Modern Wisdom - #177 - Jim Mullane - How To Get Better With Books

Episode Date: May 30, 2020

Jim Mullane is the man behind the fastest growing Instagram page focussed on self-development & books @GetBetterWithBooks. Developing a reading habit & retaining what you read is a goal many of us have. Today expect to learn the most important elements of creating a reading habit, how to avoid the most common pitfalls when starting reading, a ton of Jim's best suggestions for his favourite books including a load you will have never heard of and so much more... Sponsor: Buy a 6 Minute Diary - http://amzn.eu/d/cZiqMGT Extra Stuff: Follow Jim's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/getbetterwithbooks/ Buy How To Win Friends - https://amzn.to/2LVDLtp Buy Shoe Dog - https://amzn.to/2Ty7X1R Buy The Road To Character - https://amzn.to/2TDhOn8 Buy The 5am Club - https://amzn.to/3d1IOoa Buy Zen & The Art - https://amzn.to/3ghAfYh Buy Atomic Habits - https://amzn.to/3c1cvUQ Buy Can't Hurt Me - https://amzn.to/3bWTx1X Buy Deep Work - https://amzn.to/3goosYu Buy As A Man Thinketh - https://amzn.to/3gi8sHf Buy Economy Of Truth - https://amzn.to/2LXqQYc Buy Educated - https://amzn.to/2LSOHrX Buy The Ride Of A Lifetime - https://amzn.to/36v2cqZ Buy Watership Down - https://amzn.to/2yzQ8se Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello my friends, welcome back. My guest today is Jim Malayne, the man behind Get Better with Books, the fastest growing self-help and books to gram page on all of Instagram. And today we're talking about reading. A lot of you may have a reading habit you want to improve or want to start getting into reading books more effectively.

And I wanted to get hold of the number one man on Instagram to find out how to do it. So yeah, expect to learn how to start a reading habit. Some of the common errors that Gymses, when people begin reading a whole bunch of his favorite books both from fiction, nonfiction, biography and other stuff that he runs us through. It's really good. I love this episode. And every book that Jim mentions is linked in the show notes below on Amazon. So follow those if you find one of the books that you think is interesting.

Just go into the show notes, click the link and it'll take you straight there on Amazon. In other news, the response to me saying that we might start a Patreon was pretty overwhelming. So me and video guidein have decided that we might start a Patreon was pretty overwhelming. So me and video guidein have decided that we're going to do it. We are going to start a modern wisdom Patreon. It will allow you guys to support the show. It will mean that you can have direct contact with us. You can vote on future topics, guests that you want us to see. We'll have a discussion board as well so we can talk about every episode. We can do live Q&As. We

can do behind the scenes stuff. We can do exclusive content, we can literally do whatever you want. So yeah, that is going to launch within the next few weeks. So if you have any ideas or suggestions for what you think we should feature on Patreon, I would love to hear them. Message me at ChrisWillX, wherever you follow me. I absolutely can't wait to start this community and also to get you guys involved in the way that the show operates. Oh, we made it. I've got to go and set up an entire Patreon. So I'm going to go do that. But while I do, let's get better with books with the wise and wonderful Jim Malaine. Jim Malaine, how are you my friend?

Jim Malaine, how are you my friend? Pleasant doing well enjoying my lockdown and style here in my sweatpants and my sweatshirt doing well. Enjoyed that new mustache? It's not new. Unfortunately, it's all I can grow. That is that's some serious tash going on there. Yeah, so I like to tell people I'm a little folically challenged, so I like to overcompensate with the mustache, because it grabs people's attention and then it veers the attention away from the fact that's all I can grow. So. Focus on your strengths. I get it, my P-Cockin, but only above the lip. Yes, eyes up here. Yeah, I'm top, I'm top. So your Instagram account, which is what a lot of people listening might know you for, get better with books. How would you describe? What is that? What is get better with books? Yeah, better with books is currently the fastest growing Instagram

page focused specifically on self help personal development business related books. It really just started as a creative endeavor where I could combine my interest in photography and my interest in reading and have something to do. That's one of my day job, but I've been doing it for almost two years now. May 15th will be my two-year anniversary running the page. And I think as of today, I'm a little over 85,000 followers. So I'm a little dumbfounded of how quickly it's grown and the fact that people enjoy seeing content specifically around books, but it's been a fun journey so far. Why do you think it is popular?

I think it for a couple of different reasons. Number one, it speaks to the attitudes of a lot of people out there, not just in the US, but internationally speaking. If you take a look at some of the data that I get to pull from the Instagram account, I'd say a third of my audience is US-based, but it's the thirds in Europe. I'd say, over one, majority people are from India, and I think it speaks to the psychographic of certain people who are just focused on developing themselves as an individual, right? They use books as a tool to better themselves, and I think it speaks to a lot of people who love reading,

but more importantly, improving themselves. Yeah, for sure. How many books have you read? Do you know? I haven't kept count, unfortunately. I know one of these people that's religious on good reads or anything. No, no, I don't keep an active good reads account, but if I were to estimate how many books that I've read in my lifetime I'd say probably are like 150

160 books and I think last year in the year before we're really the first two years that I've actually kept track of how many books I've read so last year I think I got up to 50 For the course of the year and the year before I was at you know little over 30 for the course of the year and the year before I was at, you know, let it over 30. And it's important to also acknowledge the fact that these metrics, like how many books that you've read or how quickly you read books, I think that can be a distraction for a lot of people where they see books as almost like a vanity metric, like how many books have you read in total. And I have this conversation with a lot of other book Instagram accounts that I see as cohorts.

