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4 Books That Changed My Life

2023-12-20 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 23:54 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design (also: Books and reading, YouTube, writing online and creators, Mindset, motivation and happiness) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Lesson from a book, His medical past, His own numbers, He changed his mind, Feel-Good Productivity thesis, Sponsor segment present

Ali explains that a book changes your life through an idea that leads to a decision, action and results, as The 4-Hour Workweek did for him, then recommends four books: Seth Godin's The Practice, Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret, Robert Glover's No More Mr Nice Guy and David Brooks's The Second Mountain.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — How a book can change your life: idea, decision, action, result; The 4-Hour Workweek

  • ★ Ali grants that calling books life-changing is a bit of a clickbait thing often seen on YouTube. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Ali says a book changes your life by exposing you to an idea; the idea leads to a decision, the decision to action, the action to a result, and that result is what changes your life. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Ali says Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek changed his life by exposing him to the idea that he could make passive income with a business that earns while he sleeps and live life on his own terms. — 00:00:58 · The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss, passive income
  • ★★★ After reading The 4-Hour Workweek, Ali decided to spend his years in medical school building a side business that could generate passive income. — 00:00:58 · The 4-Hour Workweek, passive income
  • ★★ During medical school Ali learned to code and built a side business that made him around $40,000 to $50,000 a year, about what he would have earned as a full-time doctor. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Whenever he reads a book, Ali is on the lookout for an idea that could change the course of his life. — 00:01:56

00:02:26 — The Practice by Seth Godin: shipping creative work, focusing on the process

  • ★★ Of his four recommended books, Ali advises reading the one that resonates most, applying its insights and seeing whether it leads to a decision, action and results. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Ali recommends Seth Godin's The Practice to anyone who does creative work: if what you do, or would like to do, involves shipping creative work, the book is for you. — 00:02:26 · Seth Godin, Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ Seth Godin (quoted): Seth Godin writes in The Practice that the practice is the output, because the practice is all we can control. — 00:03:31 · Seth Godin

    “The practice is the output because the practice is all we can control.”

  • ★ Elizabeth King (quoted): Sculptor Elizabeth King, quoted in The Practice, says process saves us from the poverty of our intentions. — 00:03:31

    “process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.”

  • ★★★ Ali's takeaway from The Practice: when you ship creative work, focus on the process, do not get attached to the outcome, and show up like a professional, getting better over time; that itself is the reward. — 00:04:00 · Seth Godin

  • ★★ As a creator Ali sometimes struggles with the process: he often lets his feelings decide that he does not want to do the work, and many times does not treat it like a professional. — 00:04:29
  • ★★ When Ali makes a video to share from the heart, with love, contribution and service, rather than for a sponsor deadline or an external metric, and simply shows up and makes it, it feels amazing to him. — 00:04:59
  • ★★ Creators whose self-worth is attached to the outcome, Ali says, feel bad when a video gets few views or negative comments; he has been through this himself. — 00:05:28
  • ★★★ The happiest creators Ali knows detach themselves from the outcome: they keep showing up, focus on the process and count it a win to get the video out. — 00:05:28
  • ★★★ Having written a non-fiction book himself, Ali says such books often have one to three key ideas; reading the same idea again and again in many ways and with many examples is what turns it into more than intellectual knowledge. — 00:05:57
  • ★★ Ali calls Atomic Habits an amazing and really helpful book, although its one message is that small habits lead to great results. — 00:05:57 · Atomic Habits
  • ★★ Ali compares a non-fiction book's build-up to a comedy show's build-up to the punchline, or a musical performance's build-up to the crescendo, which makes the climax worth it, citing Alan Watts. — 00:06:44
  • ★★ Ali urges viewers not to dismiss the value of non-fiction books: the right book at the right time, giving the right idea, can completely change your life. — 00:06:44
  • ★★ The Practice has changed Ali's creative process: he is less focused on himself and more on service and showing up; even when he does not feel like filming, he goes to a coffee shop and does some writing, book highlights or his weekly newsletter. — 00:07:14 · Sunday Snippets
  • ★★ Ali thinks creators of any kind will get enormous value from The Practice, and that it might change their life. — 00:07:43

00:08:12 — Sponsor read

00:09:10 — The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale: knowing what you want and writing it down

  • ★ Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret was a record he made in 1956, an audio programme later turned into a book. — 00:09:10
  • ★★★ Ali says the core idea of The Strangest Secret, which he thinks can change your life, is the power of knowing what you want and writing it down. — 00:09:40

  • ★★ Earl Nightingale (quoted): Earl Nightingale defines a success as anyone deliberately doing a predetermined job because that is what they decided to do. — 00:10:29

    “A success is anyone who is doing deliberately a predetermined job because that's what he decided to do deliberately.”

  • ★★ Earl Nightingale (quoted): Earl Nightingale says only one in 20 people deliberately does the job they decided to do. — 00:10:29

  • ★★★ Ali likes Earl Nightingale's definition of success: you are successful if you are actively taking steps towards the thing you actually want, whether as a mother, teacher, entrepreneur, YouTuber or author. — 00:10:51
  • ★★ Ali says very few people know what they want: asked to show where they have written down their goals for the next year, most would ask what goals, and those who have thought about goals have probably not written them down. — 00:10:51
  • ★★ Ali says Earl Nightingale and self-help authors such as Napoleon Hill, Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins, himself included, all conclude that if you know where you are trying to go, you will figure out how to get there. — 00:11:21
  • ★★★ Ali advises turning what you actually want to do into a goal and writing it down; it need not be a SMART goal, specific, measurable or achievable, only some idea of where you are trying to go. — 00:11:50
  • ★★ Ali thinks of setting a goal as knowing the destination: without being fixated on it, you move in its direction and can check whether you are on the right path towards it. — 00:11:50
  • ★★ Ali says you are far more likely to write three books if you set the intention of writing three in the next 10 years, even without being wedded to that timeline. — 00:12:19

  • ★★★ Reading The Strangest Secret sold Ali on goals: long unsure whether setting goals was worthwhile, as followers of the channel know, he now says of course it is, since there is no journey without a destination in mind. — 00:13:18

    “there is no journey without a destination in mind.”

