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- Freakonomics: Of course, the "fun facts" for parties are cool, but even more important it teaches you a lot about incentives and the reasons why people behave the way they do- The 7 habits of highly effective people: Of course, his writing style is completely annoying and he comes of as a bit of a guru sometimes*, but the essence of what he is writing is a fenomenal guide to personal change and being a better person.
* guru's are a bad thing because, IMHO, they often tend to deal in absolute thruths. As "the thruth" most often does not exist, I dislike their lack of nuance. That of course does not mean one cannot learn from a guru, but always keep looking around for other perspectives or options
I love and highly recommend Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I do think it helps to read his background before beginning, because it will make you respect his choices and thought process so much more. It's one thing for some self help guru to say something, it's another for an impossibly powerful roman emperor to try and live it.
Gregory Hays does by far the best translation (I've looked at 3/4)
Paperback
(no affiliate):
http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0812968255/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335463174&sr=1-1
Kindle
(Paperback link to Kindle is incorrect)
http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Modern-Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI/ref=sr_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335463250&sr=1-2
I recommend the book "Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker for people who like books that will cause a paradigm shift in your thinking. I'd put it up there with some of my favourite lifestyle enhancement books like 4HWW and Life Nomadic. The guy has a forum, wiki, and blog by the same name, but the book is best. It is not written for the average person's reading ability--it reads more like he's aimed at the college freshman level of writing, but the writing level is entirely appropriate for the topic he presents. http://earlyretirementextreme.com/
Coincidentally, he was living in an RV in San Francisco for the last few years until he moved to Chicago very recently.
For anyone with acne, I recommend The Dietary Cure for Acne by Loren Cordain, PhD, which was the only thing that cured acne permanently for me after many dermatologists, expensive drugs, etc. The book looks to be about $55.00 now. http://www.amazon.com/Dietary-Cure-Ph-D-Loren-Cordain/dp/0978510917 That is dramatically less than what you spend on products for your skin over a year. However, if you want to, just buy any book on the Paleo diet and follow those recommendations. You won't know the *why* of how your acne is going away, but you will be eating the same diet and it will go away starting after 30 days (which is the time it takes the basal keratinocytes to reach the surface). I also used the principles in the book to cure the acne in people close to me who suffered from it and were willing to modify their diet.
I've started reading George RR Martin's series "A Song of Ice and Fire. " I've gotten through "A Game of Thrones" and I'm 3/4 of the way through "A Clash of Kings" I'm really enjoying them and they have really grabbed me. I've never been so emotionally invested in a group of characters like this before and the HBO series bringing it to life makes it that much better, even if it isn't as true to the books as I would like. Every time I put down the books I can't wait to see whats gonna happen next and I just can't stay away from them.
I'm reading Olivia Fox Cabane's "The Charisma Myth" and without rambling too much, I'll just say it's one of the best "professional self-improvement" books, if I can call that a genre, I've ever read. And I've read a lot of them because a ton of that was reading research for a talk I just gave a few months ago. Most in that genre are useless platitudes or fluff or common sense dressed up in 150 pages.
The book says: charisma is a skill, and here's what it is, and here's how you practice it. Olivia breaks it down analytically in terms of behavior, but then also focuses hard on visualization. I think this book will really change the direction of my leadership & management work because I always used to regard visualizations as kind of new-age hippie stuff where I did it myself but felt uncomfortable doing it with others.
She makes two points that I think really changed my mind: athletes use visualization all the time. All the time. And then there's method acting. Before method acting, actors would try to deliberately control their behavior to act, but now to us it looks ridiculous and histrionic. Method acting was about "getting into the character", which is really just elaborate visualization writ large.
That really sold me. I'm pushing visualization like crazy now. I don't care if it makes me seem like a crazy hippie. All I have to say is, athletes have known this forever, and, number two, method acting. The end.
She weaves a lot of stuff together, from very general Buddhist meditation to detailed analysis of the proper way to shake someone's hand, but I have to say, I'm probably the most jaded and skeptical person I know when it comes to these kinds of books but this one is golden. Absolutely worth the read.
When Stan Lee came to UT Austin, everyone was trying to get tickets. Except for me. Stan Lee, for those who are too cool to know, is famous for creating Spiderman, The Hulk, and other comic book characters. I've never once read a comic book, and despite being one, I have no particular affinity for superheroes. The night that Stan was to talk, one of my friends came over. He had somehow gotten ahold of several VIP tickets to the appearance. VIP tickets were up front.
The year before Ben Stein had come and gave a very interesting speech. Afterwards I went up and got him to sign a one dollar bill. In retrospect, I wish I had a Doubly Deuce at the time. I figured that I would temporarily suspend my gangsta lifestyle and see what this nerd comic book crap was all about.
[I know this seems like it will be a boring story. It won't be, so stop whining and read to the end. Then leave a comment and tell me I was right.]
Life Nomadic is far from over, but today I'm in the US, back in Austin. We've been away from Austin for seven months and have circled the globe entirely. We're already planning more trips, but armed with experience, we don't plan on being on the road for such long stretches in the future.
For me the trip was an epic journey, one that I will remember in great detail for the rest of my life. We could have very easily stayed in Austin and had very little change in my life, but we didn't.
Instead we walked on the canal in Panama. We sat with friends under the cherry blossom trees in Tokyo. We looked out from the tallest building in the world in Taipei. We drove ATVs through the dunes of Qatar. In France we walked through rooms of bones in an unauthorized jaunt through the Paris Catacombs. We ran with the bulls in Spain and lived to tell the story.