And we almost see that as a disdain. If you read 100 books in a month, but you don't retain anything, is it worth it? Or are you just using that metric to as a feather in your cap, if you will? Yeah. I mean, in this age now, this sort of burgeoning underground movement, the new aphorists that are coming out that like the maximum, you know, this show is called Modern Wisdom. I am part of the fucking problem as far as that bit's concerned, you know, like, but my- Thanks Chris.

There is, there is like a, there is an ongoing subculture now of people that I think are kind of repatriating wisdom, you know, like kind of falling back into the timeless understandings of the principles that we should live our life by trying to uncover, uncover what we are, who we are, why we like the things we like, why the world operates the way that it does. And you're totally correct as well that by reading a lot, or by saying that you read a lot, you never know if someone actually does read two books that we go to, by either saying that you read a lot or reading a lot, you get to have the proxy,

you get to have the veneer of looking wise whilst not ever having to deploy any wisdom. You know what I mean? It's an interesting juxtaposition of the two, right? Because you have the short morsels of wisdom that you get from social media, and you overlay that with the long form content, which is inherently in books, right?

And comparing the two on the surface, it almost seems like it doesn't mix, right? Like how can you summarize a 300 and 400 page book, you know, like 12 rules of life, right? Jordan Peterson, for example, right? And you see he's very popular in social media, but it's hard to distill wisdom in a book like that in, you know, an Instagram post, right?

So it's an interesting dynamic between the two, but I also think it's a good opportunity to just expose more people to the benefits of reading because there are a lot of people who come to my account and they ask me questions to like, hey bro, like I just started reading a couple months ago. Like what books would you recommend to a beginner? And for someone like me, I don't see myself as an expert. I'm just someone who likes reading. And I have an Instagram page. Apparently, that makes me an expert. But at the end of the day, there are a handful of books that I always go to as, hey, you're new to reading here a few that you should consider reading. So, I guess I am somewhat of a book expert if you fall

on my Instagram page. I get it. Yeah. We are going to get into that. We've got all of the recommendations and that will be coming in a little bit. But first, what I wanted to ask was, what are the common mistakes that you think people make or perhaps the ones that you made as well when building a reading habit? Because before you read the books that you might recommend to people, there has to be a habit to be able to actually get through them. Absolutely. I think the first mistake that I come across from a lot of new people is they feel like

you have to finish a book, right? If you come across a book that was highly recommended and maybe you just don't find it interesting, it doesn't pick your nerve or it doesn't strike your nerve at all. You feel like you are forced to finish it from end to end, right? And that's one of the biggest mistakes because if, if you are not interested in a book, it's going to feel like a chore, right? It's not going to feel like something that you're, you're actually getting a lot of benefit from. So if you don't like a book, please do not waste the time. I mean, it's kind of like watching a movie.

If you're sitting at home watching Netflix and you come across a movie and 10, 15 minutes into it, you just don't like it. You don't sit through the next 45, 50 minutes, right? So it shouldn't be anything different than reading a book. And I think a lot of people just have this attitude that I have to finish a book. Yeah. Is that so? Is it just some cost fallacy? Is it that people see as a badge of honor to get through a difficult book? Sometimes there is a lot of public relations when it comes to, hey, I'm gonna read this book and I need to say it face by actually finishing it

from start to end where having a little bit of self-confidence to say like, you know what, I did not like this book. I wanted to put it down and I wanted to start something that I'm interested. So it's really just being comfortable with yourself to say, yeah, not digging this, I'm gonna put it down. Yeah, comfortable with yourself to say, yeah, not digging it, so I'm going to put it down. Yeah, it's the other thing as well. This came from Kamal Ravakant, a conversation I had with him, and he said, 90% of self-development books should have been, sorry, 50% of self-development books should have been an article and 49% should have been a tweet. Yeah. Absolutely.

And then there's 1% which actually needed 300 pages, 400 pages to pad out the concept. John Peterson's is a good example or anything by Talib. Like, it's not really, it's not about that, the one thing, you know? Like digital minimalism by Cal Newport should have been an article. Now don't get me wrong, you can have this. There's a strategy in it to work book at a course or whatever that you want to sit on the side. But that could have been long blog post.

Right, and if you read a lot more books, you come to that realization that most of the books that you read, they're either similar in a lot of ways or just like he said, they probably could have been summarized in a page or maybe in a YouTube video. And I think one of the books and a hot take here, and I actually get a lot of flack on Instagram for this, is there's a book Start With Why by Simon Sinek. It's widely popular in the books of Ram Fear and people say, this is a life-changing book. And I came across the book and I said, this is mildly interesting, but I think it's very superficial.

I think it's very redundant and I wasn't a huge fan of this. And I've been very public about my stance about that book. And that just goes to your fact that not everyone has the same opinions on popular books. And I think it's very important to be upfront with yourself to not pretend that you enjoy a book just because it's popular, but to your point about these books that could be maybe summarized in a blog post. Yeah, that's that was one of the. I think there's a four or five minute video on YouTube about the start with why concept by him talking in

a TED talk. So anyone who has not read start with why, I would say just check out his YouTube video. And if it's if it's something that peaks your interest a little bit more, then maybe pick up the book. So hopefully I saved you a couple days of reading there. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Mark Manson, the Sutlord, like, just didn't get it, man. Just didn't, I'm like, okay, Mark, you keep swearing. Cool. Like, that's where you draw the line. You just, when he just kept on swearing, I was like, I get it. Like, this is a book that's about swearing.

