Favourite books & How I've Applied Them

Reading is one of my favourite things to do. It’s one of the reasons why I still choose public transport over the cab or drive. Because I get to read during my journey AND reduce my carbon footprints (so millennial). 

I mainly read non-fiction books. The split is:

• 75% audiobook at 2x the speed (Libby & VLC are apps I’d recommend)
• 15% physical book (Libraries and friends who lend me their great books)
• 10% ebooks (Libby is my favourite app)

I rarely read fiction books. My guilty pleasure for fiction books are those of dystopian worlds like Orwell(!) & Huxley. Makes you question a little more about “what’s right”, morals, ethics and “for the greater good”. I have so much to say about that, but that’s for another day. 

How to choose a good (non-fiction) book

1. Read books that are out for a long time. Avoid new releases. I read new releases only from favourite authors or personal recommendations. Why? Because old books that are still relevant today stand the rest of time. And THAT is valuable knowledge. (This is the same for research papers btw) 
2. Read books that provide real value add and teach you the METHODOLOGY not promised results. Avoid books that exists as a “marketing tool”. You know how some books exist to brand the author as “look at me! I’m a published author. #proud #awesome #betterthanyou”. If primary goal of the book is to sell you their services, these books don’t provide true value because they only tease you with the outcome and not the methodology to get there. You have to pay for it. Aka they make money from you paying for their services, not somewhere else. (This applies to those “weekend crash-course get rich quick” schemes too.) 
3. Credibility of the author. Eg their past experiences, their job experiences and sharing the lessons learnt via a book, their past books
4. Don’t believe in “xxx Bestseller”. It’s just a marketing strategy. 
5. If a book is good, it can be read several times and you’ll always learn something from it. Below, I’ll share a list of books that I’ve read many times and will always make time annually to re-read them. 

List of great books that I have read at least twice

Reading List | Other Resources

• Slight Edge: I read this annually
• Principles: Inspired by Ray Dalio to start figuring out what my life principles are
• Eat That Frog: How to stay focused on tasks I have to do. I have these on my wall
• The hard things about hard things: You always have books teaching you how to get to success. But this talks about what happens when shit happens. And you know what? Shit always happens. You just have to learn to deal with it. Efficiently.
• Deep work: How to focus on tasks and have a focused life. You know you don't have to be entertained 24/7 right? I wrote this on my wall to remind myself that.
• Lean startup: Applies to not just startups but any department, company or even personal life
• Tipping point: I really really really like Malcolm Gladwell
• The Predictioneer’s Game: Game theory and applying that to everything in life.

Other things to read/learn from

• Podcasts 
• Save articles for offline reading (audio/e) via Pocket 
• YouTube videos 
• Nexflix has some really quality documentaries 
• Email subscription/ Twitter feeds (be wary about this)/ Reddit (be even more wary about this)

How I Apply Them 

Observe Life experiences ?? turn them into Lessons Learnt ?? apply them systematically, which becomes my Principles 

Writing is my form of mediation, apart from the quiet 15min everyday. So I observe things happening, reflect on them and apply them to future decision making situations. It makes decision making more efficient and it’s about “learning from past mistakes”. 

There's no inherent "right" or "wrong". It is how you want to live your life. Some like to be bounded by expectations of society, some hate all rules and social constructs. Life has no meaning, you just give it meaning along the journey from birth to death. So if that is the case, I'd figure out my guiding principles as I go along life.

I'd reckon you to do the same. And don't trust anything, just verify if it works for you. My principles works for me, Ray Dalio's principles worked for him. Figure out what works for you and experiment with it.