Episode 544 Scott Adams: Books That Will Make you Happier and More Successful (Grad Gifts?)

Hey, everybody, this is Scott Adams here to give you a little bit of a reading recommendation list. Specifically, I'm going to be talking about books that I think legitimately can make you happier and more successful. Now, these would be more useful the younger you are, especially if you're a graduate of high school or college. You're trying to figure out how everything works, how to be happy, how to be successful. And I thought I'd tell you the books that can do it for you best. I, of course, will be including my book. Had to fail at almost everything and still win big. This has been out a few years and based on the reviews, which you can check yourself on Amazon, it's changing people's lives. And what this does is it tells you how to create very simple systems in your life that will make you healthier, more, more successful, improve your social life, improve your career, et cetera. Don't take my word for it. Go read the reviews. You'll see that they're insane. And I hear every day from people who say that I have changed their life because they're seeing the world in a more, let's say, mechanistic way where they know where the levers are and they know what buttons to push and what levers to pull. But I am not the only author in this category. There are a number of other authors. Scott Galloway, for example, writing the Algebra of Happiness. Happiness, I believe, is at least partially a learned skill. And if you consume books that do a little bit of a deep dive, especially the ones that are easy to read, it's kind of short, it's pretty easy to get through this one. You will pick up a number of good tips on happiness. Here's another one. Neil Pasrica, the Happiness Equation. I like both of these happiness books because they try to boil it down into simple things that you could actually do. So this is the Happiness Equation from Neil Pasrica. Now, I'm not saying that any of these specific books are the ones that you have to get. They. There are a number of books in these genre. The main point of this is that happiness and success are absolutely learnable skills. If you read the right books, you will find the right skills. I see Mike Cernovich on the periscope. You should read his books on Mindset the Gorilla. Somebody needs to tell me the second part of that. Mike Cernovich's book title. But anyway, search for Mike Cernovich also. He has some of the most actionable and practical advice on how to get your mind right before you. Before you, you know, Try to conquer the world. Guerrilla Mindset is the name of Mike Cernovich's book, so check out Guerrilla Mindset too. That's very much in this genre. Now, once you've got some systems, some mindset, at least some framework for how this happiness and success stuff works, then you're ready for phase two. Phase two is understanding a little bit on a deeper level how the world works and how people's minds work. The best book on that is Influence by Robert Cialdini. This has been around for a while, huge bestseller. If you are in the business world and you've not read this book, you're at quite a disadvantage because a lot of people have. And this will, this will train you to understand that facts and reason are not as big an influence as you think they ought to be and that people are irrational creatures, but they're predictably irrational. So if you know what influences people, you, you can be better at it. Cialdini's follow up book, Pre Suasion, which is, I think, two years old, something like that, but it's more recent and this one tells you how to prime people for persuasion. So it's what happens before the persuasion that puts people in the right frame of mind to be persuaded. Hugely, hugely useful. If you don't understand the content in these two books, you're really flying blind. And a lot of people will say the same thing. This completely changes how you see the world. They are not the only books in this genre. Here's Invisible Influence by Jonah Berger that covers not the same material, but the same field of material. And this one's a little shorter, might be a little bit more approachable. My own offering in this genre of persuasion is Winn Bickley. Now this one talks about Trump's election and the persuasion that was part of that. So if you wanted to learn persuasion in a friendly way that's got some narrative, this would be the way to do it. The other books are maybe a little bit, let's say less approachable, not so much Invisible Influences, which is very, very approachable. And in fact the Influence and Pre. Pre Suasion books are quite approachable too. But Winn Bigley is the most approachable of those approaches or understanding. Now, once you've got, you've got these books under your belt, listen, let's say you've got your mind right, you understand the difference between having good systems and having goals, you understand how things operate and you understand how the mind works. Here's a good way to finish it all off. You can See how enormous this book is. It's called Tools for Titans by Tim Ferriss. Now, what Tim did was he talked to lots of people and he interviewed them and found out some of their most useful tips and then he compiled them. So if you've got a good grounding on the other stuff that I mentioned, the other books, this is a great way to finish it off and really, really take it to that next level of practical thinking and practical actions and practical systems. So here are my recommendations. These are ideal for graduates. If you want the one book that's the best for graduates, it happens to be mine. I promise you that. If it didn't happen to be mine, I would recommend a different book. If I thought that this was the best book for a graduate, I would tell you that. I might tell you mine is also in the mix. But I'll tell you, this one is an amazing book, but it's kind of big and maybe not everybody's ready for it right away. For a graduate who's just trying to figure out the world, this is the one. And read the reviews. Everybody says the same thing. A lot of people will read this two and three times. That's one of the things I hear the most. Anyway, so that's all I wanted to leave with you. Get your summer reading list ready. If you want to change somebody's life, you might want to gift them with one of these books or one of Mike Cernovich's books, which are excellent. And that's all for now. Have a great summer.