And it, like, that was it. But then models by him, how to attract them in through honesty, is amazing. And that couldn't have been a tweet. That couldn't have been a blog post or an article. Any guys listening who want to kind of up their game, especially as we're about to re-release ourselves back out of lockdown,

models by Mark Manson is like the pickup artistry book for people that don't want to be CD pickup artists. It's about how to maximize your confidence, how to actually be a fuller version of you and the basics of attraction between men and women. And I think it's great. But sort of, I was like, all right, Mark, cool. And I think it's important to understand that you don't, again,

you don't have to like every book that's popular on social media. And when it comes to enjoying books, I think a lot of it has to do with not only the content, but the author's writing style, right? You can come across an author that you just truly vibe with how they write. And regardless of what the content is, you could sit down for hours and hours at a day just because of the writing style. It's so enjoyable. Right.

There's some of those authors for you. Uh, number one that comes to mind is David Brooks. He wrote a couple books. The road to Character, which is easily in my top 10 books. It's more that self-help book, but it's more emphasizing true virtues, right? Like living with shivery and just living with honor and as opposed to focusing on the external virtues, right, of commerce and status, status right it's more important to be upfront with yourself when you truly believe in so the road to character David Brooks

I think he was a columnist in New York time so just a tremendous writer someone that I truly enjoy but another writer that's I'm starting to absolutely adore Robin Sharma I'm I'm sure you guys are all film familiar with the 5am club this little dandy right here the 5 sure you guys are all film familiar with the 5M Club. This little... Dandy right here at the 5M Club. So this was one of the books that I came across just because I saw it all over Instagram, right? Like I'm human too. I pick up my future reads just based off what I've seen on social media and social proof, right? If people are raving about a book, there's probably a reason why it's so popular, and that was one of the books.

And so far, I just started reading it a couple of days ago. There's a certain storytelling vibe, right? And you come across a writer who can easily detail certain intricate parts of a relationship, or certain nuances, and body language, right? When you can read how a writer is detailing a whole scene and an atmosphere and a mood, you almost forget that you're reading, right? Like it's almost like you're watching a movie and it's those types of books that are more of story-focused as opposed to, you know, the point by point by point self-help books. Sometimes aren't as enjoyable to read. These are the stories that I've definitely been a lot more accustomed to recently. I love that. Okay, so we know that you're not supposed to think that you need to finish a book. That is a bad habit.

What else before we get on to how to build a reading habit? Are there any other common errors that people are making when they when they start out. I think another common error is just focusing on the metrics, right? You get in this idea that I have to read 50 books this year, or I have to read two books a month because the latest business insider.com article said, the most successful people are reading X amount of books per month, and I think I'm successful, so I need to live up to that metric, right? So I think beholding in yourself to some of those external metrics and I call vanity metrics, it almost lose, you lose sight of why you're reading in the first place, right? Like at the end of the day, you want to pick up a book to either learn something new,

to expand your wisdom, expand your perspective. And if those ideas, those thoughts are clouded by simply, I need to finish this book faster so I can get to my next one. It's counterproductive. So I think just... The long things, right? Yeah, exactly. So I think it's more important to just remind yourself why you're reading in the first place as opposed to, like you just mentioned, like having like a tally mark next to how many books you read just for vanity purposes.

Yeah, I think I love the analogy and it's not one that I've thought of before about if you were watching a bad movie. No, I'm ruthless on Netflix, man. So ruthless. I'm straight out of there. I'm pressing the back button, telling everyone I'm sat with that it's absolutely terrible. So, and yet, and it's to say, you know, with books, I think Ryan Holiday, when he reversed interviewed Tim Ferriss on the Tim Ferriss show, they talked about reading quite a lot, might be an interesting one for you. And I think his heuristic is if you are whatever 100 pages minus your age into a book and you haven't wanted to send a photo of one of the passages to a buddy going like, oh my god dude, like you've got to see this.

That's the rule that he uses and I really like that. I really like that. And I think in back to some of the stuff that's got me recently, so Robert writes the moral animal just plain took my head off. I was like two pages in, and I'm just on my highlights on Kindle, just the whole page was highlighted. I was like,

you're right, and you know what, you're on a bum, and I get it. So yeah, you're totally correct. Having the courage to put a book down despite what every else says, despite whether it's supposed to be cool. Despite whether you loved their first book. I loved Mark Ranson's models.

So a lot of not giving a fuck, couldn't give a fuck. So I always wanted to say that. Okay, so that's how we don't build a reading habit. How do we build a reading habit? Why do we start? It starts with just being upfront about what your interests are. Right. So if you take a look at the get better with books page, there's an obvious emphasis on self-help personal development, business, right?

Maybe personal finance books. It's it's unintended, but I've catered towards a specific demographic of, you know, 18 to 34 males, right? College-educated males, people who either have a steady career or either getting into the workforce and are interested in upping their game, right? That's, again, unintended about how I started and where I'm catered to, but at the end of the day, that's not the interest of everybody out there, right?

There are people who follow my page that are, you know, at the 45-year-old woman from Pakistan, right? She may people who follow my page that are at the 45 year old woman from Pakistan, right? She may not give a fuck about what Dave Ramsey says about total money makeovers, right? And that's okay, right? And back to your question about how to build a reading habit. It's that you need to be very honest with yourself about what you're interested in.

