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POOP

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• Top tier 8
• Phases of life
• Specific Problems
• Tier 2 & 3

NEEDS:

• Richest Man in Babylon – Financial Advisors Recommend
• NEED Annotation – Concept highlihgthing in paper, what problem did this solve, what differentiates from other books
• NEED Book then link to page w actionable steps

• Searchable alphabetic
• Chronological top 10 i rec?
• Age group?
• Would recommend reading the book that solves your most current problem and sheer interest

Every single one of these books improved my life. I wish I started reading books that solved my problems earlier as the most influential were the ones that addressed a problem at that very moment.

All of it ends up being useful – But we have the ability to read books that are more or less useful. Unfortunately, we don’t know if they’ll be useful or not until we’ve already read them. Other people have already read them. Perhaps they can offer insight knowing if the book can solve our problems or not. Eliminate wasted time.

All I can say for a fact, this is the order I wish read these books (for most impact). Certain were more useful at certain points in my life. Everyone deals with different problems at different times though, so it’s up to you to figure out you’re most immediate problem right now and hopefully I can give you the book to solve it (n’ maybe get lost in a few useful rabbit holes on the way).

We don’t know the first box we’re stuck in until we climb out of it. I want a road map of resources. Read a shit ton. Could have read more effectively to develop the mind. All useful. But some is more useful if read it at the right time. I want to provide options – Allow you to solve your problems w most influential books I’ve read

Shouldn’t school teach us the why to live? Perhaps to early for a young curious and excited mind to comprehend… Fine. But High School? College? These are young adults, the future of society, the country, and our world. Why are we waiting so long? If they’re old enough to be taught Differential Calculus why would we not impart upon them reasons to live and ways to make it better?

Why wait until retirement to live a good life? Shouldn’t we be living the dream life as we’re living it… not once it’s already over? Perhaps we don’t have to wait until we’re 65 to start enjoying our lives.

Intent and the Action

We start out at different parts of problem. I guess I was unaware until senior year of HS. Then unaware until Jr year of College. Then became problem aware, then starting talking to Rex, then sol

• HS – Unaware until applied for Academy
• Academy up to Jr Yr – Unaware
• Talked to Rex >> Problem Aware
• Kept talkign to Rex >> Solution Aware (podcast, business, Gumroad, Minimalism, Money Moustache, Visualize Value)
• Dan Koe >> Product Aware, bought product >> Solution Aware
• Blogs, WW, Newsletter, X >> Most aware
• Now I just execute >> Really Scared

Journey to happy, ie self actualization. Along way random friction points
(talk to ppl – never split; leadership – turn ship; limiting self belief – gymnastics; relationships – how to make friends influence, 7 habits, 5 reg)

We are only capable of what we believe is possible. Reading other peoples’ stories has been a beautiful way for me to find out what’s possible. Another approach: 10x your goals. Even if just as a thought experiment, if your monetary goal is $50,000 per year, make it $500,000. If it’s $500,000 make it $5M. I find just the practice of going through this forces me to expand my mind and see what’s possible. Generally speaking our beliefs of what is possible are relegated to how we grew up. That can easily be cultivated and expanded by experiences and learning frmo those of others.

If stay true to passions – Russ, Drake, Alan Watts, Matt MagrudMoney but not Happy (Jon Haidt dad) – 5 Reg Dying, Die w 0, Courage toUnhappy & no Money – Me HS gotta get $ first place OR follow passions

“If you haven’t read 100s of books you are functionally illiterate. Your experiences alone are not enough to sustain you”

Marine General Jim Mattis – Call Sign Chaos

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“The truth is, I don’t read for self-improvement. I read out of curiosity and interest. The best book is the one you’ll devour“

Naval Ravikant

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“Man’s flight through life is sustained by the power of his knowledge”

Austin Miller

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Stages of Life

Perhaps the most valuable thing we can do is learn from the experiences of others. Humans have been living and solving shit for thousands of years. One of the best habits I’ve picked up is identifying historical role models and reading their stories.

1 Wake Up Call – “There’s this tiny voice inside that’s telling me to go the other way but everyone else is going this way”

These are books I wish I read in earlier in life. It seems like we grow up on autopilot, not even conscious of the life we’re starting to pave. Next thing we know, we find ourselves on some path we maybe didn’t ask to be on.

