Favorite Books: Part One

I’ve been trying to replace randomly scrolling on my phone with reading and set a goal to read 23 books in 2023.

Here’s a few recent favorites:

• Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

  • I read Gladwell’s Blink and The Tipping Point when they first came out but somehow missed Outliers and finally picked it up. It’s still so relevant today as it was 15 years ago when he first published it. Do you ever wonder how extraordinarily successful people got where they are? Gladwell breaks it down and it’s not what you would think. It’s not that they are the smartest person in the room. Or the most talented. They do have some intelligence and talent, but there’s other factors that are even more important like luck and also investing the time learning what you need to know in order to be great. The people with immense success that he interviewed put in 10,000 hours early on in their pursuits and then kept going (10,000 is the minimum amount of time researchers have said you need to spend on something before becoming an expert in it). What if you don’t have luck on your side? Gladwell ends with an optimistic note on how you can make your own luck.

• Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change by Shawn Achor

  • I loved Achor’s other books Big Potential and The Happiness Advantage so I had big expectations for this one and he blew my expectations out of the water. I read this on a Kindle and highlighted 20 pages of notes! Achor is an expert in Positive Psychology and writes about rewiring our minds to be more optimistic. He argues, if you believe good things will happen, and you take notice of all the good things around you, this will have a positive ripple effect on all areas of your life. One of the quotes I highlighted, “The better your brain is at using its energy to focus on the positives, the greater your chances at success. It’s not that they don’t see the negative realities in the world, it’s that they also see they have the ability to do something about them.”

• Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day by Amish P. Jha

  • It’s taken me a long time to buy into the concept that meditation is a valuable use of time and I’m finally there. Jha cites study after study on the impact that 12 minutes of mediations a day makes and I’m sold. I feel so much better when I carve out the 12 minutes she recommends. I find that I can best fit in right when I wake up.

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson

  • Jorgensen complied thoughts and ideas from Ravikant and it’s all of his best philosophies in one book. Ravikant is an entrepreneur and early investor in successful companies including Uber, Twitter, FourSquare, OpenDNS and more. I always find it fascinating to read about what catches the eye of investors like Ravikant and his ways of thinking. Favorite quote from the book, “Inspiration is perishable - act on it immediately.”

I shared a few others here as well.