What I’m rereading — I’ve long been fascinated by Mary Karr (@marykarrlit), and I originally picked up her book on the craft of memoir writing after a recommendation by Michael Pollan. It applies to much of life, and I’d consider it a philosophical guide in many respects, replete with the dead serious (e.g., how to communicate past abuse) and spit-up-your-coffee funny (e.g., catshit sandwich metaphors). If you work with the written word in any capacity, I highly recommend. For more Mary, check out my recent podcast interview with her.

Thank you to Peter Attia, MD (@PeterAttiaMD) for the recommendation. From the description: “Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs. What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success? At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life.” Some chapters resonated more for me than others, but I found the combination of deeply personal stories, profiles of some of history’s greats (e.g., Bach), and overall reframing to be very timely. Chances are that you don’t want to be—or can’t physically be—in hyperspeed sixth gear your entire life, so what do you do when you want to change goals and shift gears? This book might help with answers.

This fast read is for anyone who’d like to be more creative. From the description: “An inspiring guide to creativity in the digital age, Steal Like an Artist presents ten transformative principles that will help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life.”

This was recommended to me by a type-A MD who runs his life at 200 mph. He is also an engineer and strongly dislikes most woo-woo thinking. He gave this book his highest recommendation. To my relief, it doesn’t require any technical background. Here is part of the description, slightly edited for space: “Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer at Google’s [X], applies his superior logic and problem solving skills to understand how the brain processes joy and sadness—and then he solves for happy. In 2001, Mo Gawdat realized that despite his incredible success, he was desperately unhappy. A lifelong learner, he attacked the problem as an engineer would: examining all the provable facts and scrupulously applying logic. Eventually, his countless hours of research and science proved successful, and he discovered the equation for happiness.” I’ve found it very impactful, especially his portion on “I am, therefore I think” as a more useful version of “I think, therefore I am.”.

Short and sweet. I dog-eared a lot of pages in this book, which then inspired lovely twists and turns in my experiments with fiction and artwork. Here’s a short process video on the latter for those interested.

This isn’t just for “artists.” This book is for anyone who’d like to be more creative and see the world with fresh eyes. Try the upside-down drawing exercise once, and it might just blow your mind. As Betty puts it in the Introduction: “Many of my readers have intuitively understood that this book is not only about learning to draw, and it is certainly not about Art with a capital A. The true subject is perception. Yes, the lessons have helped many people attain the basic ability to draw, and that is a main purpose of the book. But the larger underlying purpose was always to … teach readers how to see in new ways, with hopes that they would discover how to transfer perceptual skills to thinking and problem solving.” ​ ​Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, said practically the same thing in our hour-long conversation together. Learning how to make basic ‘art’ isn’t frivolous—it teaches you, first and foremost, how to *see* the life around you much more clearly. Learning even primitive drawing, which you can do in a few afternoons, will fundamentally change how you see the world. As Betty writes: “My students’ most frequent comment after learning to draw is ‘Life seems much richer now that I am seeing more.’” ​ ​ I’m skeptical of the neuroscience conclusions in the book, but the metaphors and exercises are rock solid.

This is one of the best books about non-fiction writing that I’ve ever read. Be forewarned that it skips the hand-wavy platitudes and gets straight to the nitty-gritty details, as all McPheesian stories do. From the official description: “Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising―and revising, and revising.”

Special thanks to Daniel Henriques for this recommendation. The advice is great, the sample scripts are a boon, and Dennis’ delivery is both deep and hilarious. Kudos to the author for a job spectacularly well done. It far exceeded my expectations. ​ ​“Ten Burning Questions for John Wooden,” plus “Wooden as a Teacher: The First Lesson Was Shoelaces” Click here in case of any issues with accessing the latter link. This is a great case of optimizing the macro by refining the micro. For those who don’t recognize the name, John Wooden was nicknamed the “Wizard of Westwood,” and he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. He was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame both as a player and as a coach, the first person ever in both categories. What I’m using for better sleep ​Nayoya Acupressure Mat. This was originally introduced to me by acrobat phenom Andrii Bondarenko, but I’ve realized that the smaller portion intended for the neck is perfect for helping calm low-back stiffness and muscle spasms. I’ll lie on this for 5–10 minutes as I read before bed then ditch and go to sleep. It seems to substantially reduce tightness and discomfort throughout the night, and the neck-roll portion is much easier to pack for travel.

