Charlie's Top Books of 2023

Hey everybody, my thoughts on 2023, kind of life advice, reflections on the year, my favorite books, something that took me 241 hours. You're going to want to listen to this.

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I trust Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific mortgage at andrewandtodd.com. Okay, everybody, this is the last hour of 2023, and we're kind of making this a pattern. We did this a little bit last year. This will be more formal where we just kind of think through the last year of my own personal lessons, things that I encountered, my favorite books, my favorite podcast, things that I'm really proud of what I accomplished, things that I think I could have done better and just kind of summarizing this last year. And so some of you guys know this, but just it's worthy of maybe repeating what we do here on this program is how I start my day, but it's not how I finish my day. And, you know, we have a question here because I ask people, hey, what are your questions about life advice and stuff? What does a day look like? And when I say when I kind of walk through it, sometimes people don't always necessarily believe it, but wake up right around six thirty or seven a.m., don't eat anything fast all the way through the program, get into the office at least hour and a half hour before the program, have a rather, let's say, aggressive coffee with a lot of different supplements in there.

And that's proprietary. I'm not going to tell you everything that's in there, but then also drink a ton of water and have a special kind of green tea concoction with matcha tea, which I love. Do three hours of radio. I've been doing it fasted, by the way, and I encourage people if you are not intermittent fasting, you totally should. And also check out my Ph.D. weight loss dot com, which has been a total game change for us this year.

They've been amazing, lost 30 pounds and I'll kind of get to that. Do three hours of radio, usually take about a 20 minute break, have some sort of a meat and salad, avocado, olive oil and then turning point starts. And then I'm all on turning point duty, raising money, doing meetings, speaking and then do it all over again.

And so the numbers are two hundred ninety five days of radio this year, one thousand two hundred hours of radio, five hundred and fifty plus speeches, interviews and two hundred and thirty days on the road. And then I work out four times a week and I try to end my day the same way, which which is with sauna cold plunge. So do a cold plunge and thirty seven degree water and then end in a very hot sauna for about twenty five to thirty minutes, about one hundred ninety to two hundred degrees sauna. By the way, the benefits of doing that is just it's hard to even comprehend. Obviously, no alcohol, no drugs, no sugar. Try to eat no carbohydrates. And you're able to perform at a really high level when you do that stuff.

And it's not for everybody. And that's the one thing that I want to try to challenge some of you guys that are listening. And by the way, I wasn't able to keep this pace two years ago. I was overweight, eating poorly, having too much gluten free bread.

I'm celiac, so I eat gluten free and just wasn't performing at the top level. I said I want to be excellent. And that's one of the things I love about New Year's.

You have an opportunity to say I am not where I want to be. There's all this cynicism out there about New Year's resolutions. It's honestly one of my great points of disgust when people are trying to bag on or try to make people not want to be better. Where did this where did this whole anti New Year's resolution movement come from? I think it's sick. I think that you guys are part of the problem, whoever you are politically or whatever.

By the way, it transcends political lines. I talked some of the day I said, what are your New Year's resolutions? They say, oh, I'm not doing that. I end up breaking them. That's not the point. Just the process of analyzing something you want to improve with. And yes, you know, I get a chuckle when I go to the gym in early January and it is packed in early January and it is not packed in early June.

I get a chuckle out of it. But you have to understand that if you to be excellent at something, you must be process oriented and habit oriented. The people that are the best at the performer, the top levels. This goes from Tony Robbins. This went to Rush Limbaugh. This goes to Donald Trump.

This goes to Elon Musk. You habit stack. So once you find something that you want to do or you need to do that will help you and you do it for 60 or 90 days, it becomes a habit. Same goes for bad habits, too.

But then once you have a baseline of habits, you can add one habit on or two habits on or three habits on. And so for those of you that may say, boy, I really want to work out, then start micro. Don't say I want to go run a marathon. Just say I'm going to walk around the block every morning.

It's a great start. By the way, the people that set these ridiculously ambitious goals, I'm going to run the Boston Marathon by September. Rarely ever accomplish that.

Rarely chunk it down. Write it down. Say I'm going to walk around the block.

