learning

10 Books to Enrich Your Mind and Improve Your Life (2023 edition)

10 Books to Enrich Your Mind and Improve Your Life (2023 edition)

When I was young and just starting out, I conceptualized self-development in the narrow sense of becoming more “successful” (whatever that meant).

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to think of self-development as the much broader process of learning how to navigate reality effectively. The books I’ve chosen for this list are those that have helped me acquire the wisdom to do this. They are the books I’ve read and re-read time and again, revisiting each regularly for fresh insights and guidance.

I hope they enrich your mind and improve your life as much as they have mine.

Episode #21: 4 Keys to Remembering What You Learn

In today’s world, we have so much information at our fingertips, it’s easy to feel like we know things. But there’s a difference between understanding something and just feeling like we do. This is sometimes called “the illusion of competence.”

What’s the point of reading a bunch of books if you don’t absorb the knowledge? The truth is, we can’t recall most of what we consume on a daily basis. So how can we learn more effectively?

In today’s episode, I cover the most important learning principles and strategies I’ve distilled from a variety of sources over the years. They have helped me remember more of what I learn. I hope they help you too…

Notes to Myself

Below is an ongoing list of advice I’ve compiled for myself in a note in my phone. I started writing it as a way to remember the things that have worked well for me in the past because I was tired of forgetting them, then having to rediscover them months or years later. The cycle would go something like this:

  • I’d find something that worked well for me -- a habit, a mindset, a food, anything.

  • I’d integrate it into my life for a while.

  • I’d eventually forget about it weeks or months later and would have to solve the same problem from scratch multiple times.

  • I’d eventually rediscover this thing that had helped me in the past and integrate it into my life once again.

This list covers various areas of my life and is somewhat random. It’s mostly unedited, except for clarity and (most) grammatical errors…

The 4 Principles of Effective Learning

Being an effective learner means understanding information at multiple levels and being able to recall it at will in order to solve problems. Most of us aren’t taught the principles of effective learning in school. We are taught what to learn but not how to learn. In this post, I outline the 4 most important principles for remembering more of what you read.

Support This Site & Get Access to Exclusive Content