This book was given to me by fiction author Soman Chainani (@SomanChainani), and it was recommended to him by Laurence Fishburne. Here’s the description, edited for length: “Imagined through the heavily redacted testimony of the prison’s warden, written by Alexandra Grant, and powerfully allusive images by Eve Wood, the prison is a brutal, Kafkaesque landscape where creativity can be a criminal offence and sentences range from the allegorical to the downright absurd. In The Artists’ Prison, the act of creating becomes a strangely erotic condemnation, as well as a means of punishment and transformation. It is in these very transformations—sometimes dubious, sometimes oddly sentimental—that the book’s critical edge is sharpest.”

Art book I’m enjoying — description: “Masaaki Hatsumi: Dojo Giga | Heaven is an art book featuring paintings [and calligraphy] by the Bujinkan Dojo’s Head Instructor, Masaaki Hatsumi. Each of these artworks is like a koan—meditating on them helps us see from Sensei’s perspective.” I found the art and philosophies within—as well as wonderful Japanese wordplay—to grab my attention more than the martial arts. You can find buying options at the bottom of this linked page. It’s truly a beautiful book. そろそろ 日本 に いかなきゃ...

And it also is very reassuring to see how dysfunctional how many of them are . . . depressing in some cases. Great book. I actually produced the audiobook for people who want to try the audio.  . . .  Mason Curry. Great book.  BJ Novak: I'm demoralized by how great people start their day very early. Were you also encouraged or demoralized by how many of them were drug addicts? BJ Novak: That was encouraging. It was 90 percent use methamphetamines via #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy I’m endlessly fascinated by routines and rituals. What do the most successful people do first thing in the morning? Or last thing at night? How do writers, artists, and creatives engineer “inspiration” when it eludes them? Naps? Drugs? Exercise? Weird sexual habits or eating regimens? Other? The answers can help you. For my birthday last year, I received a incredible book: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. It was given to me by Josh Waitzkin, the renowned chess champion (best known from Searching for Bobby Fischer) and a master at deconstructing the world’s top performers. He loved the book, and I fell head over heels in love with it. It became my daily companion. There were gems everywhere, and I underlined nearly every page. I began to read 1-2 page-long profiles each morning with my pu-erh tea, and this ritual not only shocked me out of a major depressive funk, it also triggered a creative explosion. I was having fun again… and getting tons done in the process! Lena Dunham, creator of Girls, agrees: “I just can’t recommend this book [Daily Rituals] enough.” Daily Rituals details nearly 200 routines of some of the greatest minds of the last four hundred years–famous novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians. Among other things, this book will make you feel better about your own procrastination and odd habits! These A-players were a very peculiar bunch… This post includes: A full overview of Daily Rituals A sample of Daily Rituals (Introduction) The brand-new audiobook of Daily Rituals includes exclusive bonus material — introductions for each of the 161 creative minds. This makes each routine easier to place in context and use. You can download it all here.   And, just as Josh gifted this book to me, I hope you consider gifting Daily Rituals to your family and friends this holiday season. It could change their lives.

How do the best performers in the world become the best in the world? The newest book in the Tim Ferriss Book Club provides the answers and blueprint: The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Joshua Waitzkin, the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer. It’s been one of my constant companions since 2007, and I’m THRILLED to shine the spotlight on it. Want to dominate sports? See the quotes from Cal Ripken, Jr. and Mark Messier above. There are many more. Want to dominate business or finance? Many of the Forbes 100 work one-on-one with Josh. I personally know hedgefund managers, with $10-100 billion under management, who have The Art of Learning on their bedside tables. Want to maximize creativity? Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, says “This is a really superb book, one I wish someone had given to me long ago… It will take a ferocious interruption to make you set this book down.” Want to up your game, no matter the game? This book is your guide.

