about seven or eight years ago i didn't have a growth mindset i didn't really care about
becoming more knowledgeable or improving my skill set in the first 18 years of my life i could count
the number of books that i read by choice on one hand but then i set a goal of reading 30 minutes
a day and back then that was a big commitment spending 30 minutes every day to read was a
big deal for me i didn't realize actually how much just spending 30 minutes a day reading
would go on to change my life because i started to fall in love with learning i started to fall
in love with personal development and now i listen to audio books and podcasts and watch
educational youtube videos on a daily basis it's just integrated into my daily life and
in this video i'm going to go through the three books that had the biggest impact in encouraging
me to make that transformation from essentially wasting my life and letting life just pass me by
to living with purpose and intention and growing to become a better person every day and real quick
before i start let me know in the comments the one book that had the biggest impact on your life
i'm curious if any of you will write down any of the books that i'm going to talk about the first
book that i'm going to recommend is elon musk's biography by ashley vance and this book it has
probably the biggest impact on my life over every other book that i've read and i don't think many
of you know this but this youtube channel project elon was actually named after this book this was
back in 2016 when i was creating this channel i was actually in a hotel room in vietnam and i had
my laptop on my hotel room desk and i was creating my youtube account and i was on the page where i
had to choose a name so i was thinking for a few minutes okay so this is a new project something
that i've never done before i don't know whether it's going to work or not but let's give it a go
so it was a completely new project right so i was going to name it project x our project something
but that was taken but then i looked up and i saw the biography of elon musk lying on my desk right
next to my laptop that i'd been reading earlier that day so i thought let's try project elon and
the name was available so i went ahead with that and that's when project heal on youtube channel
was created and the reason why i was reading this book in the first place was because at the time i
was having problems with time management for example i found myself running out of time at
the end of the day so i wouldn't go to the gym and if elon musk who with his 24 hours can manage his
time between being the ceo of tesla the world's most valuable car maker the ceo of spacex the
largest commercial satellite operator in the world and chairman of solarcity one of the biggest solar
panel companies in the world if he can do all of those things within 24 hours then surely i can
find enough time to get to the gym in the evening right back then in 2016 elon musk was worth around
60 billion dollars and of course now just five years later he's worth almost 200 billion dollars
and he's now the wealthiest person on the planet so i find that quite inspirational i guess the
work ethic that is needed to get to that level is quite incredible and if elon musk is working 100
hours a week then i should have no problem working 60 hours a week right depending on how well you
want to do and particularly if you're starting a company you need to work super hard work hard like
every waking hour that's that's the the thing i would i would say and i mean if you do simple math
say like okay if somebody else is working 50 hours and you're working 100 you'll get twice as done
as much done in the course of a year as the other company i particularly like the biography
of elon musk because it not only goes through his successes but also his failures too and actually
many of his personality flaws as well which i thought was quite interesting and also it goes
somewhat into explaining some of the phenomenally huge challenges and obstacles he ran into along
the way and there's an interesting interview of elon musk actually getting emotional when he's
asked about some of his childhood heroes actually criticizing him for creating spacex because some
of them believe that commercial space flight is not a good idea you know there are american heroes
who don't like this idea i was very sad to see that um because those guys are yeah
you know those guys are heroes of mine so it's really tough they inspired you
to do this didn't they yes and to see them casting stones in your direction
it's difficult another biography i'd recommend is steve jobs by walter isaacson because
although steve jobs obviously he achieved some incredible things there were a lot of failures and
massive personality flaws that he had to live with but also the people around him
had to live with and had to suffer from as a result and an autobiography that i'd recommend
is total recall by arnold schwarzenegger again incredibly inspirational the fact that almost
any industry that he entered into he managed to achieve incredible success it shows that
what he achieved wasn't just luck it was hard work self-discipline talent whatever you want
to call it he made that success happen but don't take my word for it all of these books have tens
of thousands of reviews on amazon averaging 4.5 to 5 stars so i've added links in the description if
you're interested in picking any of them up and i mentioned this quite often on this channel you
become the average of the five people you spend the most time with and although you probably don't
have millionaire friends or billionaire friends in your social circle or people that are what
you might consider ultra successful the next best thing is to consume their content and read about
them and read about their biographies learn about how they got to where they are the mistakes that
they made and the successes that they had and if nothing else that energy the level of success that
they've managed to achieve will somewhat rub off on you too and it's one of the main reasons why
i love reading biographies because i get so much inspiration from reading them and motivation is
a bit like collecting water in a bucket with a hole in it slowly the water will leak out and it
needs to be topped up regularly in the same way that our motivation needs topping up regularly
and reading biographies is a great way of doing that it's like going to the gym if you go to the
gym regularly you'll start growing muscle right but if you stop for one or two or three months
