📚 A&B #175

👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• My 15 favorite podcasts of 2023.

• My 10 favorite books of 2023.

• My 10 favorite products of 2023.

🥳 100 Book Giveaway

The book giveaway winners are…

• Laura from Peru

• Clipa from Romania

• Jitendranath from India

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who entered and helped spread the word about my newsletter.

I appreciate your support and stay tuned for more giveaways coming soon!

🤓 Course Update:

My reading course went live this week!

If you want to become a reader (or a better reader) in 2024, you’ll find the course valuable. And if you don’t enjoy it, I offer a 100% money-back no questions asked guarantee.

And we got our first course review:

Get the course for 40% off and join 140+ readers here! 👈

📚 Book Summary:

This week's book is “Feel Good Productivity” by Ali Abdaal.

I’ve enjoyed Ali’s YouTube videos for years and am glad he came out with a book with all of his best productivity tips. If you’re a fan of Ali or want to become more productive, you’ll like this book.

Here are 3 lessons from the book:

📖

1) Take A Second To Make Your Task FUN

Before Ali was a YouTuber he worked as a doctor.

One day at the hospital, Ali had an enormous list of office tasks he needed to get done but was dreading.

At that moment he took a second to ask himself, “What would this look like if it were fun?”

He opened up Spotify, turned on the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, put his phone into a bowl as a makeshift speaker, and got to work.

It was a small change, but it transformed the task from boring to enjoyable.

So think of a task that you don’t want to do right now and ask: What would it look like if it were fun?

Could you play music, a podcast, or TV show in the background? Could you do it with friends or reward yourself with a treat while doing it? Get creative!

So whenever you find yourself doing a draining task, take a second to reflect on how you can make it more enjoyable.

📖

2) Reshift Your Mindset From “Have To” → “Blessed To”

Ali tells a story about how he was preparing to leave the hospital at the end of a long shift, but then a nurse stopped and asked him to help her put an IV line into a patient.

Ali knew which patient the nurse was talking about, and recalled that the patient’s veins were tough to find so it would take at least 30 minutes to get it done.

At that moment, he felt angry and resentful. If he had left a few minutes earlier, he would’ve already been driving home.

But then, he overheard a patient nearby talking to her husband about how grateful she was for the doctors and nurses who looked after her. It made Ali pause and realize it was silly for him to be upset.

He had gone through 8 years of medical training because he wanted to help people and now he was being asked to help put an IV line into a young pregnant lady to help with her nasua.

He realized he was fortunate to be in a position to help, and changed his mindset from “Why do I have to do this?” to “I’m blessed to do this.”

This simple mindset shift is something we can apply to every area of life.

Instead of saying, “Why do I have to workout?” or “Why do I have to go to school?”

We should say, “I’m blessed to have a functioning body and the ability to move it” or “I’m blessed to be in a positive environment that encourages learning and will help me succeed in life.”

Language is incredibly powerful, choose your words wisely and it will make a major difference.

📖

3) Conqueror Fear & Stress with the 10/10/10 Rule

The negative voice inside our heads can turn the smallest setback into a major issue.

For example, if you get rejected by someone you like, you might start to think that you’re not loveable and will spend your life alone.

Or if you don’t get hired for a job you want, you might think that you’re unemployable and will end up homeless.

Whenever you find yourself catastrophizing in this way, it’s helpful to step back and look at the bigger picture.

The scientific name for this is cognitive reappraisal: changing the interpretation of a situation so that we feel better emotionally. But a more fun way to remember it is the 10/10/10 rule.

Ask yourself: Will this matter in 10 minutes?…in 10 weeks?…in 10 years?

Let’s revisit the two examples above:

If you get rejected by someone you like it will sting for 10 minutes or so. But after 10 weeks, the embarrassment will most likely be gone. And in 10 years, you’ll probably meet someone way better and maybe even be married to them by then.

If you didn’t get hired for a job you wanted you’ll probably feel pretty low for the rest of the day. But in 10 weeks, you’ll have likely forgotten about it since you’re going to apply to a lot more jobs by then. And in 10 years, you’ll probably be successful in your field or maybe even working in a completely different industry.

So whenever you find yourself stressing out about a problem, apply the 10/10/10 rule and you’ll discover that the fear you have now won’t always matter and will shrink into insignificance over time.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Take a second to think about how you can make a task more fun:

• Let’s take reading for example:

  • You can read a book while taking a long hot bath.

  • You can have a reading picnic with your significant other.

  • You can get your friends together and host a reading party.

2) Reshift your mindset from “Have To” to “Blessed To”:

• I have to read books → I’m blessed to have the time and money to read books.

• I have to work out → I’m blessed to have a body that works and want to keep it healthy.

• I have to clean the house → I’m blessed to have shelter and would benefit from keeping it clean.

3) Apply the 10/10/10 rule:

• Whenever you find yourself stressing over a problem or fear, ask yourself:

  • Will this matter in 10 minutes?

  • Will this matter in 10 weeks?

  • Will this matter in 10 years?

📖 Reading Lesson:

DON’T set a goal to read 52 books this year. DO this instead.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Podcast: David Goggins with Andrew Huberman 

David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL turned ultra-endurance athlete.

He runs 200+ mile races, bikes 400+ mile races, and also works as a smoke jumper (parachutes out of airplanes to fight forest fires). In other words, he’s an absolute savage.

If you want to learn about mindset and mental toughness, check out this pod.

Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.