• . but no confidence, and in denial – Unaware ofProblem->Aware – Madi, Juli, me HS
  Deems. – These books do a nice job of helping us realize that we’re even following a path in the first place
  • The Alchemist – Manifest Destiny, Dreams, Purpose Deems rec, Rex rec, Russ rec – Wake up call
  • A New Earth ~ Juli rec, realized she was stagnating in a 10 year marriage and needed to get out. Wake up call.
  • Excellent Sheep ~ Helped me realize I was following the path. Seth says “Shit i already knew” – already aware of problem, ie not a prob – wake up call. Particularly useful for high performers in school… people who were taught to jump through the hoops, did, and then were left not getting what they wanted and in a bit of confusion. Meaghanne, Matthew, me, Ceilidh.
  • 5 Regrets of the Dying by Australian Caretaker Bronnie Ware – In the pursuit of personal and financial freedom, this book has been a bit of a compass offering tremendous insight into the available ways of life. I don’t know the best way to live. I’m a child in the grand scheme of life. Luckily, I don’t have to go hrough years of regret to find a life I want to live. Bronnie Ware describes her soul searching journey as a bit of a lost soul, explaining how she becomes a caretaker for elder people in their final weeks of life. She has incredibly powerful connections and aggregates the most common regrets of these 70, 80, and 90 year olds, male and female. Her 5 min Guardian Article was how I found her, and totally blew my mind that 2 of the 5 most common regrets dealt with remaining close with friends. The most common regret? “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me” Wake up call mom. Helpful later in life too
    

2 Lost but Unsure

• Aware but Unsure, Feeling Lost 2) Aware but Unsure “I don’t know what I want, but I know it’s not this” , Inflection Point, Miles, Ceilidh, Find Self- Problem Aware -> Solution Aware – Top 3 incredibly useful at an inflection point
  What do we agree upon – Happy, self actualization, freedom – how do we get there? Allllll these books are part of that journey. Ally & Meaghanne sorta need path but $ so move to step 3. Miles – needs path. (soorttaaa Seth)
  • The Alchemist – Manifest Destiny, Dreams, Purpose Deems rec, Rex rec, Russ rec. This book is gonna rock your shit. I actually help off reading it in college, knowing that I ‘had to’ finish my degree. Find what the fuck you want. I imagine this book is most useful at an inflection point and time of chaos
  • Defining Decade by PhD Psychologist Meg Jay – Useful anytime in your 20s, particularly when feeling unsure of self and that ‘everyone else has it figured out’. It helped me feel less alone and understand plenty of other people my age were dealing with similar problems – That alone made it extremely useful and helps to avoid some common pitfalls when all we really want is to be understood and understand self. It also discusses sliding in relationships, communication, intentionality with our jobs, relationships, and family, as well as the usefulness of Weak Ties – Oftentimes we can help (and be helped) substantially from those friends of friends or people we aren’t necessarily bros with (tough to hear as a serious introvert) I recommend this book a few times on this list. Ironically, recommended by a now weak tie, a good friend from over a decade ago (thx Ethan). For me, often times that feeling of uncertainty came (and comes) from that feeling of being lost… not having a sense of purpose. Sometimes we just gotta pick a direction and say “f@$k it I’ll figure it out”. Growing up, it feels like we’re in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, but if don’t start swimming in a direction, we’ll stay in the middle of the ocean.
  • 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Brit Oliver Burkeman – This book helps push back against the machine… while you’re in the machine. It’s less of a, “I quit my job and gonna travel the world” kinda way but in a more palatable “I understand the benefits of my job and may even enjoy, but I’d like to enjoy my life a little more” type of way. It was incredibly useful to read in the thick of stressors at work and trying to figure out how to balance life with work with relationships with hobbies and busy busy busy all the time. It helped me prioritize what truly matters to me.
    After venturing down a plethora of productivity rabbit holes, Mr. Burkeman remained frustrated that all these gurus gave tips on how to “get more done” but never address the underlying problem that we’ll never get ‘it all done’. The average life span is ~4000 weeks and Burkeman roots his arguments to prioritize what’s truly important in the only real motivation for doing anything – The finitude of life. Death seems to put a lot in perspective in terms of what’s important. “There’s an infinite number of ways we could spend our time productively”. ‘You’ll never get to travel to all the countries you want to, so by speeding up the rate at which you see them, you’re merely cheapening the value of each individual experience’
  • Show Your Work by the “writer who draws” Austin Kleon – Highly recommend for anyone with an inkling of creative, entrepreneurial, or adventurous spirit. Creative Expression – Creativity is the core to finding self. This is a very brief (almost a picture book) read that has had a tremendous impact. It seems like the more we create the more we figure out who we are and where we want to go. I’ve listened to enough podcasts to know that nobody truly knows where they want to go… that’s part of the beauty of it – We get to keep evolving and discovering different parts of self. There is no end state. Understanding our idols gives us insights into our values. Creation allows our minds to evolve, regardless of what the creation is. Show Your Work shifted my perspective from thinking that creation was a self-righteous egotistical act to one that allows us to connect with other humans and understand ourselves. ‘Permissionless Creativity’ is a wildly underrated hobby – It helps us understand self and is a deeply enjoyable way to spend time.
  • Courage to Be Happy – Meagh – A good friend recommended this book to me. I read this book in the middle of a working career. It helped me resist the wave of hustle culture and “do more” we’re often surrounded by (similar to 4000 Weeks)
  • Please Understand Me by David Keirsey – If certain people don’t make sense to you or people don’t understand you, or you feel a bit out of place… Holy shit I read 1 passage from this book and it revolutionized the way I think about humans. As a deeply misunderstood Myers-Briggs INTP, I needed to read this book… or at the very least, this passage. I didn’t understand why it was so difficult for me to fit in with the average bear, or why I ‘clicked’ so deeply with a few specific people. This book gave me a tremendous amount of validation and helped me understand who tf I was after personality test after personality test… who is Colin? It explained so much of my confusion with myself in the world.
  • Happiness Hypothesis by Psychologist Jonathan Haidt – We all have a different set point of happiness. Some peoples’ are higher than others. For others, in the words of Hopsin “Life is naturally hell, you have to work to put a smile on”. Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and has a beautiful writing style that makes it a fun book to read. He includes tons of the science, how the brain works, and data to back it. I love this piece of it, but it’s interwoven into the narrative very nicely as to not be a science book. Despite circumstances we can’t control, Haidt offers insights into how to make our lives more enjoyable today. I highly recommend if interested in psychology or grappling with ways to make the best out of circumstances we don’t necessarily have control over. Our animal impulses are the elephant, our logic and reasoning are the rider trying to will the elephant in another direction. We have to coax ourselves and work with our brains not against it. (I would argue there’s also intuition – an old dusty map the rider could choose to or to not listen to)
  • Crush It by CEO Gary Vee – Offers an against-the-grain business route to financial and personal freedom. Digital creation is a huge portion of this book – Even if the goal isn’t to create a Fortune 500 company, this book offers tremendous insights into using our passions to connect with fellow humans and create if not an income stream, a vehicle to pursue our passions and bring more joy in our lives. This shit doesn’t happen over night, but if you don’t start it won’t happen at all. Gary Vee does a nice job of straddling the line between business and creating something that you’re passionate about. We can make all the money in the world, but with no joy, what’s it worth?
    “And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much. That’s everybody is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will”
  • 4 Hour Work Week by entrepreneur and podcaster Tim Ferriss – Gary Vee’s undeniably infectious “do what you’re passionate in” is echoed a bit more subtly in this book. It offers some practical tips to find what you enjoy and Tim Ferriss’ personal journey of several failed business attempts before coming out on top. He offers a few cheeky workarounds to society’s status quos which I like and a path to creating more passive income – How do we make use of our natural talents and the internet to scale our value to more people.
  • My Course?
    
