The Freedom First Podcast

42. The Books That Changed My Life

• Justin Arrington

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Have you ever dreaded reading, only to discover that it could be the gateway to personal transformation? Join me, Justin Arrington, on the Freedom First Podcast as I recount my evolution from a reluctant reader to an enthusiastic advocate for personal development through books. I dive into my top five essential reads, starting with Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People," which unveils timeless principles for effective communication and building lasting relationships. I also dissect Tim Grover's "Relentless," exploring the 'cleaner' mindset needed to excel in every facet of life. These books have significantly altered my perspective and habits, and I believe they can do the same for you.

In the latter half of the episode, I encourage you to share the books that have shaped your life. Let's create a vibrant community where we exchange insightful reads and recommendations. Connect with me on Facebook or Instagram to share your top lists and discover common interests. Whether you’re an avid reader or just getting started, this episode aims to inspire you to incorporate reading into your daily routine for continuous growth and self-betterment. Thank you for tuning into the Freedom First Podcast – together, let's embark on a journey of lifelong learning and personal growth!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the Freedom First Podcast, everyone, my name is Justin Arrington, I'm the host of this podcast show and I'm excited for all of you guys to be here with me once again today. As you guys know, if you have been listening to the show for a while, I drop a new episode every single day bringing you little tips and tricks that you can start applying into your life right now so that you can start living life on your own terms. So, guys, I'm going to dive right into it. Today's actually an episode that I've been looking forward to doing, honestly, since the beginning of this show, and it's going to be a little bit of a fun one for me, because the topic is about reading and I, to be honest, I don't think I read a book cover to cover, until I was in my early twenties. You know, all through high school, after junior high, like all of that, I hated reading. It was something that I just didn't find enjoyable, and the reason because of that is just because I was told that I had to read these fantasy books and, you know, none of that ever interested me and, to be honest, I didn't even really know about personal development, like I didn't know that there were books on, you know, making yourself better, and it wasn't until I had signed up for one of my first courses that I ever purchased and one of the requirements was that I needed to, you know, read this book, and I wish I knew what book it was. I don't really don't even remember what the title of that book was at the time, but ever since then I've kind of become an avid reader.

Speaker 1:

Reading is something that I enjoy. It's something that I make time to do, at least try to make happen every single day for at least 15, 20 minutes, and I think it's a really good habit that everybody should try and build up. Yes, it is, it is time consuming, but, um, there's different ways that you can listen, like, you can listen to audible, you can listen to, um, you know, any book on your phone nowadays, but I actually do like to buy the physical copy and then I also listen along to it. While I read it, I just I'm able to to understand things and interpret things a little bit better that way. So if you guys don't like reading, maybe try that out. You know, buy the book, buy the Audible and just read them both simultaneously side by side and see if that might help, because it helped me and so anyway, that's kind of beside the point, but, like I said, I really wasn't an avid reader. I hated reading, but since then I don't know how many books I've read.

Speaker 1:

I'm looking at my bookshelf right now and the majority of that shelf is those shelves are full. But what I wanted to do today is I wanted to tell you what my top five books are on personal development and, to be honest, other than the scriptures, that's the only kind of book that I own. I don't own any fantasy books. It's all driven towards self-help and just making yourself better. So let's go ahead and dive into it.

Speaker 1:

I just want to share my top five books with you guys today and just give you a little snippet of what these books are about or what my favorite parts are. All five of these books you can get them on Amazon. I highly suggest you guys go out and maybe just buy one. If you're not an avid reader, go out and buy one of these. I say my top five because I don't think that I could narrow them down to just one for my all-time favorite book. So there's really no particular order as to which these ones are in, but I'm just going to start off with this one, number five. It's probably a book that a lot of you guys have heard about and it's how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and if you guys haven't read it, like I said, go out, buy it.

Speaker 1:

But the little snippet that I wanted to read to you guys about this one is this it says six ways to make people like you. Principle number one become genuinely interested in other people. Principle number two smile. Principle number three remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. Principle number four be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Principle number five talk in terms that the other person understands, or talk in the terms of the other person's interests. Principle number six make the other person understands or talk in the terms of the other person's interests. Principle number six make the other person feel important and do it sincerely. So, as you guys can see, like a lot of these things that I'm going to be sharing with you guys throughout all these books, like they're just kind of principles, or you know my top five, whatever, but all six of those principles like they're super important.

Speaker 1:

If you want super important, if you're trying to become a better salesman or you just want to be able to communicate with people better, highly highly recommend reading how to Win Friends and Influence People, book number two, relentless, by Tim Grover. Tim Grover has a unique way of writing and he has a couple books out. They're honestly all phenomenal. But I chose the book Relentless because this is a book that I've read, I think, twice now, and it really just talks about really being the best, becoming the best and just absolutely dominating in every aspect of life. And so he calls this the Relentless 13. And he's talking about being a cleaner. And so what a cleaner is like you go in, you sweep out everything in sight. Like you are the best, you dominate, you're not just a closer, you're above that. Like you are the best person for the job. And so it says, when you're a cleaner, uh, these are the, these are his uh, relentless 13.

