Books are Softwares for the Brain

📚 A Hardware In an Organic Body (books listed at the end)

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”

It is said that the average CEO reads an average of 60 books a year.

Take Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the richest people on earth, which spends as much as 80% of his day reading.

 Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (I still call it Facebook, but good try), started a challenge to read a new book every two weeks.

Bill Gates, if you watch the documentary on Netflix (I did not), prioritises his reading a lot.

How come rich people that can have anything in life invest so much time into such a time consuming, isolating habit?

Let’s explore the potential of a good book. From a wide range of knowledge, to skill learning, a momentary escape from your reality and a tool to prevent a wobbly table to move

• Who is one of the biggest owners of books

• How books were treated through history

• Why you should read at least one book a month

When I was a kid, my grandma used to buy me a book a week, and not any book: Goosebumps

I know, but as a 7 years old I used to love them.

I never spared money on books, and past my mid 20’s I started reading more and more practical tomes: Tim Ferriss, Robert Greene, anything about body language, archetypes, masculinity and femininity and a lot of storytelling and science related books.

In the next couple of weeks I will send 80+ books home. I already read most of them, so why not selling them?

Because books are softwares to rewire your brain, to help you level up and get your closer to your goals. Or to get you places from the comfort of your room.

The Vatican Loves Books

The Vatican Library shelves stretch for about 52 miles (or approximately 84 kilometers). The Vatican Church currently owns:

• Over 1.1 million printed books

• Approximately 75,000 codices (manuscripts)

• Over 8,500 incunabula (books printed before 1501)
  
  And some of the books go back as far as 1200 after Christ.

Knowledge is power. And who controls history and information controls the world.

Conflicts and wars have happened because of false information (take VietNam war for example, started with a false news, ended thanks to the media showing americans the real state of american troops in the battlefield) and those information have been then taught until proven wrong and discredited.

BOOKS THREATEN THE STATUS QUO

Most of the books printed today as school text are printed from England (Pearson plc) and USA (McGraw-Hill Education).

History class might have been slightly biased. That’s how a first print old book might be valuable: giving you an unfiltered perspective on a past era, on past events and habits.

You can alter a digital book but not one printed 20, 50 or 500 years ago.

Or even reading many books presenting contrasting perspectives, then you allow your intellect to decide what to believe.

Let me give you some examples on how disruptive an idea written on paper can be:

Burning and Banning of Books

• Library of Alexandria, Egypt (3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE)

• Destruction of the House of Wisdom, Baghdad (1258)

• Bonfire of the Vanities, Florence (1497)

• Nazi Book Burnings, Germany (1933)

Books That Led to Persecution or Death

• "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie (1988)

• Galileo Galilei’s works on Heliocentrism (17th Century)

Books That Ignited Protests and Revolutions

• "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine (1776)

• "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)

• "Uncle Tom’s Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

• "The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine (1791)

What Are the GOOD Books Then?

What do you consider a thriving happy life? The answer might differ from a lot of variables but we all respond well to the same things: wellbeing and belonging.

These are a bunch of books that will improve your life under different areas if read and applied
(and if you want to multitask while getting smart → Audible)

I want to live till 130+ with a strong and healthy body. If you share this feeling these are the books for you:

• The China Study

• Lifespan

• Medical Medium (he has many books out, some include recipes too)

• How not to die 

• The Wim Hof Method

• Atomic Habits

• The 5am Club

• The 4 Hour Body

• Can’t hurt me (and the following one)

If you want to step into learning how to invest and get financial freedom:

• The Intelligent Investor

• The Sovereign Individual

• The Richest man in Babylon

• How Brands grow

• This is Marketing

• I will teach you to be rich

• Daylight Robbery

• $100M Offers

How to forget Spirituality:

• The Tibetan book of living and dying (a mesmerising introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom)

• The Celestine Prophecy

• The gene keys (if you are into Human Design you will love this one)

Social Skills and body language:

• The Definitive Book of Body Language

• Influence

• How to Win Friends & Influence People

• Models (amazing book for men to develop social intelligence with women)

• What every BODY is saying

Marketing and selling skills:

• Creativity Inc.

• Guerrilla Marketing

• This is marketing

Sexuality? I got you covered

• Come as you are

• Women's Anatomy of Arousal

• King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (about masculinity and its archetypes and shadows)

The best books on storytelling I read:

• The Norse Myths (if you like Thor, the movies were inspired from there, but the book is way better)

• 48 laws of power (and any other book from Robert Greene)

• The wisdom of wolves

• The hidden life of trees

• A short history of nearly everything

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces (few decades study on how all myths and legends are connected together)

• The Elminster Saga (D&D inspired, I used to binge this)

• The Dark Elf Trilogy (D&D inspired, another binge worthy fantasy)