Longest journey starts at single step. And you say, I'm going to just then I'm going to start jogging on the treadmill. And there are very simple ways that you're able to then find places you can approve. So I love New Year's resolutions.

I'm going through them right now. And last year, I had a couple of New Year's resolutions. So if you rewind the clock, now I can look a year later. I'm like, yeah, I actually did that.

That's cool. I said I wanted to lose about 30 pounds. And I did.

I said I want to perform at a higher level, be able to do three hours of radio, do hundreds of speeches, have to raise over $100 million and manage 400 people without destroying myself. And I think at least the people around me at America Fest said that I had enough energy to get to get through the day and definitely had more energy this year than last year. So that was a success. Praise God.

And another thing that last year I was thinking, what are my New Year's resolutions? And I was in I'll be very honest with you. I was in this kind of midterm election funk. Kerry Lake should have been governor. It was not a good landscape.

The House majority was thin. And so I said, what do I want to really attack? And by the way, that's a great way of framing your New Year's resolutions is to attack them with urgency, with aggression, with ferocity. Don't just walk towards your New Year's resolution, attack them, surgical strike. You'll find it you'll find that sort of attitude.

You're much more likely to actually accomplish it. And so I was in this midterm funk. I was so at the time and still am, obviously, but honestly, but to a lesser extent, not exactly thrilled about this kind of popcorn politics.

Again, I was so turned off by what they did to Kerry Lake and all this stuff. And so I said, have I really done the work? I've read the books, but if I really studied the Old Testament and as many of you know, I'm a big Dennis Prager fan.

And so I went to Dennis Prager dot com. I just started flipping around. I was like, oh, this looks hard. I said, this is something that a lot of people would say now that's too hard that that that looks too big. And I said, well, the only reason I wouldn't do this is because I decide not to do it.

The only reason I would not be able to do this particular task, I'll tell you what it is, is a complete act of the will. It doesn't take massive intelligence. It doesn't take tons of money.

It's simply do I want to do this thing? And Dennis Prager over the course of 18 years on Dennis Prager dot com Prager store dot com, he had Dennis teaches the Torah and is for sale for nine hundred and ninety five dollars. And that's a lot of money for a lot of people.

For me, I looked at it as an investment and a way to give back to Dennis for all that he's done to me. And it's not easy. So for 18 years, Dennis Prager would for 90 minutes to two hours teach the Torah. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. So just the fact that he did that for 18 years inspired me to become a better version of myself. And we hear it say a lot, you know, Jordan Peterson, people that the Old Testament Judeo Christian values built the West. I said, do I really grasp that well? And I said, I I'm somewhat of an expert, but I said, here I am trying to lead a movement.

Do I really? No, understand, comprehend, have I really meditated the books that built our world? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. And the honest answer was, no, I hadn't really studied those books. And so I start flipping through this available at PragerStore.com and says here more than anything else, Dennis loves teaching the Torah, five books of Moses, the Hebrew Bible, more than 18 years.

He taught it verse by verse at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles to both Jews and Christians. And so I start flipping through this. I say, oh, come on, I'll get this done in January, right? Two hundred and forty one hours. And one hundred and ninety nine talks like that's a big number and it sounds manageable, right? Two hundred forty one hours, you can, you know, bite size it. So I bought it at PragerStore.com and I wrote down a goal. I said, I want to work through every single one of the Dennis Prager lectures on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Two hundred and forty one hours and one hundred and ninety nine talks. And the next segment I'll tell you about, I'll tell you about that journey. That goal started with, I want that. I want it for the right reasons.

And it took work. All right, I want to tell you about Herzog. Herzog Foundation is amazing.

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H-E-R-Z-O-G. HerzogFoundation.com. 241 hours, 199 talks, and start every day. Going for walks when I'm on an airplane. And it took work. It took work. And so I got through Genesis by early March. I started listening to Exodus around April, and then June came along, and the dog days of Leviticus started. I got super sick in late June. Andrew remembers this. I was in Maine, very sick, like 104 degree fever. It was insane.

And Andrew guest hosted a great job. And so I used it as an opportunity to listen to 25 hours of Leviticus. I'll never forget that, being super sick, listening to Leviticus.

