Reading List

Ray Dalio shares his personal principles developed over decades to create unique results in both life and business.

• Look past first-order consequence to 2nd or 3rd.
• Look objectively at your life from above, recognize patterns as "another one of those".
• Pain helps us evolve. The faster we learn the lesson the more we grow.

Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it. A memoir of survival and meaning.

• We cannot avoid suffering. The suffering we go through offers a deep and meaningful lesson at the end of it all.
• Happiness cannot be pursued but rather ensued. It is a side effect of living towards your goals.

Dweck explains why praising intelligence may jeopardize success, and why a growth mindset is the key to outstanding achievement.

• Praise people for their efforts, not abilities. "You worked so hard to do this" — not "you're so smart".
• You will always go one way or the other. You might as well be the one deciding the direction.
• A challenge helps you grow. Its incompletion does not define who you are.

In today's volatile landscape, adaptability and creativity are more crucial than ever. Samit shows how to master personal transformation and seize opportunity.

• Start your morning with visualizations. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into competitions like he owned it, having already won in his mind.
• Make a list of every person or company who can benefit from your product.
• The biggest problems often hide the biggest opportunities.

Peter Thiel shows how to find singular ways to create new things and build monopolies by solving unique problems.

• All happy companies are different. Each earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem.
• All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.
• Start with a big share of a small market.
• There is no place for indefinite optimism in a startup. Why should people invest when you don't have a plan?

The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence Duckworth calls "grit."

• Passion is like a compass. It takes time but eventually guides you in the right direction.
• Grit is about holding your top-level goal for a very long time.
• Warren Buffett's process: write 25 career goals, circle 5 with highest priority, avoid the other 20 at all cost.
• Connect your work to a purpose beyond yourself.

Drawing from stoicism, Holiday shows how the most successful people in history turned obstacles into advantages.

• Stoics focus on what they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every obstacle into an opportunity.
• The observing eye is strong. The perceiving eye is weak.
• Failure shows us the way — by showing us what isn't the way.
• True masters do less than others. They choose where to point their efforts so they're most efficient.

The personal writings of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius on Stoic philosophy — a source for his own guidance and self-improvement.

• Don't think about others unless for a common utility, otherwise you forget what rules your own being.
• Let no acts be done without a purpose.
• Return to your principles and the seeking of reason.
• "Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body."
• Observe everything life gives you carefully for its experience, dissolve it and turn it to learning.

Lidsky draws on his experience of achieving immense success while losing his sight to show that it's how we perceive and respond to circumstances that governs our reality.

• Always look under the bed. Don't be controlled by fear.
• Every time you avoid an action you risk confusing "cannot" with "choose not to".
• By awfulizing we distort our realities, often bringing about the same consequences we hope to escape.
• Your value can never be found in the eyes of others.
• Language is the bridge to thoughts. Listen like a lawyer, speak like a 5-year-old.

What happened when Jesse Itzler invited one of the toughest men alive to move in and train him for a month. By the time SEAL leaves, Jesse is in the best shape of his life.

• Do something uncomfortable every day.
• The harder the training, the more courage it took and the more satisfaction derived from it.
• It doesn't have to be fun. It's gotta be effective.
• If you don't challenge yourself, you don't know yourself.
• I don't stop when I'm tired. I stop when I'm done.
• Control your mind. Our minds sometimes tell us little lies about ourselves.

Jesse Itzler moved into a monastery for a self-imposed time-out. What he learned there about focus, presence, and happiness.

• Be where you are or you will miss your life. — Buddha
• The memories we create of our own accord are the paintbrushes. Life is the canvas.
• Breakthroughs happen when limiting thoughts and beliefs are challenged.
• Nothing so fatal to character as half-done tasks.
• How you do anything is how you do everything.
• When you talk, you're only repeating what you already know. When you listen, you may learn something new.

A systematic approach to making competition irrelevant and creating uncontested market space where you can define the rules.