And starting from having an idea of what peaks your interest, I think if you can choose topics and books and authors that are focused on those interests, that is the best way to build a reading habit because then it does not feel like a chore. It really just feels like a leisure activity. And once you can start building up a couple books specifically focusing on a topic that you're interested in. And you get that reading habit, then you can start peering into the periphery about, okay, well, what's this, you know, this business stuff, zero to one, Peter Teele, what's

that about, or Radelia principles? Like, I see that all the time. And then reading starts to feel like less like a chore, but you can also expand your knowledge by reading stuff that you're not normally reading. Yeah, no one goes into the gym and looks at like the big buff guy in the corner and says, yeah, gonna, what you lived in there mate, right? Okay, I'll put that on my barbell and I'll have a crack. I've fucked my shit up.

Like, you know, that's what happens. So again, with that, like it's sense. And the Naval quote, the Naval quote about reading, read what you love until you love to read. And then David Peral, piggybacked off the back of that the other day with his writing course, he's got going at the moment, he says, write what you love until you love to write. And the same could be done for exercise. It's do the exercise that you love until you love to exercise as well. The easiest training plan is the one that doesn't feel like you've got to go and train.

Exactly. So, okay, so we know that we need to pick books like in terms of topic wise. What do I do next? Next, and if you're really serious about building the Rita having, it's just like anything else. You need to set aside time that you want to dedicate towards building that habit.

I think you use the gym in Aljiah all the time. I like to quit reading to building a strong habit in the gym. You don't start bench pressing 315 pounds overnight. You have to work your way towards it. But at the same time, you don't do chest exercises seven days in a row, right? You need to have some sort of balance when it comes to your reading habit. So a lot of people that are asking for book recommendations a lot of time, I just tell them, hey, be open about exploring new topics that you're not normally accustomed to. And here's an example for me. So I obviously read a lot of personal development,

self-help, business type books. And a couple months ago, at my sister's wedding, my uncle, who had no idea I was running this page, I told him, I was like, hey, if you're anchored, I would like you to know that I run a semi successful book page on Instagram, you know, a couple of drinks in, but spouting my confidence there. And he's like, okay, I got a couple of book recommendations for you. And these two books could not have been

farther off the beaten path from the shit that I usually read. One of them was that this Zen art of motorcycle maintenance, right? It's one of those legendary, I don't even know how to begin to describe that type of book. But I remember just reading the book and to the point about getting into the book early, I was so just dumbfounded at what the fuck this book was about. I had no idea what it was about, but I couldn't stop reading it. So I think it's super important to time in and time out to just expose yourself to stuff that you're not accustomed to reading, because that will spark some interest in, again, that periphery. You're like, that actually is interesting. I don't know why I would come across metaphysics and the reason of meaning, you know, and you can get lost in chapters and chapters in that book about what is meaning.

What is the definition of meaning? I've never thought about that in my 32 years, but that did spark a little bit of curiosity and I would not have come across that question if I was not open to taking a recommendation from someone and just to open up my my perspective a little bit. What was the second book? The second book was called Thunder at Twilight. I forget the name of the author, but it was a historical work based off of Vienna pre-World War I. So it's a lot to do with Austrian politics, Austrian economy. There's a lot of historical features. You know, if you're familiar with Austrian and Vienna pre-World War I, I'm sure Chris, you're very up to date on that specific

time of the world. That's literally my wheelhouse, man. I go sometimes I wake up on a morning and just start thinking about it. That's one of those books where the writing completely lost me. I was not into it. There's a lot of historical references, a lot of geological references, like certain areas of Austria that they're just riveting off. You're in a conversation with someone you knew, and I'm like, what am I doing here? Like what am I reading? But to my earlier point as to why I actually read it,

there was a lot of social pressure as to why I forced myself to finish it because I was a part and part of a book club with with my sister and my dad and my uncle who actually recommended that book. So I felt a lot of pressure to finish this book because if I didn't, they'd be like, dude, they'll, like, I just recommend this book and you didn't even read it. So there are sometimes when I do succumb to social pressure in terms of finishing a book, even though I hate it. Yeah, I understand completely. So we need to set time aside for it. How my suggestion, I don't know how you do it, but as someone again, who's, I'm total noob

as far as sort of the reading journey goes, but my best way is part of the morning routine. Put it in the morning routine, set timer for 20 minutes, read for 20 minutes. And because I like to go back over stuff quite a lot, I'm concerned about retention. Yep. That can sometimes maybe even only be like 15 pages. because I like to go back over stuff quite a lot, I'm quite concerned about retention. That can sometimes maybe even only be like 15 pages. And then sometimes it may be more like it's like fiction or something, it might be 30. It actually tends to not be

fiction on the morning. I know they have it as well. Another suggestion for people is to read nonfiction by day and read fiction by night. I tend to find that read nonfiction by day and read fiction by night. I tend to find that, or not necessarily fiction, but like nonfiction story or biographies by night, basically not personal development by night. You know, if you're trying to really get your mind going about how to upgrade your personal finances or this psychological strategy for building a business or working on yourself, sending yourself to sleep with that to me doesn't always put me in the quite the right mood. Whereas if I'm just imagining this world or this story or this journal of something that's going on, that can make a bit of a difference.

