12 Books A Year - Part 3 - 165

This is part 3 of the 4-part series. See which books I read every year and why I chose them. Plus learn why the way most people read is totally a waste of time.

Welcome back. Alright, so this is part three of our four-part series on the books you can read to change your life. Okay, so if you haven't done Part One and Part Two, you probably want to do those first, at least part one. So you know, you get the gist, you have the background of what we're doing. Now I'm going to dive into the second set of books for I broke it down into four books, four books, four books, so part two, part three, and part four, I'm going to show you four books each, so it doesn't take forever. And now these are four books in the first three months, right? January, March, April, the first four books, I started pretty heavy, I like to it's, you know, the new year, you want to get going, you're setting your goals. And it's like, let's just do this, this time, these four months, you know, you're going into the summer season, things are busy, right? Things are hotter, you don't want to be thinking as much.

And so these books, a couple of them are really about how to flick change of perspective, not so much work-related or to do work, you know, not to do stuff. But so let's just get into that. Alright, so the first book we have is called "The Slight Edge". Okay, it's the slight edge, turning simple disciplines into a massive success. Now, this is a short book, a very simple concept, one that I can explain to you in five seconds, maybe not. But it's very simple. And it's still worth reading, it's still, you know because you get the examples, you get the illustrations or whatnot. And it's a quick read the idea is the one about knowing where you're going and making small incremental steps to get there, right? So for example, you got on a plane that's going from Miami to New York, right? If it's on track, it'll get to New York, if it's off by even a couple of degrees, and it doesn't correct, then guess what it ends up way off-course, right, somewhere in like Iceland or something, it'll never get to New York.

So that's the kind of simple here, it's like, you know when you want to do something, there are certain steps that we have to take, we have to take them over and over and over again. Now, it's very simple to not do those things to take those steps. But in the long run, it's very difficult when you don't do them because it's a problem for you. So if you have a goal, and you say, hey, look, I want to accomplish this, I want to go back to school and get my degree, right? There are certain things you have to do daily, you have to do your homework, right? Now, is it simple to just say no, I'm tired? I don't want to do my homework. Yeah, very simple. It's like I just worked all day, I don't want to go back. You know, like, I don't want to do this, it's very simple for you to miss a day, Miss two days, right?

But if you keep missing and keep missing and keep missing, eventually, you're gonna flunk out, and the whole goal is gone. So the first couple times you do it, no big deal, no harm done, you know, you might get away with it. But if you keep building and building and building, then it just doesn't work out. So same with trading, right? If you don't follow the rules in your trades, there might be a trade that it doesn't matter to trade the works out, there might be another one that just doesn't matter. There might be another one that works out. But then eventually there'll come a time when you won't even remember what the rules are. And there'll be a time where you mess up and you don't do it and the thing goes bad and it just destroys you. So if you want to do something, the book says, right, you're taking simple disciplines, just simple, small things, you just have to do small steps, right? The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. And that's all the book is telling you. It's like you figure out what are those steps, and you just do them slowly, slowly, and you have the discipline, you have the desire and the book is that's all it's about. And he's telling you how to do that. So I mean, it's a very simple book that is very hard to live by.

And so that's why you need the constant reminder, you have to read it again. And again. And again. When you do and you get you back on track, you will accomplish things like crazy, like it's powerful, very powerful book. Alright, so the next one, and now this one is called The Four Hour Workweek. There's probably I think there's a second edition out. So this book is outdated. And so I don't even know if it's worth it for everybody to read this. So this one might not work for you. You might want to take this one out and put in another one. I'll tell you what this one is about. Now, this book came out years ago, and I met the author, I hung out with him. We went to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting together, along with a group of other people. But, you know, the book had just come out and he had come with our group he had come with us. 

And so, you know, really smart guy. Tim Ferriss is the name. He's got a very popular podcast the guy is blown up. He's very famous now. But the book is The Four-Hour Workweek. And it's he came up with the idea years ago and he didn't come up with it. He wrote a book about it. The idea was already there. But he made outsourcing pretty popular in common knowledge. So outsourcing is right. It's taking a job from here and having somebody overseas do it. And so his whole thesis of the book is that you can create a business online, and you can have people in other countries doing the work for you. And basically, you don't have to do any work. kind of the gist of it. And so people are like, what, you know, I don't have to hire a secretary in my office, I could hire somebody in the Philippines that would work for like, $3 an hour and do just as good a job. Yeah, it's possible. Nowadays, you know, it's common, there's almost no company that only has all their employees in one location, right? People are virtual people all over the world, for example, our team, right, I am the only one in the office at Option Genius.