And you might recall that Ryan wrote The Obstacle Is the Way, a collection of stoic wisdom and principles and stories that was embraced by people at the highest levels of athletics, the Seahawks, the Patriots, managers, players. It just turned into a phenomenon that was covered by Sports Illustrated. I think Ego Is the Enemy is just as good, if not better. I saw early, early editions of the manuscript and provided feedback. It is therefore the newest book in my book club. 

Robert Greene’s book Mastery discusses the importance of learning from masters in a particular field. Read books by masters of writing, such as Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, or Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing. Find a master you are inspired by, and learn from their thoughts and processes. Another recommended book in Tools of Titans for fostering the creative process is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Ryan Holliday also writes about this idea of serving and learning from others in his essay “The Canvas Strategy” in Tools of Titans.

Tim Ferriss: "The Power of Habit, by Duhigg is actually a very good book" Ray Dalio: "[The Power of Habit] really opened my eyes. I recommend that you read it yourself" Naval Ravikant: "That one was interesting, not because of its content necessarily, but because it’s good for me to always keep on top of mind how powerful my habits are. Humans are basically habit machines." Max Levchin: "Compiles a bunch of great academic neuroscience and applied psychology research on habit formation."

I have it face out on my shelf in my living room. So that I can see it constantly . . . And, it’s also one of those books, sorry, but I’m getting defensive. But, it’s one of those books that I read in around 2000, maybe a year or two after college, and I was in a shitty 100-plus hour a week job, where I was sleeping at my desk, and sitting the the fire exit, because that’s the only place they can fit me. But, yeah, it has to catch you at the right time. via #125: Derek Sivers on Developing Confidence, Finding Happiness, and Saying "No" to Millions The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, it’s an amazing book. I find that when people are failing to accomplish their goals, or generally suffering from a malaise in life, it’s oftentimes because their goals aren’t big enough. Their dreams aren’t exciting enough to them. And The Magic of Thinking Big was recommended to me by Stephen Key, who has made millions of dollars creating different products and toys, and licensing them to Disney, Nestle, huge companies, Hasbro, whoever it might be. And it was recommended to him by a number of Fortune 500 CEOs. And it’s a super simple book, really inspiring. I’ve had it for many, many years. That copy is probably at least 15 years old. And I think the externalities of lie are sometimes under-appreciated. So for me, my external environment represents my internal environment. So if things are relatively neat, which I would say my house is right now, my mind tends to be well organized. If my external environment’s a mess, then my head is usually a mess, my thinking is a mess. So that’s where we are. This is a book that’s actually on my bookshelf facing out, so I’m reminded of it constantly. The main message is pretty simple: don’t overestimate others and underestimate yourself."

A fantastic book but very very dense.

Vinod Khosla: "Very good; definitely worth reading" Jack Dorsey: "You should read it" Tim Ferriss: "A great book." One of the books Keith Rabois recommends for entrepreneurs. Patrick O'Shaughnessy mentioned reading and loving The Checklist Manifesto on Twitter.

Nearly every morning, I sit down with a hot cocktail of turmeric, ginger, pu-erh tea, and green tea. Next, I crack open The Artist's Way.

What I’m rereading — I’ve long been fascinated by Mary Karr (@marykarrlit), and I originally picked up her book on the craft of memoir writing after a recommendation by Michael Pollan. It applies to much of life, and I’d consider it a philosophical guide in many respects, replete with the dead serious (e.g., how to communicate past abuse) and spit-up-your-coffee funny (e.g., catshit sandwich metaphors). If you work with the written word in any capacity, I highly recommend. For more Mary, check out my recent podcast interview with her.

I got halfway through it, and the reason I haven't read the second half is because I was so inspired by the book that I put it down to start asking people around me for all of the help that I'd been too ashamed or embarrassed to ask for.

