Audio Books Archive

6 Books to Make You Healthier, Wealthier, and Wiser Most people don’t need a completely new life. They need better ideas to live with. A few ideas can change how you treat your body. A few can change how you think about money. A few can change how you spend your time, handle discomfort, and understand yourself.

1. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande 2. The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter 3. The Joys of Compounding by Gautam Baid 4. The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier 5. Awareness by Anthony de Mello 6. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

Read the full article

First-Principles Thinking

Q: Where does first-principles thinking come from? “When you want to do something new, you have to apply the physics approach. Physicists discover counterintuitive new things, like quantum mechanics. They do that by thinking from ‘first principles’: building their reasoning from the ground up.” “I would encourage people to use the mental tools of physics and apply them broadly in life. They are the best tools.” “The normal way we conduct our lives is reasoning by analogy. That means we do something because it’s similar to something else, or what other people are doing.” “When you think this way, you only get slight iterations. It’s easier to reason by analogy rather than from first principles, so that’s what we do most of the time.” — “You’re not going to create revolutionary cars or rockets in forty hours a week. It just won’t work. Colonizing Mars isn’t going to happen on forty hours a week.” “Nobody ever changed the world on forty hours a week.”

Book: The Book of Elon by Eric Jorgenson

Feel It Fully. Then Let It Go.

“Is the tape on?” he said suddenly, his eyes still closed. “Yes, yes,” I quickly said, pressing down the play and record buttons. “What I’m doing now,” he continued, his eyes still closed, “is detaching myself from the experience.” “Detaching yourself?” “Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important—not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach.” He opened his eyes. He exhaled. “You know what the Buddhists say? Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent.” “But wait,” I said. “Aren’t you always talking about experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the bad ones?” “Yes.” “Well, how can you do that if you’re detached?” “Ah. You’re thinking, Mitch. But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.” "As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on-in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.” His voice was raspy, which usually meant he needec to stop for a while. I placed the plant back on the ledge and went to shut off the tape recorder. This is the last sentence Morrie got out before I did: “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

Book: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

What You Do With What You Get

Imagine being so intrinsically compelled by what you do that it feels almost unfair to receive rewards and recognition for doing it. Imagine being so compulsively engaged that you wish there were more hours in the day, and more days in a life, so that you could do even more of it. Imagine the thing you are doing feels almost more important than life itself. Imagine doing something you love so much that no amount of money could entice you to give up doing it. Imagine having such an unquenchable enthusiasm for what you do that you might seem childlike to those around you. Imagine that focusing the inner fire with great intensity does the exact opposite of causing burnout: It feeds the fire. Imagine you are able to sustain the fire for days, weeks, months, years, decades, maybe even the rest of your entire life. Luck is something that happens to you, largely out of your control. Return on luck is what you make of your luck (good or bad) when it comes. The question is not whether you will get luck, both good luck and bad, but what you do with the luck that you get.

Book: What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins

How to Stop the Rumination

One of the most important skills for learning to deal with thoughts and their impact on our mood is getting some distance from them. Sounds difficult when those thoughts are inside your own mind, but humans have a powerful tool that helps us to put thoughts at arm’s length and give us the distance we need. It’s called metacognition, which is a fancy name for thoughts about your thoughts. Metacognition is the process of stepping back from the thoughts and getting enough distance to allow us to see those thoughts for what they really are. When you do this, they lose some of their power over you and how you feel and behave. You get to choose how you respond to them rather than feeling controlled and driven by something. Metacognition sounds complicated but it is simply the process of noticing which thoughts pop into your head and observing how they make you feel. Rumination is like a thoughts washing machine. It’s the process of churning thoughts over and over for minutes, hours or days at a time. We already know that the depressed brain is more likely to focus on the thought biases that can make you feel worse. If you combine those thought biases with the psychological equivalent of rumination, then you have a recipe for more intense and prolonged distress. In fact, we know from the research that rumination is a key factor in maintaining depression. The more you ruminate, the more you stay stuck. It works to intensify and prolong any sadness or depression that may be there.

Book: Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith

With Each Sunrise, We Rise Into Someone New

As you embark on your manifesting journey, take time to really consider what exactly you want the universe to bring to you, connecting to why you want it and how it will make you feel to have it. Be as specific as you can with your dreams, and if you can’t yet visualize a ‘thing’, then re-create a feeling. Practise regularly sinking into a visualization of your future self, allowing the feeling of it to change your vibe instantly, while simultaneously directing your brain to begin driving you towards reaching that goal. Fear and self-doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential.

