Books That Taught Me More Than My School

Wish I could have read them sooner

Image from freepik

I’ve been reading personal growth books for over two decades, and some have taught me more than my school education did. To people who question the self-help book industry, I want them to read this piece and ask the same question about everything, including our education system.

The self-help industry is not perfect; it has its flaws, but more virtues have helped generation after generation.

They’ve been a catalyst for my professional and personal growth. I get that AI has made everyone an author, but what a book does to you depends on the person reading it, not who wrote it.

For me, some books have made more of an impact than most teachers I had in school. Several books have been more significant than the syllabus I had in 12 years of studying in the Indian education system.

I am going to list them down so I can keep sharing this list over and over again and re-read some of those gems.

Disclaimer: Books can mean different things to different people

This disclaimer is necessary because I do not intend to disprove the education system. I am only sharing my personal experience of how some books were more important to my life than some textbooks I read in school.

The Pythagoras theorem may have saved me from taking a few extra steps while walking, but it hasn’t helped me like Zack Friedman in *The Lemonade Life, *teaching lessons we need to learn in everyday life.

The sigmas and deltas were crucial to pass in math; however, as an adult, I find it more important to regulate my nervous system or to know how to take care of my finances.

Maybe, if I were a scientist, organic chemistry would have helped me create a new medicine to cure PMOS, but as a creative entrepreneur, it didn’t help me in any of my endeavours. While I was carving my own path, I stumbled upon books that showed me a direction.

They inspired me more than most of my teachers, especially the one who said, “What will you do with your life?” when I couldn’t answer an organic chemistry question.

Sharing those books here for those who believe in self-education and are eager to learn from outside their school syllabus.

The Magic of Thinking Big

The only desire I had growing up was to end up in a good engineering college, just like millions of teenagers in India at that time.

I didn’t dare to think anything above the bare minimum. I couldn’t imagine myself being successful and financially stable. Reading *The Magic of Thinking Big* by David J Schwartz was overwhelming for a student who didn’t think beyond grades and colleges.

This one opened up my mind and a whole Pandora's box of what was possible. It allowed me to think more and bigger about my life. My imagination and desire to want more were the beginning of living a life that I wasn’t brave enough to dream of.

This desire to have big thinking and a big life was how I got into self-education and allowed my creative side to blossom.

The book got me a good raise in my job, helped me get freelance clients, and most importantly, made me a dreamer.

Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon

This book is more than stealing stuff. It’s about finding the courage to follow your curiosity. It’s about allowing yourself to create even if you think you have no talent.

Austin Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist was a blessing when I started my creative career. Not only did this book help me bounce back from a long creative block, but it also guided me in navigating the paths of creative writing and visual thinking.

When there were days I didn’t create anything, Kleon reminded me how I didn’t need to find a unique idea. I just need to add my views and opinions to an already existing idea because Everything is a Copy — something which was considered a crime in school.

All great artists were inspired by an existing idea and remixed it with their art. Some people will find it more meaningful when it’s coming from you.

“Go make that stuff. The manifesto is this: Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use — do the work you want to see done.”

— Austin Kleon

What To Say When You Talk To Yourself

We grow up listening to what our parents and teachers tell us. Their words become our reality way before we become mindful of them.

As we mature and move out of their presence, our self-talk becomes the narrator of our lives.

*What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, *by psychologist Shad Helmstetter, is a book that explains how what we speak to ourselves programs our minds.

The inner monologue that controls our lives often goes unnoticed. It impacts our confidence, our behaviour, and even our relationships.

Importance of self-talk. Visual by the author

We become the sum of our self-talk and self-image. And self-image is heavily determined by how we talk to ourselves. This life-altering fact I learned in this book and not in school.

I wish we were taught to be kinder to ourselves in school so we don’t spend our adult years hating ourselves.

“The brain simply believes what you tell it most. And what you tell it about you, it will create. It has no choice.” — Shad Helmstetter

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

I have recommended this one book more times than I recall, actually more than a 100 times.

Privileged people giving advice doesn't sit right, but when an Indian American kid with nothing excelling in Silicon Valley and shares life-changing lessons, the world takes it seriously.

Naval Ravikant is that gem who is the perfect mix of entrepreneurship and modern philosophy. He shares his philosophies in tweets. The Twitter Thread that inspired this book was about becoming rich without getting lucky.

Apart from his tweets on wealth and happiness, this book also covers various of his podcast interviews covering multiple topics.

This book was a crash course I needed to navigate my life as a recent graduate. Understanding how to create assets got me into content creation. I learned that the only way I create leverage is by creating something from my mind.

It helped me build a foundation and made me money-wise early in life.

My detailed review of this book has also been featured on the official website of the book. *You can read it here*

[embed]10 Lessons From 'The Almanack of Naval Ravikant' On Wealth, Happiness, and Life 10 Lessons From 'The Almanack of Naval Ravikant' On Wealth, Happiness, and Life The gist of Naval's wisdom Naval…baos.pub

The Lemonade Life

In school, I was told to follow rules. Do your homework, follow every instruction your teachers give you, and you can have a bright future. The Lemonade Life by Zack Friedman advices you otherwise.

He writes about leading life on your terms and living to your full potential. It’s not a run-of-the-mill self-help book. The Lemonade Life is about creating a life you want to live, aka living The Lemonade Life. This lifestyle allows you to create a life you want to live, and how to get there is described by the concept of Prism, which I have elaborated on in the points below.

P = Perspective R = Risk I = Independence S = Self-Awareness M = Motion

Various acronyms are used in the book that make it easier to remember and follow in day-to-day life. One such formula that the author uses to describe how the past controls our lives is as follows

The Lemon Life Your past life = your current life = your future life

The Lemonade Life Your past life = your current life ≠ your future life

The author describes many other frameworks to design a life of professional and personal success.

The Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad Gita is a Hindu scripture based on the epic battle of the Mahabharata. It is the conversation between *Lord Krishna and one of the Pandavas, [Arjuna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjuna)*.

This one is a big book, mind you. It takes proper sitting to read and comprehend the depth of each word.

What I love about it is its practicality. Written hundreds of thousands of years back, yet it holds every answer to the modern world. It’s more self-actualization than religion.

No teacher in my school taught us how to navigate life after school. They didn’t care if we failed or passed the exam of life; all that mattered to them was school attendance. The Bhagavad Gita, on the other hand, talks about living a fulfilled life by devoting yourself to your Karma.

It shares how to practice detachment and follow your higher purpose. It’s all the spiritual books I’ve read combined into one magnum opus.

My mindset changed after I challenged myself to read the Gita for 30 days.

[embed]I Read The Bhagavad Gita For 30 Days, And This Happened Lessons from Gita and why I will keep reading this bookbaos.pub

Which book taught you more than school and how did it help you in life?