3 Books You Should Read This Year If You Want To Be Highly Successful

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What is the greatest book you ever read?

What made it great?

What things did you learn?

What things did you apply?

How is your life now different because of that book?

There are thousands upon thousands of books. I myself have dozens of books that I am preparing to read and study all the time.

A few key books, however, can fundamentally transform and change your life.

You’re far better off reading 1 great book 10 times than 10 mediocre books 1 time.

There’s a massive difference between reading and studying.

There’s a big difference between skimming and absorbing.

There’s an exponential difference between the good and the great.

In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about the transforming power of keystone habits. These are habits that can be applied to see massive results and miracles in many areas of your life.

There are similarly “keystone books,” which can transform your life and perspective.

The books I’m sharing with you in this article are such books.

These are books I am inviting you to study 4–5 times in the upcoming year.

If you truly deeply integrate these books into your life and make them a part of who you are, you will be amazed. You will be stunned.

A few months from now, you’ll be humbled where your life is at if you truly take these 3 books and their accompanying lessons to heart.

Here’s the first one.

1. Think And Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill

“Riches come, if they come at all, in response to definite demands, based upon the application of definite principles, and not by chance or luck.” — Napoleon Hill

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve read this book already. You possibly read it a few years ago. It’s the quintessential book on self-help. I myself have read it 5–10 times.

But here’s something to consider. Here’s why this book has stood and will continue to stand the test of time for 80+ years.

Here’s why it has a different energy about it.

Here’s why I will continue to go back to it.

Think and Grow Rich is full of many powerful ideas that have been regurgitated in a number of different places throughout the years, but Think and Grow Rich is different because Napoleon Hill states them far more directly than anywhere else.

Here’s the core thesis of the book:

Imagine what you wantNobody can tell you what you want (you have to decide what you want and value yourself)It does not matter how seemingly impossible what you want isContinually feed hat thought of what you want with through prayer, meditation, visualization, journaling, routines, and relationshipsSee what you want fulfilled

Whatever you think about is what you ultimately create and become.

In the very beginning of the book, the story is told of Edwin Barnes, who wanted to be business partners with Thomas Edison.

Edwin had a seemingly impossible goal. At the time that he set it, he didn’t even work at Edison’s company.

He was willing to ride trains, work jobs, build relationships, and find connections in order to see his goal become a reality.

He became business partners with Thomas Edison. After some time working for Edison, he found an opportunity to sell a new product, the Ediphone, and Barnes and Edison became business partners.

As Napoleon Hill said in the book,

“How much actual cash that original desire of Barnes was worth to him, I have no way of knowing. Perhaps it brough him two or three million dollars. Whatever the amount, it becomes insignificant when compared to the greater asset he acquired, the definite knowledge that an intangible impulse of thought can be transmuted into its physical counterpart by the application of known principles.”

As an example from my own life, I remember distinctly in 2015 wanting to write books with the entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. At the time, I was studying entrepreneurial courage as part of my graduate work at Clemson University.

This was a seemingly impossible goal.

Our 3rd book came out earlier this year.

Once I set the goal, everything that I knew I needed to do to make it happen began to materialize and take place.

I knew what people I needed to surround myself with.

I knew what skills I needed to develop.

I knew who I needed to become.

This wasn’t actually that difficult. When you’re fully committed to your future self, the process will unfold and flow before you as you discover and create the pathway.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Impossible goals form a pathway and a forge to your future self.

Do you have a definiteness of purpose?

Do you have an impossible goal?

Do you have tremendous faith in that goal?

Think and Grow Rich is ultimately a book about having tremendous faith. Faith to move mountains and to achieve the impossible. Whatever your religious beliefs, I challenge you to read this book. It will train you to think in ways and think far bigger than you ever have before.

Following the process outlined in this book requires a price.

It will require you to separate the “signal” (what is guiding you towards what you want) from the “noise” (distraction pulling you from what you want.)

This sounds simple, but it’s incredibly difficult.

If you want to achieve a goal, you have to strip away anything that isn’t helping you to accomplish that goal.

You have to be willing to apply to 80/20 rule. Most people hear this and start with the 20%.

They start making a big “to-do” list and start focusing on all the extra things they need to check off and do in order to reach their goal.

In reality, you need to start by getting rid of 80% of activities you’re doing and information you’re consuming. This 80% is everything that you don’t truly want most. It’s no longer serving you, even if it did at one point.

Find what you want. Accept it, visualize it, and embrace it. Then, act with power and courage and cut off everything else.

This is the true meaning of the word “decision.” To decide means you’re willing to forgo other choices.

If you’re going to “decide” to be rich, or any other goal you’re pursuing following this formula, you’re going to have to say no to a lot of things.

Which brings us to our next book.

2. Go For No — Richard Fenton & Andrea Waltz

“If I fail more than you, I win.” — Seth Godin

What’s the size of the most recent rejection you got?

How about the one before that?

Are you comfortable getting bigger and bigger rejections on the way to your future self?

Have you been getting rejected at the level of your future self?

What level is your future self getting rejections at?

Eventually, could you turn those no’s into yes’s?

The stressors and the “load” in your environment are actually determines the level of success you’re going to have.

While we are apt to think that what we need is freedom from responsibility and restriction, it is actually the challenges, rejections, and disappointments on your path that will teach you the most. I actually gave a TED talk on this subject several years ago.

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” ― Viktor Frankl

Babies understand this. They learn to walk by falling over and over and over again.

But when we become older, success pads our comfort zone. We become hesitant to invest in loss because it feels like there’s more to lose.

We stop being willing to go for no.

Yet, that’s the only pathway that works.

The subtitle of Go For No is highly insightful: “Yes is the destination, No is how you get there.”

This is because going for no introduces a fitness function into your life, where you’re willing to optimize and filter everything you do to your vision.

As an example, my sons wants to play tennis in college. But he doesn’t just want to go to any college. He wants to go to a very specific college. As a result, his training process is by default far different than it would be otherwise. There are many, many things he has to say “no” to in order to achieve his goal.

You get to decide.

Who do you want to be?

Be hyper-specific about this. Don’t compromise on it at all. Be completely unashamed, straightforward, and focused on who you want to be.

Remember, it doesn’t matter how many no’s you get. As a salesman, it doesn’t matter how many rejections you get. Once you find the yes, none of the previous no’s matter. They were learning opportunities to get you to the yes.

When you go for no, you’re choosing to say no to the 80% in your life.

You’re also comfortable getting told “no” on the way to achieving and realizing your 20%.

You’re only as good as what you say yes to.

Having a definiteness of purpose and ultimate faith comes from your willingness to go for no in these two areas.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

When you’re in the space of going for no, you’re a lot more receptive to inspiration and new ideas. You’re willing to call down the powers of heaven. You’re will to be a lot more innovative in what you’re willing to do.

When you need to accomplish something no matter what, you’re willing to try whatever it takes in order to get there.

In Carol Dweck’s research on mindset, one of the biggest differences between people who have a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset is that growth mindset people embrace failure, past mistakes, and obstacles as opportunities for learning.

They’re willing to keep failing bigger to keep getting better.

They’re willing to fail in the future because they’re not worried about being right. They’re simply concerned with getting it right.

If you’re trying to be right, you’re avoiding failure. You have a fragile identity that can be shattered the first time something doesn’t go as planned.

If you’re overly defined by where you are at right now, you have a fixed mindset. If you’re flexible and objective about your current results, you have a growth mindset. You’re willing to grow, experiment, learn, and adapt.

You’re flexible to new pathways and new opportunities.

If you have a growth mindset, you’re more interested in learning.

To apply this principle, my wife and I have started asking this question to our kids:

“In what ways did you fail today?”

And more deeply, what did you learn from those failures?

What feedback did you get?

What experiences did you have?

Josh Waitzkin calls this principle of failing to succeed “investment in loss,” which he wrote about in his book The Art of Learning.

Josh was a Tai Chi student, and he found that often when his class was doing partner drills, most students in the class would pair themselves with another student of similar or lower skill level.

People like to win. But winning is not where the most aggressive learning happens.

Josh was the opposite. He would always pair himself with a student 4–5 skill levels above him, and he learned very quickly. He was “investing in loss.” In these matches, he was far inferior in skill to his opponent and would often take a beating.

However, his brain adapted much quicker as a result of this. He became much more powerful and focused very quickly.

He became who he wanted to be much faster because he was willing to go for no.

Failing at the level of your future self is how you become your future self.

Going for no is how you get to your future self.

3. Antifragile — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.”

— Douglas Malloch

Fragile things break. A glass is fragile. A delicate antique is fragile. A very young plant with low support is fragile. Fragile things are harmed by outside forces.

Resilient things withstand pressure. Boards are resilient. Steel is resilient. These things are strong, but they don’t become actively better when exposed to trauma and stress. They survive it but aren’t made better because of it.

Things that are antifragile become better with stress. As an example, Navy SEALs are antifragile. Their training with all of its stressors actually makes them far better soldiers.

Antifragility leads to post-traumatic growth.

Post-traumatic growth means that you are actively becoming better because of each experience, rather than worse.

In the book Antifragile, one of the things that Nassim Taleb talks about is “via negativa,” or the act of removing things that are preventing you from being anti-fragile.

The fastest way to practically become anti-fragile in your life right now is to remove things. The things you need to remove are keeping you fragile.

Stop eating junk food before you start exercising.

Stop consuming junk media before you start reading quality books.

With a long enough timeframe, almost everything breaks down with age.

With antifragility, you become stronger with age.

This comes through being accelerated towards your future self. Which comes from being more and more committed to cutting away whatever doesn’t align with what that person wants and who they want to be.

Remove everything in your life that is causing a future debt to be paid to the pied piper.

Time is always on the side of the anti-fragile.

Be patient. Be strategic.

Make tremendous leaps and bounds towards your future self and watch yourself grow in ways you didn’t think were previously possible.

Conclusion

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass

If you read these three books…wow.

These three books can take you very far.

There are dozens and dozens of books you could read. But a few good books, positioned correctly, can make all the difference.

With these three books, you can train your thinking very differently.

With these books, you can build a very different future self, and a very definite purpose.

With these books, you can have a lot more faith and power.

With these books, you can begin going for no.

When you seek an impossible goal you truly want, are willing to go for no on the path to get there, and you remove everything fragile in your life, you truly become unstoppable.

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(These are tools built on the frameworks from my book Be Your Future Self Now, which recently became the #1 book in Korea.)

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