the 5 books that changed my life | Tina Huang

0:00This video is sponsored by Shorthand. More about them later in the video. Hey guys, how's it going? Welcome back to another video. So in this video, I'm going to talk about the five books that have really, really changed my life. Plus a couple of bonuses because I just couldn't not include them. So I split them into three different categories. The first one is World View. The second one is Learning and Productivity. And the third one is Personal Finance. So let's go. First category is World View. So I have to say this was a really hard for me to trim down to just a couple of books. But I picked the two books I think has most greatly shifted my World View and continues to influence and change my World View over time. The first book is called A Million Miles and a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I first came across this book on one of Ali Abdul's videos where he just actually raped about it. So I was completely swole and I bought the book on my Kindle. And oh my gosh, he was not exaggerating. This was just such an incredible book. I read the entire book within the span of that one night.

1:01I did not sleep at all. And it was just like the tears that flowed. Oh, it was like a river. I hadn't felt that inspired or cried that much about a book for many, many years prior to that. It's about the author himself, Donald Miller. He wrote a pretty successful memoir, which sold lots, lots of copies. And after it became successful, he actually fell into kind of a slump. And he was kind of just coasting through life. Like nothing was very memorable to him. Until a film crew actually approached him to ask if they can make a movie about his life, fictionalizing his life. And it was during this process where he came to his one big realization, what makes a good story, where a good movie that they're trying to make, is actually also what makes a good life. And just like the way that you can edit a movie to make it better, to make it more engaging and make it more thrilling, you can also do the same with your own life. You can actually edit your own life to make it better, more engaging and more thrilling. So what makes a good story? Well, that's something that most of us learned in middle school and high school,

2:02it's about the hero's journey. You have a character that is just kind of living their life. And then suddenly they're confronted by something that happens. I can call it an action. The hero has a choice, whether to answer the call, or not answer the call, or sometimes they don't have a choice. And they just, they're like forced into it. And then they go on this journey in order to try to achieve their goal and lots of hardships that happen along the way, also friends that they meet along the way. But finally, you go through the climate and then the resolution, which is when you kind of achieve whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. And then you live happily ever after, or you're confronted again by something else. And that also makes a good life. Life throws these calls to actions at you, and you can also create your own call to action. In order to have it engaging and thrilling and beautiful life, your job is to answer that call and try to achieve these goals. And along the way, you're going to have a fantastic journey and meet lots and lots of different people too. And that in the end is going to be what makes a good life, a life that was worth living. It's an amazing book beautifully written, highly highly highly recommend.

3:04Second book that drastically changed my worldview is a book called Man Search for Meaning by Victor Franco. This book is a pretty recent read, and it also hit me like a truck. It's a really short book, but it actually took me over a week to read it because there was just so much. The author, Victor Franco, is a psychiatrist, and he went through the Holocaust, went through the horrors of the concentration camps, and he was able to survive in the end. He was able to gain insights into the human condition and into life. I want to share with you guys two insights that hit me the hardest. So the first one is, everything can be taken from a man, but one thing. The last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. This insight, this quote, was really powerful and helped me a lot during the pandemic. It was a time where I felt like so many things were happening around me that I had no control over, and I felt really overwhelmed, and almost like paralyzed at times. I didn't know what was going to happen. I still have that choice of how I view it, my attitude towards it, and how I respond to it.

4:06And I think that's made a really big difference, because once I realized that, I started feeling a lot more control over what was happening in of myself. The second really big insight that I got from this book is exemplify through this quote. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life. And he can only answer to life by answering for his own life. To life, you can only respond by being responsible. So this is a quote that I was still digesting myself. This is kind of how I interpret it. And I would love to know in the comments how you feel about this as well. I feel like I've always been searching for meaning in my life, but I never really caught it. You know, there was not this one thing that I'm like, oh, that's my meaning in life. To answer to life's question about what your meaning is, it's about stepping up to life. When life throws things at you, when things happen to you, it's the way that you respond, your attitude, and your actions. And that's how you define and demonstrate your purpose in life.

5:07What's important to you and who you are as a person. This was just a super, super powerful thing when I finally realized this. And it's still something that impacts me a lot. Amazing book, highly highly recommend as well. It's not the easiest book to read, but I think it's really, really worth it. Okay, let's talk a little bit about today's sponsor, short form. Short form is a platform that makes amazing book guides. That is way more than just a book summary. For each book guide, they have a one-pager. And then a full guide that is super detailed and it has a lot more insights. They also have interactive exercises that can help you apply the things that you learn in the book to your own life. And what I think is the coolest feature is that for each book guide, it actually extends past just that one book. It takes insights from that book and actually connects it to the insights from other books as well. You kind of get like a network of knowledge. People use short form in a lot of different ways. For me personally, what I find the most valuable about short form is the fact that it allows me to get deeper insights and different perspectives about a book. For example, for Man's Search for Meaning, it's such a densely packed book of wisdom and insights.