Book: Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi

How old are you?

5 Books That Gave Me an Unfair Mental Advantage Some books give you information. Others change the way your mind works. They make you notice patterns faster, question yourself more honestly, read people more carefully, and stop falling for the same mental traps everyone else falls for.

1. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene 2. The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch 3 The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef 4. How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren 5. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Read the full article

Double Your Rate of Failure

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple. Double your rate of failure. — Thomas J. Watson The only way to escape from the prison of fear is action. — Joe Tye

Book: Attitude Is Everything by Jeff Keller

5 Fiction Books That Feel Like a Summer Escape

1. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery 2. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher 3. Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman 4. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury 5. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

🪧Read the full article

Time Kills Deals

This is a book about a set of principles and processes that can make any business, regardless of size or industry, grow exponentially. I first learned about them from Elon Musk during the three years (2015–2018) I was president of Tesla. Buying one of our cars online was laborious: It took sixty-four clicks from beginning to end. It was a long and tedious customer journey. With each click, we could imagine potential customers pocketing their phones or closing their laptops in frustration. Time kills deals. This led Elon to set another stretch goal. “Let’s get it down to ten clicks,” he said. Removing every possible step in a process is the second mandate of the Algorithm, and this example fits neatly.

Book: The Algorithm by Jon McNeill

Read Like a Polymath: 8 Books That Train You to Think

1. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman, Robert Leighton & Matthew Sands 2. A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa & Murray Silverstein 3. Cosmos by Carl Sagan 4. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes 5. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte 6. The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander 7. Figuring by Maria Popova 8. Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

🪧 Read the full article

We Attract What We Feel

The real secret to effective visualization, though, is in understanding that it is not enough to just see the things that you want in your mind. No, to visualize effectively for manifestation, you must immerse yourself in the feeling of having them. Remember, we attract what we feel. It is only when we can see what we want and then create the emotional experience of having it that we change our vibrational frequency. Try this: If your previous vision board was limited by fear and doubt, go back and amend it now, or create a brand-new one that honestly represents all the things you really want. Before you do this, say to yourself, ‘If fear and doubt were no object, this is what I would like to manifest into my life.’ Put down every single thing that you want to attract. Dream big and don’t hold back. To manifest anything into your life, and to do so effortlessly and effectively, you must believe you are worthy of having it. Read that again.

Book: Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi

Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgets

Your nervous system is always watching, learning, and protecting you— even when you’re not aware of it. Every time it senses a threat—real or imagined— it reacts based on patterns it learned long ago. From childhood moments, past stress, or unresolved experiences, it stores everything to keep you safe. And here’s the truth: you may not consciously remember those experiences… but your body does. That’s why you can feel anxious, overwhelmed, or triggered without knowing exactly why. Because calm isn’t something you think your way into— it’s something your body has to feel. Your reactions today are not random. They are your nervous system repeating what it learned to protect you in the past. But once you understand this, you stop fighting yourself… and start working with your body instead. Because your healing begins the moment you learn its language.

Book: The Secret Language of the Body by Jennifer Mann & Karden Rabin

Courage Will Free You

Courage isn’t about taking huge risks or completely changing your life overnight. It’s about accepting that something good and beautiful is possible for you. It’s choosing to imagine better outcomes. It’s refusing to let your past or your mistakes define what your future can be. It’s allowing good things to happen without letting fear take them away. And here’s the truth— what scares you most is often something your mind has exaggerated. It’s not half as scary as you’ve made it out to be. In fact, nothing is as scary as you imagine it to be. When you take action, you realize you were only scaring yourself. And instead of fear, you find something unexpected— life is actually fun… adventurous… exciting. You deserve to feel that excitement in real life, not stay trapped in fears that exist only in your mind.

Book: The Life Beyond Fear by Ella Heart

You Deserve the Right Kind of Love

“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” A bittersweet truth—our experiences are shaped not just by reality, but by who we are becoming. You deserve the kind of love that doesn’t make you cry, that lifts you up, not tears you apart. You deserve the world, and all the happiness that comes with it. You deserve someone who looks at you like you are their everything—because you are. Someone who makes you feel like you’re more than enough, not someone who makes you question your worth. And if anyone ever makes you feel less than that… they don’t deserve you.