Yeah, and I've heard similar talk tracks about combining both audiobooks and physical books in the same manner, right? Like you use physical books for self-help business and personal development and you use audiobooks for more of those biographies, memoirs, fiction, things that are easier to digest, right? And at the end of the day, it's whatever works best for you. There's no one right way to consume books, whether if it's audiobooks or reading at night, reading in the morning, as long as you were doing it, you're going to see some benefit from it. How do we retain what we read? It's a good question, and I think that's one of the biggest challenges that I often have too,

and I make some references to this in my get better with books page, and I kind of joke at it that retaining books is very challenging, right? Like so often that you come across a book that you're like, damn, that was awesome. I love that book and then two weeks later someone's like, hey Jim, how's that book? And you're like, so you know, it was good. There's a guy. It's good. I recommend it. I recommend it. I recommend it. Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean, it's natural that it happens to everyone, right, to people who don't admit it. It's very challenging to retain the stuff that you read. That being said, you do have to be very proactive about making sure there are key concepts that you want to keep with you. And the process that I go through, it's just three simple steps. Number one is I always read with a pencil or a highlight or some sort of writing apparatus with me. So every single time I come across something

that makes me pause, that makes me go, hmm, or you know, that's interesting. Let me expand on that. Something that just tugs on that string of curiosity. Underline it, write it down, and make sure I fold a page down on the corner. So at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book, it kind of depends on the book, how I want to parse that out.

But I always go back to the important parts every single time I finish a book, right? Make sure that I'm taking the time to digest the important parts so I can retain that, right? That's the whole goal here. So if I can take everything that I Ender lined or jot it down I either put it in a notebook or I use note cards, right? So I'll take maybe a stack up like three or four note cards Yeah, I did this for ego is the enemy by Ryan all day and I have them right on the corner my window window

So over there and I try to read them At least once a week and that's that's the important part is you you underline everything You write it down and some sort of notebook or no card, but I think the most important thing is you have to revisit them constantly, right? There's no way that you're going to remember something if you don't constantly remind yourself of the importance of it. So for me personally, what I do is I keep those stack of no cards and you know, once or twice a week, if I have little free time, I'll just like to cycle through them and reread them and be like, that is interesting if I have a little free time, I'll just like to cycle through them, and reread them, and be like,

that is interesting, I need to focus more on that, or based off of what I know now, maybe that's not as important as I thought, maybe I'll put it in the back of the pile, but it's very important to constantly keep it top of mind. It's an interesting analog approach that you've got. So, book, decision, or read- bookly or, you know, any of these different apps that either integrate with an iOS reading app that integrate with Kindle,

that integrate with the paper white, that allow you to export your highlights automatically, and then they'll email them to you every day and all this sort of stuff. Is that just a disposition of yours that you've preferred to go analog rather than digital with both the books you get and the way that you do your highlighting? Yeah, it's just my preference. I think a lot of that has to do with the physical aspect of writing it down just helps to ingrain those messages that much more. If I'm just simply highlighting something on a Kindle, and I don't use a Kindle at all,

most of my book reading is either through audiobook or physical book. If I can physically underline something, if I can physically write it down and go through that process, I think it helps ingrain that message that much more as opposed to just doing everything digitally. Yeah. Your retention or the way that you find audiobooks versus normal books reading? How do you stick to what you said before where you've got more story narrative style stuff

on audio and more personal development stuff on books? Yeah, that's it. I have to say, like, having developed a reading habit worked real hard to develop whatever semblance of a reading habit I've got. Over the last three to four years, my retention from reading something physically versus listening to it isn't even in the same universe.

Right. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with having more of an active versus a passive approach to the reading process itself, right? If you're just listening to an audio book and maybe you're doing some chores or you're doing some yard work or something like that. It's really passive. But if you are reading a physical book, and again, this is just, this is my personal preference. There's no one right way to do this.

But me personally having to be proactive about what I pick and choose to put in my book and being proactive to physically pick up these no cards, I think just being more active in that process helps to retain at least in my opinion. I think as well, we need to, so much of this is individual, right? There might be someone listening who's got perfect retention of what they consume on audio.

And I have fantastic retention what I can assume through podcasts. I can tell you like the type of fire hydrant outside of crystal lia's house, like, you know, all the totally useless information, which I absolutely... What kind of fire hydrant outside of Crystal Leia's house, like, you know, all the total useless information, which I asked you. What kind of fire hydrant was it? It's a silver one because he lives in Beverly Hills.

In Beverly Hills, you get silver fire hydrants. Someday, someday we'll have a nice time. So, you know, just like random stuff. And it's like, I can pick that up through podcasts. Audio books, retention's a little bit less, I feel less involved, there's less energy going on, in my opinion, but if I'm not so bothered about retention, and it's more the overall feel,

and again, that relates to the type of book, right? If there's a core lesson, which is the whole book trying to give it to you with a number of different stories, perhaps an audio book would be great for that, whereas if it's like, if it's the 10 things you need to do to complete your X, you're only gonna get like maybe one or two

if that's not the style that you learn it. Yeah, exactly. And you do a good job at reminding people that there is no one right way to do it, but also to the point that certain books out there are just so much harder to retain, right? Like if you've read Robert Green's 48 Laws of Power, right? There's so many different laws and a lot of them are contradictory. You're like, yeah, law 13, you told me with something else and last 17, it's completely different. So

I think it's important to distill what type of book it is, but also at the same time. Just just cut yourself some slack. You're not going to remember it if you... I'll tell you what is a terrible audio book to listen to, thinking fast and slow. It's a challenging read. If you actually sit down and read it too, it's challenging, regardless of how you consume it. Yeah, because there's so many mental exercises and it's like, look at this list of letters on either side of the page and you're listening to it and you're like, look at this list of letters on either side of the page. And you think, listening to it and you're like, and someone told me, someone had said, bro, you don't want to, you don't want to try and listen to that book.

And I was like, how fuck you? It's 20 hours plus. Like, I'm listening to this. I'm not really doing this. And then sure enough, I'm an hour into it. Now, it was like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know who anybody is. I think he got married to her. Like, I don't know. So, okay, okay, right. We're into the meat of it. This is what everybody came for. So, let's say that I'm getting into reading personal development.

What gets me through the door? What's the entrance ticket into the world of personal development? Where do I start? I think the first book that I always recommend people is A Toming Habits by James Clear. For a lot of reasons, right? It's one of those books that's easy to read. It's not convoluted in the messaging, but also

the language to convey the lessons. But there's actionable insights, right? I gauge a lot of how I see a book based off of how easy it is to consume, but also how easy it is to implement, right? And in Tommy Habits, it's just an an A plus in both of those regards. I mean, it's something, and I was actually just thinking about this today because a little plug for Get Better With Books, I'm building out a YouTube account. My first video that I'm planning right now is all about the five life-changing books that I've come across

and atomic habits was one of them. And one of the key components that I always remind myself about atomic habits is having an identity-based habit system. And you see, you're nodding your head because this is something that's, if you're in that personal development sphere, it's something you take very serious, right? Like, if you want to build a better reading habit, rather than just being like, I need to do this and this to become a better reader, rather than doing that.

You should just focus on seeing yourself as a reader, identifying yourself as a reader, but then also taking it one step further and thinking what would a reader do? Right. So almost reverse engineering, that habit by identifying yourself as someone who's already had that and then going forward with small little wins. Right. And that's just a quick snippet of atomic habits. And it's just one of those books that

every single person I've come across has come back universally saying this was a fucking awesome, awesome book. Thank you for recommending it. The fact that it's so new, does it in disservice, I think? In a way? There's the Lindy argument that you should be reading books that are the classics. And that is the antidote to the fact that there is a lot of self-development books that come out all

the time and you need to be careful in what you would invest your time in. But obviously that puts new classics on the back foot. And atomic how it's going to be read in in 20 30 years time 100. Yep. Yep. So that's always near the top of the list for me and that to add on top of that in terms of easy takeaways. The number two book that I always recommend it's it is a classic back to that how long has this book been available for a Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. So this is a staple in that self-development, personal self-help regimen, if you will. That book's been around for close to 100 years now and it is still on the top of the best sellers list

because of how, again, easy it is to digest and how easy it is to implement it into your daily life. And how it came across as book was an interesting story. So I just graduated college. It was, you know, gosh, almost eight, nine years ago, had no idea what I was doing with my future, right? Like it's just aimlessly wandering around in my early 20-year-old existence, right?

And I was puttering around at my house and I was walking through my dad's old office. He used to, he run his own business from the basement of my parents' house. So when he moved out, he left all of his books there. So, I was just going through some of his old books and I came across his book, how to when a friend's an influence people and I was like, oh, that sounds interesting, right? I just based a book by its cover quite literally there. So, I picked it up, I read it and probably a couple days time and it really changed my perspective,

mainly on how you communicate with people number one, but number two, having the perspective to see how your message is perceived by the other person's eyes, right? If you can communicate with someone and not be all about me, me, me, me, but rather look from their perspective as to why would this person even want to talk to me? Well, most likely they want to talk about themselves, right? People are inherently selfish in that they want to talk about themselves, right? That's just the nature of people. So if you can use that to your advantage, one of the key addages that I always use

from how to when friends and influence people is to be interesting, be interested. So if you were talking to someone and you can genuinely be interested in what they're saying and you say, hey, tell me a little bit more about that. Oh, that's fascinating. How is that impacting your life? I'm really just having that perspective of how is this conversation beneficial to that

person? People will come away from that conversation being like, holy shit, Jim is a great conversationalist. Even though that person just talked 45 minutes about themselves. About themselves. Yeah. I can't remember the book that this is in. Oh, this is going to kill me. You might be able to tell me. There was a study done where they put a guy on a plane and they said,

we need you to sit. I need to speak to the person next to you for the entire flight. And it's like a eight hour flight. I don't let them, you don't want, they're not allowed to look at the screen. They're not allowed to look at the screen, they're not allowed to look out, like just get their attention. You're not allowed to tell them anything about you, not even your name. Not allowed to tell them anything about you. Anyway, we get off and they do a little survey afterwards, and they're going up to all of the passengers

but it's this particular guy that they're looking for. They get to the person you were speaking to and they say, hello sir, we're just going around today just doing a little bit of a survey. I just wanted to ask how your flight was and who you were sat next to and what you talked about. He said, oh, I was sat next to this amazing guy. He's such a phenomenal guy that you know, he's just, he was a classic conversation. So, oh, that's brilliant. Would you be able to tell us his name? Oh, that's brilliant. Would you be able to tell us his name? And the guy's like, no, and you just, that just drills it home, right?

You know, people like to talk about themselves. And I think as well, like, it's not often that people are interested. Like this is a catastrophe that plays off the back of something which is real pervasive. That you don't often get people that are interested. So when you do, you're like, oh, yeah, I can share that. I get to, I can open myself up and I can talk about their not staring at their phone while I can play with ideas. Okay. How when friends

and influence people, atomic habits, where are we going next? Uh, third, it's a combination of two because there's really two modes of thought here. One is if you want to go down a motivational route, book can't hurt me by David Goggins, it's just one of those books that just kicks you in the ass. Right, this dude, if you've heard him on the Joe Rogan podcast or if you've heard his audio book, like he is just that raw motherfucker that's, you know, fuck this thing. I'm saying hard. Say hard.

And you're listening to this guy and you're like, you don't even realize, but your fists are clenched and you're like, your jaw's clenched and you're like, yeah, like you're about to rip off some flesh where you're beat teeth. But that's just one of those motivational books where you listen to someone's story and you can really understand how far the human potential can take and just based off of your own mental limitations. Right. or the human potential can take and just based off of your own mental limitations. So if you can distill someone's personal journey

just based off of pushing those boundaries, it starts to open up your eyes as to, maybe I'm being a little bit of bitch and this area of my life, or maybe I gave up a little bit of easier there. So it's those types of motivational stories that I actually made a post about it on my Instagram yesterday about

Goggins has this unique capability of calling out your bullshit while motivating you at the same time. I think it's those types of books that keep you accountable to look yourself in the mirror. He uses the accountability mirror, right? He emphasizes that, just making sure that you're doing everything that you can day in and day out to push that potential. But the second book, and this is a little bit away from that motivational, is to Cal Newport. Like you were saying about digital minimalism. One of my favorite books,

especially right now, given the state of the world, state of the events, is Deepwork. And if you are a creative, if you are an entrepreneur, if you are doing anything where you want your work to speak for itself, I think it's never been more important than it is right now to set aside some time where you are uninterrupted, where you can take long periods of time to focus on your work at hand. And I think Calmingport does a great job at outlining why deep work, given the state of events right now, is one of the most important skills that you can work on. It's a term all of its own now, right? You know, like people talk about doing deep work, and it's a reference to him.

I couldn't agree more. It's an antithesis. It's the antidote to the always on million projects, million tabs open at once, catastrophe that we find ourselves in. Okay, so we've got a foundation for self-development. This is, we're in the door now. And why don't we do some books that you think people may not have either heard of or not read some undiscovered gems still staying in the self-development space, and then we'll go into more like a biography and then maybe a couple of fictions as well. Sure. So if we want to start with a book that's a little bit under the radar that is equally

as important when it comes to personal development itself, help is a book by James Allen called As A Man Thinketh. It's a very simple read. I think it's no more than 150 pages, but the basis of that is it's very similar to Napoleon's hill, concept about thinking good thoughts and making sure that you're proactive about the way that you're thinking, right, using thinking as a model for success. And it's similar to Marcus Aurelius, right, when he says control your thoughts, control your life. The basis of this book as a man thinketh is just being very proactive about your thoughts as an entity. Right? So if you go about your day being very pessimistic, very cautious, you know, being overall

doom and gloom, right? Like that's going to manifest itself in your actions and the way that you pursue your ambitions and life. But if you're overall optimistic, if you're overall energetic, and if you believe in yourself, if you tell yourself, and you're constantly reminding yourself that you're capable of doing powerful things, and this is just based off of having that initial thought process that you can, it's just something that you can constantly use to cultivate a lot of that positive energy in your life.

And I think one of the key takeaways and the key quotes that I got from that is he compares your mind to a garden, right? And if you're constantly cultivating your mind in a way that you're cultivating a lot of good thoughts, it's going to yield a lot of positive things. It's going to yield a bountiful fruit or vegetables, things that's going to be nourishing to your life, whereas if you're neglecting your thoughts, if you're neglecting your mind similar to a garden It's going to yield a lot of weeds now a lot of things that are going to clutter your vision, right? So I think it's very important to be very proactive about how you think Because that in itself manifests into your life. Yeah, and also not a very nice place to be an ugly garden

As I as my garden youth for years now it's beautiful. I've got flower wall and everything. But yeah, 10, 10 to your garden. What's next? What else we got? Now let's go into the sort of under known underrated self development. Actually, an interesting book that you may know well aware of as a economy, the truth by a dizzy injury. Yeah.

Have you got the second version? Have you got the new? I haven't got the new Drake. Yeah, have you got the second version? Have you got the new version? I haven't got the new version yet. What you do in man, he's done an expanded, an expanded version. I have a couple of copies over there that's literally just now. I don't think he can get it to himself. So he's in Romania. And like Amazon isn't delivering his own book to him.

So he's sent it to me and he was like, yo, bro, can you just have a go through and see if there's any printing errors and stuff like that? Would you show hilarious? I don't know where he's. But yeah, economy of truth by Vizzy, tell us about. Yeah, yeah. So it's another one of those books

and we were talking about this earlier in the conversation about distilling wisdom into that bite-sized, manageable format and content. And I think Vizzy is someone who I interacted mainly off of my Instagram page that he hit me up. I had actually been following him on my personal account for almost a year before I started my page and he had reached out to me.

So I was almost a little like, starstruck, I'm like, shit, Vizzi's reaching out to me. I made it. But it's just one of those books that's, it's just parsed down with them. It covers everything from philosophy and just daily personal development. It's just one of those books that's, it's just parsed down with them. It covers everything from philosophy and just daily personal development. It's just one of those books that's easy to consume

but at the same time gets you to think. And I think at the end of the day, if you can read a book that actually creates an opportunity to pause and think, I think you're on something good there. It's a unique type of book. It's short aphorisms. You could pick it up and put it down in a page.

Right. As long as you gave yourself three or four minutes to think about what was on that page and how it relates to your life, it's a very unique way of reading. As we mentioned earlier on, much more active. Let's get into perhaps some more, not necessarily personal development, but still nonfiction, just some, either some favorites, some unknown ones, whatever you think. Yeah, so there's a recent trend that I've been encountering. It's the memoir type of book where it's an individual who's not writing about their whole life story, but more so, just like a very specific focus and experience that happened in a course of their life.

