Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
Today I want to share six books that have changed my life.
And I'm really excited because, looking at these books,
they each represent a time period of my life.
Each book is kind of part of a chapter of my life.
It really is kind of like a time capsule.
The first book is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
This was a book that I read in college, maybe my junior year of college.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with this book
but it's basically a memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert's life
when she was getting out of a divorce and going soul searching.
Anyway, one of the countries that she goes to is Italy,
and she talks about eating a pizza in Naples.
And reading this book really, really made me want to go to Italy.
So when it was time for me to choose what my choice study abroad program was,
I put Milan as my first choice.
So that's what happened:
My senior year of college, I went to Milan to study international business.
I really went there to soul search myself.
This book basically gave me an introduction to what soul searching was.
I don't even think I realized that people did this:
quit their life, travel the world to find themselves.
So anyway, I kind of had that dream myself,
that I needed to get out of my life in LA, travel, and find myself.
So that is what I did, and when I went to Italy, that's when I felt so free.
I had more time to start reading self help books.
That was the period of my life where I was figuring out what to do with my life, very lost.
I've talked about this before in my videos.
But this was the book that started that whole journey.
The second book that changed my life is called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
It's a pretty short book.
It's an easy read.
And I think I just consider it a book that changed my life
because it was one of the first self help books that I read,
and it was the first time that I was learning about these concepts.
The concept that really blew my mind in this book was:
Don't Take Anything Personally, because everything that happens,
what people say to you is not really about you.
It's a mirror of themselves.
I did not know about this concept until I read this book,
and this book really taught me how to stop caring about what other people think of you.
The Four Agreements he shares in this book are so simple.
I mean, there's only four.
But if you can remember those four and live them in your life,
then you're already going to be so happy, so amazing.
You'll be fine.
What this book did was it taught me to look at the world in a different way,
in a way that I never considered before.
It really taught me about other people and society.
How we see things might not be the way that they actually are, to not make assumptions.
Maybe it was because I read it early on that it was so mind-blowing,
and also because it's such an easy read
that I really consider this an amazing and important book in my life.
The next book that changed my life is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
I almost want to say that Eckhart Tolle, as an author,
changed my life because I love his other books too.
A New Earth was amazing as well.
But I chose this one because I'd probably recommend this to more people than A New Earth,
because this is more foundational and important.
So if you want to pick up a book, definitely pick up this one.
This is probably the hardest book to read out of all of the books that I chose today,
just because it is dense and it's one of those books
where you're going to reread the passage again and again to fully understand.
And you might not be able to fully understand the first time you read it through.
Anyway, it's just a book about how to be present,
how to detach yourself from your ego mind, to recognize that you are the awareness,
you are the consciousness behind all of your observations.
And I've seen Eckhart Tolle speak in person at Super Soul Sunday, Oprah Winfrey's event.
And he is a modern day monk.
He is so calm, he is so present.
Everything for him is happening in the now.
He's really mastered that, and that is something that is not easy to master.
I'm still working on it.
It says "A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment", and I truly believe that this is that book.
The next book that changed my life is this one: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.
I know this is a crowd favorite among all of us, but this literally changed my life.
I loved the book when I was reading it because Marie Kondo is so convincing that,
once you declutter your things and go through all your stuff, then your life will literally change.
I was reading this book in 2015.
This was after I just started Lavendaire, but things did not pick up yet.
I felt confused on my path like,
"Is this even worth it? What am I doing with my life? Do I look stupid to all my peers?"
My bedroom, my closet, my house was cluttered and messy.
We just had a lot of stuff.
And listening to this woman give you a step-by-step process on how to declutter your stuff,
how that will change your life for sure, she was so convincing that I was like,
"You know what? My life kinda sucks right now and I have nothing to lose.
Let's go through this book.
Let's follow the steps here and see what happens."
And so that's what I did.
I documented my journey on YouTube.
And after decluttering my stuff, I guess simultaneously,
life started to pick up and I really felt a fresh energy in my life.
It changed my mindset.
I learned how to be more intentional about the things that I keep in my life,
whether it's physical things, but also people or tasks and projects.
I truly believe that decluttering using the KonMari way –
because I went through the whole process – it changed my life from the outside-in.
You can change your life from the outside-in or the inside-out.