We have an office, I'm the only one here. So it gets kind of lonely sometimes, you know, we have one of our traders, Matt, he lives in Alabama, right? We have my manager, who lives in North Carolina. We have another trader who lives in California, we have Harriet who does customer service, but she lives in the Philippines. Kevin, who helps me with my podcast, He also lives in the Philippines. And then we got Ray Mark, who does our video editing, He also lives in the Philippines. So most of our team either lives in us or lives in the Philippines. Right. So that's what the book is really about. It's like how to find people that will do a great job that is cheaper, because they're living somewhere that's cheaper than living overseas now, doesn't mean you have to give them cheap money, right. But that's how it works, right economics, that's how they work. So the book itself is outdated. Because nowadays, everybody knows about outsourcing, there are plenty of resources online to say, hey, I want to hire somebody overseas.

And there are a million websites and companies that will help you find the perfect person to hire overseas or wherever for whatever task you want. And so there's nothing new in that book. But the reason I like to read it is because of the idea that he has in there that the business itself that you create, is for your benefit as the business owner. So his thinking is that you don't want to start a business and have the business own you, and control you right, he wants to start a business that can run on its own, by smart people who are given the authority to run the business. And then you get to go do whatever you want. You get to travel, you get to go to school, you get to do your hobbies, hang out with your family, you get to do whatever you want. And you're making money from this business, it could be a side business, it could be a bigger business. Most big businesses do require you know, if you want a full-time income or business, most likely you have to be involved. You can't just, you know, dictate and abdicate responsibility and let other people do the work. You can't do it unless you've already established and built the business. And so this is mostly for like side hustles and things like that. But people can make a pretty good living, right? Nowadays, with all the tools and the Zoom calls and everything, outsourcing and doing stuff online has become easier than ever. And so if you have kids, and they are not doing some kind of online business, or learning or marketing or whatever, I think that's a big mistake. So that's that one. I read it for myself to remind me, right of the reason why I started business, the reason why I got into trading, which is so that I don't have to I don't have to work for money, and that I could just go do what I want. Now, I enjoy making stuff like this, you know, content for you guys. And I enjoy trading so it's not a burden. But still, it gives me a reminder like, oh, yeah, you know, I wanted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, that's one of my things. Oh, yeah, I want to do a bike race, that's 100 miles in a day, you know, I want to do that. And those two things, take a lot of training, you can't just wake up one day and do that. And so I'd have to prepare and I have to, you know, get ready and preparations, and all the equipment and somebody has to take me up to Kilimanjaro because I'm not going by myself, all kinds of crazy stuff. So you have to know in advance what you want. Right? And so that's that's why I liked that book. The third book that I want to talk about this, this part is called Millionaire Success Habits.

I got this book for free, the author was giving them away for free. So you might even do a website search for this 1 million how-to get millionaire success habits for free. It might pop up and this book is it was written as a marketing piece for the author, you know, because he has a course and he's selling he's got so much other stuff that he's selling, but the book itself, he's got a lot of good content in here. He's got a lot of good exercises in here. And it's really about how you can change your thinking, change your mentality, change your psychology to become a millionaire, like, what are the habits of successful people? What are the habits of rich people? What do they do, that non-rich people don't do? And he goes through those, and he helps you figure out, you know, what are the things that you are not doing that you can do and how to change it. So this one does take a lot of work. So this one is a heavy book, and it does take a lot of time to implement. One of the examples that he talks about here is the why exercise. So whenever you create a goal, it has to be a very big goal, something challenging, something worth accomplishing. And any of those types of goals, they always have challenges, right? There's always something that will stand in your way, and you might want to quit, you might want to give up, you might say no, no, I can't do this. It's too hard. It's taking too long. And I don't know if he's worth it. You know, trading is like that. Trading is really like that. I mean, sometimes you'll do great. And then one day, the market will just slap you silly. And you're gonna be like, Man, is it worth this pain, I feel horrible. I feel so bad. I feel so stupid, I made a mistake. Bla bla bla, is it worth it? The only way you're going to continue is if you, really, really, really know your why.