At least I maximized the time. And then I finally got through Leviticus. And then July and August started to work through Numbers, and it took the entire fall to finish Deuteronomy. Now look, there's so many lessons that I have from this. First of all, if you have any doubt, any doubt about God and religion, I do not take you seriously unless you have studied, not to the same extent I did, because that's insane, at least studied a little bit. Understand the complexity, the beauty, the interconnectivity, the prescience, the prophecy, at least in Genesis and Exodus. I don't take you seriously as an atheist, I don't take you seriously as an agnostic, unless you've done work, study it and tell me there's nothing special there.

Nothing at all, just a bunch of fables. If you come back and you tell me that, in fact, very, very few people that have seriously studied Genesis, Exodus go on to be lifelong agnostics or atheists. They're obviously out there. Joseph Stalin, for example, was one of them.

Joseph Stalin went to a seminary, ended up being a mass murdering atheist. It is an infinitely deep well. You can go as deep as you want and as deep as you're open to going. I'm not even an expert. I wouldn't even say I'm even close to an expert. I'm saying, though, that I have now at least a baseline understanding, after 241 hours and listening to Prager's 199 talks, of what the books say, what the narrative is. And by the way, I'm at like one percent knowledge and understanding of what the Bible offers.

Not even, there's not even a number you would put on it, but I'll just say one percent of earthly or human comprehension. But if you're out there and you say, boy, you know, God doesn't speak to me. I don't see God.

You have to work at it. So here's a challenge to you. Go study Genesis and get back to me and tell me that there's nothing exceptional about that. Tell me that there's nothing exceptional about the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, creation, fall, exile, the flood, the moral code, the Noahic covenant, the city of Babel. If you're like, oh, that's just a bunch of fairy tales.

You should do the work. And that's one of the big lessons of 2023 for me is that you get what you focus on. And that's so counterintuitive to what the world would tell you. The world would tell you that, oh, you're just a byproduct to your environment and a byproduct to your circumstances. To a certain extent that, of course, that's true. But you end up becoming who you want to be.

So if you want to become more literate in biblical text, then focus on that in 2024. If you want to become a happier person, then focus on happiness and start acting happier. Don't wait for happiness to come to you. Start to actually act happier.

It's completely the opposite as to what mainstream secular opinion would lead you to believe. So I will say that one of the things that I am actually the most proud of, of the New Year's resolutions I made last year, I made the New Year's resolution. I said, I want to finish the Torah by Dennis Prager. And I did. And I can't tell you the accomplishment and the satisfaction that I feel. And it took nearly the entire calendar year. It was not overnight. It took a lot of times where I'm sitting on an airplane and I turn to Mikey and I say, do you want to know about Levitical priestly garments?

And he says, no. And I'm going to build this out because I'm going to go through the top three books of 2023, the third of which is all about discipline, by the way. And when you keep up your disciplines, you end up having more self-worth, more direction, more purpose, less depression, less sadness. Focus more on the process than the outcome. I think we have lost in our society the necessity of the habits and the process. And we're so focused on the reward. Sometimes you have to commit to things, you know, that are good for you over a period of time, trusting that they will help you and doing it every single day. And yes, it takes work.

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It's my pillow.com promo code Kirk. So I encourage you guys to write down some New Year's resolutions. I'm a big fan of New Year's resolutions, fresh starts. And if you're in a place where you say, you know, I wish I could be this, or I should do that, you must turn your shoulds to musts. Turn your shoulds to musts.

I must lose weight. I must listen to this audio book. I must study. I must become a better version of myself. And there's infinite ways that you can improve yourself going in 2024.

Just some very simple ideas. Decide to read 20 books, 50 books. Typically, I read around 50 or 60 books a year. That was lower today this year because of the emphasis and I was a conscious emphasis on the Prager Talks. So that was 241 hours, which in audiobook world, that could have been 15 or 20 extra books, about 199 talks. So, but still, I did about 40 books this year, 40, 45 books.

And I'll tell you the ones that I thought were the best of the year. And that's just a big takeaway for you guys. I know this sounds like an over simple prescription to problems, but you're probably not reading enough.

