Recommended Books
“Reading is to the mind what the exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul. We become the books we read.”
-Matthew Kelly
“Your level of success, will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become”
-Jim Rohn
Travel-Related Books
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
By Rolf Potts
Our go-to guidebook we always refer to while we head to a new country. We purchase and download the book to our Kindle App to read on our iPhone and Kindle.
The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money is Worth a Fortune
By Tim Leffel
If you want to travel the world and not spend a fortune, this book will give you a list of places where your money goes the furthest. It breaks down how much you’ll spend on an average day depending on what type of traveller you are — budget, midrange, or luxury. A good book for creating an itinerary for a lower costing trip.
How to Travel the World on $50 a Day: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter
By Matt Kepnes
Learn the tips and tricks of traveling on an average of $50 a day. This is an insiders guide on how to avoid paying more when you can spend less and travel for longer. Bursting with resources, Matt will give you all the knowledge you need to travel for less. One key tip is spending shorter periods in expensive countries and longer periods in cheaper ones. His blog Nomadic Matt is filled with resources and country specific ebook travel guides geared for the budget-conscious traveler.
How to Shit Around the World: The Art of Staying Clean and Healthy While Traveling
By Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth
This is a book that you must read to understand the complexities of your digestive system, gain tips and techniques on being proactive on taking preventative measures to protect your body, and if all else fails, how to deal with diarrhea, dehydration, parasites, and other gastrointestinal unpleasantries while traveling the world. Many humorous stories shared by the authors and friends prove that caution must be taken when dealing with issues such as sanitizing unhealthy water, safely consuming exotic foods, avoiding dehydration, keeping good hygiene on the road, and immunization. Tips are also provided for the young and elderly travelers as well.
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated)
By Timothy Ferriss
Ferriss shares his step-by-step guide on how he designed his location-independent lifestyle by living more and working less. The 4-Hour Workweek is the bluepriint on how to escape the rat race and experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management and to enjoy living. This has been a book attributed to many digital nomads taking the leap to travel the world and try new methods to earn an income.
Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections
By Patrick Smith
Pilot Patrick Smith shares in-depth knowledge about air travel from airport architecture, to the inner-workings of an aircraft design and functionality while in the air, to in-flight service, to explaining common misconceptions about issues with flying (turbulence, terrorist attacks, to the excitement of travelling abroad. It’s a thoughtful, funny and quite the ideal book for curious travelers, frequent flyers, nervous passengers, and global travelers alike.
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
By Elizabeth Gilbert
If you watched the movie already, the book is still an amazing read filled with more details. This riveting movie inspired May to embark on a journey to travel and the book provided additional details on Gilbert’s personal growth and transformation through her vivid and humorous storytelling.
Personal Development
Made to Stick
By Chip Heath & Dan Heath
A book that builds on Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller “The Tipping Point,” this book explains what makes ideas stick or instead what makes ideas become unforgettable. If you want to improve your ability to effectively communicate a concept or idea, then this is an excellent guide.
30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans
By Karl Pillemer Ph.D
This book is full of profound advice derived from a thousand interviews of Americans over the age of sixty-five. Many of these lessons we have incorporated into our lives and the way we live. The chapter on regret had the biggest influence, people regret the things they don’t do and not the things they have done. The biggest regret most people have at the end of their is not travelling enough.
Paradox of Choice
By Barry Schwartz
A book that is very insightful into why it can seem so hard to come to a final decision when presented with so many options. It covers the phycology into how and why we make decisions and why in our modern society having more options is not always better. It is a good read for learning how to make more satisfying decisions.
Stumbing on Happiness
By Dan Gilbert
Humans are unique in our ability to imagine the future and how much we’ll like it when we get there. But our foresight is often determined by our current situation and we misestimate our future satisfaction. This book takes you an a wonderful and very insightful journey of how the mind works and why it often steers us in the wrong direction in our search for happiness. On the journey you will be taken on fun journey learn about the things that tend to lead to happier lives.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
By Charles Duhigg
Learn how habits are formed, why what we do everyday is based mainly on our habits. Charles provides a guide to how we can change our habits, both good and bad. Along this journey you will learn there are elements that contribute to us forming habits and if we are prepared, we can break even the most engrained and bad habits we have.
How Will You Measure Your Life?
By Clayton M. Christensen
Clayton poses these questions in the book: How can I be sure that I’ll find satisfaction in my career? How can I be sure that my personal relationships become enduring sources of happiness? How can I avoid compromising my integrity—and stay out of jail? Offering a series of guidelines for finding meaning in your life, he uses examples from his own life and insights he has learned from businesses to provide many insights to these questions.
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
By Robert T. Kiyosaki
Robert grew up with two dads, his real dad and his best friends dad, who taught him two very different lessons in creating wealth. His real (poor) dad taught him to seek a high income job while his best friends (rich) dad taught him the importance of having money make money for you. A must read if you want to improve your personal finances and learn about passive income.
It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace
By Anne Kreamer
Anne gives an insightful look at emotions in the modern workplace. You will learn how and why men and women deal with emotions differently and what this means in the new workplace. On her website you can take an emotion survey and learn what type of emotional person you are and what this means. Each emotion type deals with emotional challenges differently. She also gives you a toolkit for how to handle emotionally challenging situations and helps you understand the six emotional flashpoints. A good read for getting a better understanding of how emotions effect you in and out of the workplace.
The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL
By Eric Greitens Navy SEAL
Eric began as humanitarian, traveling to refugee camps to help the sick and the poor. He recounts his time in these camps and the lessons he learned, how these taught him that when an Army invades the weak need protection, so he joined the Navy Seals. Recounting his Seal training he describes how overcoming fear was the most important part of training and why giving into fear is why so many fail to complete training. Through the stories he tells of his deployments to the trouble spots around the globe a paradox emerges. The lesson he learns is that sometimes you have to be strong to do good, but you also have to do good to be strong.
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works–A True Story
By Dan Harris
After having a panic attack on national television Dan knew he need to make changes in his life. He embarked on a journey that led him to discover that meditation was the key to quieting the voice in his head. While recounting his journey, you go along for a ride from the fringes of Americas spiritual scene to the outer reaches of neuroscience and to the inner sanctum of the network news scene and end up with practical advice that you can use to make yourself 10% happier.
The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
By Hal Elrod
Hal has managed to turn his life from upside down to right side up after encountering two major setbacks in life. He has come up with a method to help tens of thousands of people around the world to wake up with more energy, motivation, and focus to no longer live a mediocre life, but instead live a fulfilled life. There are just several new habits to adopt easily using his Life S.A.V.E.R.S. program into your morning routine right after you wake up to aid your transformation. There is also a very supportive community on Facebook via MyTMMCommunity.com
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (Expanded and Updated)
By Timothy Ferriss
Ferriss shares his step-by-step guide on how he designed his location-independent lifestyle by living more and working less. The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint on how to escape the rat race and experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management and to enjoy living. This has been a book attributed to many digital nomads taking the leap to travel the world and try new methods to earn an income.
The Last Lecture
By Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professor Randy Pausch, was a computer professor at Carnegie Mellon, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (and has since passed away in 2008) decided this was his opportunity to share what he discovered mattered the most in his autobiographical book. The lecture he gave, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
Manual For Living: Reality – Time
By Seth David Chernoff
Everyone should read this book to understand the concept of life and about living life to the fullest potential. By finding true fulfillment and lasting happiness, overcoming the fear of death, learning how to fully experience life, reconnecting with your inner truth and discover your true purpose. This award-winning book will change the way you see the world. Its straightforward guidance and practical wisdom will help you remain true to your path and purpose in life.