Live 15 lives in another world

What if I told you there is a book that you won’t be able to put down, one that’s cleverly written and filled with compelling stories and through which you will learn (a lot) about how many people in the world experience life? Look no further than How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid.

I heard about this book from a podcast with Chris Sacca, who works with entrepreneurs and recommended it as a way to increase one’s empathy and gain a broader perspective on life. Specifically, he said that when “you close that book you feel like you’ve walked through 15 to 20 different lives in another world.”

That sounded pretty cool to me.

Here is more on the book from Chris:

This book is amazing. So, it’s written in the second person, which, I don’t know of another book like that. But, it’s just you, you, you. You wake up in this room […] and you basically start the book in a slum in Pakistan. And, it’s just writing to you about how you go through your day, the things that matter to you. And, it turns out you’re kind of entrepreneurial, and you’re
willing to take some risks, and so, you start working into other
stations in life. And, I don’t wanna give anything else about the
book away, but you close that book, and you feel like you’ve
walked through 15 to 20 different lives in another world. And, I
just think more of that would be better for all of us.

I mean, you and I have traveled to Ethiopia together, doing work for Charity Water. It’s hard to complain about a day’s work back here in the United States, when you have been in a village where they walk three to four hours each way to get water, where the kids are dying, because they drink the same water that the cow poops into. Where the women don’t get an opportunity to go to school, because they’re carrying the water, and along the way, they might get eaten by a lion or raped, and it’s really hard to find yourself complaining about our privileged US life, and that’s something you can just tell.

If that all sounds good to you, you should read it. It’s pretty fantastic.