By: Joel Cochran
Part of my daily habit is to set aside time to read in the morning and to listen to audiobooks on the way to work. I always start my day off by reading the bible for 20 minutes while I am having my morning coffee, this helps to bring gratefulness into my day while providing me with wisdom and direction. Next, I listen to an audiobook on my way to work as I have found that is when I am most attentive and ready to learn.
If you don’t currently read, I highly encourage you to open a book, subscribe to a podcast, download an audiobook or just pull up the news on your phone. Reading has shown to decrease stress, increase memory, facilitate better focus/concentration and improve analytical thinking skills.
The list that I have picked below are my top 3 books that I read last year that helped me overcome, learn and grow as a man. Of course, the bible has been my greatest teacher and has facilitated the most growth in my life. Whether you are religious or not this single book can provide you valuable life lessons that are simple, true and pure.
- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown
In a society that encourages more, Greg Mckeown challenges his readers to find what is most essential in their lives and focus their daily energy on completing that.
I found this extremely helpful for me in not only my work life, but also my personal life. This book helped me to sit down and prioritize the things that are most important and learn to say “no” to everything else. What I found is this is a daily practice that is not easy to do but when executed and applied the results are undeniable.
This book is good for you if you are feeling overwhelmed in your daily life and can’t seem to “catch up”. Also, if you are a leader in any aspect in your life this book will help to bring the same focus of what is essential to the people that are around you. - Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Meg Meeker
In this book Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician with more than 20 years of counseling girls reveals that the relationship between daughter and father is far more important than we realize.
I am not a father myself, but this book touches on so much more than the psychological growth of a young girl. This book showed me the importance of being a positive male role model to all of the women in my life, and gave me insight into the relationship of a father and daughter that I never knew.
This book is good for you if you are looking to have a better understanding of the importance of fatherhood whether you are a father yourself or you’re are a woman and want to understand more about the psychological foundation of your relationship with your father. - The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
In the book The Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey debunks the traditional beliefs of money and gives you SIMPLE tools to understand and build financial stability.
This book helped me to not only get completely out of debt, but also to build the financial pillars in my life to create stability and lessen the stress that money seems to give to all of us.
This book is good for you if you don’t have a very good understanding of basic financial principles or want to become debt free and start building safe, stable wealth.