(Part 2) Best products from r/BettermentBookClub

I have three of them. Meditations, Tao Te Ching, and Man's Search for Meaning.

I read Tao Te Ching many years ago. I think it was above my reading level at the time as I can't recall much about it. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was reading or properly digesting it.

I have the Gregory Hays' version of Meditations. It's up next after I'm done Flow. So far Flow mentions quite a few things I recognize from Stoicism. Directly mentions Diogenes in the first chapter.

Man's Search for Meaning will probably follow shortly after Meditations.

I've only heard of the Bhagavad Gita, so that's as familiar as I am with it. I assume it's a book of wisdom or something like that from India.

I do make notes of the books I read, so if you'd like I can forward them to you when they're ready. Currently putting together some for How to Read a Book, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, and Atomic Habits.

I haven't read most of the suggestions here, but I found Alan Watts' lectures to be very thought-provoking. I watched videos of his lectures on Youtube (probably starting with these excerpts, which were animated by the South Park creators), but he's written some books, too. This one seems interesting: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Watts (like many others) distills parts of Eastern philosophy so that it's more easily digestible by Western audiences, but I can't speak to his faithfulness to the source philosophies.

off the top of my head:

Meditations, with The Inner Citadel as a reader

Letters from a Stoic

A Guide to the Good Life by Irvine

Do The Work by Pressfield as well as The War of Art by Pressfield

Managing Oneself by Ducker

Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl

What Predicts Divorce by Gottman

Nicomachean Ethics

Models by Manson seems to be popular on reddit

So Good They Can't Ignore You by Newport, as well

I'm currently reading Triumphs of Experience by Vaillant and find it insightful.

Tangentially related to the philosophy of humanism, I recommend the book Doing Good Better. It's a pragmatic guide to how to use your career, time, and/or money to help improve the world. It literally changed my life.

The Power of a Positive No

This was one of the best self-help books I’ve read. It’s not “it’s hard to say no but you just really need to say it sometimes even though you don’t want to”, it’s more like “what’s the alternative if I don’t say no; why do I want to say no” and is really helpful for understanding relationships.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553384260

>This year, I made it my mission to understand and implement the teachings of Napoleon Hill and then teach it to others.

You left out the part between implementing it and teaching it to others where you confirm that it works. You seem committed to teaching it to others before you have observed personally that it works, so your plan might lead to you spreading lies.

Napoleon Hill's belief system is a type of magic, that is, claims about cause and effect without any plausible mechanism that could really connect them. "Magic Ladder to Success" literally has "Magic" in the title. Magical thinking is considered a sign of psychosis. The problem with magical thinking it is that it is a-priori implausible; it is structured in a way that discourages doing systematic experiments; and it is structured in a way that disrupts the objectivity of the person doing it so they are not in a position to determine whether it is true or false.

Religions are fundamentally about doing magic. No one religious belief has a majority, so most believers in magic are wrong. The evidence is also consistent with all of them being wrong. If you're going to work in this area, you have to be very clear how you are doing something different from the other magic users, since most of them are wrong.

If you learn to do magic, that's great. Figure out how to do experiments with it, publish a physics paper proving that it works, and get a Nobel prize. Many parapsychologists have failed before you.

It is irrational to put a large fraction of one's wealth into a risky investment even when that investment has expected positive return. Therefore you want to have a huge pile of money, or a large group of financially supportive people who are not concurrently experimenting with the same type of magic, before you start. If you aren't up to trying something that risky, don't bother trying to do magic.

I didn't read these to cure any addiction but sure everyone has some bad habits which they would like to take care of. I'm big on self improvement so try to ready as much as I can in that category.

If you're dealing with bad habits or addiction, I'd highly recommend https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Lock-Twentieth-Anniversary-Obsessive-Compulsive/dp/006256143X

Even though the book is about curing OCD, but the 4 steps mentioned in this book can be applied to any kind of bad behavior or habit. Also, if you want to change habits, then power of habit gives you a really good insight as to how habits are build.

Got to read this: Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength Kindle Edition

This book looks really well reviewed:

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18872437-the-millionaire-fastlane | 4.4 stars
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102 4.5 stars
  
  Will definitely pick it up... thanks for the notice!

If you have any slight interest in philosophy I would recommend On The Shortness of Life

I highly recommend Be Your Own Dating Service: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Relationships.