Stealing Concepts: How to Save Money on Books
There are a lot of great books out there, and a lot more that are good books with amazing concepts. An amazing concept can make or break a book, and make a mediocre book a very valuable one due to the nature of the concept. These are the types of books I feel we don't really need to buy, unless we want to support the author for creating the book and possibly for creating the concept(sometimes they just take the concept and run with it.)
Here are a few examples of books with great concepts:
- The Biology of Belief - This book puts forth the idea that rather than being born with a set of genes, we influence our genes through our environment, and a quite different idea: what we believe about ourselves. This is a total flip from conventional thought, and the writer Bruce Lipton was one of the leading scientists in his field before pursuing this work, so he's got some credentials and references his own work.
Concept to Steal: Our thoughts, beliefs, and environment create and influence our biology. Our genes can be altered and are not set in stone, we are not necessarily at higher risk of disease or hereditary traits like baldness.
- The 1% Rule - This is a simple concept, do a little bit everyday, add something everyday to the project you are working on, and by the end of the year you're product or work will be 365% better than it was before. This is one that is probably still worth reading for people without experience sticking with a project through thick and thin and I might be picking it up.
Concept to Steal: Add a little bit everyday, stay consistent in your work and eventually the work will blossom.
So many books, so little time. Just take the concepts!
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- Conscious Language - The gist of this book is that language is a powerful tool in creating our world, that what we say both physically and mentally can have a profound effect on our lives and our condition. It basically takes positive thinking and thought and expounds on it. I feel this one is worth the read to see how we just say words without thinking about their meanings but if you don't want to buy it here's the...
Concept to Steal: Spoken and thought words have a profound effect on how our lives go and often reveal our deeper feelings. Learning the true meaning of words is important and can be used to benefit our lives.
- Eat Dirt - Here Josh Axe talks about how our modern food system might actually be bad for us, things like refrigeration, sanitation, and the fear of dirt might actually be killing and removing the very organisms that help us.
Concept to Steal: Don't be afraid of a little dirt, it can be healthy as long as there are no chemicals added and the soil is "clean." Observe nature for ways to be healthier.
- Move Your DNA - We are no longer the movers we once were, now we sit at desks, on couches, at tables, and then go to sleep. We are sedentary and it's killing us. Simple stuff.
Concept to Steal: One of the keys to health is movement, get moving to heal.
These are just a few books I've run across where the very concept is easily applied to one's life. If you're time crunched or don't have the funds to buy a book, steal the concept! There are a ton of books out there where we can directly apply the concepts to our lives immediately and effectively.
What concepts have you stolen?
I love this post! Thank you for giving this nice roundup/summary.
On a similar though, I find it kind of frustrating and discouraging that so many books are 30-50% longer than I think they should be. There is this stigma against writing a 100 page book. Maybe people won't value it or won't be willing to pay for it because it doesn't feel like a fully book. I get that. One of my favorite authors is Henri Nouwen and almost all of his books are under 200 pages.
I am also the kind of person who compulsively will read every page. I know some people (psychopaths) that will pick a book up, jump around until they have read 30-70% of the book and then put it down to never be picked up again. It is a brilliant strategy, I know that, but I am not sure I could pull it off.
Yep, they dilute the good stuff with fluff and it's annoying. I generally like to read straight through unless it's like a series of meditations or writings that you can pick up anywhere. Those ones I just flip to a new one everytime. If I can't read a book quickly I usually just set it aside for good
Same here. I've had a few exceptions, like when my wife and I are trying to read a book together. By that I mean, reading it aloud to each other. That takes us months usually because we don't carve out the time regularly.
Ya, with all the things going on in life it's hard to keep consistent with some habits, especially with 4 kids!
Nice idea for a post, little carrot to get people to read these books. Don’t you find it contradicting that you have to sit to read?
Who said you have to sit? I typically stand
I know, you can also read on a treadmill, or any stationary exercise machine. But typically reading occurs in a sitting position.