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Top 5 books, that I have read the past year, which have changed me and the way I think.
Hey friends,
In today’s “chapter“ of my Journal, I want to tell you about the best 10 books that I have read in the past year.
For those, who don’t know me, I am an avid reader. I am trying to expand my knowledge pool as much as possible. It doesn’t matter the type of book, business, finance, economics, self-help, investing, philosophy, and the list goes on and on and on… I read a lot, that’s the point, and I encourage you to do the same.
“But I don’t like to read! or I don’t have time to read! or I would rather watch Netflix!“ All of these affirmations are BS. I am sorry to tell you this, but it is true, books and podcasts (more on this subject in another newsletter because I consume those too, and not in small quantities) are the best sources of useful and meaningful information out there. And I have the guts to say this because, 1 year ago, I used to think the same. I would not read a single page until I’ve seen this quote: “not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers“. And from that point, I have managed to read and listen to a total of 55 books in less than 9 months, and I could have been able to double the number if I wouldn’t come to America, but this is another discussion.
Now that we are done with the crap, here are my top 5 books that I have read in the past year. Small parentheses, because all of them discuss different topics and all helped me in certain ways, I will not order them by best or worse, I will just briefly present them (BTW, I will attach some links to the bottom of this email with their Amazon pages, I read them on my Kindle Oasis or listen to them on Audible, but you can choose to buy them in whatever format you want.):
Rich Dad Poor Dad
by Robert Kiyosaki
This is the book with which I have started reading. It is a guide that presents the reader with the power of investing and explains, in a ~200 pages story, how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer by teaching the reader financial education.
Key takeaways from the book:
Rich people buy assets, poor people buy liabilities.
Your home is not an asset, it is a liability.
The most important papers that you have are Your Income Statement (the cash that enters your account) and Your Balance Sheet (All the assets that you have under your name and that are deflationary and produce you more money).
Photo By Etsy The rich use debt to get richer. Borrow money to buy assets that give you cash flow (like Real-Estate) and, this way you don’t pay taxes and gain equity in your assets at the same time. “Only lazy people buy assets using their own money.“ - Robert Kiyosaki
Richest Man in Babylon
by George S. Clason
Yet another finance book on my list. This time around, we have a short ~120 pages story about a man, who ended up, being extremely poor and full of debt to be the richest and most powerful single individual from the city of Babylon.
Key takeaways:
Pay yourself first. This means that whenever you get paid, first save something for yourself, before all the spending starts popping up because otherwise, at the end of the month, you will be left with nothing.
For every 10 coins earned, only spend 9 of them. Save at least 10% of your income.
Make a budget to control your spending. If you don’t know your expenses you will most likely overspend and end up in bad debt.
Invest your money so that it makes you more money. Nowadays, this could be a low-cost index fund like the S&P 500, which contains the top 505 companies in America, or other investment opportunities. (I will write a separate newsletter just for this topic).
Protect your investment. It is tempting to invest in high-yielding projects, but these are riskier as well. If you lose your capital, you will have to start from zero. Study well the opportunities you seize.
Buy your own house.
Make sure you have enough money for your future. To acquire wealth, you need to invest, but it is necessary to keep a small portion of your income as savings just in case. To make this easier to understand, I will quote Jaspreet Singh’s 75-15-10 rule: “Whenever you make 1 dollar, you can spend a maximum of 75 cents, invest a minimum of 15 cents, and save 10 cents for urgencies.“.
Increase your knowledge of earning money. Your desire to acquire wealth must be great. First, start small and acquire a fixed amount of money (become better at your job). Then acquire more and more. Create multiple sources of income, start a side hustle, a business, etc.
Atomic Habits
by James Clear
This book is one of my favorites of all time. It teaches you how to build and keep strong and healthy habits and how to break the bad ones that keep you stuck. He describes habits as being those involuntary responses that we do on autopilot and that don’t require a lot of cognitive power. I cannot recommend it enough. JUST READ IT! It will CHANGE your life.
Key takeaways:
A habit is formed out of 4 components: cue, craving, response, and reward. Cue is the thing that triggers the habit, craving is your mind’s response to the cue, the response is performing the habit and the reward is what you get after the habit is performed.
To create good habits, you need to make the cue obvious and the reward pleasant, and if you want to eliminate a bad habit, you have to do the opposite.
The 1% rule. This “rule“ is based on the exponential function theory and the compound effect says that, if you become better with just 1% each day, after one year, you will be 37.78x better than in the beginning.
