5 BEST BOOKS FOR A GREAT LIFE

Here are my top picks of best books for a great life, filled with happiness, fulfilment and prosperity. Reading is an activity many believed and proved can change your life positively and unexpectedly. You might not be knowing about something existing or even not be looking for changes but books bring miraculous changes that too surprisingly.

Let me start this article with my example, I never read books apart from related to my studies till I was 30. I started slow but gradually built up the habit. One day in November 2020 I got my hands on 5 AM CLUB by Robin Sharma. That book changed my life. I never got up in the morning before 8 and after reading this book I mostly get up at 5 am and when I am not so well I automatically get up by 6 am. 

Imagine I gained 3 hours daily by this simple habit installation. 

READ MORE! BE MORE!

Such is the power of books.

So here are my top 5 picks and synopsis of Best Books for Self Development

The 5 am Club is a story about a billionaire who had reached the true elite, achieving epic results in both professional and personal spheres. He was a man who would leave a legacy for the world. But the secret to his success was a surprising one. He attributed his success not to his natural talents, nor to the hours he had invested in his work. He attributed it to a revolutionary morning routine, built around rising at 5 a.m. and following a little-known formula designed to turbocharge his mental focus, build his physical fitness, and encourage him to be his best self day in and day out.

With this book, you too can join the 5 am club. You can learn how to rise each day and embrace the solitude, silence, and lack of distraction the early hours of the morning can offer. You’ll learn how true elite performers in all walks of life get ahead by making the most of a time of day that others use to sleep, waste time watching the news, or browse social media.

At the heart of Robin Sharma’s 5 am Club, a legendary concept he had created a long long time ago is the 20/20/20 formula that says you use 20 minutes to move, 20 minutes to reflect, and 20 minutes to grow. Here is how it works:

• The first step is to move – to perform a vigorous exercise for 20 minutes. What’s really important is to make yourself sweat. That’s because sweat gets rid of cortisol, the hormone of fear. Sweat generates the protein BDNE or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which repairs brain cells and accelerates the formation of new neural connections. So by sweating for 20 minutes, it literally means you’ll think faster!
• Then, make 5.20-5.40 a.m. a time for reflection with a period of deep peace and solitude. Before the complexity of the day emerges, reflect on what is most important to you. In an age of distraction, of constant notifications and messages, you’ll be amazed what visions, dreams, and inspiration drift into your mind when you have a few moments of silence to yourself.
• Write these thoughts in a journal. Commit your current ambitions, the things you’re grateful for in your life, and your frustrations and disappointments to paper. Doing so will help you understand your vision and let go of toxic, negative energies.
• Take a few minutes to meditate. Research shows that meditation helps lower cortisol, reducing your stress. It’s a proven way to stay calm, and the great performers of the world are always calm!
• Now it’s time for the last 20 minutes of your first hour. Here, you need to grow, so take 20 minutes to learn. Study the lives of great achievers by reading their biographies. Learn about human psychology. Watch documentaries on innovation, or listen to audiobooks about business building. One thing every billionaire has in common is a love of learning.

So there you have it. A perfect morning routine, to make the hour your own and become a true member of the 5 am club.

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Napoleon Hill researched more than forty millionaires to find out what made them the men that they were.
2. In Think and Grow Rich, he imparts that knowledge to you.
3. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

The Five Big Ideas

1. The starting point of all achievement is desire.
2. You are the master of your destiny.
3. When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
4. Your greatest success will often come just one step beyond the point at which defeat has overtaken you.
5. Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.

Hill’s full approach to financial success can be summarised in 10 steps:

1. Decide on a definite purpose. Write down exactly how much money you want, by when. Make it clear, specific, and tangible.
2. Embed it in your subconscious. Visualize this goal twice daily as if it were already a reality. Fan the flames of a burning desire to acquire it.
3. Have faith. Develop self-confidence, eliminate fear, and trust in your ability to get what you want by applying the principles above.
4. Make a plan. Write a plan of action, get started right away (whether you feel ready or not), and develop your plan over time.
5. Learn what you need. Identify the specific knowledge you need to make your plan a success. Learn it yourself or surround yourself with people who have it.
6. Gather support. Put together a Master Mind group of like-minded people to sympathize, cooperate and share knowledge with.
7. Get help from others. Meet with your Master Mind group often and maintain perfect harmony within it.
8. Set your subconscious up for success. Step back, listen, support, and guard your subconscious as it works.
9. Work on your character. Develop self-control, focus, and a character, and habits that align naturally with your desired outcome.
10. Never give up. There is no such thing as failure. Look for the opportunity in every setback and remember: “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

Ikigai is the heart of Okinawa and its health prosperity. Okinawa is an island south of mainland Japan, containing some of the world’s longest-living humans. On average, men live until 84 and women until 90. There is also a high concentration of people who are 100 or more. Even the oldest Okinawans are considered healthy and have the emotional, physical, and intellectual capacity to live and function independently.

