Tell HN: I'm giving away a few non programming books for free | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: I'm giving away a few non programming books for free

freestylemind.com

17 pointsoscardelben20 comments

Wow - impressive list of personal development books.

Your bookshelf looks a bit like my own, the numbers in yours certainly eclipses mine.

I'd be keen to hear, after digesting all that information, what’s changed? - are you "personally developed", more confused or exactly the same?

I usually find that these books feel very "samey" after a while and feel that there is certainly a limit to the number of things these books can tell you.

That's a very good question. For me the biggest thing has been motivation. I now work mostly from home (doing programming consulting) and I'm starting to create my firsts products (iphone and ipad apps).

Some of those books have helped me in different areas like sport, but also for my inner self. For example until some months ago I had a psychological problem where I would be very sick when I was facing uncomfortable situations. Now I solved it.

I have to say tough that books can only inspire, but if you do nothing, nothing changes.

Glad to hear these have worked for you, certainly seems like you have put some of the lessons into practise and have come out the other side better for it.

Another question - which books are you not giving away? - which ones are staying firmly on your bookshelf?

First, my programming books, because they are generally very heavy and I like to read them very often. Then I have books like GEB which I still have to read and understand completely. Lastly I have a couple of books which are on other topics such as code breaking, math and similar.

Nowadays I read most books on the kindle tough, because it's very expensive to ship from amazon to italy.

Congratulations on your improvements. I'm curious, what book has helped you get over your physical discomfort?

I think it's not just one book but what I learned from many of them. I think at some point I simply realized what was wrong.

I went to a talk about meditation and neuroscience from the prof up at stanford last year. There was talk about how we have an instinctive and emotional part of our brain and how we also have an executive control center. One of the points of the talk was how meditation changes the functioning of the braining and reinforces the ability of the executive control center to subjugate the emotional part. Perhaps the years of making efforts regarding this issue strengthened the wiring in your brain until you were able to overcome it?

> For example until some months ago I had a psychological problem where I would be very sick when I was facing uncomfortable situations. Now I solved it.

If you don't mind sharing, which technique in your toolbox did you find addressed that issue? I find I tend to get very laconic or even weary in certain stressful situations.

I think at one point I realized that everything was made up from my mind, in that case my instinct. From that moment I decided (using my rationale brain) that what I was doing was stupid and we're not living in the savana anymore and there are not tigers around. That worked for me so far.

Wow I'm surprised to see "The Mind Map Book" on that list. I was just about to buy that book from Amazon when I decided to read Hacker News first. Now I'm going to wait until Sunday to see if I need to buy it. Thank you for your generosity, this is a great idea.

Very cool. Its great that you are doing this.

One question about Triple Your Reading Speed: Did you find you can increase your speed and still retain the information? I've heard that a lot of speed reading techniques end up decreasing retention.

Personally not. You can speed read some of those books but forget it on scientific topics. But maybe it's just me, I don't have a good memory.

Still, my ex girlfriend could read a page in 3-5 seconds by focusing only on paragraphs, with very good retention (she would remember pretty much everything). She has always read this way so it's definitely possible for some people.

He's certainly much nicer than me, I'm doing well if my cast-offs end up at goodwill.

I decided to respond to this because of the speed reading comment. I spent a lot of time doing "metawork" on my text processing speed. I rewrote this paragraph like 5 times trying to properly express this idea, so bear with me...

I find I can read very quickly and get a certain impression of the text, sort of like an impressionist painting version of the content That's the fastest and it's the most useful for quick scanning - a stupid example of the usefulness of this is when I was recently rereading stranger in a strange land, I scanned through Heinlein's political diatribes looking for the bits I actually want to read. Next, if I slow down a bit I can read every word and get most of the ideas at an intellectual level, but I'm not bothering to call up a mental image of what the author is trying to convey, so there's no enjoyment in it. Finally, I can read and reread every word, try to picture everything the author is saying in my head and really grok it, which takes much longer still.

I guess I'm trying to make a point that reading speed is like a throttle and learning to speed read is very useful in terms of becoming aware of how much attention you are paying.

Thanks. Good point. I tend to read something and only understand it a bit. Later on, when my mind wanders, I'll run through it again and really get it.

Problem is, I'm going to law school soon so I need to improve my ability to read quickly and understand pretty well. I was wondering if a book like this would help me in that way, but it seems like it would only be marginally useful. Oh well.

I actually think speed reading techniques should be pretty effective for law school. The big trouble is imagining the scenes and trying to feel what all the characters are feeling. AFAIK, law books are just lists of facts. The way I get around that kind of learning process is to prepare the information in multiple formats (flash cards, the textbook, my notes, somebody else's notes) and scan each one quickly. I'll have to defer to the opinion of people less allergic to the legal system on this one.

If you haven't read Your Money or Your Life, I highly, highly recommend it. It transformed how I think about time and money and led to some real changes in my decisions about life and work.

Too sad he keeps "The Secret".

I don't have that book ;)

even the fact that he has it is a secret :-)

Don't reveal Benjamin Franklin owned this book anyone!

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