And I talk about this a lot to say what is your why what is the real reason that you're trading is just because you want to make some extra money, then you ain't gonna stick around very long? To be honest, you have to have something besides money, you have to have something that you desire, much more than money. So it can that desire can get you through the challenges and the pain that are going to come because trading is, you know, it's simple, I guess you could say it's easy, but it's not simple, or it's simple. But it's not easy. I'm not sure which one, you know, I can give you the rules, I can give you everything, but you got to follow it, you got to do it. And there will be losses along the way there will be hardships, there will be unknowns, a lot of unknowns in trading, right? We never know what's going to happen tomorrow and trading, nobody can predict it. We just have to go with the flow and that can be very hard and taxing on you emotionally mentally and physically. And so you have to know your why. And so in this book, he goes through the exercise of the seven why so you start off asking, and you do it with another person. 

And it's basically Hey, you know, tell me, why do you want to get good at trading? And then you come up with an answer. And the person says, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. Why do you want that? And he goes, like the second level deeper, right? And then you have to give a reason why you want that second thing. He goes, Oh, that's wonderful. That's great. That makes no sense. Okay, so tell me why do you want that second thing? See, okay, and you give another reason? And then okay, why do you want that? Third thing? Why do you want that? Fourth thing? Why do you want that fifth thing, that by the time you get level after level, after level, deeper, deeper, deeper, the real reason comes out, the real explanation of why you want to do something comes out? And that's when you might even cry because that desire or that frustration is so strongly built up in you that you don't even know is there.

But if you do this exercise, it kind of unleashes that brings it to the surface, and allows you to know the deep, deep, deep desire that you have, and you might not be even conscious of it. So this is one of the examples in there. It's a great one, I urge you to do it, get that book, read it, go through it, implement it, really, really good book. And then I'm going to end this one with a book that is a reader and a thinker. Not really too much of a doer, maybe a little bit of a doer, it's Tuesdays with Morrie.

Okay, now you probably already read this one came out a long time ago. It's the story of an old man and a young man and life's greatest lesson, basically how to live your life. So the author here is a true story. The author was a journalist, and he realized that his favorite college professor was dying. And so he would go every Tuesday and hang out with him. And he recorded the lessons that he learned from the man about how to live a great life, how to enjoy yourself how to be happy, and he wrote those in a book very, very, it's a short book, but it tugs at your heartstrings and makes you realize a lot of things about life. Because I mean, think about it like I did, you know we went through the slight edge then we went The Four Hour Workweek to teach us about work then we did the millionaire success habits we need a break right from reading and so that's why I put this one in there because even though this one will make you cry, he's a does for me, it makes you think about life. It makes you appreciate life, but there's no work involved in it unless you know you have some issues with somebody you know, your brother, your sister, or your parents that you gotta resolve.

That might be a good thing you know, this book might help you do that. But in a sense, it's a story that you read and you learn and you appreciate what you have. You appreciate your life and you feel good about it. So that's it for these four books. I got one more part of the series coming up, which is gonna be part four So go ahead, check that one out as well, to finish it out, those are gonna be the last four books of the year. And again, you know, like I said, with the four-hour workweek, if it doesn't work for you, you don't you can put something else instead, right? If you're not, you don't care about outsourcing, you don't care about virtual assistants, anything like that, you know if you don't want to run a business, that book is not for you, that's fine. Take it out, put something else in, you know, that's the way it works. You fit this for what you want. Now, these four books, I think the slight edge is great for everybody.

You know, the millionaire success habits. I mean, this is good for everybody, even if you don't want to be a millionaire. I mean, he talks about money, most of it. But even if you don't want to be a millionaire, you just want to be successful and happier. It's a great book, and then on Tuesdays with Morrie, everybody can read that Morrie's son has come out with another book called Wisdom of Morrie, which I have, on my shelf waiting to be read. I haven't read it yet. But like I said, I don't have time for it, because I need to focus on my 12 books and read them every year.

And so I'm going to work on myself first, and I'm working on not having to finish that book. So it's sitting there, it's there. I know is there I'll get to it eventually. But for now, let's go and let's head to part number four of this series.