Researchers have identified that their diet, simple outdoor lives, and their subtropical climate as three reasons for their longevity. However, it is Ikigai that shapes their lives. Iki meaning “to live” and gai meaning “reason.” Therefore, your Ikigai is your reason to live. Each individual’s ikigai is personal to them and specific to their lives, values, and beliefs. It reflects the inner self of an individual and creates a mental state in which the individual feels at ease. 

These are my 3 favorite lessons from his work:

1. Having a purpose is a vital component of longevity and happiness. 
2. If you want to live a long life, follow the advice of some of the oldest people in the world.
3. To stay healthy throughout your life, make sure that you are moving enough.

The book provides a ten-point compressed rule of ikigai:

1. Stay active; don’t retire.
2. Take it slow.
3. Don’t fill your stomach.
4. Surround yourself with good friends.
5. Get in shape for your next birthday.
6. Smile.
7. Reconnect with nature.
8. Give thanks.
9. Live in the moment.
10. Follow your ikigai.

Lesson 1: All habits are based on a four-step pattern, which consists of cue, craving, response, and reward.

James suggests that the environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. That’s why a prompt is always the first step in performing any habit. It may not always be external, but, most of the time, it will be. Then, three more stages follow to complete the four-step pattern:

1. Cue. A piece of information that suggests there’s a reward to be found, like the smell of a cookie or a dark room waiting to light up.
2. Craving. The motivation to change something to get the reward, like tasting the delicious cookie or being able to see.
3. Response. Whatever thought or action you need to take to get to the reward.
4. Reward. The satisfying feeling you get from the change, along with the lesson of whether to do it again or not.

Lesson 2: To form habits, you must make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.

From the four-step pattern he suggests, James then derives four laws of behavior change, which correspond to one part of the loop each. Here they are, along with some ideas for how you can use them to facilitate good behaviors and make bad ones harder:

1. Make it obvious. Don’t hide your fruits in your fridge, put them on display front and center.
2. Make it attractive. Start with the fruit you like the most, so you’ll actually want to eat one when you see it.
3. Make it easy. Don’t create needless friction by focusing on fruits that are hard to peel. Bananas and apples are super easy to eat, for example.
4. Make it satisfying. If you like the fruit you picked, you’ll love eating it and feel healthier as a result!

You can apply these to all kinds of good habits, like running, working on a side project, spending more time with family, and so on. Conversely, do the opposite for bad habits. Make them invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. For example, you could hide your cigarettes, add financial penalties, get rid of all lighters, and only allow yourself to smoke outside in the cold.

Lesson 3: A habit tracker is a fun and easy way to ensure you stick to your new behaviours.

With a framework like this, making and breaking habits becomes fun. You’ll likely want to tackle multiple things sooner rather than later, but it’s important to not take on too much at once. An easy way of keeping yourself accountable without becoming overwhelmed is to track your habits with a habit tracker.

The idea is simple: You keep a record of all the behaviors you want to establish or abandon and, at the end of each day, you mark which ones you succeeded with. This record can be a single piece of paper, a journal, a calendar, or a digital tool, like an app.

Since habits are the compound interest of self-improvement, that’s a process we should all start today.

Written by the celebrated author and businessman T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind describes how children of rich parents unconsciously inherit behavioral and cognitive patterns that bind them to great wealth. This book is useful for those who want to become rich and adopt wealth-earning habits.

The Big Takeaways:

• What we learn from our parents about money and wealth in childhood determines our future financial course.
  • If Whether we rebel or listen to the rules taught to us in childhood, the values we learn at a young age remain a primary source of our financial course in life.
• The way our parents handle finances unconsciously becomes our way of managing money.
  • If a child asks for money from his mother and tells him/her to ask from dad first, this can make the impression that a man is better capable of handling money.
• To be able to break from the norms you have inherited, you need to come up with better plans and principles.
  • We must create financial blueprints that are right for our lives.
• To succeed in becoming rich, you need to be brave enough to control fate.
  • Weak-willed people blame others and situations for not becoming wealthy. Rich people build upon and owe their success/failures to themselves.
• Never hesitate to reach for the stars if you want to become a millionaire.
  • The equation is simple: thinking big will have you doing the most to achieve your goals.

SO here was my list of 5 best books for a great life and summary for a quick read.

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