Want To Upgrade Your Life? Read These Books Immediately

The best pieces of wisdom can be found in these life-changing books

A few years ago, I was in a dark place. I struggled with anxiety, depression, and various health issues that made it difficult to focus. I’d often get distracted by the latest episode of my favorite TV show and binge-watch it for several hours.

One day, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “enough.” I realized that the best way to learn new things was by studying people who had already achieved my goals. For example, I wanted to become a successful writer, so I read biographies of Haruki Murakami, Stephen King, and others.

I didn’t make a lot of progress overnight. Far from it. Some books I read were incredible and blew my mind. Others were so terrible that I contemplated using them as kitty litter. But eventually, I read hundreds of books and created an incredible life using the knowledge I acquired.

If I could recommend five books to everyone who wants to upgrade their lives, it’d be these ones.

A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide To The 21st Century By Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying are evolutionary biologists. In the book, they discuss how the modern world is outpacing our bodies’ biological ability to adapt.

Bret & Heather say, for example, that many of us eat processed food that would’ve been unrecognizable to our ancestors. We also deprive ourselves of sleep to scroll on social media — only to complain that there “isn’t enough time in the day to get things done.”

It’s ridiculous.

I enjoyed reading A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide To The 21st Century because Bret & Heather discuss complex topics in a way that’s easy to understand. And, unlike many science books, it includes actionable advice for living in harmony with your biology.

As long as you go into A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide To The 21st Century with an open mind, you’ll learn something new!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• “Humans are anti-fragile; exposure to discomfort and uncertainty -physical, emotional and intellectual- is necessary.”
• “Seek authorities who are willing to both show you how they arrived at their conclusions and admit when they have made mistakes.”
• “Humans deserve a night sky, a sky full of possibilities — sometimes of clouds, often the moon, occasionally planets, nearly always stars and the Milky Way in which we live.”
• “Like all social, long-lived organisms with long childhoods and overlap between our generations, we need to learn how to be adults. That is different, however, from needing to be taught.”
• “It is important to know what the group thinks, but that is not the same as believing or reinforcing what the group thinks. In a time of rapid change in particular, then, it is important to be willing to be the lone voice. Be the person who never conforms to patently wrong statements in order to fit in with the crowd.”

Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins

I’ve read Never Finished several times. In it, David Explains how comfort and procrastination ruin our lives. So, the key to a better life is to discover your untapped potential and defeat procrastination.

David also draws on personal experience throughout the book. He says, for example, that he used to be overweight and grew up in a working-class family. But through hard work, determination, and perseverance, he transformed himself into an ultramarathon runner and Navy SEAL.

Never Finished is not a self-help book… it’s a wake-up call. So, if you want to wake up feeling highly motivated each morning, you should add this book to your reading list!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• “Reality can be brutal when all of your excuses are stripped away and you are exposed for exactly who and what you have become, but the truth can also be liberating.”
• “I’m haunted by my future goals, not my past failures. I’m haunted by what I may still become. I’m haunted by my own continued thirst for evolution.”
• “You cannot be afraid to disappoint people. You have to live the life you want to live. Sometimes, that means being the motherfucker who can put a middle finger up to everyone in the room and be totally comfortable with that.”
• “Every minute you spend feeling sorry for yourself is another minute not getting better, another morning you miss at the gym, another evening wasted without studying. Another day burned when you didn’t make any progress toward your dreams, ambitions, and deepest desires. The ones you’ve had in your head and heart your entire life.”
• “We all owe it ourselves to stand for something. Principles give us a foundation — solid ground we can trust and build on as we continue to redefine what’s possible in our own lives. Sure, some will be put off by your dedication and level of effort. Others will call you obsessed or think that you’ve gone crazy. When they do, smile and say, ‘I’m not crazy. I’m just not you.”

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers is one of my favorite psychology books of all time. And to be honest with you, I think it’s the best book Malcolm Gladwell has ever written.

I love Outliers because the book doesn’t recommend hustling 24/7 (unlike the majority of self-help books). After all, Malcolm Gladwell examines cultural and demographic factors to explain why some of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs succeeded (and others failed).

Malcolm says that success can’t always be explained by “hard work.” Instead, it comes down to many things, such as time, place, nationality, and impeccable timing. So, if you want to reverse engineer success, I highly recommend reading this book to find the cheat codes to life!

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
• “Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities.”
• “Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
• “Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.”
• “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success. It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best teaching and most attention. And it’s the biggest nine- and ten-year-olds who get the most coaching and practice. Success is the result of what sociologists like to call accumulative advantage.”

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