Dr James, 0s:

We're going to have some fun today on the podcast and talk about something that I've never actually done before, but I always thought would be really valuable and really useful, and what I'd like to talk about today is five books that made the biggest impression on me out of the books that I've read over the course of my life. I think there's a such a thing as book flexing, where people talk about how they've read thousands of books and learned loads, and that is a good thing to do. You know, obviously, I think that I would really rather maybe have like 10 to 20 really really really good books that I understood inside out, versus a thousand books on just random things, personally, because I feel like our brain can only really handle so much. So I've kind of went for somewhere in between. I'm looking over my bookshelf literally right now. I think there's probably like 60 70 books on there on business, on finance and on dentistry as well, which took some time to get through, but I do enjoy reading. So it's all good really, and plus, I definitely think that you can benefit from that stuff, not just in business and finance, but just generally in life. It just provides you wisdom. I mean what you have to again. We're getting a little bit into the philosophy of books now, but a really good lens through which you can look at books, or you can look at any knowledge, really, whenever it comes to listening to people more experienced than yourself is they've literally made those mistakes, they've lived that life and you, when you are open to what they have to say, well, what it means is you literally get the highlights of their learnings. That's what a book is. It's a condensed. It's a condensed summary of the best learning points that that expert has ever had in that particular field. Obviously, you just want to look out for the classic books as well, because classics are classics for a reason, and usually the reason why everybody hypes them up and gets excited about them is because they are very useful. So, in that spirit, of those 60 70 books that we were talking about just a second ago, here is maybe not my top five, but they're definitely up there. They're up there. I haven't thought about it too much, but I pulled five off the bookshelf today and I thought right if I was to make a podcast and share five really cool ones. Here they are. So they're probably at least in the top seven, eight, nine of those books that we were talking about just a second ago. So I really implore everybody to learn from these books. I think that they'll really help you whenever it comes to your life and so far as making your business more profitable, increasing the amount of income you have, getting back your free time as well. Yeah, I'm deeply passionate about what one can learn from reading and investing in themselves, because I've seen the benefits and perks of my life, and I want others to experience that as much as possible too. So, yes, without further ado, let's get into these books. So the very first one I have in front of me is a book called who, not how, and this book is pretty much exactly what it says in the tin. It's all about the concept of getting the right who's in your life rather than constantly figuring out how to do things, and the book really goes into detail about why that is the case. So what does that concept mean? The concept of who is. If you're struggling with something or you can't figure something out, chances are there's somebody out there who actually knows the subject inside out and instead of thinking yourself right, how am I going to do this? If you just replace that word how with the word who and change that sentence to who can help me do this that chances are you'll get much better results in a much faster time and be able to achieve your goals and learn a lot more in a much in a much expedited process versus what you would do otherwise. And you know what? The second I read this book I just switched that little part around in my language. I was like, right, who knows this thing that I'm trying to do or I want to do, or who can I ask to give me insight on my life that might be able to see things that I can't otherwise see? And, yeah, obviously you want to figure certain things out for yourself. There is such a thing as over delegating, uh, but I really feel, on the scale of under delegating versus over delegating, we as a, as a race, could probably move a lot closer. Uh, we're kind of we're kind of too far towards the under delegating side of things. We could probably achieve a lot more if we just really embraced. The knowledge that's contained within. This book really speeded things up for me in lots of areas. So I'm really really, really like this book. It really helped me. Second book how to own the world. I've went on about this book enough, I feel, over on the Facebook group and also on the Dentists Who Invest podcast over the years. If you haven't heard of it. It's basically the book that got me into investing back in the day. It's probably the only um book that covers investing from a UK perspective. So it talks about SIPs and ISAs versus 401ks and Roth IRAs, which are American investing accounts. It doesn't have too much of a bias towards the American market either. So, yeah, it really opened my eyes with regards to that. It also opened my eyes with regards to the history of money and how that works too. So if you haven't read it, please do pick it up. It is the most seminal book. That, for me, whenever it came to investing, it was the most seminal book that I ever read and it really got me thinking okay, not only can I think about investing, but I actually must think about it as well. It's essential. It's really really, really important. But yes, anyway, more on that in the book itself. If you haven't read it, it's worth picking up, probably for anybody who's a beginner to intermediate investor. If you're advanced, there's a good chance. You know the stuff in there already, but, yeah, that would be my take on it. I really think it's worth it, if you haven't got it already. Third book, then this is a book that I read this year and, wow, do you know, every so often you just read a book or you hear something or at least for me and I'm like, whoa, this is so cool. I never thought about things like that before, and that was this book. This book is called Traction, by Gino Wickman, and it's all about how you can implement systems and processes into your life that empower those around