Book: Can We Be Strangers Again? by Shrijeet Shandilya

Pro Tip — A Three-Step Exercise to Improve Your Communication Skills

Want to fine-tune your communication skills? Try this simple yet powerful exercise. It serves to assess and improve how you come across to others. 1. Watch Yourself on Mute Record a short conversation, presentation, or interview. Play it back with the sound off and observe your body language, facial expressions, and gestures. Do you appear confident, engaged, and approachable? Or do you fidget, slouch, or look disinterested? 2. Listen Without Watching Turn off the video and listen to the audio only. Pay attention to your tone, pace, volume, and inflection. Does your voice sound engaging and confident—or monotone and unsure? Are there unnecessary pauses or filler words? 3. Look for Key Moments of Disconnect Watch the full video with both sound and visuals. Pause at key moments and ask: Is my body language reinforcing what I’m saying? Is my tone matching my message? Even brief moments of inconsistency can erode trust. Identifying and fixing these will help you develop a more polished and effective presence. Mastering communication isn’t about manipulation; it’s about creating an environment where others feel safe, valued, and heard—an atmosphere that encourages people to open up.

Book: Tell Me Everything by Brad Beeler

The 2nd Form of Wealth Health is a type of wealth. If you don’t feel good physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, all the money, possessions and fame in the world mean nothing. “When we are young, we are willing to sacrifice all of our health for the pursuit of wealth and once we are old, we become willing to sacrifice all of our wealth for even one day of good health.” All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. And that nothing tastes as good as top health feels. Book: The Wealth Money Can’t Buy by Robin Sharma

Do You Ask These and/or Similar Questions?

1. ‘What is the problem?’ 2. ‘Why did I fail?’ 3. ‘Why are my relationships not working?’ 4. ‘Why am I not able to earn as much as I should?’ 5. ‘In which subjects is my child weak?’ 6. ‘Why am I not getting what I deserve?’ 7. ‘Why am I sick so often?’ 8. ‘Why are people so insensitive?’ 9. ‘Why are people so unhelpful?’ 10. ‘Why did that person insult me?’ Try asking the above questions of yourself; see the kind of answers you get, and also observe the kind of mental themes you are creating for yourself. The themes which may emerge are: ‘I am unlucky.’ ‘Life is difficult.’ ‘Life is uncertain.’ ‘People can’t be trusted.’ ‘I can never succeed.’ ‘It is not in my destiny.’ ‘People are selfish.’

Instead, Prefer to Ask These Questions:

1. ‘What keeps me happy and smiling?’ 2. ‘What are the things happening in my life which I value?’ 3. ‘What do I value in my relationships?’ 4. ‘What is the one thing critical to building happy, healthy and stable relationships?’ 5. ‘What changes have I made that have positively impacted my life?’ 6. ‘What has inspired me lately?’ 7. ‘What does career growth mean to me?’ 8. ‘How can I enhance my happiness and positivity today?’

Use ‘I Am’ Statements

1. ‘I am alive at this moment and thank God for that.’ 2. ‘I am safe at this moment.’ 3. ‘I am grateful for what I have today.’ 4. ‘I am worthy and deserving of love.’ 5. ‘I am focused only on what I can control now.’ 6. ‘I am open and present to this experience.’ In case your habitual ‘I’ statements are negative and disempowering in nature— ‘I am stuck’, ‘I am not enough’, ‘I am worthless’— replace them with empowering ‘I am’ phrases. ‘I deserve happiness and I am capable of creating my own happy moments.’ ‘I love and accept myself as I am.’ ‘I have the capability to deal with challenges.’ ‘I am in an adventurous moment, I will make it a memorable moment.’ ‘I have inner resources and I am learning to use them appropriately.’ Changing ingrained mental habits takes practice. Regularly practising the above for 21 days will bring a sustainable change.

Book: Psychology of Self-Talk by Prof. Manju Agrawal

Your Self-Image Determines Your Life

All your actions, feelings, behaviors — even your abilities — are always consistent with your self-image. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower. The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions or his willpower, even if opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one “who was meant to suffer,” will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions. The self-image is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior. But more than this: the self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment. It defines what you can and cannot do. Expand the self-image and you expand the “area of the possible.” The development of an adequate, realistic self-image will seem to imbue the individual with new capabilities, new talents, and literally turn failure into success.

Book: Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz