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Book tips

So good they can't ignore you, Cal Newport
Why skills trump passion in the quest for work you love

Don't give yourself the stress of looking for a job that matches your passion. According to this book people who are happy with their work started the job more coincidentally, but worked hard to make it their passion. The book describes how you can gain motivation with the next three goals. Autonomy is when you have a say in how, where, and when you perform the different tasks of your job. You can achieve this freedom by becoming very good in what you do. Competence in itself is also motivating you and the people around you, which brings us to the final goal of relatedness. When you are competent in what you do, get some degree of autonomy, and feeling accepted in the team, you have a good chance of feeling like you found your passion.
Talent is overrated, Geoff Colvin
What really separates world-class performers from everybody else

The author was looking for scientific proof of the concept of talent (genetic advantages to excel in some skill). He found .. none. Then, he studied a number of so-called wonder-children and found that most of them have grown up in a context where they could start learning the relevant skills at a young age. Usually at least one close family member was a specialist in the domain and at least one was some kind of teacher. He proposes that you can master any skill with 10,000 hours of practice, on the condition that you have no physical disability in the way. Moreover, he stresses the importance of deliberate practice: Focus your practice on your weak points. A soccer player does not only play matches on training, they work on specific (sub)skills first and then integrate it.
Why we sleep, Matthew Walker
Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams

Did you know that we sleep in consecutive cycles of about 90 minutes each? In each cycle we pass through different stages of being awake, REM sleep, and different levels of non-REM (deep) sleep. The deep NREM leep is used to clean up and restructure existing knowledge in the long-term memory. REM sleep is where we dream and add new information in the long-term memory (from what was stored during the last few days). I imagine that this is why dreams are strange. You are trying out where the new information fits in the existing structure, by testing random connections.
This is just one interesting example from this book. Read more about sleep and how it related to countless factors of physical and mental health!
Thinking, fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman
Atomic Habits, James Clear
Tiny changes, remarkable results. An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones
The richest man in babylon, George S Clason
The success secrets of the ancients
Rich dad poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki
What the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not!
The 4-hour work week, Timothy Ferriss
Escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich