BOOKS THAT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK

 

 

I became a different person after I started reading books. And every book I read added something valuable to me and my life.
It is hard to mention all the amazing books that changed my life in one article. But here are some of the ones that changed my mindset and the way I think almost about everything in life. And if you read them they will absolutely add value to your life as well.

1- EAT THAT FROG! BY BRIAN TRACY:

It is one of Brian Tracy’s famous books. This book is just on point of telling you the secret behind managing time and being productive. The frog is your biggest, most important task. So, if you have many tasks that need to be done throughout the day, choose the most important one and do it first thing in the morning before you start doing any other task. This is going to make you feel better during the day, and it will raise your confidence. In the book, Brian tells us how this is going to affect our whole life. It is actually the secret to success. Because choosing to do the major and most important task will lead to major results instead of doing small, unimportant tasks that lead to small results. And if you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. It means you have to set priorities. If you have to do the task, don’t wait on it, just do it. And don’t leave it until you finish it because once you start with it you get into the flow state. Once you develop that habit you will get used to doing the major tasks first because it will make you feel good.
And one of the bad habits that many of us have is that we spend a lot of time doing something very well, and so perfectly that needs not to be done at all. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key to your success in life.
This is the main concept of the book and him explaining this method of doing what’s important to get major results is what influenced me the most in this book. And it helped me prioritize the important things in my life and get good results.
Also, Brian teaches you how to set priorities, set goals, manage your time, stop procrastinating, be productive, and all the techniques to do so. I won’t get into the details. You need to read the book to learn all of that. I highly recommend reading it. It is just to the point and it will teach you a lot about the sections we mentioned before.

2- SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS BY THOMAS ERIKSON:

Sometimes when we see people who are the opposite of us we think that they are idiots. But what this book is telling us is that we all have different personalities. And by understanding the different personality types that Thomas talked about in this book we can understand others and not judge them for who they are or misunderstand them. So, Thomas talks about 4 personality types and he refers to them by colors. Dominate- ambitious/Red. Inspiring, chatty, positive/Yellow. Stable, quiet/Green. Analytical, reserved, pessimistic/Blue. In this book, you learn how those different personalities think. And understanding each type helps you communicate with each one of them better. You also learn how to see things from their perspective not just from yours. After reading this book I knew how beautiful to be different from each other and how each personality type is important. For example, in the workspace, we need all types of personalities. Blue personalities are accurate and care about details, facts, and analytics. Yellow personalities attract clients because of their social skills. Red personalities love to lead others, they make quick decisions, and they are direct and don’t love talking too much. Green people are kind, calm, understanding, and do their job perfectly. All of us are a mix of those colors. And knowing our personality type determines which job is perfect for us and which people we should surround ourselves with or how to communicate with people who are already in our lives. I think everyone should read this book to improve their communication skills and to understand human behavior.

3- THE ART OF DEALING WITH PEOPLE BY DALE CARNEGIE:

This book is amazing. Communicating with people is an art. And this book teaches you this art and helps you communicate better with others in your personal and professional life. You learn in this book how to influence others. You become smarter at interacting with others. Sometimes we can’t express our intentions and others could get us wrong or misunderstand us. So, this book teaches you how to be more understanding and how to deliver what you want to the other person in a way that helps them not misunderstand you, makes them love you, and gets them to do what you want whether it’s in the workspace, your friends, or your family members. But not by manipulating others. This book teaches you social skills and some communication strategies.

For example; some of the ways to be better at communicating are:

* Don’t blame others for doing what they are doing. Maybe if you put yourself in their shoes you would do the same thing.
* People love and remember compliments. But do not try it with smart people because they know what they deserve.
* Show others that you care about them and talk about what they like not what you like.
* Make people feel important.
* Respect people’s opinions and don’t tell them that they are wrong but try to prove your idea smartly.
– I highly recommend reading this book because it will change the way you communicate with others and it teaches you effective social skills.

4- THE COMPOUND EFFECT BY DARREN HARDY:

This book is about success and how to earn it. The reason I loved this book is that it talks about success in a logical way. It talks about what it really takes to be successful. Success is not magic or happens overnight with little effort. It is a slow process. You learn in this book the fundamentals and principles that lead to great results and help you reach success.
Darren has been studying success and human achievement for 20 years. He trained tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. Advised many large companies and mentored CEOs. So he knows the secret ingredient behind successful people. He says that success is not doing 5000 things very well. Success is doing a half dozen things very well 5000 times. And no matter what you learn or the strategy you apply, success comes from the operating system of the compound effect. It talks about the power of the compound effect and how it runs our life with or without knowing it. When you follow this system you can achieve everything.

Darren talks about the formula of success which is, small choices + consistency + time = radical difference. With this formula, you can see results immediately but it is a slow process and needs commitment and discipline.
He says the only path to success is to continue doing the daily mundane and unexciting and sometimes difficult tasks. Daily disciplines compound over time and lead to great results. It is all about repetition and doing things consistently.
” Nothing fails like success” are the most influential words I read in this book. It is very true. If you want to go on the journey of success you need to be prepared for failure.
The author gives you action steps to help you get real results if you want to be successful. So there’s no luck, luck is work. You build momentum in whatever you do, whether it is good or bad.

5- HOW TO LIVE 24 HOURS A DAY BY ARNOLD BENNET:

This book was published in 1908 but is still relevant to this day. You can not feel that this book was written that long time ago.
Arnold, the author saw that workers work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, at jobs they did not enjoy. They wake up, go to work, go back home, unwind, go to sleep, and repeat the process the next day. Then they complain about not having enough time to do the things they want to do. And so in this book he talks about how to use your time wisely. He teaches you how to make time during the day to do what you want to do and achieve what you want to achieve. Everyone has the same 24 hours a day. But how everyone uses their time determines the lifestyle of each one of us. In this book, you learn how to organize your time and use it wisely by learning, reading, and improving yourself. Because life is more than just working all day and coming home to sleep and repeating the same process every day. Life is more than that. So, we should make the best of our time. He says it is not an easy task but using our time effectively is highly important. It requires sacrifice and continuous effort. He recommends that you start slowly and small when starting a new routine and not to be too rigid and have more flexibility in your routine to avoid failing and giving up. And you need to be consistent though to build a system. Learning how to use the time you have wisely will make you happier and enjoy your life more.
Time is the most precious thing you have. And this book opens your eyes to the free time you have and what you could do with it to feel like you are really living, not just existing.
It is a small book and you can finish it in one sitting. I highly recommend you read it.