6:08By reading the detailed book guide, I feel like I was able to get a deeper understanding of the information I was being presented. And the key ideas and concepts were really well presented and it was much more easier to digest. Short form has a really wide selection of books across lots of different genres, like psychology, business and my favorite genre, which is like not exactly philosophy but pseudo-philosophy. They have new book guides and articles that come out every week and subscribers are able to vote to choose what book to cover next. If you're a subscriber to this channel, you're able to get a five day free child to short form. By going to this link over here, we're clicking the link in the description. Thank you again to short form for sponsoring today's video. Now back to the video. The second category that I'm gonna cover is learning and productivity. Both of these books I've already talked about on this channel, but I just have to include it in this list because they are just so massively changed my life. The first one is called Ultra Learning by Scott Young. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this book is responsible for me getting my courage job. When I first got the interview at my job, I didn't know any sequel

7:09and sequel is a really core component as a data scientist. So I have to learn sequel in 11 days, which I will link over here or over there, which I made a video about how I did that. And the way that I did it came completely from the concepts that were covered in this book. It synthesizes techniques that what he calls ultra learners use, where people that are able to learn things really effectively and quickly. For example, like learning an entire new language in two to three months. He summarizes how they're able to do this, which is completely different from the way that you do things at school. It's a super insightful book that's also really practical and is backed by a lot of science and I can also vouch for myself because it's work for me. The next book is called Four Disciplines of Execution. So from ultra learning, it teaches you how to learn best, how to learn most quickly and most effectively. But just because you know what to learn doesn't mean that you're actually gonna do it. And that's where Four Disciplines of Execution comes in. Do you ever know that you have to do something and you know exactly what it is that you need to do but you just kind of like not do it? Well, this book basically tells you what you have to do so that you can actually guarantee the execution portion. Here's the Four Disciplines that the book talks about.

8:10The first one is to focus on the wildly important. The second is to act on lead measures. Three is to keep a compelling scoreboard and four is to create a cadence of accountability. And the book explains that if you have four of these disciplines in place, then you have a very, very high chance of executing and executing well. If you've been following this channel for a while, the scoreboard system that we use as well as the study with Tino Life Streams are based on these principles. And I'll link the videos over here about how we applied these disciplines into our lives and make it work. But yes, this book has really changed my life. I attributed to helping me develop this study habit I'd be able to consistently follow for the past nine to 10 months now. It's helped me keep progressing on YouTube and it's also helped me learn more about personal finances and work towards my saving goal. And speaking about personal finances, now let's talk about the third category, personal finance. I've read quite a few books in this category and for a lot of them, I've kind of taken bits and pieces from and learned a lot from them. But there is one book that just stands out to me the most. It's extremely impactful, but still super simple and super timeless.

9:12And that book is the richest man in Babylon, which you can access for free. It's a book that really covers all the fundamentals of finance. I feel like a lot of financial books these days and just like financial gurus, they really overcomplicate things. When essentially it boils down to some very key principles that if you follow, then you're gonna be able to build wealth and you're able to manage your finances properly. And this book does a absolutely amazing job of this. So something that you learn from this book is what he calls the Seven Cures for a Lean Purse. Which if you follow these Seven Cures, you will find that you're gonna gather riches in life and you will have a fatted purse. And what I found to be the most impactful thing that I learned from this book is what is called the Five Laws of Gold. And let me read them out to you. Number one, gold comes with gladly and an increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family. Number two, gold laboreth diligently and contently for the wise owner who finds for a profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.

10:12This means put your money to work and find profitable investments. Number three, gold clinging to the protection of the cautious owner who invested under the advice of men wise in its handling. Put your money in the hands of people who actually know what they're doing. Number four, gold slips away from the man who invested in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep. And this is something that's super relevant to our day and age when there's just so much fomo when it comes to investing. So if you're gonna invest in meme stocks or you're gonna invest in crypto or maybe NFTs, then you should do that as long as you know what it is that you're doing. Number five, gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who follow it the eluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusted to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment. If it's too good to be true, then it's probably too good to be true. So all those financial group people who are promising these ridiculous insane returns and such minimal risk that's being taken, well, that's probably too good to be true. I also absolutely love the writing style of this book.

11:14It's very story driven as opposed to other finance books that are usually much more dry. So those were the five books, but I do have a few honorable mentions. The first one is a book called Danny Lion Wine by Raid Bradbury. You may know his more famous book, which is called Theron Hight 4.5.1. This book is a fictionalized version of his childhood and actually has similar vibes to a million miles in a thousand years. But I would say it's more abstract and it's more whimsical. It deals with really hard topics like death and life and happiness and it's just a very unique spin to it. I absolutely love this book. Number two, zen and art of motorcycle maintenance. This is a very interesting read and this is squarely what I would call Scoodo philosophy, which is my favorite genre. It's basically about this guy who goes on a motorcycle trip with his son across country and essentially has a mental breakdown slowly and he just like talks about his motorcycle and he talks about all the thoughts in his brain while he's kind of like having a mental breakdown. But I feel like when I describe it that way, it doesn't sound like the most appealing book. But it's definitely like not an introductory read

12:17but I really did enjoy this book and I learned a lot from it. And third book can't not include it, atomic habits by James Claire. And the biggest takeaway from this book for me is his quote, you do not rise through the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Okay, now that is it. We have come to the end of this video. I hope you enjoyed this video and maybe you was check out some of the books that I recommended here. Leave a comment about what you think about them. Also, please leave a comment about what your favorite books are because I'm always looking for book recommendations. All right, I'll see you guys in the next livestream for video. Your book's fabulous read你說. 薛 zona198 Her book's self-defense books. She had Parsons! Who are you talking to? Here it comes. stole the basket. Melan Linux ? This is number 9, Mine is Milwaukee PC partir Spike's 6350 Internet 5950

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