• The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.
• Value innovation: create leaping value for buyers and your company simultaneously.
• Change your focus from existing customers to non-customers.
• Fair process is key to execution: engagement, explanation, and clarity of expectation.

Manson cuts through positive-thinking clichés: real happiness requires confronting pain, choosing better problems, and accepting responsibility for everything in your life.

• Don't try to avoid pain. Confront it. That's when realizations happen.
• We are always responsible for our experiences — whether we're aware of it or not.
• Being wrong opens us up to the possibility of change. Growth requires it.
• Choose what to care about. When you choose better problems, you get a better life.
• Feel stuck? Just start. Do something. It will lead to more ideas and more action.

Carnegie's timeless advice on human relations, persuasion, and leadership — the foundational book on how to get what you want by giving others what they want.

• You can get anyone to do anything by giving them what they want. Ask: what do they want?
• Sincerely appreciate people. Don't flatter.
• You can make more friends by becoming genuinely interested in others than by trying to get them interested in you.
• Talk to people about themselves and they will do it for hours.
• Let the other person do all the talking. Plant the idea, make them think it's theirs.

Dispenza shows how meditation, coherent brainwaves, and elevated emotions can transform health, reality, and what we believe is possible.

• When your brain is wholistic, you feel whole. Your brain is you.
• Your body constantly wants to return to addicted feelings. Prove your mind is stronger.
• Frequencies we can see or sense make up less than 1% of all existing frequencies.
• To create unlimited, you must feel unlimited. To heal something you must feel completely healed.
• Living in the unknown means living in the realm of possibilities.

Ferriss shows how to escape the rat race, work less, and design a life of freedom — right now, not at retirement.

• When you find yourself living with the majority, stop and question yourself.
• Be productive, not busy.
• "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.
• The fastest way to failure is inaction.
• Ask yourself 3 times per day: am I being productive, or just active?
• Eliminate before you delegate. If it's not important, eliminate it.

Peale demonstrates the power of faith in action and shows how to energize your life with the initiative needed to carry out your ambitions and hopes.

• When you can see, feel, and visualize a goal clearly, you will achieve it.
• Fear, resentment, inner conflict, and obsession throw us off balance and cause unnecessary expenditure of energy.

Goggins transformed from a depressed, overweight young man into a U.S. Armed Forces icon. He shares how most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities.

• Write down all the uncomfortable things in your life — then do them. Again and again.
• Don't give in to your governor. Remove it.
• Cookie jar: create a system that reminds you how far you've come and how bad-ass you are.
• When your mind is begging you to stop, increase effort by 5-10% each week.
• Write an AAR (after action report) of your failures. List what you can fix and schedule another attempt ASAP.

How Rich Roll went from overweight, mid-life couch potato to endurance machine — and what he discovered about purpose along the way.

• When the heart is true, the universe will conspire to support you.
• Purpose and faith will lead you to success.
• We trip over a future that hasn't happened yet.
• Let go of the end game. Fall in love with the process.
• It's the journey that gives your path meaning. There really is no destination.

Keuilian cuts through excuses and shows that everyone has a gift and a purpose. The duty is to figure out what it is and share it with the world.

• No excuses. Ask constantly: how can I add value?
• Study someone you admire and use it.
• List all your monthly work tasks. Mark C or T (critical or trivial). Find the 5% only you can do for growth.
• Indecision is a business killer.
• Spend your time with people who dominate.

Keller and Papasan show how to cut through clutter, achieve better results in less time, and master what matters most by focusing on a single priority.

• Ask yourself: what's the one thing I need to do today to move me closer to my goal?
• Focusing is about saying no.
• The more things you do, the less successful you are at any of them.
• Be a creator for as many hours as possible. Hold manager meetings at the end of the day.

McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets — showing us everything we knew about running is wrong.

• Everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
• The body is capable of far more than we believe.
• Run easy, run light, run smooth.

Grover breaks down what it takes to be unstoppable: keeping going when everyone else gives up, thriving under pressure, and never letting emotions make you weak.

• In order to get what you want out of life, you must first be yourself.
• Own up to yourself.
• You're always clutch when you trust your instincts.

