has no advantage over the man who can't read."

Mark Twain

In this video I'm going to cover the five books

that are going to help transform you

from an average procrastinating student

letting your potential die with you

to the A-star,

exceptional student

that has mastered studying, that has mastered discipline and good habits.

And that's why I decided to work with Motivation 2 Study,

to find out what are the most important books for students to read.

And it doesn't matter what age you are,

or which type of student you are

Whether you're in school, college, university

or you're just a lifelong learner.

These books are going to help you no matter where you are.

And these books have been picked

to help you with the common problems you all face

that we see in the comments of these videos

procrastination, laziness, low energy, distractions.

So how do you become productive,

and what are the books that are going to help you

to stop that laziness

and activate and unleash that potential inside you?

The first book is Mastery by George Leonard.

This is a book that is going to draw on Zen philosophy

and help you with the lessons from Martial Arts

to understand what is the journey going to be like?

The journey of Mastery, what does it look like?

Because when you understand the path that you are going to be walking

You're able to navigate the pitfalls,

you're able to escape the traps that

90% of the other people are going to fall into.

So that your path immediately becomes easier.

The second book is relatively new and it's by James Clear.

And the book is Atomic Habits.

And he presents an easy and proven way to build effective, good habits

with the least amount of effort

and the highest amount of reward.

And one of the key principles that James Clear talks about is

you need to find out what your minimum viable habit is.

And that means

when you're trying to create a habit of waking up early

and studying in the morning

don't try to do the most complex things first.

Instead, think about what the simplest starting point could be

what is the minimum viable habit?

What is something that is so easy to do,

you could do it in just two minutes?

And then from there keep increasing it,

keep graduating those habits

just like you graduate in the classroom.

Until you go from two push-ups a day to a thousand.

The next book

is one by the motivational master Eric Thomas

The book is The Secret To Success

It's a short book, it's a straight to-the-point book.

It's punchy, it's motivating.

It's everything that you would expect from ET

and it's going to help you to understand

one; the journey that Eric Thomas took

to go from a high school dropout

to an internationally renowned best-selling author.

But it's also going to help you to understand the steps and principles

that Eric used to become the person that he is today.

The next book is one called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Now we all know being a student on the surface seems easy

but in practice can be difficult.

When you're sat there in the library

and you're flicking through your phone one extra time

looking at Instagram or any other social media.

How do you stay focused and how do you stay creative?

Well in this book

Elizabeth Gilbert goes through the process of how fear and creativity work

and how the two of them influence your work.

And alongside this the next book

is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

And in this book he talks about the difference between the amateur

the part-time player who shows up when they feel like it

which some of you are

The part-time player.

You revise when you feel like it.

You give a 110% when you feel like it.

You put your hand up in class when you feel like it.

And in between the amateur and what Steven Pressfield calls the pro

is resistance.

Now you can use the word resistance, you can use the word procrastination

you can use the word distraction

but it all references the same obstacle.

But how do we get past that?

These two books are going to help you to do exactly that.

Let's think about why should you even read in the first place?

Why is it something that is going to help you?

Now this is from somebody who I never used to read

when I was at school despite the encouragement of teachers

despite even knowing that it is something I should do

I could never bring myself to actually do it.

So what was the difference?

I'm now in a position where since I've left university,

since I've left school, college, my education behind

I actually study and read more than ever before

and the thing that has really helped me

to make that transformation, to take that leap

has been to look at it not just as reading

but as having a meeting with the author.

So whether you admire Eric Thomas, Gary Vaynerchuk

or any of these other self-help gurus

imagine when you are reading

you're spending one-to-one time with that author.

Now this might not be true,

but that person, that individual over decades of experience

has sat down, taken notes

on the most important things that they've learned

and then structured it so that you can take that shortcut.

So the question is not why should you read

The question is really which books should you read?

And the problem is there are so many books out there

and they are not all created equally

so you could be reading, but are you reading productively?

There's actually another four books that I wanted to include

but the video is getting extra long.

So if you want to find out what those are

go to the link in the description and you can download a free pdf

to find out what they are.

And if you want to know

are you fulfilling the potential that you have as a student

Are you a dabbler?

Are you a master?

Or are you the shipwrecked castaway?

Click on the link in the description and you can take the free quiz

that will help you to find out, but other than that

have you read any of these books?

Which book are you most excited to learn?

And what lesson do you most need to learn?

Because a lot of people ask me which book should I read?

Well, what do you need to learn?

What is the next step that you need to take?

What, where are you stuck with your studies?

Because that will determine the education that you need.

This was Keshav Bhatt

for Motivation 2 Study.

Peace