  • Let My ppl Go Surfing: Lessons from a Reluctant Business Man by Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard – Straddles the line between business, purpose of life, and genuinely enjoying the days. “If I was going to build a company, my employees were going to come to work on the balls of their feet and up the stairs 2 at a time”
    
    We’ve got a whole maybe 100 years to live on this earth. If I don’t spend all my time in the corporate jungle, how do I spend my time?
  • Ikigai – This is the type of concept that grows over time… subtle shifts in our daily habits to pursue quality relationships, hobbies that bring us joy, and community. This book did a nice job of subtly shifting my approach in life to prioritize the things I’m passionate about. It doesn’t completely rock your shit, like The Alchemist does, it offers insights into the subtle yet powerful japanese concept of the Purpose of Life. It describes lifestyles and different examples of lifestyles to include a Japanese director who spent his final day still drawing and creative expression.
  • 5 Regrets of the Dying –
  • Happiness Hypothesis – Helped me understand what happy was and how I could find meaning in my everyday work while shifting to find other work I enjoy more
  • Peace is Every Step by N – Happiest Man Alive
  • Courage to Be Disliked – A good friend reco
  • 
    
  • Projects of Worth Virginia Woolf
  • Hormozi and Willimason

3 Happy – Looking to add something, subtly shift life – 3) “How the fuck do I create a life I’m proud of living”. Have talked to several people older than I who have recommended these books or reached a plateau in their life. These become useful. Why wait until retirement to learn about life? Creating a Customized Life – Solution Aware -> Product Aware. Seth

• Self Actualize – Anytime You’re Interested 4) Help society, Rafi reads, Naval reads Classics) – any learning is good learning. Sometimes, though, seems like we do it out of order. School teaches us topics… it teaches us the what before we even understand the Why –
  • Beginning of Infinity
  • Fabric of Reality – fav books by Naval Ravikant
  • Omnivore’s Dilemma –
  • The Bowl of Light –
  • Freakonomics – Read early, new I wanted to follow
  • Life of Trees
  • Mushroom Book
    
• Biographies & What’s interesting
  • Ceilidh – enviro books, Seth water books, Rafi Miles black woman life

Predicaments

Almost called this section problems. That implies something wrong. Every single hurdle we run in to is just an opportunity to grow and there are so many ways to grow. Other humans have been dissecting this shit for 1000 of years, perhaps their stories can help us with our own… predicaments

• Generalized Anxiety
  • Peak Mind – Generalized Anxiety
  • Peace is Every Step by Nhat Thich Hanh – Most Peaceful man alive? rec by jon kabat zin? Found in some Reddit rabbit hole, this thread for book recs on anxiety has been quite useful and many users recommended Nhat Thich Hanh. I guess this guy has been described as ‘the most peaceful man alive’ and opens with a quote from his inspiration, the Dalai Lama. Will report back with more that I find. Hundreds of other Reddit users found this thread incredibly useful for anxiety, sharing experiences and how they overcame it.
  • Defining Decade –
  • 4000 Weeks – Lost?
  • Essentialism – Sometimes our duress comes not from not knowing where to go, but from doing too much. I often find myself chasing so many waterfalls. It’s not sorted but I at least understand now we’ve got a threshold as to what we can take on
  • Breath – This is a cool read that straddles the line between health and anthropology. James Nestor essentially travels the world talking to different specialists (completing a study with Stanford Med at one point on nasal breathing) to understand how the human mind and facial structure has evolved. Over the last 100 years our facial muscular structure has devolved somewhat because of processed foods so we’re not chewing as much – The result is we’re all ending up like pugs, unable to breath… and is often times the massive cause of poor sleep quality. Mouth Tape for the win.
• Biographies
  • Malcom X – Fun read, quick read, story teller
  • Lincoln – 40 hours long as fuck
  • Steve Jobs – Peels back the layers. Hes an asshole
  • Jordan Rules – Peels back the layers. Hes an asshole
  • Green Lights
• Building a future for yourself
  • Show Your Work
  • 4 Hour Work Week
  • Crush it
• Business – The previous 3 pretty much tell the whole story – Each of them helped me find what I was passionate about and wanted to do for the rest of my life. The following helped in that discovery and creation
  • How to Become a Rainmaker by Jeffrey Fox – We buy products to evoke emotion. Every purchase is not for the product but for the emotional value it brings. A car brings freedom. A couch brings comfort. A swifter wet jet brings freedom from pain. Shoes can buy status and houses can buy safety.
  • Crush It – Business online, solo entrepreneurship (Visualize Value and Dan Koe would be the others I’d recommend). Gary Vee does a phenomenal job promoting long term vision in his iconicly opinionated Instagram Reels. He offers great tips and trick and offers regular much needed reality checks. His emotional exclamations are a common part of my digital diet and I really like Gary Vee because he calls people on their bullshit. He condenses many of his recurring themes into an easily digestible book with practical tips for any online solo-preneur, discussing meeting other people in the space and how you have to put yourself out there and make connections to get anywhere. Show Your Work by Austin Kleon helps with this part tremendously.
  • Building a StoryBrand – I first found this book going down the photography business rabbit hole. Once you have the product or thing you want to sell, this book describes the selling of the emotion and how people need to be a part of the cause. Your product can just exist it needs to help them on their journey.
  • E-Myth – This book is all about sustainability. You can’t just create. Moving from a creator (think jewelry maker, photographer, baker) to a business owner this book 100% helps. It’s all about creating a business model. It’s not enough to work hard or open a business or create great things… there’s a business element that needs to take place in order to run a successful business. Creating roles helps. It offers a road path, and common pitfalls, in the business owner’s journey.
  • Real Artists Don’t Starve – Written from the point of view of an author running a business not the other way around. I like the authentic style of Jeff Goins ‘Hey, Creator’ podcast (targeting digital creators) and picked up his book. He offers decent examples with historical figures like Michelangelo and how we idolize the Lone Genius archetype, but in reality nobody goes at it alone. Goins empowers a mindset shift that ‘you too can sell’ and you don’t have to feel back asking for money.
  • Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb reccommended by Naval Ravikant – This one is the book list because Naval spits fire (one of the first podcasts by an entrepreneur that fired me up ~2 hours on YT and Spotify). “The best book I’ve read in 2018, I highly recommend it. Lots of great ideas in there. Lots of good mental models and constructs. He has a bit of an attitude, but he has that because he’s brilliant, and it’s okay. So just look past the attitude and read the book, learn the concepts. It’s one of the best business books I’ve ever read. And luckily, it doesn’t masquerade as a business book.”
• Classics – Wouldn’t have read if wasn’t forced in school, but bc I was, turned out useful
  • 1984 –
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Lord of the Flies
  • The Jungle
    
  • Undaunted Courage – Do not give to a 7th grader. I assume it is good, but holy fuck so far removed from shit that is useful to us.
  • Guns Germs Steel – So fucking dense not even remotely useful. Perhaps I just was not interested in this book, but it was 0% relavent to my life at the time so I retained very little of the book. Maybe other kids found interesting, I could not keep my eyes or ears open for more than 120 seconds of this book at a time. If a book stops being useful, stop reading it.
    
