19-Days to 'Small Town Bigger Dreams' launch - Day 3 - My top 5 books of 2021

Hi everyone, today is day 3 of 21 Days Live. Those who do not know, I've taken a challenge of going live for 21 days before the launch of the paperback edition of my book Small Town Bigger Dreams, and today is day 3. I'm glad I made it, and I was thinking what could be something that I would like to talk about today. Uh, so those who know me know that I love reading, and one of my favorite things in the morning as part of my morning ritual is to have a black coffee and then read something for 15 to 30 minutes. So I thought, what better than talk about my top 5 books for 2021 and what have I learned from those and what have been some of the lessons I got. So today I'm going to present my top 5 books of 2021. And let me know in the chat and comment what, what do you think about those books? Or are there any other books that you think deserve to be in my or your top 5? So I'd love to know about that. Feel free to put it in the comment. My first book today of 2021 is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Now, this is amazing, amazing book. And one of the things that we— I really wanted to point out, and I don't know whether it will show up properly or not. If you see this particular diagram, that shows the power of changing one person, which says that, no, if every day you change one person, by end of the year you would have changed 372%. At the same time, if you are going on a downward spiral, if you change from— start from 1 and you decrease by 1%, by the end of the year, you'll be very, very close to zero. And that's the power of habits and having Atomic Habits, where you stack a habit over another. And how do you set up the atomic habit loops and things like that? It's an amazing, amazing read. And my first or top one of the top 5 books of 2021. I love this book and probably I'll revise it in 2022 because there's so much of lesson, there's so much things to— practical things to incorporate in our life and that, that helps all of us. Now my second book of 2021 and it's again, uh, the famous, uh, Simon Sinek, who doesn't know Simon Sinek? But yeah, if you don't know Simon Sinek, Simon Sinek is one of the top influencers, one of the top inspirational leaders of current times, and his TED Talks have got like million views and things like that. And he has written this book called Start With Why. Now in this book, he talks about why is it that when Apple launches a new product, people go crazy? Why was it that without having social media, when Martin Luther King did that movement, it became such a craze? Why is it that when Harley-Davidson, people have tattoos of Harley-Davidson and kids are crazy about Disneyland or the customer service of Southwest Airlines? And he says all of that comes because they start with why, not what, not how, but they start with why. They focus on why they are doing why they're doing what they're doing. And that's where it goes on. And it has got a lot of nuggets, lot of examples. And it then goes on to say that, no, you also need to have what and how, but that cannot be your starting point. Your starting point has to be why. And then you move on to have people who can help you with your what and how and things like that. So that's my second book in the top 5 books of 2021. Now I need to talk about the third book. Now this book is sort of magical. It's actually called The Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which talks about— and if you are anywhere related to any creativity, which probably should be everyone because we all are creative in different endeavors, in whatever we do— this book is for you. It talks about creativity and how you can inculcate. It's actually Talking about having the idea, having their own lives. So one of the powerful things that I remember from this book is that, no, if you get an idea and you don't take an action, the idea may stay with you or may not, and it can actually hop on to somebody else. She talks about she had an idea of having a special novel that she didn't work for few years, but After that, she realized that it's actually written— the same novel was written by some other author. And that proved that the idea, if you don't work on any idea, it will move on from you to some other person who the idea thinks deserves to have that. So amazing, amazing book. A lot of positive reviews already in every place, and, and must read for me. So that was my book number 3 of 2021. Now my book number 4, which might seem a little bit controversial, uh, as well, and that's, uh, The Everyday Hero Manifesto of 2021. Now I know a few of the Robin Sharma fans were a bit disappointed with this book. The Robin Sharma, uh, books are typically a business fable where you have different characters touring, going from one place to another For example, you're talking about the, the monk who sold his Ferrari, or the leader who had no title, or you're talking about the 5 AM Club. All of them had a lot of stories, and it's like a story going and you get lessons. But this one, as he says, the Everyday Hero Manifesto, which is having a lot of personal insights from Robin Sharma, what his childhood was, what his adulthood was, what did he learn from where, and And this is all culminated into 101 chapters. That's right, 101 chapters. I actually did a book review of Everyday Hero on my YouTube channel if you want to check out, but, uh, great book. And, and lot of, uh, some chapters are a bit vague, but lot of the chapters are very, very valuable. And, uh, you can learn a lot from the wisdom of Robin Sharma. So that's my book number 4 of my top 5 books of 2021. And last but not the least, I would say I am still, uh, it's about 70% finished to say. So I am, I today I finished chapter number 14, and that's a book called The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. Mel Robbins, if you don't know, Mel Robbins is one of the bestseller author. Her first book, The 5 Second Rule, was an amazing success. It was number 1 in Audible for 2017, and it has been life-changing. I, uh, I've actually heard at least 3 times the whole 5 Second Rule, and every time when I hear, I get some new insight and some new— and how you can start action and take action. So now this one is called The High Five— yes, The High Five Habit— where she talks about how you can— you should do high five to you every single morning so that it gives you the ability, it gives you the courage to lead the world, to do the work. And there are so many, so many stories. I'm really, really astonished. Today I read the chapter 14 where she talks about sort of manifest— manifestation and visualization and how she had the fantasy of having a painting and it went on for 11, 12 years, but she finally found the painting. So Very, very amazing. So that's my top 5 book. Uh, just to repeat: Atomic Habits by James Clear, Start With Why, Simon Sinek, uh, Elizabeth Gilbert's, uh, The Big Magic, then you have Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma, and currently reading, which I hope to finish by end of the week, is The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. So those were my, uh, my top 5 books, and I love to know about what are your top 5 books and why do you love, uh, and I don't have any, I don't have any bias against people who don't read paperback edition, read Kindle and Audible. I do go through all of those, but to me, I think this, this is the real world where you can actually hold the book. And that is why I'm so excited about my book Small Town Bigger Dreams coming The paperback edition is coming all over on 2nd of November. So there is a question from Deepak. Thank you, Deepak. How should someone go about reading a book, especially people who are not into reading? Uh, great question, Deepak. First of all, uh, it should come from inside. I believe, uh, you can try reading. We all read, uh, and At times we read the project manual, at times we read newspaper, at times we read something. So everybody reads something different. But if you're talking about reading something like nonfiction or something on learning and inspiration, I think I would say just like James Clear also says, that start with small atomic things. So maybe you want to read one paragraph, start with one paragraph a day, and then move on to read one page, and then move on to read couple of pages, and that's how you accumulate or stack the habits going forward. So if you want to incorporate reading, and it has to, as I said, it has to come from inside. Me preaching that you should read will not help this. So you should feel that, okay, I think I should start reading, and that's what I want to start off. So if you feel that, then you can start small and then move on. And as I say, it's all about priority. So if you can manage time, Uh, that's where it, it's, you know, you find time, you'll wake up early or you'll sleep a little bit late. So that's all for today. Uh, as I said, day 19, 19 days to go, day 3 of 2021. I'll be back again tomorrow and do let me know what did you feel about this topic and if you have any favorite authors or favorite books of 2021. I'll be, I'll be posting the link to pre-order the book if you want to check out the Small Town Bigger Dreams. It is now available for pre-order in Amazon India. So thank you so much. As I say every day, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back tomorrow with day 4 of 21. Until then, Stay safe, stay blessed. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the day.