  • ★★ Knowing where you are going makes you far more likely to marshal resources, find a way there and enjoy the process, which Ali calls the whole thesis of his book Feel-Good Productivity: making the journey itself feel good. — 00:13:18 · Feel-Good Productivity (book), feel-good productivity (concept)

  • ★★ Ali suggests The Strangest Secret to anyone without written goals: it takes about half an hour to read, and he says you can skip the second half, which he does not really like. — 00:13:54

00:14:37 — No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover: men expressing feelings and needs

  • ★★ Ali sums up No More Mr Nice Guy as a book telling men it is okay to have feelings and needs, to express them, and to love yourself for who you are. — 00:14:37
  • ★★ Ali first read No More Mr Nice Guy about 10 years ago and rereads it every few years, taking new things from it each time. — 00:14:37
  • ★★ Ali thinks men who, like him, struggle to understand and express their emotions, feelings and needs will get enormous value from No More Mr Nice Guy. — 00:15:06
  • ★★ Robert Glover (quoted): Robert Glover writes that nice guys' quest for approval is most pronounced in their relationships with women, whose approval they take as the ultimate validation of their worth. — 00:15:32

  • ★★ Robert Glover (quoted): Robert Glover calls nice guys "Teflon men", so smooth that nothing sticks to them and people find it hard to get close; it is a person's rough edges and imperfections that give others something to connect with. — 00:16:01

    “I often refer to nice guys as Teflon men.”

  • ★★ Ali says men are taught that their job is to sacrifice themselves for the people in their lives; there may be some truth to that, but, as on planes, you put your own oxygen mask on first. — 00:16:30

  • ★★ Ali says he and most of his male friends really struggle to express their emotions, feelings and needs, and he finds the exercises and journaling prompts of No More Mr Nice Guy very helpful. — 00:16:30

00:16:59 — The Second Mountain by David Brooks: the mountain of the self and the mountain of commitment

  • ★★ In David Brooks's The Second Mountain, as Ali sums it up, the first mountain we climb is the mountain of the self, of achievement and freedom, of wanting to make money and be successful. — 00:16:59
  • ★★ In Ali's summary of The Second Mountain, in the valley after the first mountain we realise there is a second mountain, of commitment and service, where life is about serving other people. — 00:17:29
  • ★★ David Brooks (quoted): David Brooks argues that the first mountain may make you happy and give you freedom, while the second gives you joy, and lasting joy is far better than momentary happiness. — 00:17:58
  • ★★★ Ali says he has got to the top of the first mountain: he has freedom, success and fame, people stop him in the street to say how much his work changed their lives, and he has loads of money. — 00:17:58
  • ★★★ At the top of the first mountain, Ali says, it is not all it is cracked up to be and feels a bit hollow: he asks whether he really wants to keep working for more fame, achievements, accolades and freedom. — 00:18:34
  • ★★ David Brooks (quoted): David Brooks writes that people on the second mountain have made strong commitments to one or all of four things: a vocation, a spouse and family, a philosophy or faith, and a community. — 00:19:15
  • ★★ Ali films this video in Los Angeles, in the middle of travelling around the world as a digital nomad. — 00:19:54
  • ★★ Many people Ali knows who have travelled as digital nomads say that somewhere between 6 and 24 months in, all the travel and freedom stops being that fulfilling. — 00:19:54
  • ★★★ From people he has spoken to and from The Second Mountain, Ali knows that lasting joy will come to him from getting married and having a family, not from being able to travel the world and do whatever he wants. — 00:19:54
  • ★★★ Ali says that taking his job seriously, sharing ideas in full service mode with love and contribution and not worrying about the money, will bring him lasting joy, and he will probably make loads of money as well. — 00:20:23
  • ★★ Ali felt really called out by David Brooks's description of a person in the aesthetic phase of life who schedules a meditation retreat here and a Burning Man visit there. — 00:21:58
  • ★★ David Brooks (quoted): David Brooks writes that in the aesthetic way of life, of saying yes to everything year after year, each day is fun but does not add up to anything. — 00:22:56
  • ★★ Ali says he has been chasing his own selfish needs for success, freedom, fame and money for way too long, and now feels there is more joy to be found in commitment, attachment and settling down. — 00:22:56
  • ★★ Ali thinks people at the stage of life where settling down appeals will love The Second Mountain, which he calls really good. — 00:23:25

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: No More Mr Nice Guy · The Practice · The Second Mountain · The Strangest Secret

Also: People: Alan Watts · David Brooks · Earl Nightingale · Elizabeth King · Jim Rohn · Napoleon Hill · Robert Glover · Seth Godin · Tim Ferriss · Tony Robbins

Projects: Sunday Snippets

Works: Atomic Habits · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · The 4-Hour Workweek · Think and Grow Rich

Concepts: digital nomad · feel-good productivity (concept) · passive income

Places: Los Angeles

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