If you're looking for answers to life, looking for answers to self-improvement, it is a lost art. And it's a beautiful thing to read. We watch way too much television.

We have so much dead time on our phones. So make a priority to maybe just say, I'm going to read a book a month. Of course, audiobooks count as well. Now, if you listen to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast, I got to say, you know, we have a good amount of wisdom here in this program, some great guests. So I'm going to read a book and I'll give you a pass for that.

But instead of watching Netflix, anti-white Obama, whatever thing that he has, turn that off and go read a book. So the Prager stuff was amazing. So thankful for that. I have literally notebooks full of notes on Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Numbers. It infinitely blessed my life and also just started all of this incredible journey into trying to find symmetry in the New Testament, in the Old Testament. It was just amazing. And the it's a gift that keeps on giving. So in addition to that.

Read a bunch of books, so that the top three books of the year, the third book is all about discipline. And it's by this guy who he tends to be like militantly nonpolitical. I know Tucker Carlson has tried to have him on his show. I like him. He tends to skew a little bit to the left, but his name is Ryan Holiday.

He's on YouTube, very popular to probably recognize him. He's kind of best known for bringing back stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca being the most famous stoics and applying it to modern life and finding stories of people that used stoicism as a way to navigate life's troubles. And so he has a whole series of these books. The one that I really enjoyed is called Discipline is Destiny as the third best book of the year. The Power of Self-Control in Discipline is Destiny.

He talks about Lou Gehrig, Queen Elizabeth II, Floyd Patterson, Marcus Aurelius, writer Tony Morrison, Napoleon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babe Ruth. Amazing book. And I'm a big believer in self-control. Now, we as Christians believe that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.

It comes from the Lord. But if I were to isolate one of a handful of things that I think America is missing, it's certainly self-control. And self-control is a skill that builds, and it builds the ability to say no, the ability not to drink alcohol.

By the way, that's a great goal for you. Stop drinking poison. Alcohol is poison. I'm not saying you're a bad person if you do. I'm not saying that I think less of you.

That is not what I'm saying. However, it is a fact people that stop drinking alcohol almost across the board tend to be happier over a period of time. Not immediately because you go through withdrawals.

Happier over a period of time, lose weight, more money, especially if you're on a budget. Alcohol is really bad for you. Obviously, no drugs.

You should be doing no drugs whatsoever. But these are things that can improve your life without having actually add to your life. You can actually add by subtracting.

You can add by saying I'm not going to you can add by saying I'm not going to have six beers when I watch the college football playoff. So Discipline is Destiny, the third best book of 2023. The second best book that I read in 2023. And I didn't like the ending.

It got a little bit too corporate wonky technical. This is a very, very popular book. I enjoyed it, though, by Shawn Achor called The Happiness Advantage. It's a good book.

And I enjoyed the first three fourths the best. He argues that if you commit to the action of being happy, if you commit to the if you commit to acting in a way that is obviously joyful and happy, you'll actually succeed more in life. And he talks the best part of the whole book was about 10 to 15 pages where Shawn argues through a lot of data that your brain is constantly changing. And I would add, I also read the I also read Scott Adams book.

I want to have Scott Adams on the show about reframing. I thought it was a very, very powerful book. I didn't like all of it. I didn't.

Some of it was a little goofy at times. However, it was a really, really important idea where he says, you get to choose how you frame your experiences. I love that. And by the way, the apostle Paul is evidence of that. Apostle Paul is in prison and he's rejoicing. I've never been more free because I'm free in Christ. You have a conscious decision, an act of the will, an act of your agency to frame your experiences.

Romans 8 28, God is working all things for his good for those that love him. And obviously we know a lot of the quotes John would in attitude 10 percent. What happens to you? 90 percent of how you react. What I liked about the Happiness Advantage, Shawn Acor talks about how London taxi cab drivers have enlarged hippocampus. Hippocampus is your ability to map your ability to have directional awareness, your ability to memorize streets, directions. And why on earth would older men who are taxiing taxi cab drivers in London have enlarged hippocampus? Because the streets in London are so insane. They were designed by crazy people. Literally, they're like one way.

