I’m 23 and just started reading books recently over the last few months.

I’m currently reading Four Hour Body by Tim Ferris. It’s about improving your physical health by doing the least amount of work both in terms of exercise and diet.

This particular paragraph really sparked something in me:

Most breakthroughs in performance (and appearance) enhancement start with

animals and go through the following adoption curve:

Racehorses → AIDS patients (because of muscle wasting) and bodybuilders

→ elite athletes → rich people → the rest of us

The last jump from the rich to the general public can take 10–20 years, if it

happens at all. It often doesn’t.

I don’t have a publish-or-perish academic career to preserve, and this is a good

thing. As one MD from a well-known Ivy League university said to me over

lunch:

"We’re trained for 20 years to be risk-averse. I’d like to do the

experimentation, but I’d risk everything I’ve built over two decades of

schooling and training by doing so. I’d need an immunity necklace. The

university would never tolerate it."

He then added: “You can be the dark horse."

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I feel like this concept could be applied to other domains of life as well. This made me realise there’s already a lot of life-changing knowledge out there that I’m missing out on. For example, when I read Atomic Habits I realised how mindlessly I’ve been living my life. The book wasn’t really that special. I didn’t learn anything new that I didn’t know already. But the book pushed me to be more mindful about my habits. And nobody had told me to do that when I was young.

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Here’s a bunch of books that I’ve read so far that have been life changing:

Waking Up by Sam Harris

Exploring consciousness. You are not your thoughts. There’s no such thing as the self. Split brain theory. Importance of meditation and mindfulness.

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Sapiens By Yuval Noah harrari

Everything about our society is made up. The best storytellers win.

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Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

Concepts of Geoarbitrage. Importance of mindset and fear-setting. Question everything.

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Getting Things Done by David Allen and Deep Work by Cal Newport

Importance of having a note-taking system. Capturing things and tracking your time and thoughts. Memorizing things is pointless. Don’t try to hold everything in that tiny brain of yours.

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Still reading:

How to Not Die Alone by Logan Ury

Demystifying common dating advice with science and data.

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Algorithms to live By Brian Christian

Exploring computer science algorithms and human decision making

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I’m looking for books by authors who are “dark horses”. What other paradigm-shifting concepts about the world am I missing? Can anyone recommend non-fiction books that will help me based on my reading history?

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