Speaker 1:

You keep pushing yourself harder. When everyone else has had enough, you get into the zone, you shut everything else and control the uncontrollable. You know exactly who you are. You have a dark side that refuses to be taught to be good. You're not imitated by pressure, but you thrive on it. When everyone is hitting the in case of an emergency button, they're all looking for you. You don't compete with anyone. You find your opponent's weakness and you attack. You make decisions, not suggestions. You know the answer while everyone else is still asking questions. You don't have to love the work, but you're addicted to the results. You don't have to love the work, but you're addicted to the results. You'd rather be feared than liked. You trust very few people, and those you trust better never let you down. You don't recognize failure. You know there's more than one way to get what you want. You don't celebrate your achievements because you always want more. So, guys, that's Relentless 13. Again, highly recommend that book, that book relentless by Tim Grover. Number three this is one of them.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to keep saying is like these are all my favorite books, but Ed Milet has a way of speaking to me, unlike anybody else, and so this book, the power of one more Ed, came out with it. Uh, it's probably been like two years now. This book honestly changed my perspective on how I look at a lot of different things. Um, because the power of one more like, uh, take, take this example, like, say, you're at the gym. You do, you know, you do 10 or four sets of 10. Um, and then you're just going to call it no, you're going to do five sets of 10. You're always going to do one more, always do one more rep, always do one more lap around the track, always, you know, read one more page, dial, one more prospect. Getting into the habit of doing one more of whatever it is that you're trying to do or accomplish, it'll help you get there faster.

Speaker 1:

And so what I wanted to share with you from this book is just about really your beliefs and your thoughts and who you can ultimately become by using the power of one more. So Ed states this your beliefs become your thoughts. Actually, this is from Gandhi, but Ed does quote Gandhi in here, and it says your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values and your values become your destiny. And what I really took from this book is like you have to be willing to dream absolutely insanely big, and you just got to take a chance on yourself and do whatever it takes to make your dreams become a reality. So the power of one more by Ed Milet. Ed's got an awesome podcast too. I highly suggest that you guys go and listen to that. It's the Ed Milet show. That's probably the first podcast that I really started to dive deep into when I started listening to podcasts. So shout out to Ed, go and listen, read his stuff. It's all amazing, let's see.

Speaker 1:

The next book is Buy Back your Time by Dan Martell. This is a book that I recently read for the first time probably, let's see, two months ago, three months ago maybe and I've read it twice since then, just because the first time I read it I got a lot of good nuggets, but then I had a buddy of mine that's like, dude, you need to go back and reread that and actually start applying the things that you learned and what this book talks about more than anything. I mean it's in the title Buying Back your Time. Me as a business owner, I don't want to be caught in the matrix of doing things over and over again and managing every single aspect of my business, which I hate to admit it, but I do have my hands dipped in every single part of my business and the second time that I started reading this back, I immediately knew, like you know what I need to hire someone to outsource my marketing to. So you know I don't have to worry about it, and they've been doing that for me now for the last month or so and it's something that's not even on my mind, it's not on my plate. I just make sure that it's running every single week and that's really about it.

Speaker 1:

So there's five buyback rules that I wanted to share with you guys from this book, and number one is science shows that people perform better working on tasks that they enjoy. High performance leads to higher pay. Step number two is every task you perform sits on two axes one of money and one of energy. Number two is every task you perform sits on two axes one of money and one of energy. Each task is bringing you. Each task brings you from little money to a lot of money and either drains you or brings you more energy.

Speaker 1:

Number three many entrepreneurs hire away the parts of their business that they love the most. This typically happens accidentally as they grow. They don't hire to buy back their time. They hire for a position or a role, mistakenly making themselves the administrator of their own company. Number four 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome. And then number five, the drip matrix. He kind of talks about that. You guys have to go read the book to get more out of that. But my favorite thing right here is actually in step number four is 80% done by someone else is a hundred percent freaking awesome.

Speaker 1:

And, uh, this book is freaking awesome. Um, if you guys want to learn how to buy back more of your time so that you can spend whatever it is you enjoy doing, go read, buy back your time. Uh, study it, apply what you, what you learned in there, and it'll change your life. Uh, the last book, number five um, 10 X is easier than two X by Dan Sullivan. I also read this book for the first time six months ago and it's very similar to buy back your time. Um, I mean, there's trap chapters that are very similar. Um, but gosh, this book is oh man, it's just, it's awesome.

Speaker 1:

And just to be frank with you, like a lot of people say, you know you got to 10X your business and I mean, if you guys have read Grant Cardone's book, the 10X Rule, that's also a really good one. That's what I thought this book was going to be about. But I was kind of wrong, but the thing that I wanted to share with you guys about this book or at least this paragraph is 10x is fundamentally about freedom the freedom to be, live and create what you want and how you want. Freedom obviously isn't free. It requires extreme self-honesty, commitment and courage. It requires peeling away the layers of fear and attachment that would keep you at 2x and living a life based on need and not want. I believe that everybody should live a life based off of wants versus needs, and this book it talks a lot about building a free life and, as you guys know, this is the Freedom First podcast. I believe that everybody should be living life on their own terms. Everybody should be living a free life. The book 10X is easier than 2X will help you get to that, gosh.

Speaker 1:

There's a handful more books that I'd love to talk to you guys about, but those are my top five. If you guys have not read those, go out, read them. I'd love to hear about some of the books that you guys have read that have maybe influenced or changed your life in one way or another, and so, if that is the case, uh, dm me on Facebook or Instagram and tell me what books are your favorites. Maybe give you, maybe give me your list of, uh, your top five, or maybe even just top three, and we'll see if we've been reading the same books. You never, you never know. So, guys, with that said, thank you once again for tuning into the Freedom First podcast. Those are my top five books to build a free life, living on your own terms.