Andrew lived in London, he knows, and it's out of control. And what it goes to show, used as an example, is that your brain is constantly changing. An old belief in neuroscience was that your brain stops developing at age 18 or 20. What he talks about in the Happiness Advantage is your brain is actually changing all the time. Your brain is constantly plastic, it's constantly adjusting.

Now why is that important? That means that if you're 26 right now, listen to this, or 35 or 50, and you're depressed and you're anxious, you have bad habits, you can choose a better future for yourself. You can choose a better life. You could choose to stop the bad habits and add good habits.

You can choose to be happier and to be more joyful. And that leads to the best book that I read in 2023, The Gap in the Game. Without a doubt the best book that I read and with kind of one of the shortest, there it is right up there, by Dan Sullivan with also Dr. Benjamin Hardy. So it's the High Achiever's Guide to Happiness, Confidence and Success.

I read it twice and I've re-listened to it three times and it's ridiculously simple but the way of framing it is super powerful. So in the book The Gap in the Game, they argue that there's two ways of framing your experiences, they're very binary, that you can either live in the gap or you can live in the gain. So for example, people such as myself, I'm constantly living in the gap. The gap between where I am and where I want to be. So there's a delta, there's a gap between those two things and I'm fixating on not being yet where I want to be. Instead, he argues, you should live in the gain, how far you've already come, how much you already have in a constant perpetual place of gratitude and understanding of what you already have. And that really is one of the keys to not just happiness but to joy and contentment, especially in the Christian faith.

And so in the book, they talk about how so many hard-driving entrepreneurs are constantly measuring themselves against the ideal and they're in the gap. I'll be happy when I sell the company. I'll be happy once I close that sale. I'll be happy and they argue, well why are you not happy now? Why aren't you happy today?

Why do you need that extra thing? And by the way, you won't be happy when you get that extra thing because you've wired your mind in a way to say that I need that extra thing so therefore I'm just getting another extra thing. I'll be happy once I go to the football game.

I'll be happy once my kid graduates college. Now the only exception to that, the only exception is if you are in absolute total misery. That's the only exception they say in the book. The only exception is like your kid has terminal cancer.

That's fair. However, 99% of that sort of thinking doesn't happen in absolute misery or crisis. It happens in I need another vacation or I need another thing to get me to be happy and in the book it challenges you.

Well why can't you delight in the moment and delight in the present? And if you're finding that that happiness, that presence, that joy eludes you, no matter how much you've achieved, then learning this easy mindset reframe that Scott Adams talks about beautifully in his book will set you on a life-changing path they argue to greater fulfillment and success. I loved it.

It's amazing. It's very easy to read. It's only a couple hours and it's by Dan Sullivan who is a great author.

So Discipline is Destiny, Happiness, Advantage, Gap in the Game. Do you notice a through line of those three books? They're not political. I don't love political books. I read political philosophy in there.

I take courses with the Claremont Institute. I love it. But life is more than politics everybody. Life is more than just Republicans good and Democrats bad and Uniparty this. I do that all the time. It's fine. I actually I actually sometimes enjoy taking a step back in philosophy, personal improvement, betterment of self, constantly trying to become mentally stronger, more physically fit.

I love that stuff. So set those goals. Push yourself. You got to raise your standard of excellence.

This is one thing that I want to contribute to the conservative movement is we have to challenge ourselves and be a little uncomfortable where we are. Write down your goals. Every single one of us, and I'll include us in this, we have work to do.

2024 is going to be the hardest year I've ever worked. That's my commitment to you. That's commitment to our Turning Point donors.

That's commitment to your audience. We're going to be doing broadcasts, live streams, speeches. When we're going to be sitting right here in this chair, God willing, God willing, I'll be sitting right here in this chair. We'll have Blake crunching numbers. We'll have Andrew right here. We'll have Jack.

Who knows? I'll be able to look into the camera as all of a sudden they say, that's it. Ballots closed. We're waiting for results. I'll be able to look into the camera and say, I did everything I could. I did everything I could. And if we don't win, I'll have no regret and I will have enjoyed the process.