you to achieve more and do more and be more and also contribute a lot more to what you're trying to build, eg a business. And that's specifically the instance that I found it really useful talks about how you can measure your kpis in a huge amount of detail, which I just wasn't really doing that well before. And the second I thought the second I got scientific about it and focused on it a lot more was also the second that I started making a lot more progress on that front. So, yeah, wow, this, this book right here out of the books that I've read this year and the things that I've heard this year and all the learnings and what have you. Uh, this book is, I'm gonna say, as number one man. It completely changed how I saw business and how I saw life and I was. I was so much less effective until I read this thing. I was working so much and achieving not nearly as much as I could have been if I just would have embraced the thoughts, concepts and frameworks in this book. So if that isn't high enough praise, I don't know what is. I really think it's super essential for anybody. It's 1000% essential for anybody. It's 1000 essential for anybody who owns business and even anybody who doesn't own a business. I really think it's worth picking up. It's it's it's good gear. It's good gear. I recommend it. Fourth book I've definitely went on about this book a few times, more than a few times. It's the almanac by a chap called naval ravikant and what this book is. This is probably the worst elevator pitch of all time that I'm about to give, but I'm going to give it anyway. What this book is is a collection of a chap called Naval Ravikant's best tweets over the years of all time from his deeply profound, knowledgeable and intelligent mind. We're talking like Einstein, elon Musk level. Is this guy, if you want to read up on him really interesting character, multi-billionaire and invested in loads of companies that are now doing extremely well. He's got a real eye for that, a real knack for that, and he's got some real cool concepts that he shares in this book, because this is the highlight reel of all his best thoughts and philosophies, effectively, which he shares via his Twitter account. Yeah, maybe, depending on what you think about twitter, or it's not even called twitter anymore, it's called x these days, you might not always have a positive connotation of that place, but, like I say, this guy is like a shining beacon of hope and knowledge and wisdom on that platform, wherever there is one, and this is the highlight reel right here. The almanac by neville ravican what a flipping book. I'm going to share two parts from it super quick that I really liked flipping book. I'm going to share two parts from it super quick that I really liked. He boils down the concept of luck into four types of luck and he boils the four types of luck that are out there. So, when you understand it well, you can take actions in your life which are more likely to welcome luck into your, into your existence, into your day-to-day being, which obviously means you're more likely to make progress. The other concept that I think about in there very frequently is when he talks about leverage. There's four different types of leverage. Leverage is the fundamental concept of getting more out of each and every hour, achieving more and being more productive, and if you really distill that down to how that can be done, there's only four ways, fundamentally, that you can do it, and for me, whenever I heard that, I was like right, wow, how can I get more leverage in my life? Because anybody who's ever fundamentally achieved wealth has employed leverage, whether they realize it or not. So, yeah, hopefully that's where everybody's whistle a little bit, because this is a flipping awesome book, man. It's so cool, I mean. I literally think about that stuff every single day. So if that's not valuable and useful, well, I don't know what is. Fifth and final book. This is quite probably a book that many people have heard of, but I'm going to share it anyway. It's the e-myth by mr michael gerber. So what is the e-myth? The e-myth basically talks about how every single business owner, the reason how every single business owner goes through this flipping, rocky, uh cut scene where they are working incredibly hard. They're like running up the stairs, they're punching the meat, the music and the is playing in the background. I have a tag or whatever. They're trying to make it happen. They're trying to make it worth work and hopefully, all being well, they bust through that and something actually and they they get their life back and they make something of value and use to society. And this book talks about why so many people get caught in the rocky cut scene and never actually really make progress. And it's going to sound really boring whenever I tell you what the what the crux of the book is. It's basically all about making written systems and protocols and having really good checklists, and once upon a time a previous version of james would have been like what the heck that sounds so dull. What has that got to do with success? But current version of james knows better and current version of james knows that it's got everything to do with success and actually I almost didn't read this book. I read this book this year as well. The e-myth I read this book this year as well. I almost didn't read this book. I read this book this year as well. The e-myth I read this book this year as well. I almost didn't read this book because I had a lot of people in my life who had read the e-myth and they kept saying like, oh, it's just like it says in the e-myth, it's just like it says in this part or in this part or whatever. And I was like, okay, I feel like I've actually picked up the wisdom from this book via osmosis, because I've spent a lot of time around these people. But guess what? I read it and I still learned an absolute ton, so it was really worth it. That was like a limiting belief that I held right there, where I was thinking to myself, hey, I kind of get this. I feel like I kind of get this, but that mindset is so dangerous right, because it's so easy for us to just go through life and just convince ourselves that we know everything about a subject and then it's really not. Until we actually go and read and put the effort in and learn that we realize there was more to it than we thought. And that is exactly what happened to me whenever I read the e-myth. So well worth picking up.