  • Animal Farm
  • Catch 22
    
  • Count of Monte Cristo
  • How to Kill a Mockingbird
• Climbing/Humbled by the Outdoors
  • Kiss or Kill
  • Way of the Rock Warrior
  • Into the Void
  • Eric Horst Episodes 21, 23, 24, 26, 28
  • Uphill Athlete?
  • Training for the New Alpinism?
• Declutter Your Home (sorta Minimalism)
  • The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo – Marie is a Japanese professional organizer and consultant (Japan, so I already knew it’d be good). I got about 20 pages in and had to put the book down because I knew I was not yet in a state of mind prepared to totally revamp how I organize and thing about things in my space. I didn’t want to half ass reading this book, so I fully intend to pick it up again when I’m ready for a full mindset shift (uh-oh spring cleaning). No. 1 tip – Everything needs a place to live.
• For Quiet Creatives (or wanna be)
  • Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
• Financial Freedom – For me there’s been substantial overlap between financial freedom, a customized life, and being happy. Happiness has largely consisted of creative expression, freedom, and my ability to progress forward uninhibited. I needed financial freedom to do this things, but the act of working to this freedom has been in and of itself a fun journey to go on… a fun challenge – And that’s all life’s about, right? Fun journeys and people we love? These are primarily financially free focused books.
  • Show Your Work by Austin Kleon – Probably the absolute first book I’d recommend. All of Austin Kleons’ books are delightful, short, to the point, easy to read, and incredibly influential. Super stoked to have read this early on – Helped me get over the hump of thinking I was some egotistical narcissist by publishing my work.
  • 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss – This book offers a nice step by step guide, namely Do-Have-Be which I may or may not have stole. It was one of the first I read.
  • Crush It by Gary Vee – Digital Entrepreneurship.
  • StoryBranding by Donald Miller
  • 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller – This book nicely straddles the line between self discovery and financial freedom. Written from an questioning perspective, this book has a religious context interwoven in. He invites questions like differences between ‘vocation’, ‘career’, ‘job’, and ‘calling’. He challenges the reader to accept that even reliable jobs aren’t that reliable as the job market is constantly shifting and many are being automated as we speak. An interesting statistic was that more people die on Monday morning at 9 AM than any other time of the day. His book is less business oriented than the others on this list and more centered around finding what you actually want to do, even if that’s not necessarily starting a business.
  • Real artists don’t starve
  • Defining Decade?
• Girls – To have this topic be taboo to me seems so silly. One things American culture does far better than other countries is the open marketplace. This allows us to tap in to taboo markets rather easily and perhaps one of the reasons I love comedy so very much. It’s a topic 100% of people face, yet so few talk about. Why the female orgasm need ramin a mystery shall be a mystery to me. In the words of my good buddy Finn “There’s books on that shit… and I promise they ain’t using their dick”
  • She Comes First
  • The Setup – Exceptionally timid feel im inconveniencing
  • porno
• Happy or a Way of Life (versus customizing life?? Collin happy not customized?) – This section is primarily about making ourselves happy given the circumstances we have to deal with… This doesn’t mean we can’t work towards enjoying our life even more. I’ve found it beneficial to disregard what we can’t control, enjoy the present for what it’s worth (there’s always something to be grateful for) and work towards the life we want. This section is about happy now and has overlap with Customized Life and Financial Freedom.
  • Happiness Hypothesis by Psychologist Jonathan Haidt –
  • 5 Regrets of the Dying
  • Peace is Every Step by Naht Ticht Hanh
  • The Art of Living by Naht Ticht Hanh
  • Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day – For the longest time I was looking for an excuse to meditate. Similar to the way I was looking for an excuse to start writing but couldn’t find one, the practice of meditation evaded me for a long time. I was nervous to start, a little bit embarrassed. I never did quite find the perfect solution, but my Therapist friend who lived with monks certainly helped. The free trial on HeadSpace was useful, though I wish I got more background knowledge. Neuroscientist and psychology professor Dr. Amishi Jha has a decent 1 hour podcast with Brene Brown and this is her book.
  • The Courage to Be Happy
• Ways of Living/Wanderers/Customizing Life/Lost (versus happy?? Collin happy not customized?)
  • 4000 Weeks
  • The Alchemist
  • Defining Decade
  • How to Live on 24 Hours/day
  • Essentialism
  • Ikigai
  • Courage to be happy
  • Let My People Go Surfing
  • Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport – I had such a difficult time putting my phone down. I remember spending 6 months during the COVID pandemic exclusively playing Hearth Stones and Clash Royale. For the past, probably 2 years, I had been struggling with social media and video games sucking me in. It helped me realized, though, that you can’t just take something away without replacing it with something. This book helped me replace the phone with more fruitful activities. (Would not have read if a friend hadn’t reccommended)
