 Hello friends, welcome back to my channel and as you can see by the title of this video, we're going to be chatting about the books that changed my life. This... It already feels very serious. Cut the cameras. Deadass. So yeah, today I wanted to chat to you about books that have really changed the way I think for the better. And I feel like this is a vulnerable side of myself that I don't often show, but I don't know how to phrase this without sounding like, not like what I'm trying to say, but I think it's always important to want to be the best version of you and to want to be more compassionate and to want to have better mental health and all of these things. And I think there's some books that have really revolutionised that for me and helped me and I feel like as we're getting to the end of this year and into the beginning of the new year, I really wanted to do this video to chat about the books that have really changed the way that I think for the better. So yeah, oh my god, I feel like this is the side of myself I don't usually show and I'm a bit nervous. There's not a ton of books here because I think this is like a lofty goal, do you know what I mean? Like I'm not going to just churn out books that made me cry or the like, I thought, oh, that's an important thing to say. Like these are books that have genuinely stayed with me and in the way that I think and I think that that's a very rare thing. So let's just get straight into it. It's going to be a mix of fiction and nonfiction and I would really recommend all of these for special reasons. We'll see why in a sec. So my first recommendation, probably one of my biggest recommendations is Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. I don't know if I've ever spoken to you about this before, but this is a book that I read when I was about 14, so a long time ago now. And you know, I have suffered with stress and anxiety my whole life. I've always been in a bit of an anxious little ball. I had to go like at school when I was like 13, 14, 15. I had to go to, I don't think it's therapy at school. We had these women that you could go talk to about stress and anxiety and stuff at school. I had to go speak to them because they were like, they sussed me out quick. They were like, you get very anxious about stuff. You know, I think if you're kind of predisposed to that, it doesn't necessarily go away, but there's a lot of tools you can use to help you feel better and to help you control that and be aware of it. So I love this book. The best. Maybe the best. I need to reread it actually, because I think I could benefit from some of it now. But it's basically just nonfiction about how to live more calmly, less stressful, and not to sweat the small stuff, right? There's big events in your life that are going to be hard and stressful and difficult, but there's a lot of small stuff in our lives that we stress about as well. So there's one chapter in here. It's like a lot of short chapters. How many are there? There's like about 100 little small chapters in this book. And so what I used to do was like read one a day. I already feel like I'm not going to be as jokey in Mimi in this video, by the way, guys. This is like serious. I'm showing my serious side. I'm still trying to joke. I'm, listen, me joking is apparently just me not wanting to be vulnerable. Anyways, there's so many, so many good tips in this, but one that has stayed with me and I used to this day. So like, we're coming up to nine years later. Since I read this for the first time and I still think of this whenever I'm really stressed and it says, ask yourself the question, will this matter a year from now? And it's something that I really tried to implement is when I am stressing so much about something and it's negatively impacting my life, will this matter a year from now? Like, okay, if it will, yes. Let's really try and focus on it and like dedicate ourselves to thinking about it, but if it's not going to matter, don't sweat it. Like really try not to stress about that stuff, you know? And it's all about, you know, what you spend your energy on, what you spend your energy worrying about and thinking about, it really can affect you. And so, yeah, this really revolutionized the way I think and I definitely think I should read it again because I think I would get a lot from it. You know, it says stuff like spend a moment every day thinking of someone you love, practice humility, choose being kind over being right, think of yourself at your own funeral, like all of these things that can help you figure out what is actually important in life, you know? So before we get any further into the video, I wanna say a big, big thank you to the sponsor, which is Aura. So as I said, I have struggled with stress and anxiety all my life and I've always used meditation on and off sporadically since I was about 14 actually, since I read that book to manage it to help, you know, put myself in a better place mentally, but Aura has been revolutionary in helping me make that a regular habit. Aura is a new sleep and mindfulness app that won the Best of Apple Award and is used by over 7 million people. It's your only one app for wellness and sleep. It has thousands of meditations, stories, other things like CBT, life coaching, breath work and spirituality. What has really worked for me, I think with Aura, is that there's so much variety. There's so much variety in different types of courses, different types of coaches. Like I feel like often with some meditation apps I'll have like one or two coaches that are on the whole app, but Aura has so many different people. It has live classes that you can join. It's really like Spotify for your mind and soul. That's how much variety and choice and different things that you can use on there. It has hundreds of expert guides from diverse backgrounds so you can definitely find someone I think who you like and whose meditation style you like and whose guidance you like. I've also been loving the soundscapes on there, like the soft rain one to listen to when I read. I think it just creates the best ambiance and makes me so immersed in my reading. So you can get started for completely free, on Aura's website using my special link in the description and the first 500 people to use it will get a free trial and an exclusive 25% off. So yeah, definitely go check it out down below. Aura has helped me make meditation a regular habit for me, something that I'm sticking to and something that I'm loving more than ever before. I feel a lot calmer than I've ever felt before. I feel a lot more reflective. I feel a lot happier than I ever felt. So yeah, definitely go check out Aura down below. Okay, time to get back into the books. Next, we are gonna chat about the Thursday Meta Club series. Did you see this coming? I don't know if you did, if you haven't read these. So this is the Thursday Meta Club series by Rich Olsman. We've got Thursday Meta Club, the man who died twice. I don't remember love, I don't remember at all. And the bullet that missed, why did I just forget the name? So let me just hold up the Thursday Meta Club. In this series, we are following an elderly group of friends who run the Thursday Meta Club who solve cold cases, well, they don't solve them. They try to solve cold cases together. It's about a real murder turning up on their doorstep and them trying to solve it. Listen, I love this because of a course, it's murder mysteries, but these books I love so much because I really think they are such a lens held up to human nature and love and aging, right? Aging can feel scary and seeing our family age, seeing