I’m going to put together some different categories and introduce each one and hopefully explain why I have them and where it fits in to the overall theme of bettering ourselves.
Reading in general is one of the best ways to better yourself, learn through other’s struggles, lose yourself in a thriller, put your imagination to use, learn more about new topics, and so much more.
Read a freaking book amirite?
I have made the switch to audio books and I will be the first to admit that it took a while to adjust. I had the benefit of having a year sentence of outside sales in the Orange County area where I drove over 4 hours a day. I hated the traffic, hated the area, but I took those lemons and learned how to focus on an audiobook! I managed to go through all the Game of Thrones books during this time. If you have not actually read or listened to these, I’d recommend it. They are long, some of the books are 40+ hours long. A fine way to escape miserable people in miserable traffic, and to tell friends that watched it how much better the books are.
I try to find books that excite me. Thrillers, spy novels, good podcast guests, interesting concepts, anything Malcom Gladwell, Vince Flynn, Jo Nesbo, Eric Van Lustbader, Michael Pollan, Graham Hancock, Brad Thor, Derek Sivers, Tim Ferriss, Scott Adams, Ramit Sethi, Lee Child, Jack Carr, Nassim Taleb etc.
My top recommendations: I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, The Bourne Series by Robert Ludlum, The Millenium Series by Stieg Larsson, Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair, and the Mitch Rapp series by Vince Flynn.
From those I got the framework to think about automating finances, a deep dive into who we are as humans, a Harvard Professor’s take on aging, and a bunch of page turning thrillers.
Open for recommendations, or any books that had a significant impact on your life.
I always laugh thinking about book recommendations, I like to hear the actionable advice, or a brief summary of what was useful of a book. But when my parents recommend books they just ship me a weird book and say read it. Odds are low of me actually finishing most of those books. It’s the takeaways that matter to me.
The Better Life 