- I decided that I wanna tell you guys
about some of my favorite audio books that I've listened to
since the beginning of this year.
Are you ready? (imitates beeping)
(mellow music)
As you may know
from watching my other book recommendation video
or my productivity video, I love listening to audio books.
It's more time efficient for me,
and for some reason, I concentrate better
when I'm doing another task on autopilot.
So if I'm walking somewhere, I'm jogging, I'm driving,
I can really pay attention to an audio book and zone in.
Don't ask me why.
It just works.
Before we start, we have to give a huge thank you to Audible
for sponsoring us again on this video.
And they have a great offer, if you want to try Audible,
where you get one audio book for free
plus two Audible originals when you sign up.
All you have to do is visit Audible.com/DoctorMike.
Remember, Doctor is D-O-C-T-O-R Mike,
or you can text 500500, the code Doctor Mike as well,
D-O-C-T-O-R M-I-K-E.
Are you ready?
There, are you ready?
Uh, no one's there.
I guess we're ready.
The first book I wanna talk
to you about is called "Feeling Good"
by Dr. David Burns, M.D.
The gold standard of treatment for depression, anxiety,
if you're to visit a doctor,
is called Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
Now it sounds like a mouthful, but it's really not so bad.
It's basically when you take your thoughts
that are irrational or dysfunctional
or not based concretely on reality
and then you substitute rational thoughts in their place.
It's thoughts that guide your feelings,
not feelings that guide your thoughts.
We as humans don't really have control of our feelings.
If you're feeling depressed, and someone comes up to you
and says, "Hey, just snap out of it," that's rude.
But if they approach you and they say,
"Well, why are you feeling depressed?"
"What thoughts are you having?"
And then they try and help you understand
that those thoughts are irrational,
that's essentially what CBT is.
It's important to know that you don't have to be suffering
with depression or generalized anxiety disorder
in order to benefit from reading this book.
Everyone in this world, every human alike, will benefit
from knowing about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
It's a rational, reasonable way to think about your problems
so that, not that you don't get sad when you have a problem.
That's normal.
That's part of human existence.
But just so that sadness doesn't bring you to such depths
where you can't function.
I wanna share with you also
that I, when going through a tough time, will go back
and read "Feeling Good," because it's one of those books
that, yes, there's information in there that,
once you learn it, you know it.
But it's a skill that needs
to be consistently sharpened and updated.
"Mike, you always look happy.
"You look balanced.
"How are you involved in so many things?"
It's because I'm constantly doing this form
of CBT on myself.
Now that doesn't mean everyone's gonna be capable of this,
and that's why I encourage anyone.
If you're suffering with depression, anxiety,
or you're even questioning if you have it,
go talk to your primary care doctor.
Talk to a mental health professional.
There's nothing wrong with it.
We all have times where we get stuck.
That's part of life, and sometimes we need help.
That's totally fine.
And I tell you this from a lot
of personal and professional experience.
When you get through that struggle,
even if you've had help or you've done it on your own,
with a book, whatever,
you're gonna feel not only so much better,
but you're gonna be more prepared
to help others along the way.
And that's truly a rewarding feeling.
The second audio book I wanna tell you about
is called "Coddling of the American Mind"
by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
Now this is a very thought-provoking book
on how the young American minds are being hurt
by good intentions.
Some of the most important things discussed
in this book is the rise of over-parenting.
It's that style of parenting
where you have basically like helicopter parents,
where they're always around their children.
They never want them to get hurt.
They never want them to fail or feel sad,
and that's having detrimental effects
on children's mental health as they grow up.
Haidt and Lukianoff postulate that the increases
of anxiety and depression that we're seeing
in the youth are as a result of, at least partially,
by this parenting style.
The second thing that they talk about is
how nuance is lost in conversation
and how diversity of ideas is lost on college campuses.
And I totally agree with that.
I think when we talk about diversity,
we should absolutely be talking
about gender, sex, religion, race,
but we also need to have a diversity of ideologies.
And when we lose that, we actually become less smart.
Because if we're never challenged,
if no one ever gives us a new thought even to argue against,
we can become better.
That's why if you look at athletes,
when they compete against someone at a very high level,
there's a huge level of respect.
Because that person is making them better.
Rivals make each other better.
One thing that stuck with me from reading this book is
how there's so much lost free play
when it comes to kids nowadays.
And I see this even within my nephews.
Everything is so incredibly structured and monitored.
They never have the time to just be alone and play together
and argue and fight and learn how to solve problems
and actually develop their social fabric.
I know it sounds funny to say
that free play could be that important, but it really is.
And I think Haidt and Lukianoff do a great job
in breaking that down,
explaining and giving concrete examples
of what's going on in schools, with parents,
within society, politics,
and how that all factors in to the developing young mind.
Totally recommend this book.
And the most exciting part about all of this is
in a couple of months, Jonathan Haidt is gonna be coming
on this channel for an interview.
I can't wait, and I hope you guys are excited, too.
The third audio book I wanna tell you about
is called "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke.
She's a professional poker player.
I remember even watching her play poker
when I was growing up.
I used to play poker semi-professionally back in the day.
I had a group of friends that I would play poker with,
and it's funny, because all of our conversations,
whether they were about school and tests,
girls and guy friends, everything we related back to poker.
And what this book is, is all about how you can think
about making decisions in life with limited information
and take some cues and tips
from players that are very good at poker.
What Annie Duke does well in this book is
that she equates making difficult decisions in real life
to poker hands, and it encourages folks
when they think about their decision,
to think about it as a bet.
A bet has consequences.
You can win; you can lose.
There's things that can happen in between.
The most important thing that this book is gonna give you
is it's gonna make you a better decision maker.
It's gonna shift you away from certainty,
where it's either gonna be a yes or no,
to uncertainty, which is what life is.
There's a level of luck involved.
There's things that you're not gonna be able to plan for.
Things that are outside of your control.
And what Annie Duke does
is she lays out all these strategies
that we can use to become better decision makers,
so that we can become more analytical in our judgment
so that we can have more favorable outcomes in the future.
This book covers bias really well.
In fact, Annie Duke actually takes
from a handful of psychology literature
and incorporates that into her own thinking,
into her own process for making a decision.
That's why she's become
this incredibly successful business consultant.
This is by no means an exhaustive list
of audio book that are great.
These are just some of my favorites
that I've read since the beginning of this year,
and I wanna do this a little bit more often.
When there's nothing going on in the news,
medically speaking, I wanna jump in
and tell you about interesting reads
or listens (laughs) that I'm going through to share.
Because not only do I benefit from listening
to these audio book, but you can, as well.
Remember, visit Audible.com/DoctorMike,
D-O-C-T-O-R M-I-K-E,
or text the number 500500, the code Doctor Mike,
again D-O-C-T-O-R M-I-K-E,
to get one free audio book and two Audible originals.
As always, stay happy and healthy.