2019 has been a year of change for me and yet the most painful one emotionally. I learned a lot in this journey and I grew from zero to something at least 10% in knowing and learning. I call this year as the start of my reinvention. I started to read and write in the middle of the year that made me spend most of my time exploring and learning new things. Here are the 12 books that I read this year and takeaways from it. These books are instrumental in my growth and understanding of life. I haven’t bought them. I just read them digitally. I would love to buy all these books this year. Even though reading is completed, I like to keep them and start over again. These books are good to understand our world and the place in it. Science is on one side and Humanity and technology on the other side.
As my 2020 resolution, this is a special year as we don’t get a year like this till 4040 hence, let’s enjoy more and I am planning to read at least 30 books in 2020. I will be writing articles regarding each of them sharing my thoughts.
Money & Self-Help Books:
- Humanity Works by Alexandra Levit
- The Laws of Wealth by Dr. Daniel Crosby
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephan Covey
- Freakonomics by Steven J. Lewitt & Stephan Dubner
- Essentialism by Greg McKeown
- The 80/20 Principle by Robert Koch
- The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger & Michael Starbird
Science Books:
- A Brief History of Time by Stephan Hawking
- Cosmos by Carl Sagan
- Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephan Hawking
Money & Self-Help Books:
1. Humanity Works by Alexandra Levit
The future is now and humans as well. It is important to know that AI and Automated tools are replacing humans in workplaces and leaving many jobs occupied for us. We as humans developed technology to eliminate hard working and introduced machines to work smarter and faster but it doesn’t mean we need to sit back and relax to cut jobs.
Technology is always developed and invented by humans. We cannot neglect the fact that nothing is far more developed than a human brain. Automated tools are here to service humans not to replace us.
A sneak-peak about how technology is replacing humans in workplaces and we all need to make sure to build ourselves to be effective in the future to earn jobs or to stay in any company that pays us. Humanity needs to be always a step ahead.
2. The Laws of Wealth by Dr. Daniel Crosby
This book is an eye-opener who says we can be rich if we enter the stock market and we can double our money in no time after investing it. It is important to know that we can earn money and lose it is in our hands. Stocks are based on human behavior.
When there is a dip in the stocks we get excited or sad to see and we make decisions in the heat of the moment that makes us pay for our mistakes. It is necessary to stay calm and control emotions while investing in stocks. Instead of investing in glamour stocks, invest in value stocks. Look for startups that have promising growths and do not go for investing in a company that has uneven growth.
To become rich, taking a risk is essential but it is not necessary to take risks par with greediness. Holding on to the moment and take 5 seconds break before investing in that particular company. Read a lot of books and if possible have an advisor for investing in something.
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The most important values in our life are people and who are around us. Humans are social beings. We need everybody to back us each other to contribute toward growth. The author is suggested we follow some basic steps that are proved to be effective in one way or the other.
Smiling at a person, Remembering their names and appreciating them for what they’re working on makes us likable. It is also necessary to talk with them about things that are important to them. We mustn’t argue as humans and criticizing others is not who we are. We can understand them and be with them eventually, people understand who we are. Humans are always good. They just lack the knowledge to see what is right or wrong.
4. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
One of the best sellers and my favorite books. This book is about the comparison between 2 fathers and how they help their children to grow. It is about taking risks to be rich.
Robert, clearly suggested that most of the middle-class people just try to be in a race that they never win. They don’t want to take risks, invest money in stocks, real estate, mutual funds where the risks and ROI are high. They want their children to play safe and get a white-collar job and to stay happy forever. These parents never teach their kids about how to use money and how to invest in assets instead of liabilities.
Compound growth effect makes us rich and knowing where to spend money is an important aspect for anyone. Rick people teach their children about taking risks and spending money. Instead of being in a rat race, rich people make their way to grow their money.
He also suggested that only a professional will never help us to be rich. They just help us to pay our bills. To get rich we need to start a business and get a hold of it while we are in the profession itself. Learning from the profession we are in and investing all that knowledge to build the business will make us rich.
5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephan Covey
While reading this book I found out unique ways to work my ways to build a healthy routine. I learned the quadrants of tasks, types of determinism, generations of learning.
With those the top 7 habits that helped me to raise my voice in my head to be good and think straight. Out of these 7 habits, I loved the point that explains to us, to begin with, the end. To assess our value now, we should have a clear goal about how we need to be called in the end.
All these 7 habits like, Thinking about Win-Win Situation, Seeking first, Being proactive, Changing perceptions, Quadrants of work, Experiencing Synergy and looking after ourselves. Really can change our lives forever.
6. Freakonomics by Steven J. Lewitt & Stephan Dubner
Freakonomics is a kind of book that tells us about how to balance the economy and being handled by the money. The economy is not about money. It is often stated as the condition of a person he becomes. We all know about economics and learning to manage it makes sense. From incentives to the goodwill.