That's the other thing. I will have enjoyed meeting all of you and doing shows and convincing people and persuading and fighting because I love to fight. And if we win, glory be to God, because it's just a matter of obedience.

We're going to need a miracle because we're up against these demons, unlike anything I've ever seen. You got to play to the whistle. So write down your goals. So one of my goals for 2024 is to work harder than it is in 2023. And to really crescendo, especially post Labor Day, I'm going to go nuts. It's going to make the last couple of years look like nothing. So you guys better buckle up. We're going to need your help. We need your prayers.

We need your support. I gave the team off at turning point. I was like, you guys need to take some time off because we're about to enter into turbulence about to begin.

Full ratchet and some ratcheful. And you might say, oh, my goodness, I don't know if I can handle that. That's fine. Just do your part. As I say, here I am. We have a whole speech on that.

Here I am. You got to listen to that in the Charlie Kirk show podcast. We don't fight because we think or know we're going to win. You fight out of obedience. You step up because it's the right thing to do out of duty. One of the lost words in the West is duty.

Entire generation doesn't even know what that word means. What do you mean duty? I have duty myself. No, no, you have duty to something greater than yourself. Duty to the divine, to your ancestors, to your family, to your children, to your parents, to God, to your country, to your church, to your community.

You have a duty to things that are greater than you. You are not the greatest thing ever to exist. You're important. You're loved.

God loves you. But there are things greater than just you. That's why we fight. And when you do your duty, you'll find naturally that your self-image improves.

Your confidence, your depression eases, your mood improves. It's very hard. It takes work. By the way, some of you might say, Charlie, I'm fired up. I love this episode.

I love this. I'm going to do it. And then a week later, say, I'm giving up. This is going to be, it takes 90, 100, 150, 200 days sometimes to reprogram, to build new neural pathways, to shed yourself of addictions. But once you are, you can operate at a level that you'll never have thought possible.

New habits, tons of joy, lots of gratitude, focus, passion, energy, intensity. There's a better life out there for you. If you're out there, you're like, boy, this is just heavy. Life is tough.

And it's kicking me in the tail. You got to commit to being better. And you have to do the habit, be process oriented, habit stack, find five things that you know that are good for you that you aren't doing. I'm going to walk around the block. I'm going to drink a ton of water. I'm going to stop drinking alcohol. I'm going to stop eating refined sugar and carbs.

And I'm going to try to read a book a month. Those five things, every single one of you guys can do regardless of your income level. If you were worth millions of dollars or you were worth no money, those five things you can do, no excuse. That's it. Focus on your physiology, focus on your mental, focus on your spiritual, boom, boom, boom.

And then after 90 days, like, well, that was easy. Well then increase all those instead of going around for a walk, go for a jog instead of just reading a book a month, read a book a week. Your physiology improve your diet even more. So not am I only do no refined sugar, no carbohydrates, no alcohol, no smoking, but I'm also going to say I want to lose 10, 15 pounds.

Go to my phdweightloss.com. By the way, one of my goals is I'm going to try to, try to, try to finish every single Hillsdale online course going into 2024. In all my idle time traveling across the country, I have a choice. I can watch some stupid Netflix Hulu thing.

Oh, that's funny. Or I could listen to Hillsdale online courses, charlieforhillsdale.com, push yourself, raise your standard of excellence. There is a better life for you. However, I'll tell you going into 2024, mediocrity is not going to save the country.

You're going to have to want something excellent. So pray on it, work towards it, flourish in the name of the, in the name of the Lord. Let's do it together. This is a great year, everybody, 2023.

It was a setup for what comes next. Let's work and I'll see you guys in the new year. Thanks so much for listening. Everybody email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening. God bless.

For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com. Ah, ho ho ho. Hey, what's wrong, Santa? Well, it's these elves. The new ones all feel entitled. They don't want to work their way up the ladder.

In fact, they hardly want to work at all. Then there's those social justice elves. They keep pointing out everyone's differences, dividing the elves and getting them all riled up. And don't get me started about the reindeer rights elves. The shop floor just isn't the happy little place it used to be. We should have used red balloon.

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