As I said at the beginning of 2022, I must have read twelve books by the end of this year. But I have completed the goal in 6 months and so far, I’ve read twenty books here in this post I’m just going to share how was my experience with each book and my takeaways from them as short as I can…
Let’s get started,
- The richest man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason
I read the book this year, but I was already following it without knowing about my first job.
Pay yourself first – Whatever your salary may be, pay yourself first. You’ve got to take one-tenth of your salary for yourself. Even if it’s less than INR 10,000, you must set aside 10% i.e 1000 INR for savings or investments.
If there is no adequate income, improve your skills and ensure a future income because wealth is the result of a reliable income stream.
- Who will cry when you die? by Robin Sharma
You don’t need to worry about continuity when reading the chapters of this book, you can randomly pick a page and start a chapter from there. If you feel like you’re around more negativity, stress, and anxiety then this is definitely for you to enhance your life in a more positive way.
My favorite chapter (Practice Forgiveness) from the book, do you really believe that forgiving someone is more of a selfish act than a selfless one? Yes, it is.
You may face trouble with your colleague in the office or you have some grudge against your neighbor for the things that happened a few years before. But letting them out of your mind is doing something for yourself rather than for the other person.
Having them in your mind burns lots of energy and peace of mind, you almost carry them on your back all the time. So, start to forgive people who have troubled you or made a mess in your life. Forgive him and get him off your back and live peacefully.
- Do epic shit by Ankur Warikoo
Ankur didn’t reveal anything novel to us, and he also acknowledges this in the preface of his book. It’s more about attempting to recall what you already know in this situation. There is no continuity between chapters, so you can pick a starting point at any time.
It’s a well-known proverb that goes, “Show me your five friends, and I’ll tell you your future,” which I felt to be a significant lesson from this book. But we no longer interact with people; instead, we spend much of our time with YouTube videos, books, and social media personalities. So pick them carefully.
- Shoe dog by Phil Knight
It’s a memoir by Phil Knight, who owns Nike. As Warren Buffett mentioned on the cover, “Phil Knight is a gifted storyteller.” I agree with Buffett after reading the book. My memory of this book is like a mini web series; it has everything in it: love, family, twists and turns, and a happy ending.
Knowing how to run a business or not run a business in flotation comes in handy if you’re an entrepreneur or businessman. Phil ran his business on float most of the time and was successful, but it’s not a good approach, as he suggests in the book. Even though I don’t work in business, before reading this book I was constantly short on cash to live my life; after reading it, I made the decision to never run-on float again. We had no idea what would occur.
The entire chapter “1975” (I love 1975), the scene when he meets Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in a movie, and the scene where he debates with his buddies about not wearing formal attire are all some of my favorite parts of the book.
- Eat that frog by Brian Tracy
Whenever you see the word “frog,” the author is referring to tasks. a book for time management and for people who procrastinate often. A few things I’m following from this book are:
- If you have to eat two frogs, start with the one that looks the worst, according to the first frog-eating rule. Always finish the most difficult task first thing in the morning to give yourself the incentive to get through the rest of the day successfully.
- Understand the difference between chores that are important and urgent and tasks that are not important and urgent. The former can be done whenever you have the time, but vital and urgent activities must always come first.
- If you have a lengthy task that will take weeks to do, Divide up difficult activities into smaller, more doable chunks. Take one mouthful at a time and eat the tiny frogs.
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The book demonstrates that the path to your destiny is just as important as the destination itself. “The Alchemist” is a very exciting fiction novel, and it deserves a space on everyone’s bookshelf. If you want to build a reading habit, then start with this book.
- “Success is not destiny; it’s a journey.” The value of his journey does not lie in the treasure, but in the knowledge and experience he gains from the journey itself. Likewise, in our lives, there is no such thing as destiny; this is just a journey of experiences that we should enjoy every day.
- The treasure that we are searching for everywhere, but we find it on our doorstep. What you’re searching for in life is near you, but we will search somewhere else. It can be love, friends, money, etc.
"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." - Who moved my cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson
It’s a simple story that reveals how to accept and deal with change in our lives and at work. There are four characters looking for cheese in a maze. Cheese is compared to money, a job, freedom, and health, which we believe will make us happy and successful. But it’s not. That’s what this book is about. Conveyed in a metaphorical way.
It’s a book of fewer than 90 pages, good for beginners.
- The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
As the title indicates, it’s the story of an enormously successful lawyer who turned into a monk. It makes you remember the purpose of life, and master your mind, the universe favors the brave. Follow your calling and do what makes you happy. It’s a mainstream reader’s book.
This book and I are not on the same connection level as I was with “Who will cry when you die?” Even though Robin Sharma is the author of both books, I wasn’t interested in this.
- The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
Do you believe that the experience you have with money is about 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world of money?
This book changed my view of money. It’s not about any technical stuff you don’t understand about money or a quick method to make you rich. Knowing how and when to handle money is essential for managing your wealth, greed, and happiness.
Don’t follow extreme people in investing, and we must accept that luck is a factor to consider when making money; stop moving your goalpost. And the one where I believe the return percentages are low will not make you wealthy.
I wholeheartedly advise everyone who wants a solid foundation in personal finance to read this book. We can learn more life lessons from this book than only financial ones; I won’t attempt to cover them all here. Check out my in-depth post on this book that I wrote here later.
- Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill
This book tries to explain why some people amass great fortunes while others fail to make ends meet.
Every person deals with fear, doubt, etcetera as obstacles to achieving success. The book also talks about how to deal with failure and emotions which cause a person to give up. People who want to achieve their financial dreams should read this book.
Napoleon Hill researched and wrote about the mindset of millionaires and billionaires. It took him twenty to twenty-five years to build this book. I was still uninterested in this book, though. It can be out of date and unsuitable for the current style.
- How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
This book has changed my communication and negotiation a little bit. If you’re an introvert and, your job also requires dealing with lots of people, then you must try this book.
which consists of never criticizing, being genuinely interested in others, smiling, remembering the first name of the person we are speaking with, making them feel important, never telling them they are wrong, talking about our own mistakes before talking about theirs, motivating, sincerely complimenting and how to say no to people.
- Dopamine Detox by Thibaut Meruisse
Dopamine is a brain chemical that gives us a sense of satisfaction after we complete a challenging task, eat our favorite meal, or engage in satisfying sexual activity.
However, the way we are doing this—watching social media shorts or reels, porn, eating unhealthy meals, etc.—is not a healthy way. They readily stimulate us and act as a quick fix, which is bad.
When you’ve overstimulated yourself, the chance of completing a challenging task after overstimulation will be very low, and you’ll lose your willpower to do it. Whereas when you’re in a less stimulating state (dopamine detoxed), the challenging, boring, or tedious task will look more appealing and be easier to handle for you.
In the book Dopamine Detox, the author clearly stated “The reduction of stimulation to prevent overstimulation and put you in the proper state of mind to tackle the major tasks”. It’s a book to understand dopamine and why you must detox from it.
- The Molecule of More by Daniel Z. Liberman
To learn more about “The Molecule of More,” I read “Dopamine Detox.” This book is supported by research and describes the same substance, “dopamine.”
Nowadays, how we are achieving it is a shortcut and that dampens the performance of our brain.
Dopamine is not the hormone that causes pleasure as we all believe. A hormone of prediction, it. We experience the high from dopamine-inducing activities not because we desire pleasure, but rather because we are looking forward to or forecasting when we will.
Other than social media, I was overstimulated by mail and stock prices. I wrote a post on how I underwent a dopamine detox with the aid of this book and the preceding “Dopamine Detox” here; see later.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
The main reason people struggle with financial problems is that they spend several years in school but learn nothing about money and investments. The result is that people learn to work for money… but never learn to put money to work for them.
One of the personal finance books that teach the fundamentals of asset vs. liability, real estate, investment, and a lot more. It’s the story of two fathers, one educated and the other illiterate. The school drop-out father becomes the richest man, while the overqualified one struggles to make ends meet.
The rich father teaches some valuable lessons via his experience and how to get out of the rat race and how to make money work for you.
- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
This was originally published in 1949. But when reading, I could still relate to our current market situation. This book taught me two valuable and basic concepts about investments: asset allocation and portfolio rebalancing.
Asset allocation refers to how much of a particular asset class you can have in your portfolio. How much equity, debt, and gold should I have in my portfolio? Simply put, for all financial goals, aim for 60% equity and 40% debt (fixed income).
Portfolio rebalancing—I believe this is not appreciated by most investors. One must transfer his money to a fixed income when he is nearing his financial goals.
Assume a 60% equity and 40% debt portfolio for your child’s education or marriage. When you reach the goal (3 or 5 years before), you need to gradually reduce the equity and move to debt. Five years before reaching the goal, the portfolio allocation should shift from 60:40 to 50:50, then 40:60 the following year, 30:70 the following year, and finally 0:100. This helps us attain our financial goal safely without letting any pressure build.
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jordenson
Naval Ravikant is an angel investor for many companies in their initial stages, such as Twitter, Notion, Uber, and over two hundred other companies. Eric compiled Naval Ravikant’s valuable lessons from all his Twitter tweets, podcasts, and videos, in which Naval teaches people how to build wealth and achieve long-term happiness by honing a few essential skills and learning the secrets of living a good life.
I like his strategy of fixing an hourly rate. Assume my hourly rate is 313 INR (if my take-home pay is 50,000 INR, divide it by 8 hours and 20 days). So, if I am doing any freelancing outside, I should only do it if they charge me more than 313 INR per hour. If I’m charged less than that, it’s a waste of time to do that. We’re depreciating our own value. We need to seek out gigs that pay more than our hourly rate.
- Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
One sentence about this is, “he is not a human.” When I was reading this book, I had the impression that he was from another planet most of the time. Those 4,030 pull-up records, the 101-mile marathon in 20 hours, and finishing fifth in the Badwater 135-mile race, which started from 282 feet below sea level and ended at an elevation of 8360 feet, are all records.
I especially like his “cookie jar strategy, imagine a cookie jar and consider each of the cookies in it as your past successes or victories. When you’re stuck, look at the cookie jar to remind yourself of your past successes and get motivated to keep going. The purpose of the cookie jar is not to make you feel good about yourself, it’s to remind you that based on past victories…nothing is impossible.
This is my second book of the year, and I still remember that I was breaking my personal records during those days because it was so motivational. If you’re lacking any motivation to drive you, this is the book to go.
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
What if we could have lessons on how to live? Lessons from someone who has experienced life’s highs and lows, who has found and lost love, from someone who could share the best of their life experiences and learning. That is what “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom was to me.
In some moments, I agree that the book might seem to be preaching too much. But this is a book I would revisit from my older days.
- How to stop worrying and start living by Dale Carnegie
Another book by Dale Carnegie and my one important takeaway from this one would be “Try to please someone.”
Recently, I felt that I lacked the patience to control my anger. I burst out of control for a few reasons. I learned an easy technique from this book to reduce our anger.
“Try to please someone every day.” It’s fine if people make you tense or angry; just please the first person who creates such a situation. Day by day, it becomes second nature, and the “pleasing someone” statement comes to mind when someone messes things up. It worked well for me; you can try it as well.
- Deep work by Cal Newport
“Deep Work” is the book that I believe will have the most impact in 2022. Basically, there are two types of work. Deep work is focused work with no distractions, whereas shallow work is work done with no concentration on ineffective tasks.
My mobile screen time was significantly reduced to 2 hours or less after reading this book. Block-scheduling time on my calendar allowed me to concentrate on my desired tasks during the specified time. I was more productive than ever before.
For people who are all involved in knowledge work (more on your mind and less physical, e.g., architects, designers, and engineers), they need a deeper work state to complete their work efficiently, and this book helps them attain it.
This book can teach you how to organize a packing party to get rid of unnecessary tasks, how willpower is limited, and why we should not multitask. I have made a detailed post about this book; see it later.
Hope this list will be a good recommendation for your reading list.
Until next time,
Peranesh xx