our loved ones age, but there's so much beauty in this, in like appreciating life that I think can be very easily forgotten. When you're working a job, you're working a nine to five, you've got a family, you've got all these plates that you're spinning, it can just feel like you've got your blinders on and you're focusing on what you have to do rather than what you want to do. And it can be easy in life for all of us, I think, to forget what's important and forget what makes us happy, but there's so many moments in these books that make me wanna cry because they are so beautiful in the lens that they hold up to friendship and love and appreciation for where you're at in life and just so many things. And I feel like the more that I think about it, I really wanna take the attitudes that these books have into my life in general, you know? Often I feel like books and media in general very rarely get to the core of humanity, which I feel like this series really, really does. I cried so much the first one, I haven't cried as much the second and third, I did still cry, but the first one I was just blown away. I was not prepared for like how truthful and honest and like holding a mirror up to society this series was gonna be. Next we have another nonfiction and it is This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kaye. So this is nonfiction from Agena Doctor's Diaries working in the NHS, which is the National Health Service in the UK. And, whoa, I think this nonfiction book is something that everyone should read, not only to develop a greater appreciation, especially if you're from the UK to develop a greater appreciation for the NHS and everything that it does with free healthcare that we have in this country and how overworked and underpaid its employees are, but also just to develop compassion, you know? I think part of being happier is loving your stranger. You know, wow, I'm like, there's not gonna be any memes in this video. I'm like, I'm getting serious. I think often society can be encouraged to be selfish, right? But I don't believe that human nature is selfish and I believe that we are our best when we are compassionate and loving of the people that we don't know. And I feel like this book really does this. He's working primarily, I think, in like the maternity ward. So it's a lot about like it's being born, which is like obviously very, you know, you don't want anything to go wrong and you just wanna care for these people. Do this, I think you see the worst of humanity. But you also see the best and what is possible and what is possible for all of us. So yes, I really wanna read his new one, which is Undocked, which I don't think is necessarily his diaries from when he was a doctor. I think it's more maybe about afterwards. Yeah, it's a funny book, right? It's really, really funny. He's such a hilarious author, but it's also heartbreaking. And I think that duality enables you to come to certain realizations. Like the year of just realizing stuff and everyone around me we're all just like realizing things to them. The next one is another fiction and it is Under the Whispering Door by TJ Cleen. So I read this at a very, I don't know how much to say it. I wanna be open, but I also like, let's not like divulge, let's not open up my chest and like show everything, you know? I read this at a very, a point in my life where I really, really needed to read it. And I think it's really stuck with me this whole year. I don't even know if this will be in my top 10 books of the year. But in terms of like needing to read a book, I needed to read this book, you know? In this we're following a character who dies and he's taken to this like coffee shop at the end of the world where souls go and they've died and it's like the place where they can stay for a couple of days to come to terms of the fact that they've died and then move on. What this says about grief and loss and accepting death and coming to terms with it and like how we, when we lose someone in life, how we carry on their memory and our love for them and our memories of them and how they live on in us and just there's so much, I don't wanna spoil the book, but like it really gave me a perspective that I think I needed to develop and I think this book really helped me to develop. And I don't know, I think it's just a beautiful book. I think it's a book that everyone should read because of that. You know, coming to terms with losing people is difficult. It's very, very difficult. But I think this book equips you with kind of the love and the appreciation and the joy that you had that person, you know? It also makes you think a lot. The main character is not very well liked in life and so it makes you think about, right, what do I wanna leave behind? What life do I wanna live? What legacy do I wanna leave? Is it that I achieved this, this and this? Is it that I made this much money or is it that I loved these people this much? Wow, this is deep guys. And in the final book that I would say changed my life for the better is Love Aubrey by Suzanne Lafleur. So I read this when I was, I don't even know when I read it. Maybe nine I read this and I re-read it recently and I cried just as much. So in this, Aubrey's dad and sister have recently passed away in a car crash and her mother unable to deal with the consequences, abandons her. And it's kind of the story of Aubrey mourning her dad and sister whilst also coming to terms with why her mother did what she did. I am including this more for what it gave me as a child than now, although I still would recommend this to anyone. It's like almost impossible to find. It's an old book. I don't think anyone is interested in reading it anymore. But I loved it, you know? I loved it so much. I think what this taught me as a kid about like, I don't know, I think it's hard to teach that to a kid why a mom would leave their child in that circumstances. But I think it teaches you a lot about mental health and about compassion for others and about understanding why someone did that and about forgiveness and about like, accepting that it's okay to forgive someone but still reflect on how they've hurt you, you know? And not like, have to get rid of that feeling. I just think this is one of the best middle grades I've ever read. It's one of my favorite kids book I've ever read. Like, I've read it as an adult so I feel like I can say that. But I loved it when I was a child too. Nothing will make you cry like this book. So there we have it, everyone. Those are the books that have changed my life. I feel like I was a bit more, I feel like I'm looking to edit this my usual way because it was a bit more serious than usual. But, you know, these are all books I really recommend if you wanna change the way you think about the world and think about the world for the better, you know? That's how I view these. So let me know if you've read any of these and let me know if you wanna read any of them. If you have any recommendations for the books that have changed your life in this way because I would love to know. And yeah, it wasn't a big pool of books because I reserve this for the ones who have really altered my way of thinking, you know? So I hope you enjoyed the video. Make sure you check out Aura down below because meditation is, I mean, it's something I've used literally since I was 14 to help me think about the world a different way and to control my stress and anxiety, be more mindful, be more grateful. So make sure you check out Aura and use my link down below in the description. Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you very soon in another video. Bye.