• Health – (For discipline see resilience) “If you don’t take your food as medicine you’ll have to take your medicine as food”
  • This is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More by Uma Naidoo – Eat to treat your body nicely. I’ve been looking for a good book on diet and ways we can change the inputs in to get different inputs out. I find it fascinating that our brain is literally created and developed and neural pathways are formed from energy, ie the food we consume. So the food we intake is quite literally creating our brain.
  • Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Revised Edition by Joel Fuhrman – The same as in our mental diet, our physical diet is only as good as our willingness to apply it. It doesn’t matter how many people we talk to, bikes we buy, memberships we get, or books we read – If day in, day out we don’t put in the work, game over. None of it matters. See Atomic Habits for developing the daily habits to keep going. Another alternative if that is way less daunting – Try it for 30 days. You can do anything for 30 days, it’s far more feasible than trying to change your whole life.
  • The Mountain is You: – Limiting Beliefs. Half of the the health and every other battle is the mental game. Body Dismorphia
  • Why We Sleep – Sleep
  • Breath
• Innovation
  • How to Fly a Horse by Kevin Ashton – Although I have not gotten around to reading this book personally, a man by the name of Dr. Evil, after having got his PhD in aerospace engineering is substantially involved in the innovation and has personally told me this is the book on innovation that people come back to him saying it was riveting. I’m excited to read, currently wrestling The Silo Effect at the time of this writing. “If you asked people then what they wanted they would have told you faster horses”
  • The Silo Effect – Will report back when I finish.
  • Innovation Code – Each of us has defaults in the ways we think… and they’re very different from others. By understanding how we think we can also be wary of our blindspots, finding the correct people in a team to help us cover them. As an introverted-idea guy, I very much thrive when working with more social people who execute. Have had several examples of this and it makes work soo much more fun. Meaghanne. Seth. Hayes. Shane.
  • Range – Recommended by Air Force’s Osan Spark Cell, this book was highly recommended to me by 2 people I admire, discussing how often times the most creative ideas come not from specialists that have spent 25 years mastering their craft, but rather from those that have sufficient knowledge of many different fields. Nothing was new about the car – It mixed carriages with the internal combustion engine. Nothing was new about GPS – It mixxed satellite tech, radio signals, and mapping software. Nothing was new about the iPhone – It mixed the cameras, internet and phones. This book describes how oftentimes innovation isn’t as crazy as it might seem – It’s taking specialized information from lots of different fields and meshing them (thanks Sages and Artists)
  • Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries – As an Artist, this one seriously piques my interest. I love a good Loonshot. I haven’t yet read but heard very good things from the guy who hired me into the innovation space. Capt Bord
• Leadership – If in charge of People
  • Turn the Ship Around
• Long Term Goals/Habits/Discipline – Pretty sure long term vision is at the core of being human, being able to create a “counter factual reality”. We don’t get there without long term and short term goals… Each day is a short term goal in a way… Habits are those daily goals
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear – Practical
  • Infinite Game by Simon Sinek – Mental. Sometimes we get caught up chasing our tails… in work, school, relationships… and from what I can tell, it happens all the time in Business – CEOs need to please their stockholders… that means quarterly profit. Consistent quarterly means safety, and sometimes that doesn’t mean taking the necessary risk. This dude’s books (and vids ~20 mins) are always good.
  • Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” – Friedrich Nietzsche. I want to read this book just because the 20 minute Ted Talk was so damn good. I use those principles fairly regularly. I have no doubt this is a phenomenal book for both self and leadership roles.
  • Grit – Seems weird that you could teach grit in a book, but hey, I would’ve said the same thing about leadership before reading this book (turn ship). I heard once upon a time they did a study to see who’d graduate the United States Military Academy West Point and found ‘Grit’ to be the primary determiner, independent of intelligence, talent, background, socioeconomic class, or any other variable. I haven’t read it myself, I suppose I’m skeptical that a book teaches this, but hey, David Goggins book shaped me tf up.
• Mental Chains
  • Courage to be disliked
  • Breaking habits of being yourself
  • A New Earth
  • Excellent Sheep
• Miscellaneous Self Help
• Money Mindset – Struggled Relationship w Money (Frugal or Spendy)
  • Richest man in bablon
  • Rich dad poor dad
  • Think n Grow rich
    
