Want to change your life? Read a book!
Today is my birthday, so I can’t help but think back on my life.
If life is a movie, mine has been an epic tale full of adventures, plot twists, and a LOT of character development.
I come from a loving but dysfunctional family and have survived alcoholism, abuse, bullying, heart-break, crippling depression and a host of other shit.
I spent years drinking myself to sleep, trying desperately to please people and hating myself.
Now, I wake up (most days) genuinely excited and grateful to be alive, I’m running my second 6-figure business, have friends around the world, and get to travel as a digital nomad.
Next week I head to Mexico City and then on to South America, visiting more places I drooled over back when I was a 7-year old kid obsessed with National Geographic magazine.
Usually, when someone asks me how I’ve done any of those things, I think “read a damn book, bro.”
Now, I’m not going to pretend that I am perfect, or even that I have my shit together most of the time.
I mean, last week I dried my face on clothes because I forgot I’d left all the towels in the washer the night before.
But, even when I’m a hot mess, I’m usually a pretty happy hot mess.
Which was NOT always the case.
I thought I’d write and epic post about all the things I’ve learned, but when I sat down to write, I kept coming back to the same 3 things:
1. Mind Your Own Business & Don’t Take Anything Personally.
Basically, you do you.
You can’t control what anyone else says or does.
And what they think of you is none of your business.
Besides, most people are too busy thinking about themselves to be thinking about you.
And if they ARE in your business, it’s probably ’cause they can’t stand to think about their own lives – it ain’t about you.
So let that shit go.
2. If You Want to Change Your Life, Make a Decision & Take Action
Stop overthinking, overcomplicating, overanalyzing, focusing on what could go wrong or trying to get everything right.
You’ll never get it perfect, so you may as well get it done.
Let go of how you’ll do it / get it / be it – and simply decide you WILL.
Take action everyday until you figure it out and get what you want.
And you will.
3. Learn From Those Who’ve Gone Before You
Maybe it’s changing careers, losing weight, finding a better job, quitting a bad habit, starting a business, running a marathon, overcoming a devastating loss or a breakup, moving to another country…
Whatever you want to do, chances are someone else has done it before.
Ask them how they did it and take the shortcut to success.
If you don’t have someone in your life who can help, Google that shit, hire a coach or read a book!
There’s a book on nearly anything you could imagine (and some you probably can’t).
If you allow it, some might even change your life.
Below is list of 41 that have changed mine (and a handful more here).
XOXO
PS The list is In loose alphabetical order, because classifying by category = hard, and me = lazy. Enjoy.
1 A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
2 A Course in Miracles Made Easy: Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love by Alan Cohen
“When you accept 100 percent of the responsibility for the choices you have made, you gain 100 percent of the power to make new and better choices.”
3 Ask and It Is Given by Abraham Hicks
“Overwhelment: The state of simultaneously focusing upon what you want and your inability to achieve it at the same time.”
4 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”
5 Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
“If you try to please everyone, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye.”
6 Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom by Rick Hanson and Daniel J. Siegel
“Much as your body is built from the foods you eat, your mind is built from the experiences you have.”
7 Calling in “The One”: 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life by Katherine Woodward Thomas
“Most of us are living as though life were happening to us rather than through us.”
8 Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
“We pick on ourselves endlessly, heaping piles of shoulds on our conscience and creating mounds of worthless, stinking guilt.”
9 Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink
“It is not about nature or nurture: It is about choice. The people who are successful decide they are going to be successful. They make that choice.”
10 The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
“Don’t Take Anything Personally”
11 Girl Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
“Every year you close a new chapter in your story. Please, please, please don’t write the same one seventy-five times and call it a life.”
12 Get Over Your Damn Self: The No-BS Blueprint to Building A Life-Changing Business by Romi Neustadt
“Every mistake is an opportunity to learn and grow.”
13 The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Marc Andressen
“If you are going to eat shit, don’t nibble”
14 The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
“I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want.”
15 Happiness is The Way by Wayne Dyer
“You are the sum total of the choices that you make in your life.”
16 If the Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasl
“It’s our attachment to being free of pain that creates suffering.”
17 Law of Divine Compensation by Marrianne Williamson
“We can have a grievance or we can have a miracle; we cannot have both.“
18 The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Sarah Knight
“Time is a finite resource, energy is somewhat renewable under the right circumstances, and there’s always more money to be made.”
19 Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz
“It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, you are never going to be what that person wants you to be.”
20 Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Degrassioso
“When you know where you want to go, you’ll start having a filter that will allow you say no to certain friends, say no to certain obligations, say no to certain opportunities, say no to certain e-mails.”
21 The One Page Financial Plan by Carl Richards
“The best financial plan has nothing to do with what the markets are doing, nothing to do with what your real estate agent is telling you, nothing to do with the hot stock your brother-in-law told you about. It has everything to do with what’s most important to you.”
22 Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
“When you hit rock bottom, sometimes you get dragged along the bottom, scraping your face on every one of those rocks until you’re battered, bruised, and bloodied.”
23 Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattle
“No man ought to be satisfied with a little if he is capable of using and enjoying more.”
24 Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Ecker
“If you want to move to a new level in your life, you must break through your comfort zone and practice doing things that are not comfortable.“
25 Stop Doing That Shit by Gary John Bishop
“Your unease has become your disease.”
26 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.”
27 School of Greatness by Lewis Howes
“Most people get stuck in life because they are obsessed with what could go wrong.”
28 Sacred Success by Barbara Stanny
“Busyness is our drug of choice.”
29 The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch by Dan Norris & Rob Walling
“The minutiae that you are debating could be distracting you from a fundamental problem that you aren’t seeing.”
30 10% Happier by Dan Harris
“The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.”
31 Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
“What would this look like if it were easy?”
32 Tools of the Titans by Tim Ferriss
“Once you reach a decent level of professional success, lack of opportunity won’t kill you. It’s drowning in “kinda cool” commitments that will sink the ship.”
33 Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
“One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.”
34 Unfuck Yourself by Gary John Bishop
“Your future is not the answer to your present.”
35 The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein
“Faith has the power to turn trauma into healing, conflict into great growth, and fear into love.”
36 The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
“If you have a more feminine sexual essence, your professional life may be incredibly successful, but your core won’t be fulfilled unless love is flowing fully in your family or intimate life.”
37 What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman
”Life is an endless series of choosing between two things you want almost equally.”
38 You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
“If you’re serious about changing your life, you’ll find a way. If you’re not, you’ll find an excuse.”
39 You Are A Bad-ass At Making Money by Jen Sincero
“You are meant to thrive, and by thriving, you automatically help others to thrive too.”
40 You Are A Writer by Jeff Goins
“Make no mistake. All of us, at some point, wonder if what we’re doing matters.”
41 You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hays
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
