In January of 2017 I set a goal to read 1 book a week for a full year. I accomplished that goal and read 52 books (listed at the end). Below is a list of my top 5 favorites – one’s that weren’t only great reads, but one’s that also truly shaped me.
#1: I was first moved to try this “book a week” idea after casually reading “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy. Without this book, I wouldn’t have read the next 51. It’s funny how a few sentences from a single book can lead to major changes in your life. He inspired in me a drive to do small beneficial things consistently every single day.
#2: From there I read “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferris. I honestly don’t think there is a better book out there for learning from the best of the best. Tim interviews hundreds of the most successful people in all different fields, and asks them what their habits are, what books they read, what they believe they do differently, etc. This was the perfect follow-up book to “The Compound Effect”, because it showed how the most successful people utilize the consistency principle to the extreme. This book further engrained the goal of being consistent, while teaching me to be as open-minded as possible.
#3: Later on that year, I read a book called “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen. He wrote something that thoroughly resonated with me. He said, “Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance”. I think a lot, but a lot of the times my thoughts are all over the place and unorganized. I learned that to create the circumstance I wanted, I could work backwards from that quote. I could think of the habits that would ultimately lead to a desired circumstance, and determine which thoughts would encourage the development of those habits. I learned to focus my thoughts on the beneficial ones, create the habit I wanted, and effectively work towards attaining the goal circumstance.
#4: After that I stumbled upon “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer. This book is AWESOME. He explains in detail how to effectively improve your memory, especially with lists of any sort. In my profession there’s plenty of things that need to be memorized and these techniques have been extremely effective, more so than any technique I’ve ever learned. In a matter of 3-4 hours of “studying”, I can recite the presidents in order (and tell you which ones were assassinated) and recite various muscles 4 months after that study period. All the techniques require is that initial investment of memory organization, and the material just sticks. Not only is this fun to play around with, but it’s taught me an effective way of organizing the limitless amount of knowledge that’s out there.
#5: Lastly, I read “Who Moved my Cheese” by Spencer Johnson. This book is always up there in the top business book recommendations – and for good reason. In such a simple and straightforward fashion, he highlights the importance of adapting to change.
Reading List:
Business
- Originals (Grant)
- Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman (Feynman)
- Essentialism (McKeown)
- You’ve Got 8 Seconds (Hellman)
- 30-Minute Social Media Marketing (Gunrlius)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie)
- David and Goliath (Gladwell)
- Talk Like Ted (Gallo)
- The Compound Effect (Hardy)
- Little Black Book of Connections (Gitomer)
- The Google Boys
- I, Steve
- Leadership (Maxwell)
- 9 Things Successful People do Differently (Halvorson)
- Selling 101 (Ziglar)
- Who Moved my Cheese (Johnson)
- Tools of Titans (Ferris)
- Tribes (Godin)
- The Miraculous Practice Starters System (Fernandez)
- Leadership that gets results (Goleman)
- Leadership and self-deception: Getting out of the box (The Arbinger Insititute)
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Cialdini)
- Emotional Intelligence (Harvard Business Review)
Health
- Back in Control (Hanscom)
- A Patient’s Guide to Unnecessary Knee Surgery (Grelsamer)
- Playing the Ponies and Other Medical Mysteries Solved (Mushlin)
- Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief (Bowman)
- A Thousand Naked Strangers (Hazzard)
- The Laws of Medicine (Mukherjee)
- Mind Over Back Pain (Sarno)
- Say Goodbye to Back Pain (Silver)
- The Diet Myth (Spector)
- Sleeping Your Way to the Top (Cralle, Brown, Cane)
- Extraordinary Hearts (Elefteriades)
- The Telomere Effect (Blackburn & Epel)
- Improve Sleep (Schubert)
Philosophy
- Ego is the Enemy (Holiday)
- As a Man Thinketh (Allen)
- The Art of War (Tzu)
- Make your Bed (McRaven)
- On the Shortness of Life (Seneca)
- Lying (Harris)
- Be Happy (Sheehan)
- F*ck That: An Honest Meditation (Headley)
- Meditations (Aurelius)
Random
- The Ice Dragon (Martin)
- Blink (Gladwell)
- Moonwalking with Einstein (Foer)
- The Checklist Manifesto (Gawande)
- Milk and Honey (Kaur)
- Have a Little Pun (Clements)
- A Long Walk to Water (Park)
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Written by Dr. Brandon Buchla, DC, CSCS
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