  • Random Walk
  • Psychology of Money
• People Pleasers
  • Courage to Be Disliked – Simultaneously solved problem of poor relationships with my parents – or helped with it. The past is the past and we can’t control it. But the present is our very own decisions. Our parents did their oh very best with what they had… what they knew. At the time, sometimes that felt like not enough. But the present is our own choice and we can either hold resentment or let it go. An old girlfriend recommended to me this book and the Courage to Be Happy and found a tremendous amount of benefit from it – Deviating from what people expect from you. Excellent Sheep does a decent job of explaning how that came to be and the origins of the gold-star-school system… this book does a good job of walking you out of it.
• My Phone sucks and I can’t get away
  • Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport – 30 day hiatus. Defining the benefit of tools. What value DO they bring? How can we get this same benefit without sucking up our souls. I was gifted this on Christmas by some I very much care about and it sat on my shelf for a year… so glad I read it. I still get sucked in to the Instagram rabbit holes, but this book totally transformed how I see social media now. I view it much more as a tool rather than the attention-siphoning dollar-sucker that CEOs wish it so very much to be.
  • How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett – Super quick and easy read, with good bit of value. Written in 1907, this book predates modern day day… by a lot. Despite that, it grapples with many of the issues that we blame on our phones. Everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day. It just depends what we do with them. Before tech people were sitting around wondering ‘what the hell do I do with myself’. This book has got options.
• Psychology
  • 6 Weapons of Influence
  • 48 Laws
  • • Human Behavior/Negotiations/Relationships/How to Argue/Manipulate- If argue w ppl a lot or quality relationships
    • Understanding your Mind & How you Work – Understanding how you fit in
• Resilient – Become a savage
  • Cant Hurt me – Trauma,
  • Unbroken
  • Gates of fire
• Interpersonal Connections – Miscommunication seems to be the absolute core of nearly all problems ever. Even your most hated enemy likely wants what’s best
  • Never Split the Difference by former FBI Negotiator Chris Voss – Easily a top 3 book I’ve ever read. Easily. This book has revolutionized how I operate on a daily basis – The words I use, how I treat people, the questions I ask, the conversations I have. Anything good about how I treat people can damn near be attributed to this book. It’s helped with interpersonal relationships, negotiations, getting what I want, helping other people get what they want, the whole 9 yards. Some major takeways were an emphasis on tone of voice. We convey a tremendous amount of information by our tone, improv hammered this home. 7-38-55 >> 7% of our meaning is conveyed with words. 38% by tone. And 55% by body language. Mirrors. Labels. How questions. You vs I. I vs you. Going to the balcony. That’s right. Agreeable future point in time. Chris Voss is a former hostage negotiator for the FBI and includes examples after examples, it’s impossible not to fuse his message into everyday life. 15 minutes into this audiobook and I knew I’d have to read it again. “You don’t have to agree with their point of view but you do have to understand it”. Study where 2 antithesis organizations argued incessantly >> new rule implemented where you have to restate your opponents POV before sharing yours. 0 arguments.
  • Innovation Code
  • Getting Past No by William Ury – A shorter 2 hour condensed version of NSTD. Recommended by Tim Ferriss. I listened as a brush up when I was pitching lots of things to my boss and coworkers. Going to the balcony. Having an alternative to negotiate off of. Understanding your opponents POV and building a golden bridge backward. Phrasing your arguments as asking for advice. Saving opponents reputation. Everyone reports to someone, that includes consituents. Humans are naturally good creatures who just want what’s best for themselves and close ones. Once we can stop claiming that x person is evil or y person is going to end the world, we’ll be a hell of a lot better off – Creating calm conversation to negotiate a better future for everyone.
  • Secret Powers of Negotiating by Roger Dawson – Another recommendation by Tim Ferriss as one of his most impactful books on negotiations. I haven’t gotten around to this one just yet, but I intend to read it and it’s another quick option. Any improvement in negotiations and humans, I think, would be substantially better off.
• Stagnated in a marriage
  • A New Earth – Eckart Tolley
• Self Help – Literally see know issue w this. Tactics ppl use to improve life
• Travel Globally
  • Vagabond Ralph Potts – helped give me courage to go overseas
  • Alchemist
• Understand Self
  • Please Understand Me by David Kiersey. People think differently. Passage for INTPs here (or any Myers-Briggs NT)
  • 5 Frames of Mind rec by Robert Green
  • Innovation Code by Jeff DeGraff – Although approached from an ‘innovation’ perspective, this book offers subtle insights into the different ways people think. Part of it genetic, part of it environment. This book doesn’t describe a personality, but rather 4 worldviews that each of us have. Everyone has pieces of the Artist, Engineer, Sage, and Athlete in our brain, but 1-2 primarily dominate our worldviews. Are we idea, systems, people, or goal oriented. Without understanding the frameworks, as a creative (frenetic) ‘Artist’ I sometimes struggle to execute on my grand vision in a practical manner. I’ve since realized that by pairing with people with other dominant ideologies (namely Engineers and Sages), I am able to involve other people that can help me make it a reality. The idea is that our dominant worldview is our greatest strength because it makes us unique, but it also gives us blind spots others may not have. Working with others makes this far more efficient. Jeff DeGraff has been called the ‘Father of Innovation’ and whose ideas Project Mercury are largely based on.
• Misunderstood or Voiceless
  • Please Understand Me
  • Never Split the Difference
• Wanderers of the World (Miles, me, Deems) – “Not all those who wander are lost”. I wish I had a little more guidance growing up through High School and then later in college. I knew I didn’t quite want the 9-5 grind, but wasn’t sure what I was looking for. These books along with, Custom Life & Happy, have been of serious benefit. I wish I found them a couple years earlier, so I’m here to share them with you.
  • The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter–And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay –
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Intent: Give ppl ability to solve their own problems. Books I would rec to ppl to be basic functioning humans = top 5. Rest are recs to solve own problems – need to be findable.