And one of the books that I just encountered, Memorah Sal, was educated by Tara Westover. It was a phenomenal story, and it was just based off of this girl who grew up in Bumfuck Idaho. This was a recent story, true story, too. She was part of a family that was deep, really religious, but also fiercely separatist. So her father was one of those guys that says, you know, school is the devil, school of the government, at Luminati, like distrust everything. So she came from a family that was very rarely home school, no formal education, but she got to a point in her adolescence where she said, you know, I want to go to school. And the book was all about her trajectory

from basically being having no education to getting into BYU, getting honors, going to grad school, getting her doctorate from Harvard University, and this transition from having no education to having the most education, some of the key tenants there are all about your identity, right? Like, how do you see yourself throughout the course of your transition, your adolescence and through your course of your life? And for her, her family always harped on having an education as something that was untrustworthy, right?

Like, oh, you're one of them, you're one of those educated folks. And it's one of those books where you have this identity of who you think you are and how you see yourself, but also in relation to your closest friends and family. So, how does my family perceive me? How does that affect how I see myself? But it's also about just having the confidence in your own identity to say, hey, this may piss people off, this may rub people the wrong way, but I have enough convictions in myself that this is who I truly am, regardless of the consequences.

So, I can't recommend that one enough. It's one of those page turners where you come across an author who's just a fantastic writer and storyteller. So educated, Tara Westover highly recommended. Amazing. What's next? Shoe Dog. For those who have followed my page, obviously I do a lot of personal development, you know, business type books, but Shoe Dog falls into one of those books that is just one of an absolute page turners. So if anyone who has not read shoe dog, it's a personal memoir by Phil Knight, who was the founder of a little company called Nike, right? And it goes through his upbringing from how he was a local track star in Oregon to how he

started this fledgling company into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. That itself is an interesting story. If we talk about what makes a book interesting and what really gravitates you, it's that writing style. Phil Knight has one of those unique writing styles where it's almost like a vapor. It's like he's going off in every single direction, but it's so eloquent in the essence where you can get what he's saying, but there's so much style and charisma to the way that he writes. So, shoe dog, definitely. Add that one to your list, too. I love it. And then one that might be a little bit less well-known

from that similar sort of genre before we do a bit of fiction. Yeah, one thing that I would also add to that list, it's another recent book, similar to that vein about business and personal memoirs, was the right of a lifetime by Bob Eiger, who was actually just recently stepped down as the CEO and chairman of Disney. So one of these business titans that talks a lot about his upbringing, and this is an interesting point when you read a lot of these business and memoir type books, you see a lot of commonalities. You see a lot of similarities between these people who have so much success. And the right of a lifetime is one of those books where these guys just have an insatiable

work ethic. They have the confidence. They have the vision, but they also have the wherewithal. When they come across failures and they come across life just kicking them down a peg, having a lot of confidence in yourself to dust yourself off and keep going. So, ride of a lifetime, Bob Iger, Rise of a Disney as a company, definitely a great read too. That's sick. And now, finishing up a couple of fiction books. We've got a daytime read,

so maybe we've got a couple of nighttime reads as well. What are some fiction books that you've read recently that you've enjoyed? So there's there's one fiction book that I will always recommend and this one was was given to me by an old colleague of mine was a book called Watership Down. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. It's It's a story about rabbits. Okay, so yeah, so it's a book about how a flock of rabbits was displaced due to deforestation and their trek across on Chartered Land, right? And you're thinking, okay, a book about rabbits, how is that relevant? But I think it talks a lot about key tenants of camaraderie, shared mission, courage, right? A lot of these key tenants that have worked used that you like to see in the hero's journey, right? And it's seeing it's unveiled in these cute, cutly rabbits and the constant threat of predators like foxes and great horned owls, right? The things that you don't see as a predator, but for you

looking at perspective of a rabbit, you think, oh shit, life is a rabbit. It's pretty hard these days. But it's just one of those, again, one of those stories that's very easy to follow along, but at the same time, like you get some inspiration and personal reflection from reading about rabbits. I like the idea of using fiction as a way to learn lessons that some personal development books can't teach us. I always used the example about 1984 that it taught me more about appreciating the power of my thoughts than pretty much any other self-development book could have done. Because it's delivered in this allegorical, weird sort of symbolic way.

It's an odd one, but look, man, Jim, it has been so fun. I implore everybody to go and check out at Get Better With Books on Instagram. When's the YouTube channel gonna be live? When, and is that get better with books as well? That's also get better with books. Yeah, I got my microphone being shipped from Amazon.com this weekend. So I plan on filming, editing and posting my first video this weekend. So yeah, so yeah. So it will be in the show notes below.

Anything else that you wanna plug, any other things? People should go and check out of yours. Now that's it right now. I just got the Instagram handle, get the YouTube coming out. So working on and just keep creating good content and appreciate everybody for the time and the attention. Bro, it's an absolute pleasure.

You need to go and check this out. I also have to give a shout out to how patient you are to align line books perfectly straight Like the ability to put books in completely neat lines with all the gaps being exactly the same way is just You know, that's not a little bit OCD a little bit OCD But at the same time got it got to put good content out there. IG is very competitive So take the time to post good picks, baby. Yeah, I get it, man.

Look, Jim, thank you so much. Everyone that's been listening, all of the books that we've just gone through will be linked below in the show notes. Every single one of them, so you think, I'm gonna go check that out, all linked in the show notes below. You need to go and give Jim a follow-up,

get better with books. But for now, thanks, man. Thank you so much. Likewise, Chris, good chance with you, be well.