Books read in 2023
My reading list for the 2023 came in at 12 books. Another double digit year, although on a low end. I usually hang around 14–18 range, but I will take it. There was all kind of busy times happening so I am glad I still found a way to put some time aside for reading.
Here is the full list:
Every year I seem to be able to find one, maybe two books, that are a complete “breakthrough” type reads. It’s usually something significant that I learn from them, or they help me understand the world around me in a way that I can apply what I read and realize certain benefits as a result.
Well this year, I read THREE such books and I want to highlight each individually.
1. Mindset — the new psychology of success — absolutely fantastic. One of those where when you read it you wish you read it twenty years ago. I am already happy with my life and the adventures and directions I took, but I also think of all the opportunities I didn’t take or realize and this book would have helped me immensely. I can’t recommend this book enough to everyone and anyone. Essentially it will help you understand what sort of person you are at the core and help you be a better person at whatever that is you want to be better at. I love the generic nature of the advice you will find in this book. In fact, I loved this book so much that I even blogged about it, something I rarely do for individual books.
2. The Confident Mind — another terrific book, again in the human psychology and performance domain. In fact, Mindset book and this one goes well hand in hand together. They have very little overlap as far as the material is concerned, but if you take the advice and learn from both, oh boy, you will walk away with some incredible ideas and methods you can apply to your life. The confident Mind book shatters many high-performance myths and helps you build routines/approaches to your life that help you become or stay a top performer at whatever that is you want to do. Some reviewers complained that the advice in the book applies mostly to athletes, and to some degree I agree, but there is plenty of material for everyone else. In fact, some of the things the book talks about have become part of my daily trading routines and I have to say I feel a big difference in how I execute my trading plans as a result.
3. Wanting — The power of mimetic desire — This one was huge in helping me understand why people act a certain way (why people fall in love/worship characters like Trump, for example). Also I walked away with some good lessons on how to find your own authentic voice, and stay true to yourself and not get into “status games” or mimicking other people that I see around me without realizing that I am doing it, or why I am doing it.
As usual, I walk away being very thankful for all the reading I get to do and I hope I continue this habit for another year.
