick to this book. It’s obvious Elon Musk who is the CEO of Tesla – the biggest carmaker, CEO of SpaceX the biggest satellite mission, and Chairman of Solar City – the world’s largest solar panels producer. If he can manage to complete tasks, why can’t I!
- Develops inspirational work ethics – You know what, Elon Musk works 100 hours a weak. So isn’t it great if that man can work 100 hours a week, probably I can work at least 60 hours a week? You know 5 years back when I read this book, his worth was 60 billion dollars which has now touched 200 billion dollars. He is one of the richest personalities in the world. That’s why this book lays a solid foundation of work ethic and inspiration to follow Elon Musk’s footsteps to success.
- Explain the practical phases of his journey- This book takes you on a tour of all the phases of Elon Musk’s personality. For instance, it explains the bitter part of his personality, some of his bad habits and the main thing is the obstacles that he faced. So all in all, it gives you a complete idea of his journey to success. Which in turn lit a fire of inspiration inside the hearts.
Apart from this, another biography that I suggest is a biography of Steve Jobs. This is another great biography that will motivate you to accomplish your goals. The reason why I love biographies is that I believe -a person is an average of those 5 personalities, he spent most of the time with.
The Richest Man in Babylon
The Richest Man in Babylon, another classic book that builds you a foundation in money-making skills. After all, money-making skills are damn important. You need money to become a good daughter, father or son. So this book will teach you and fuel you with the essence of making and saving money. There are seven money-making rules highlighted in this book, which are as follows –
- Start Thy Purse to Fattening – That means to make more money or save more money. If you are not able to save money, then grab the opportunities to make more money. Watch your money growing slowly and invest it in the future.
- Control Thy Expenditures – Do not spend more than you earn or make. Create your budget and fuel your money. I followed this and began creating budgets back in 2013 since then I have adopted it as a consistent practice. Budgets are super important, especially for students with no budget plan.
- Make Thy Gold Multiple – Invest in yourself, invest in your business, invest in your relationship, and invest in your learning. Go get a coach for yourself and buy that book that makes you a better version of yourself.
- Guard the Thy Treasures against Loss – Do not invest blindly. That means do not invest in the stuff you don’t know and don’t just jump into anything that comes your way. Be open to opportunities but at the same time be very practical with your investments.
- Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment – Own the house you live in. That triggers the benefits of living in a house made out of your worth. There are its assets and liabilities of living in a house.
- Ensure a Future Income – Never be dependent on one source of income. That is a rich person has on average of seven sources to earn. Do not put all your eggs in the same basket. If you are having a 9 to 5 job, fetch out time and plan your day to create more income opportunities.
- Improve Thy Ability to learn – A rich person constantly pursues knowledge. That means you must always keep on upgrading your skills and grow your wisdom. As the other name of success is the continued pursual of knowledge and skills.
To sum up, in this book, don’t spend carelessly, have more than one source of income, keep on working on your skillset, invest your money and in the last eliminate procrastination from your life. As with procrastination, you can never experience success. If you are struggling with the habit of procrastination then do check out the video, I made on how I overcame my tendency to take things for granted.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Well, this is another epic book. Basically, it’s divided into two parts the first part deals with how to handle people, and the latter one deals with leadership skills. This book teaches us to handle our communication with people. Believe me or not this is one of the most important skills in the lives of human beings. I mean we have to deal with people at each stage of our lives, so why not do it wisely.
Some key insights from How to Win Friends and Influence People are:
- Do not criticize – Criticism is lethal. It hurts the sentiments of the person. Instead of criticizing try to understand why the person is reacting in a particular way. This is one of the main virtues followed by many great leaders of the industry. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, ” I will speak ill of no man, But I will speak all the good that I know about Everybody”.
- Understand their needs – If you want people to behave in a particular way, understand them and their needs. For example, if you want your friend to stress more at studying, then you might sit and explain to them the need to study.
- Be Genuinely interested- Everybody likes to talks to a person who is genuinely interested in them. Be that person show the interest in talking to them, start questioning from what they talk and let them lift the conversation.
- Remember that person’s name – Remember the name of the person and pronounce it correctly. The book contains the phrase ” The person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
- Do not waste time in arguing – An argument always hurts the pride of the other person and makes them feel inferior to you. So don’t put yourself in rattlesnakes and earthquakes of disputes. Towards the end, the best thing to prevent an argument is to avoid it.
This book is an ocean of practical and impressive lessons, that you can implement straight into your life. I would like to make a separate video alone on this book.
Conclusion
I hope you liked the books mentioned here. It is just a quick suggestion if you are on a journey to personal development, do watch my video named ” the 7 habits of a 4.0 GPA student”. It includes the experiences and learnings of many 4.0 GPA students. So please have a look at that video. Also mention your favorite books which changed your life for the best. I will see you soon on my next blog.