Conventional thinking leads to stick to the static growth which is almost similar to no growth condition. People work for underpaid jobs so that they think they will grow at the tops someday. Parents nurture their children in all possible ways so that they can sustain when they grow up instead of teaching them their experiences. In this world, even the names of a candidate matter in an interview.
The authors stated the perfect relation between humans and their economic growth. This book, let me think of management differently. When we understand the obvious that is happening in the economic world we will become freaks at it that separates us from normal people who always want to stay in their dogma.
7. Essentialism by Greg McKeown
This is one of the best books I have read. Before reading this book, I purchased it because of its name and I was not aware of this book at all. I just bought it to read different things that I haven’t heard of. It paid off its worth and changed my whole thinking level.
It made me realize my obstacle and what is essential in life and what is not. I did eliminate the great obstacle of my life along the way. I was obsessed with finding new things and along with my obsession, I loved a person the most in my life. She was the love of my life. She never loved me though. If a person doesn’t love us back, there will be no reason to love them anymore. This made me think and eliminate this part in my life so that I can prevent 1000s of hurdles that can come in the way of my goal.
Essentialism talks about how we can choose decessions and develop that mentality, what we need to do. Exploring our options and eliminating unimportant things in our life often helps us to gain that essentialist instinct. Choose a vital few from trivial many options that are how we can be productive in life. The 3 basic steps of essentialism are to Explore, Eliminate and Execute.
8. The 80/20 Principle by Robert Koch
This principle is also called a Pareto principle. I must say that this book is the brother of Essentialism. One must read both of the books continuously to improve their level of thinking. I recommend that these 2 books are somehow interconnected together. Eliminating obstacles or selecting the right choice that makes a difference to the rest of other choices that these books suggest.
This book helped me to execute the task that I was trying to eliminate obstacles in my life — Love and Care at this moment. In this book author, discussed different scenarios about how we can adopt this rule in our daily lives from the profession to learning any skills altogether. Practicing this principle helps choose the top 20 percent that affects our result more than the rest of 80 percent. We have to choose what makes us grow and take us toward our goal by focussing on it. The rest of the other choices we can say no for this is where essentialism comes into play. Be an essentialist first and then apply the 80/20 principle to tune your life to the balance.
9. The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger & Michael Starbird
The most recent book I have read and the important one as well. Every day is a new start to discover ourselves. A bit of improvement in our life every day can make a huge difference in a year. When we think about the start and the current position we are in, we should observe the change that we traveled through.
The basic 5 elements in our universe are compared to each of the habits that we need to cultivate. Understanding deeply, Making mistakes and learning from them, Asking questions even after getting answers, The flow of ideas and Changing based on the four elements are the 5 habits we can cultivate to think effectively. At the start, I didn’t agree with the author even he spent years research before writing the book. As I adopted each of those elements in my life, the 5th element occurred to me inevitably. That was the time I found out how beautiful this adoption has been in my life.
Science Books
1. A Brief History of Time by Stephan Hawking
Here comes the favorite part. Astrophysics has been my favorite part but never read any book regarding it. From my childhood itself, I have been thinking about reading this masterpiece from a great thinker. In this book, he uncovered every possibility of Astrophysics and made readers understand about space and the objects in it. Starting from the big bang, until predicting the movements of celestial objects, it has explained in layman terms to make us understand.
Laws of gravitation, the theory of relativity, universal laws are explained with examples that govern all the universe. Forces that are responsible for the origin of the universe and the concept of space-time is explained quite clearly. This is a brief history of time from the big bang to black holes.
2. Cosmos by Carl Sagan
A simple and quite effective book to understand the concept of space. Carl Sagan — A great Astrophysicist written this book to help us understand what is happening in the universe and how we are using technologies to contact alien life. There are several questions answered in the process. Colonizing other planets, Exploring beyond our solar system, Current technology improvements, Telescopes and a little bit of Human history about space exploration is explained.
3. Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephan Hawking
The final book was written by Stephan Hawking, In his masterpiece, he took some of the biggest questions to answer with his style. Questions like, Are we alone? Who we are? Where are we come from? What are the odds of human survival? Why containing AI is important? What do we need to do to control Global Warming? Every question that humanity is finding answers for are mentioned and answered in his way beyond everything.
He discussed these topics with simple examples and words so that anyone can understand the probability. My favorite part of this book is when he tells us about the death of black holes and the presence of antimatter. He says, “Even light cannot escape a black hole — but something can.”
Conclusion:
So this is my list of books that I have read this whole year. I was able to read the digital copies of it. I like to have hard copies of all of them. Due to some constraints, I was not able to purchase these book but the experience of reading them at hand is far better than digital prints.
These books are exceptional. I think everyone should read these books. The values we can get from reading these are exceptional. They change the way we think about humanity and life. Starting from learning how to manage money to understanding the cosmos with the knowledge of humanity and technology will give every individual to start a new life from a different perspective.
