 I think what people never share about reading books is that what it takes for a book to really change the direction of your life and really hit you in the chest is that it has to be the right time. The right message at the right time makes an exponential difference in your life and it makes for advice and a book that you will never ever forget. Now I want to share five of the books that made the biggest impact on me in my twenties and for those of you that are trying at the beginning of the path going after your dreams, trying to live a different life, working out the hard problems in life and working on yourself, I think these five books can really, really help you. Hey guys, Alex Hine, author of the self-health book Master of the Day. I won't be talking about this book today. I've actually included a free link down there below for a goal-setting worksheet that plan out how to have your best year ever of your life. So you'll also get an email every couple days on how to use goals specifically to change the direction of your life and get from where you are to where you want to be. So you can check it out right there, the link in the description. Book number one is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Now the Alchemist really, really impacted me because the fundamental question for me in my twenties and I think for you is what am I born to do? Like what do I do with my life? I don't know what direction to do, to go in. I don't know what work to do. I don't know if this girl or this guy is right for me. I don't know where I should live or if I should move to another part of the world. And what is missing from often our twenties is an ability to recognize our intuition and our hunches. Our ability to recognize the path that is for us and the path that is not for us. Because like I've shared here, so many of us, when we don't know what to do in life, we either conform, which is we do what everyone else is doing, or rebel. We do the opposite of what everyone else does. So you have here the archetypes of the doctor, the lawyer, the engineer, or the hippie vagabond, right? These archetypes throughout history, the artist, the smoker and the drinker who's going to travel around and not take life seriously. What the Alchemist taught me was that it really hit me because it reminded me number one to never ever give up on that dream. What Paulo Coelho calls your personal legend. He says on the back here, to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation and I really agree with that. Inside of us is often that dream and we often don't pursue it because we're afraid and we're afraid of what mom and dad might think. We're afraid we'll fail. We're afraid that other people will judge us. We're afraid that we won't be able to feed ourselves or that we have a family. But when you begin listening to that, just that feeling, that thing that excites you, you know you're on the right path when you feel enthusiasm, Paulo Coelho says. When you feel that excitement and that enthusiasm for life coming back, that is how you know you're on the right path. And you can use that to guide yourself through the day to day trials and tribulations of life and to not get so sidetracked with everything coming at you or all the advice that you're hearing on the internet or from your parents. Book number two is called Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. Now building off of what I was talking about, about how do you know the right direction for it in life? What's the right move? What's the wrong move? Now Martha Beck is a Harvard-trained, I believe, psychologist. And she has this incredible book sharing how her whole life, she was being groomed in one direction in life that didn't feel right to her. And it was only by finding the writings of Laozi, the Tao Du Jing, that she found this idea of finding your own north star, which is recognizing the inner compass that tells you what is aligned with your path and what is not. And it's aligned by recognizing body, signs, and symptoms. So you may or may not have been on a date with someone that you think you should like because they have all the qualities you want on paper and they're beautiful and attractive and intelligent and witty. But you don't feel anything. And it's weird when it happens the first time. You wonder if there's something wrong with you. But there's nothing wrong with you. That is your hunch, your intuition, your insights telling you, this person is something not there personally. But the problem is, what if you can't even recognize that feeling anymore? And I found that the older I've gotten, the more I ignored that, the quieter it became. It was there, but I had habitually learned to turn it off. Like I just got the jobs that were good jobs based on the checklist and based on the criteria, but never was recognizing that feeling of excitement and intuition and my instincts, I wasn't trusting them. The reason I love this book so much is because she has all these case studies of people that learn to recognize their instincts again, their intuition. Where physically in your body it shows up, this exercises in here on how to retrain that and how to recognize that so that you know, going forward, how to make the proper decisions. So that is the reason why I love this book so much. The sooner you learn that, to recognize that, the better. Now the third book is not Master of the Day, but it's very ironic that I had all the books I wanted to share here besides my other second book. The third book is actually Milk the Pigeon, my second book. Now the reason why I've arrogantly put that in this video is because I wrote the book that I wish I could find on the bookshelves. You know, I wrote the book that if I were 20, what is the one book that I would give to answer the three main questions that I had as a 20 year old? What do I do with my life? How do I find work I love? And how do I build a meaningful life? And those three sections of my book make up about this 9 or 10 chapters or lessons in each, all about. Figure out what to do, find work you love, and then live a meaningful life. And each chapter has a story and a lesson. Something that I would have killed to know when I was 20, because it probably could have saved me five years of my life. Five years of typically unhappiness and confusion, and trying to figure out all the things that I know now. I'm 33. I feel like I'm just getting started. I feel like I'm grateful that I learned those lessons because my compass, my guiding system of going forward in life now is so attuned to what's meaningful to me that I feel like nothing can stop me. But there was no book on that topic, certainly not all three at once. And certainly not written in a blunt casual tone that was easy to digest. So Milk the Pigeon, a field guide for anyone lost in their 20s, would be my third book choice. My fourth book is How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, kind of the story of my life by Scott Adams. Now Scott Adams is the author of the Dilbert comics that you might have seen. And the thing that was so fascinating about this book was that he talked about his public goal when he was in his 20s was to get rich. He just wanted to make a lot of money, be rich. And all his ventures had failed. But then he found out the reason that he ended up succeeding with Dilbert, he said, was not because he was a good artist, clearly he's not a talented artist, was not because he was that funny, he said he's not that funny, wasn't because he's a very good business person, he wasn't. But it was the unique combination, the unique pairing of those skills together and one person that made him unusual. And that was the thing that allowed him and his career to pop. Now I thought this was very genius because so many of us try hard to force a venture to work, but it doesn't work out, at least not the way we wanted. But sometimes it's the second or third or fifth or twelfth that pops because we acquired skills in our previous life. In other words, our previous career, our previous job, our previous business attempts, those skills, it is the synergy of all of them that work amazingly together that gives you a very unique pairing that is not found in other people. So this book is an amazing reminder to always be acquiring skills. Skills are what pay the bills and the more unique skill sets you can acquire, the sooner, the more likely you are to see something succeed. Now the last book of your 20s is called Peak, Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Now if you've heard this idea of the 10,000 hour rule, it comes from this researcher's research. Now, this book is all about mastery, how to be the best in the world in your field. He analyzes musicians, artists, athletes, business people, and so on and so forth. The reason why this is relevant, even if it doesn't resonate, is because in your 20s, the most underrated thing, actually your whole life, is the acquiring of valuable skills. It's not about your jobs, not about how long you're here or there. It's about being able to prove and demonstrate you have acquired a skill set. Whether it's making websites, being able to dance, being a salesperson, being a good artist, that is what will make you valuable in your field of choice. And this book is all about how to design your daily life and your work life so that you can acquire a high level of mastery as quickly as possible. So I hope these books help you. These are some of my absolute favorites. I've read them every single one multiple times and I keep coming back to them. Now if you want, check out the first link below for the free goal-setting worksheet on how to have your best year ever. It'll give you a couple of exercises you can do to plan out the most incredible year of your life, which is important in your 20s but is always important. You'll also get an email every couple days on how to use these goal-setting to totally change whatever it is you want in your life. And then after you've checked that out, check out these related videos right here on this exact topic.