Instead of focusing on goals, focus on creating systems that work and that facilitate your growth. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” - James Clear
Your habits determine your identity. If you identify with a certain action that you wish to incorporate into your habits, it will make your life way easier.
It is easier to change your environment and acquire new habits than to change the old ones. My advice is to re-arrange the furniture in your room and you will see that it will be way easier to acquire new habits.
The 2 minutes rule. If you want to do something but you feel like procrastinating. Just say that you will do the certain task for 2 minutes. You will see that it is way easier to continue after you start something. “An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force.“ - Newton’s first law of motion.
Get an accountability partner. It is easier to stay on track if someone else is involved.
The Goldilock Rule. This principle suggests that we are entertained into doing a certain action when it just barely stretches our comfort zone. If it is too easy, you get bored and if it is too hard, you get frustrated.
Getting Things Done
by David Allen
Now we are stepping into the productive sector of my list. David Allen is probably the best productivity guru out there. He came up with a method called GTD. Which stands for Capture, Clarify, Organise, Review, Action. This principle allows you to stay productive and clear your mind of all the information which is kept stuck inside your brain and stresses you out.
Key takeaways:
The GTD Method
David Allen’s framework for completing a task:
Use a calendar to guide your life. For every action that you have to perform write a note in a digital calendar (eg. Google Calendar, Fantastical, Apple Calendar, etc.) or even a normal calendar. The purpose is to take the actions out of your mind and put them somewhere you can see them and where you can check where and when it needs to be performed. Not only that clears your mind, but, this allows you to be more intentional with your time and see exactly what you need to do when you need to do it, and how long it will take to do so. Here I want to mention Parkinson’s Law which says that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.“this means that, as much as you will give yourself to complete a task, as much it will take.
The last key takeaway is using a To-Do List. A To-Do List is an app on your phone or a sheet of paper in your notepad, on which you write down all the tasks that you need to complete during a certain amount of time. My advice is, at the beginning of each week, to create a weekly to-do list with all the tasks that you have to perform, and at the beginning of each day attach the tasks dedicated to that specific period and cross them off the list one by one. If you choose to use an app, I strongly recommend Todoist. With a user-friendly interface and tons of features, my weapon of choice is this one, and I use it every day. Plus, for personal use, it is free, so enjoy.
The Millionaire Fastlane
by MJ DeMarco
The last book that I will present today is my favorite on this segment of getting rich, acquiring wealth, and money in general. Oh boy, it was a blessing to listen to this book. MJ DeMarco is an entrepreneur, writer, and angel investor who understood, in his mid-20s, how to get rich and what are the principles of acquiring lots and lots of money and it allowed him, during the “.com bubble” to get insanely reach. He describes that getting rich quick is actually possible and discredits the idea of getting rich easy and the hypocrisy of gurus who want just to sell you useless courses, that promises results, but the only results are the money that they make. He also describes that people’s financial lives can be assigned to 3 categories: Side-Walk (which are the people who live paycheck to paycheck), Slow-Lane (the ones who go to school, get a job, invest in the stock market, and become rich after 40-50 years in a moment of their life when it doesn't even matter anymore) and the Fast-Lane (the ones who create a business that produces value to others and sell them goods producing profits and making them rich).
Key takeaways:
Getting rich quick is possible and it refers to a 10-year time maximum.
If you want to get rich you need to create a business that actually provides value to people in order for them to buy what you are selling.
People don’t get rich by investing in the stock market or other asset classes, they increase their wealth and preserve it by doing so, while their business or businesses provides them with the money to invest and live a rich life.
Wealth doesn’t happen linearly but exponentially
Wealth demands accountability, which means that you are completely responsible for taking the necessary actions to acquire wealth
Create multiple sources of income.
Detach your time from making mone equation.
Impact millions → make millions.
The amount of money you have = the value you delivered to society.
Your most important asset is your time.
There are way more books that I would want to include here but it would take me hours and I would need an entire book to present them all, but I promise that, in the near future, I will write another email with another set of books.
Links for the Amazon pages of the included books:
As a footer note. I advise you to buy them in Kindle format, because, if you tend to highlight passages in the texts that you read, you can send them Readwise. This is an app that takes all your highlights, randomizes them, and sends them to you via email and their mobile app.
If you prefer listening to audiobooks instead of reading check out Audible using the link here.
If you want to see all the books that I have read in order to make a decision on what to read next, here is a link that will lead you to a Notion page where I store all my books and the status of my reading.
Until next time, love you all,
Andrei