Calacanis takes you inside the minds of successful angel investors — how they evaluate ventures, calculate risks, and generate phenomenal returns.

• Find non-traditional people who don't know they're angels yet. Bond over your vertical.
• Make your own early-stage investors by reaching out with a humble, specific ask.
• If you have a chart showing revenue doubling every 3 months, you're fundable.
• Networking like that is a superhuman power. Play the long game.

Based on interviews with 50 legendary financial experts, Robbins creates a seven-step blueprint anyone can use for financial freedom.

• Find a way to give more value to others than anyone else. Serve more people and the same will occur for you.
• Action = power.
• A man who has not found something he would die for is not fit to live. — Dr. MLK

Former FBI hostage negotiator Voss shares counterintuitive tactics for high-stakes negotiations — applicable to every conversation in business and life.

• Ignore the fear of conflict. Get over it through empathy.
• The person you're negotiating with is your partner. The adversary is the situation.
• Don't let emotion get the best of you.
• Your job is to uncover value, not fight.
• When the pressure is on, you fall to your highest level of preparation.
• People who expect more and articulate it get more.

Sinek shows that the leaders with the greatest influence all think, act, and communicate from the same starting point: why they do it, not what they do.

• People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.
• Target the innovators and early users on the bell curve. They will bring everyone else.
• When you compete against others no one wants to help you. When you compete against yourself everybody wants to help you.
• Make sure your why isn't fuzzy.

Vance captures the full arc of Musk's life — from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa to his dramatic innovations at SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity.

• The longer you wait to fire someone, the longer it has been since you should have fired them.
• Pursue goals that seem impossible by breaking them into engineering problems.

Graziosi's book is designed with one purpose: to take you from where you are to where you want to be by incorporating daily success habits.

• Focus only on where you want to go. Be specific on your intentions.
• Live your hero version. Define exactly who he is and act as him daily.
• Create a "Not to Do List." Next to each item write: eliminate, automate, outsource, or delegate.
• People buy from you when they feel understood, not when they understand you.
• Sell people what they want and give them what they need.

Science-backed methods of breath control and cold training that dramatically enhance energy, reduce stress, boost immunity, and transform health.

• Feeling is understanding.
• Cold, breath exercises, and commitment. That's all it takes.
• Heart rate and breathing are directly correlated. Control one, you control them both.

Lakhiani teaches you to question inherited "brules" (bullsh*t rules), challenge assumptions, and create your own definition of success.

• Focus on end goals, not means goals.
• Ask: what experiences do I want? How do I want to grow? How do I want to contribute?
• When life gets too serious, get up on the dinner table and dance.

The story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules. One of the most beautiful books I've ever read — finish it in a single drive.

• I didn't write takeaways for this one. It's a story you create your own takeaways from. When Kobe Bryant passed away, I learned he recommended this book to Winnie Harlow. Michael Jackson recommended it to Kobe. Some stories just pass forward.

Clear reveals that you do not rise to the level of your goals — you fall to the level of your systems. Here's a proven system for lasting change.

• It's not how long it takes to start a new habit — it's how many repetitions.
• Remove friction to increase chances of performing the desired action.
• Change "I have to" to "I get to."

Oprah's essays on joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, and power — a rare glimpse into the mind of one of the world's most extraordinary women.

• We are each responsible for our own life.
• If you walk into fear, your deepest struggle will turn into your biggest accomplishment.
• There is no strength without problems, setbacks, and pain.
• The more stressful and chaotic things are on the outside, the more calm you need to be on the inside.

For nearly 40 years, a favorite finance guide for more than a million investors. Concise, witty, and truly understandable tips on savings, investments, and retirement.

• Spend less than you earn. The rest follows.

Dispenza shares documented cases of those who reversed serious illness by believing in a placebo — and shows how belief shapes our biology.

• Belief can be so strong it rewrites biology. Mind over matter is not a metaphor.
• The placebo effect proves the body can heal itself when the mind creates the right conditions.