3 Books That Challenged my Thought Process

10/02/2023 - London.ing

Without a doubt, a massive factor in who I am now is what I've consumed in the past, not just the food I love or the tea I probably should drink a little less of. I started this year off strong, finishing three books in quick succession one after the other, it wasn't that I couldn't stop, if anything it was the polar opposite. I wanted to, I just didn't know how, because I didn't have the right answers.

At the start of the year, I promised myself I would learn something new daily. It didn't have to be big, it could be tiny, like 'don't put that much instant coffee in you cup because you'll end up too awake for the rest of the day', or 'find out what happens when you say 'thank you, have a nice day' to the cashier before they get the chance to shpiel it out'.

I wanted to learn new things, and evidently, one great way to learn something new each day is with chapters of renowned books, podcasts and videos. I find learning to be a tricky tightrope, but it's not the material that changes it from interesting to boring. It's just its delivery. So, I started down a road of infamously notorious ideas as to what to read, and how to read it, what to listen to and how to listen to it, what to watch, and... You guessed it, how many minutes to watch before I inevitably end up watching some completely unrelated video of a metal detecting in a woods, because the algorithm saw that you put 'finding the secrets of...' and immediately thought you wanted to become a bootleg Indiana Jones.

The reality was hard at first, but it changed quickly.

I set a goal, and set a deadline. I will learn one thing about X by Z. X could be anything and Z could be anytime, but as long as I actually did it I didn't really care. Some days it was money, some days sports, other days it was social media algorithms themselves and others it was the origin of certain words. Sometimes it was more beneficial to let the whole experience unfold, and other times, I had to do a lot of the labour. I knew that I needed to make it as un-laborious as possible so I needed to apply a few of the lessons other people had already told me. It's not multi-tasking, it's just finding a way to do two things when you used to just do one. Multi, implies that you're going to be doing thirty-eight things whilst simultaneously cooking a meal for six, all of whom have different allergies. No. I just needed to start small.

I like the gym, I like listening to music at the gym. Instead of listening to music, could I listen to a Podcast or AudioBook? hmmm.

The answer is yes by the way. It's real easy. You just do what you do, and let the audio do what it does. I listened to three incredible books this way and would highly recommend that others do the same too. It's so obvious, it feels stupid to actually say. So I'll just get into the books and what they did for me.

1. $100M Offers - Alex Hormozi

Although the books centred predominantly around Alex's experiences of working in gym startups and fitness industries, his insights into people and their working psychology on how they buy, sell, keep and re-purchase products and services, is an incredible eye-opener for anyone wanting to try to understand people and value more than they already do.

Alex and his partner Leila have built an incredible acquisition company that works with other companies, to maximize value-driven revenue and profits. Their insights and experiences and incredible and so relevant to the modern world we're in where people want value before anything else.

Alex constantly highlights how effort early on in producing services and products just once, can be the absolute game changer for a company and that if the products and services are insanely valuable for the clients or customers, then it will just sell itself without you having to focus on that. instead, your efforts are focused on customer experiences and engagement, making their fairly hefty purchase of a product or service valuable because they get so much other stuff with their initial purpose.

I love the book because he's really not trying to sell you anything, there are no gimmicks or fads, just hardcore truths about obvious business practices that sound so fundamentally obvious that no one really wants to address them. It's so current it's scary and to think that people really don't apply these methods now, is actually scarier than all the potential opportunities it offers young and budding entrepreneurs and businesses.

I honestly believe that the best lesson the book teaches is quite simply 'make an offer so good, that people feel stupid for saying no', and that is just the tip of the insight iceberg, it goes so much deeper into his practices and businessman and into his experiences of success and his learnings from failure.

2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

Rude title aside, this book genuinely changed the way I look at who I am as a person. It's not about not caring, it's about learning what you care about, and understanding why you care about it.

'You' is the keyword to this whole thing.

The book follows a great story of travel and adventure, job security and work-life balances, and a bunch of other really interesting and important things that are so commonplace you forget they are actually important.

I really loved this book and its insights into the way the mind works within people cultures and the real worlds of work and social life. There are many self-help style books out there, and for the most part, this is just like that, it's a journey coming in its own right, where we hear of Mark's troubles and challenges, and coming to terms with the loss of his friend in his adolescence.

I ended up learning a lot about myself through this book. That my problems are not unique, and that people all over the world have the exact same problems just in a lot of different places and a lot of different languages. Not everything has an answer and its okay, not everything has an obvious solution and it's okay. not everything is okay and even that's okay. but I wouldn't just go ahead and write down, 'this book is okay because it's about being okay', no. The book really does impart knowledge of how not to give a f*ck about things, and it works fantastically.

I highly recommend people read it and decide for themselves if they care a little too much about things they should probably care a bit less about, as it certainly allowed me to free up a considerable amount of time to learn more about what I really do care about, and how I can care about it more. I'd also recommend reading Mark's take on grief and understanding rather than coping with loss, as these skills have amazing transferability throughout our professional and personal lives.

3. Let My People Go Surfing - Yvon Chouinard

Most people don't know the name, and even fewer knew that he wrote a book, but Yvon, Founder and retired CEO of the megalithic environmentally conscious giant Patagonia, certainly has a few stories to tell.

The book is effectively Yvon's biography highlighting how he ended up forging one of the greatest and most environmentally conscious companies the world has ever seen. It follows his journey from a teenage dirt bagger, to a somewhat reluctant global CEO. It talks in great detail about why he started, how he started, where and when, but focuses so well on the psychology of people and why, he believes they became successful. It's about the equivalent of 'it's all pretty obvious if you just think about it for a second' in a book format. And pretty similar to Alex's take on obvious marketing and selling.

Yvon never really intended to make a great global company, he really just wanted to make high-quality products that didn't damage nature, and that all started because of a few pitons. His climbing equipment store soon started to get bigger with more conscious inventories of clothing and casual equipment, to a point where he was able to work with companies that fitted the Patagonia ethos, which, just so happened to be the exact ethos that sold tremendously well to their target audience of environmentally conscious travellers and, what some might call hippies.

The book highlights some amazing points about hiring people you know, not because of nepotism, but because of shared values and collective visions. You didn't get a job with Patagonia because your resume was good, you got it because you knew people who work there, and they know that you take environmental issues seriously, and love the outdoors as much as they do.

Yvon highlights the importance of hiring for the right reasons and treating everyone with respect and decency. There's one point in the book where he addresses the young mothers working and having to leave early all the time, he see's them constantly stressed and worried about their job security. So, Yvon makes an on-site daycare for the children, reduces stress, and increases productivity, all the while increasing positivity and good vibes throughout the work environment.

A massive part of the book is understanding nature and how we can work with it, but an even bigger part is understanding people, and how we can work together to make amazing things happen.

I believe that this is an absolute must-read for anyone looking to go down the rabbit hole of environmentalism and for people who want to understand more about what makes value-driven brands so constant in ever-changing and fluctuating markets.