you'll start losing that muscle so you need to stay consistent the second book that has had the
biggest effect on me since reading it has got to be the richest man in babylon if you're all
interested in generating any kind of wealth in the future then you've absolutely got to
read this book and even if you're not in the slightest bit interested in personal finance
we all need money to live to be the best father we can be to be the best mother to be the best
son to be the best daughter to have a positive impact at scale on the world around us money is
often a necessary tool in order to achieve that so the richest man in babylon was written in 1926 and
he provides financial advice for a collection of parables set four thousand years ago in ancient
babylon and you've probably heard of this book before or maybe you've even read it because it
is a classic and it's a classic for a reason and in the book there are seven rules of money start
dipers to fattening make more money or save more money so if you're not able to save money then
channel your resources into creating more money the point is is to watch the money slowly grow and
this will provide opportunities to invest later on control diet expenditures so don't spend more
than what you make and create a budget i started recording all of my expenses back in 2013 and this
is one of my first ever yearly budgets eight years ago now and i still keep record to this day and
it's something so basic but a surprising number of people especially students don't have any budgie
at all make thy gold multiply invest in yourself invest in your business invest in your career
invest in your relationships buy that book buy that course hire that coach investing in yourself
is one of the best things that you can do in terms of personal growth god died treasures from loss
don't invest in what you don't know and don't jump into every investment that you see be
open to new opportunities but be wary at the same time make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
the bug recommends that you own the building that you live in which obviously has many advantages
although these days it's certainly more debatable whether the house you own and live in is actually
an asset or a liability and if you've ever read rich dad poor dad you'll know exactly what i'm
talking about ensure a future income the average millionaire has seven streams of income so don't
put your eggs in one basket if you're working a nine-to-five like a lot of people do then use your
24 hours wisely to start creating other streams of income improve thy ability to earn if you're not
constantly updating your skill sets and growing as a person then you're probably falling behind
make learning a habit and your income and quality of life are likely to increase with it so to
summarize the book in 10 seconds save at least 10 percent of everything that you earn do not confuse
your essential spending with luxury spending work hard to improve your skills and finally you cannot
arrive at the fullest measure of success until you're able to crush procrastination and if you
are struggling with procrastination i made a video last week on how i'm able to study for 14 hours a
day relatively easily you can click on the pop-up banner to watch that and the third book that i'm
gonna put on the list is how to win friends and influence people again another classic and i read
this book just before i started university so around 2015 and this kind of came at the right
time for me because i'm not the most extroverted person i'm not the most sociable person and when
you start university you meet a lot of people and a lot of different types of people too and the
book's divided into two parts the first part of the book discusses techniques in handling people
and how to essentially have people like you and the second half of the book gives instructions
about how to win people to our own thinking and how to be a leader by changing people without
offending them or causing resentment and i read how to win friends and influence people about
five years ago five or six years ago but i still use many of the things that i learned in that book
to this day so i'll go over a few of those now do not criticize criticism is often futile because it
usually puts the person you're talking to on the defensive so it hurts the person's pride it hurts
their sense of importance and arouses resentment instead of criticizing try to understand why they
are how they are and many great leaders stood out because of this principle like benjamin
franklin once said i will speak ill of no man and speak all the good i know of everybody
understand their needs there is only one way to make someone do something which is to make them
want to do it so for example if you're worried about your friend and you want him or her to put
a bit more effort into their studying you might explain to them how studying harder will benefit
them and how studying more will have a positive benefit on their life be genuinely interested
we tend to like people that are genuinely interested in us and actively asking questions to
know more and this is a great tip for people that are maybe not very good in social situations are
not very good at keeping a conversation flowing just ask questions and let the other person do
the heavy lifting remember their name make an effort to remember their names the first try
the same goes with spelling their name too the book says remember that a person's name is to
that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language arguing is a waste of
time avoid arguments like you would rattle snakes or earthquakes most of the time they'll just make
someone feel embarrassed or uncomfortable or hurt their pride and make them feel inferior the only
way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it there are so many incredibly practical lessons in
the book how to win friends and influence people that you can implement straight into your life
but there's so much to go through i would need to make a dedicated video on that book alone
so i can't cover everything in this video and as i mentioned earlier i have the links in the
description if you're interested in picking any of these books in this video and if you
are on a personal development journey just like i am last week i made a video on seven habits of
a 4.0 gpa student basically going over seven habits that not only i have implemented into
my life but also what i notice other 4.0 gpa students implemented into their lives too and
if you like this video i think you're going to love that one so i'll see you over there