Ppl could type problems into amazon but have no way of knowing if the book will actually solve their probs. This gives Colin’s stamp of approval. Vetted thru me or by extension my friends as it solves their problems

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Top 5

• 4000 Weeks – prioritizing what’s what. best decision making.
  • This book was the nail in the coffin getting me to realize there’s only a finite amount of time on this Earth, we won’t get to read all the books we want to, yet I can use books to solve problems I have right now. How do I prioritize those? What’s my most immediate problem? Someone else has already solved it, why not learn from them?
• 12 Rules for Life
• Never Split the Difference
• Richest Man in Babylon
• Die With Zero
• Essentialism – prioritizing what’s important in life. only do important
• Meditations

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A Custom Life

Understand Your Mind

• Please Understand Me by Kiersey
  • Unbelievably validating. As and MBTI INTP (for whatever weight that carries) this book, and specifically this passage made the whole world click
• 5 Frames of Mind rec by Robert Greene
• Innovation Code by Jeff DeGraff

Breaking Mental Chains

1. Courage to be Disliked
   • Delightful book for recovering people pleasers
   • Meaghanne’s book – Quit blindly following gold stars
   • Breaking childhood trauma and relations w parents – only affects you as much as u let it
2. Breaking the Habits of Being Yourself Dr. Joe Dispenza
   • Recommended this by a therapist.
3. Excellent Sheep
   • We’re trotting down the path of a pre-downloaded path. This book helps to understand and become aware the problem even exists. Then can start working way out. The system is set up against you. Education as a whole isn’t set up to optimize helping the individual. Validating for the hardworking individuals who’ve been doing what they’ve been told was ‘the right thing’ this whole time. Not super practical, but useful to understand the origins of our drive.
4. How to Change Your Mind psychedelics

Build a Better Future

1. Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
   • Super quick, very worth it
2. 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
   • Gives a good mental reframe. Forward thinking. Tim points out the whole point of his book is to make himself obsolete
3. Crush It by Gary Vee
   • Practical points to implement. Gary’s energy you either love it or hate it. His passion and experience makes it hard to believe every crazy word he speaks. There are ways out.

Cont in the Business section.

Note: I cannot stress this enough – Study people you’re interested in. That’s the best way to create a custom life. You’ll slowly pull useful tidbits from people you’re inspired by and subtly craft your own dream version of reality.

Top Recommendations – Foundational – Catch all Problems

• Happiness Hypothesis
• Turn the Ship Around
• Instead of accumulating random knowledge, we’ll devour the books most applicable to our lives.

Read what’s applicable to your life.

Health

Sleep

1. Why We Sleep
2. Breath

Body Dysmorphia

1. The Mountain Is You

Food

• Eat to Live

• Courage to be Disliked – Helped to let go of the past. It’s a choice. Can affect. Can not. Interpersonal relationships. Dialogue between philosopher and a boy. Do you have a bad relationship with your parents? No. How to feel you have value.

Money

Business

Resilience

1. Can’t Hurt Me – This dude showed that you can crawl your way out of any hell hole that exists. David Goggins auto biography details one of the most hellish childhoods and outlines how he crawls himself out. The book touches on racism, domestic abusive, overeating, household growing up.
   
   It gave me incredible relief to know that somebody could crawl out of such a deep hell hole. He somehow combines the most riveting story with some tips bordering self-help.
   
   Dealing with any problem ever. Learning in school. Military leadership. Fitting in. Racism. Domestic Abuse.

Unbroken – Story.

• Kiss or Kill –
• Gates of Fire –
• 127 Hours –

These are categories I didn’t even know were categories. Books have done a beautiful job at helping me solve my problems. Perhaps they’ll help you the same.

I am putting this reading list together days after my 24th birthday. Within the past year, year and a half I’ve seriously stepped into myself, my confidence, and direction in life. I’ll sprinkle some of the stories throughout, but am living in Japan, dating a beautiful girl, and fascinated with the things I’m building. Ultimately, I’d say I’m pretty happy.

In a few years I imagine I’ll be much deeper into the exploration of the world. I’ve dug myself out of a bit of a mental hell, having used to hate being who I was. I put this list together to help young folks like myself have a way out. These are the books I have read and have revolutionized my perspective on the world.