What books changed your life?

Toro said:

Think and Grow Rich - Change my mindset about how to think about riches and wealth. I have listened to the audio book probably 50 times. Started listening to it in the car when I was driving newspapers around at age 19.
Psycho Cybernetics - Thought me how self-image is in control of your behavior and personality, and by changing your own subconscious beliefs you can change yourself.
Mastery - The book that finally helped me to decide that I would do what I wanted to do with my life, not what anyone else wanted me to do. I don't want a regular job, I don't want marriage and I don't want children. Probably would end up with all of those eventually if I had not said "f**k it!"

Others:
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - Just gave me a broader perspective about life and things such as the different goals and strategies for mating that males and femals have in all species. Explains a lot of the differences in men and women from an evolutionary and biological perspective. Should probably read it again.
No More Mr. Nice Guy - Just helped me to realize that people who live just to please others are never appreaciated as others expect that from them and they end up depressed because they are dishonest. They never do what they actually want to do, but instead live in fear of others' opinions about them.
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Learned a lot, but I never actually put these ideas into practice because I just don't find other people interesting without there being some initial spark of interest.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - Basically 100 pages about stoic philosophy. It is a practical way of thinking about life that helps to keep you sane and balanced in a crazy world.
The Republic by Plato - I have been thinking a lot about what an ideal country or city or world would be like, and this book gave me a lot more to think about.

There are probably more, but these are on the top of my mind.

Click to expand...

Krabtreb said:

Is it think and grow rich were he's saying about the secret withing the pages and you have to figure it out? I never did read the whole if that book. In fact I don't think I've ever finished a Napoleon Hill book.
What was your take on the secret he was referring too? I imagine there was none other than hard work and determination.

Click to expand...

Toro said:

I have never had that "a-ha" moment that Hill describes in the book when the secret unfolds. But I think I slowly understood it intellectually. I used to have my thoughts about this clearly defined, but it's been a long time. I will try to explain it.

If I remember correctly, the book he says the secret will be revealed to those who are ready for it, and that it comes in two parts. One part is already in possession of those who are ready for it. And once you are in possession of the first part, you will be able to recognize the second part. He also says something about how you will know if you are ready for it, which I have forgotten what the answer was. He also says the secret has been mentioned more than 100 times in the book, but not directly named.

I think the first part has to do with either having an open mind to read the book and want to understand it, test the suggestions and taking action and getting started. Most people never do, and therefore they will never get to the second part.
The second part I think you will recognize after some time when you are constantly thinking about the goal, and always working towards it. Your interest about the subject you're working on becomes greater and your desire to achieve the goal become stronger with the more time you have put into chasing it. Other things in life becomes less important. Eventually you see some type of progress or result from your actions, and you realize internally that it actually is possible to achieve what you put your mind to. You realize that you have an internal locus of control and that you can actually influence the world around you, or at least change your role or situation in the world. You basically got an output (results) from your input (positive thoguhts, desires, determination, hard work), which you can then feed back into your input as stronger desire/determination/motivation/faith, and since you already know it is possible you have less fear/doubts and so on... It becomes a feedback-loop (like in cybernetics).
... If that makes sense.
I think it is the same idea as "you become what you think about", but I think I understood it even better after having read Psycho-Cybernetics. It is basically that if you change your input (through positive experiencess, visualization or auto-suggestion), you can change your subconscious mind, underlying beliefs and self-image and thereby expand your potential further than what was previously possible. You will also learn from your mistakes which will help you the next time you try, which is why you should never view temporary defeat as failure.
I found a similar idea is in the book The Power of Now, where Eckhart Tolle explains that your mind is repeating negative thoughts in a loop all day which cause pain and suffering. But when you are aware of it you can choose not to let the thoughts continue. You thereby cut off the negative input that is influencing your mind, and choose a new type of input (presence, living in the moment, experiencing the world with your senses and not with your mind) which thereby changes you.
So instead of saying "you become what you think about", I would say your input influences your output or something like that. So decide what output you want, and choose the input that will help you get there (a mentor, relevant books, find people who have the same goals, etc) and use whatever you learn from your mistakes as better input.

... I have this bad habit of writing a long format reply lol (-_-)

Click to expand...

Nut-Nights said:

Playboy magazine.

Click to expand...