So it was just really cool that switching up my space, clearing out all the junk,
really helped me clear out the old energy in me and in my life as well.
The next book that changed my life that I've talked about many times before is:
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.
This is the book that teaches you how to be consistent,
how to take consistent action, how to stay in the game for the long haul.
You just have to read through the book because it really convinces you
that you have to be consistent, you have to make it a habit.
I think before I was just a very inconsistent person.
It was hard for me to stay motivated on one thing for that long.
I've never been able to finish things all the way through.
I was doing music, I created an album that I worked really hard on creating,
but I was having a really hard time building that habit of
showing up to make music every day, showing up to write a song every day.
So I was really frustrated at myself
for not being able to stick to one thing long enough for the results to show.
Reading this book really helped me develop that habit of consistency.
It really is a practice, it's a muscle that you have to work out.
It's not easy and it's still not easy to this day.
But I really attribute my consistency with growing the YouTube for Lavendaire to this book
because without this book, I'd probably have given up in the first year or two.
The last book that changed my life that I think will help a lot of you out there is:
You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero.
This is a book to help you fix your money mindset.
I know a lot of us won't admit it, but we have a problem with our money mindsets.
A lot of us are taught that money equals bad, money equals greed,
it's not good to have too much money.
Whether you grew up with or without money, you can still have that negative money mindset.
For example, someone who grew up without money might judge people with money
and think that it's a bad thing or they're so greedy, blah blah blah.
By that, plus all of the negative money mindsets that were probably ingrained through their parents,
they create a reality where they won't have a lot of money.
They'll just stay the same because their mindset perpetuates that reality for them.
Even if you grew up with money, you might still have money mindset issues.
You might have seen money create a lot of problems.
You know, "More money, more problems."
So that might be in your mindset as well, which might block you
from earning more money in your life because you don't want to have those problems.
There's just a lot of issues that you could have with your mindset regarding money,
with your relationship with money,
and this book basically helps you debunk and work through all of those issues.
It was so helpful for me.
I feel like after reading this book – I used to have kind of a distant relationship
or a negative, cautious relationship with money because I always associated –
"I don't want to seem like I want to make money because that seems insincere."
Or "I want to help people. And if you want to help people then you shouldn't care about making money."
I used to think that things were mutually exclusive like that.
Or also "If I make a lot of money, people might see me differently.
My friends might treat me differently, so I'm scared of that."
In that way, you're blocking yourself from a higher level of success
and you're blocking more money from coming into your life
because of all those personal beliefs and limitations.
Anyway, after reading this book and doing the exercises in this book,
I rewrote new, money positive affirmations for myself.
I would repeat it to myself.
I listened to the audiobook version in my car, so it was really going on.
I feel like, after that, I released a lot of those money mindset issues.
And funny enough, my career has been picking up and I'm making more money now.
My life is financially abundant now and I'm so thankful for it.
So yeah, if you guys want to step it up with your money game –
and who doesn't? – check out this book.
By the way, if you're curious about the money affirmation
I wrote for myself after reading this book, it's this:
I love money and money loves me.
Making money is badass and empowering.
The more money I make, the more good I can create in the world.
Feel free to use that or edit it to whatever you like.
But it was something that I had to ingrain and change in myself,
because even the first couple sentences, "I love money and money loves me,"
that felt weird to say in the beginning because I guess I didn't want to admit that I love money.
But money is just a tool, it's just a resource.
What was really key was detaching the emotions
and the negative connotations from money, seeing it as just a resource.
And who doesn't enjoy having more resources?
Anyway, I hope that that made sense
and I hope that helped you a little bit, but definitely check out the book.
Alright, so those are six books that have changed my life.
If you want to learn more about the books that I read,
I'll post a link down below to my webpage which has my favorite books and such.
Let me know what your book recommendations are, specifically audiobooks,
because I felt like I've been in a dry spell with books so far.
The latest book that I read was The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest, a book on astrology.
After that, I haven't dove into another astrology book yet.
And audiobook-wise, I just haven't found a book that really inspired me.
So let me know if you have anything that's really good that you recommend,
something really fun to listen to or really inspiring and something that will change your mind.
Anyway that's it for today.
Thanks so much for watching.
Love you all.
Bye!