 Now you guys know I'm really into reading personal growth and self-help books. I think the number one investment that can really change your life the most is your investment into improving yourself, improving traits like discipline and your work ethic and your mindset. But I've read hundreds of self-help books at this point and I thought I would share some of the key lessons that I think really bring them all together. Hey guys, Alex Hine, author of the book, Milk the Pigeon, a field guide for anyone lost in their 20s available on Amazon. I've included a free link below this video. The first link is for a free journaling worksheet to help you figure out what it is you really want in your life and how to get your life together and plot out that most incredible thing that you want to achieve. You can check it out right below this video. So the first lesson for me is that you get what you want not by chasing that thing, but by becoming a bigger person. So I'll give you a quick quiz here, all right? If you want to get into medical school, is your number one thing you should be doing? Does that mean you should be obsessively focusing on getting into medical school? Or does that really mean that you should be obsessively focusing on the daily studying and the daily extracurriculars, the daily work you need to be to get there? Or if your goal is to lose weight, should you really obsessively focus on flipping through Instagram and looking at all these ultra fit models to quote inspire you? Or is the number one thing you should be doing actually to track your calories, track your workouts and track how much rest you're actually getting? And if you want to be in a relationship, is it really the most fulfilling worthwhile thing to try envisioning your dream person, doing a Joe Dispens exercise, or is it working on the tracing yourself you know you have to work on and on a daily basis, putting yourself more in those situations where you could possibly bump into someone. So most of the things that you want to actually get in your life, you get through attraction by the person you become. All that means is that for example, if you want to be fit, maybe the block for you is that you're not disciplined enough. You don't have to do anything related to fitness. If you just focus on being disciplined more, you will reach that goal naturally. Now the second lesson is that doing the work usually means trying to understand your unique flaws and unique strengths and trying to work on them. So I've shared the story of here when I was in high school and I was in college. You know, the thing that made me the most emotional I guess you could say was the fact that I was Mr. Nice Guy Alex. I was always getting rejected by women. I eventually began to expect that. And so I built this self image that for whatever reason, women don't like the nice guy Alex. Like a lot of people, if that goes on for long enough, you start to get really, really jaded. After being perpetually single, I became resentful. I became that guy that was bitter. You know, we had this expression of bitter woman while I was the bitter guy. I was bitter that I was always getting rejected even though I was a good guy. I was bitter that I saw these douchey guys getting girls all the time and even plenty of times not even treating them well. And then the girl would come crying to me because I'm Mr. Nice Guy. And this produced a lot of inner frustration for me. That was really the main thing making me really unhappy. Now when it came to doing the work, I could have easily blamed the world like many people do for the rest of our lives. I could have hated women, hated the douchebags. I could have hated myself or I could have chosen to work on some of those traits and reflect why was it that this wasn't working out for me perpetually? You know, why was it that I was getting rejected or friend zoned all the time or I was the guy always, you know, having the girl crying on her shoulder. Oh, I love you, I'll marry you one day. But no one wanted to date him. That was a problem to me. So I had to figure out, do I blame the world, hate everybody or do I work on myself? And I chose to work on myself. I chose to work on things related to my confidence and building a really interesting, fulfilling, holistically successful life. And after a period of time, that started changing because I had worked on myself and on my self identity. So for you, the flaw could be something around your financial life. It could be that you're always blaming the world, the government, the president for not having enough money but realizing that's really on you. And if you wanted to, you could probably find a way to work a second job. If you wanted to, you could probably find a way to put yourself through school because plenty of people do it. It's not fun, it's hard, but it's doable. The point here for this lesson is that you can spend your whole life resisting the way things are, why men or women never date you, why you never have enough money or don't get that raise, why things just never seem to work out for you or you can try to understand it and become better. The third lesson for me was that anyone can work on things and change if they really want to. A great example of this is my sister. My sister is in environmental science and natural resources and wildlife biology. And for a long time, she had a lot of limiting beliefs around money, finances and success. And she would always argue in favor of happiness but secretly be struggling financially and living back at home. And after a period of time, she began doing the work. She started reading books on finance that she didn't want to read because she knew they would help her in the long run. She began saving a certain percentage of her income, she began investing, she paid off her entire car so she had no car payments, she negotiated a raise at work and then she began investing in the stock market, putting a certain amount of money aside. Now, most of us will not change and that's the sad truth but if you want to, the resources are there to be a happier person, to be a wealthier person, to find the person that you love, whatever it is for you, the resources for the first time in history are there and most of them are free. So people, most people can change if they're in enough pain or if they want to but most people won't and that brings me to my very fourth point which is that most people just don't change. Do you have that female friend that's bitter and hates men because she always gets cheated on? Or what about that friend that just can never lose weight or maybe never gain weight? Or that entrepreneur who makes the best food or the best crafts, the best cupcakes but they're bitter because they just don't have enough eyeballs coming into their restaurant or their store. Meanwhile, the garbage McDonald's down the street is packed every day and they're all bitter wondering what's wrong with people? Why can't they recognize my gift? Most people won't change and that's just the reality of life. You can be the exception by being someone who decides to change and to work on those traits that have been holding you back so much. You can decide to be the person that takes stock of their life and it's like, well, what role did I have in this? If I always get cheated on, the common denominator is me. It's probably my problem. Sorry, that's a bitter pill to swallow. You know, if I make the best cupcakes but my store is not packed, the problem is me. Maybe it's my own beliefs about reality or if I think I'm such a catch and yet no women or no men are fawning over me and maybe I'm delusional and I should really take some time to examine myself and see why I believe that and why external reality doesn't match up. Most people will not change but if you wanna be the exception, you can and you do that through change. All right, you guys, that's what I've got from most personal growth books. I'll probably have to do a follow-up here. There's so many more. But again, the first link below is for a free journaling worksheet to help you plan out how to get your life together and build an incredible life this year and then I have two related videos on this topic here.