Shane Parrish: "I call Naval the Angel Philosopher, and the Almanack shows why. Packed with unforgettable wisdom and penetrating insights, your mental gears will be working overtime." Anthony Pompliano: "Highly suggest others grab a copy" Naval Ravikant shared this book on Twitter. Tim Ferriss wrote the foreword to 'The Almanack of Naval Ravikant'.

Practicing writing (thinking frozen in time) is the best way to refine thinking and upgrade your present awareness. Great advice and a great book.

A very helpful book as a starting point when thinking of screenwriting and also calls me on my own bullshit.

Tony Robbins: "Here's the cure to your stress!" Tim Ferriss: “For all Type-A driven readers — especially those who struggle with the shut-off switch — this one is for you.”

A coffee table book for your inner genius

I have read this book more than a dozen times, more often for thinking than for writing. It is a hysterical read and a great example of what it teaches: how to cut all clutter and keep your communication and thinking crystal clear. If you think you think and write well, read this book at least once. It’s like going from a tricycle to a ten-speed.

Great book!

Very useful for preparing yourself for the inevitable losses that you will face. We’re all going to die. It’s morbid, but it’s a reality check that everyone you love will die.

To become a Grand Master of Memory–fewer than 100 in the world can claim that title–you need to satisfy each of the following in competitions approved by the World Memory Sport Council: • Memorize the order of 10 decks of cards in 60 minutes. • Memorize 1,000 random digits in 60 minutes. • Memorize the order of one deck of cards in less than two minutes. Ed Cooke first hit this trifecta when he was 23. He later came to international attention when he coached journalist Joshua Foer from ground zero to U.S. Memory Champion in one year, a feat chronicled by Foer in the best-seller Moonwalking with Einstein. To win that championship, Foer had to memorize 120 random digits in five minutes, successfully commit to memory the first and last names of 156 strangers within 15 minutes, and (last but not least) memorize a shuffled deck of cards in less than two minutes. Ed has memorized a shuffled deck of cards in competition in 43 seconds. Of all memory feats, none is a more compressed act of mental athleticism. I asked him if he’d open the kimono and explain his method, and he very graciously agreed. It takes around four hours to get comfortable with Ed’s best-of-breed system. With a little practice, you’ll be a third of your way to becoming a Grand Master. (Im)practically speaking, it’s just freaking amazingly cool. Few people in the world can pull it off, and that’s reason enough to take a weekend or slow evening to try. Instead of watching another bad movie, you can become one of the memory illuminati.

The book Mastery by George Leonard has been recommended to me by many people, including chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley, swimming legend Terry Laughlin, and drumming phenom Dave Elitch. One of my favorite sections is the epilogue, titled “The Master and the Fool,” which I’ve posted below with permission from Plume, an imprint of The Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. It explores a question: What are the keys to rapid and lifelong learning? There are many keys, but arguably the most important is found in this five-minute read… The Master and the Fool “I want you to tell me how I can be a learner.” It was not so much a query as a demand, almost a threat. He was a mountain man, with the long black hair, bold moustache and rough-hewn clothing of a nineteenth-century outlaw, one of a breed that lived illegally in the rugged hills of the Los Padres National Wilderness Area along the Big Sur coast of California—a place of buzzards and hawks, mountain lions and wild boar. Having just turned in the final proofs of a book on education (it was in the late 1960s), I had driven four hours south from San Francisco for a weekend of relaxation at Esalen Institute. As I approached the lodge—a rustic building built at the edge of the Pacific on one of the few areas of flat land between the sea and the mountains of the Los Padres—I heard the sound of conga drums. Inside, the mountain man was sitting at one of the drums, surrounded by eight other people, each also at a drum. He was apparently giving an informal lesson to whoever cared to participate. One of the drums was unoccupied. I pulled up to the unoccupied drum and joined the others, following the instruction as well as I could. When the session ended I started to walk away, but the mountain man came after me, grasped my shoulder, and fixed me with a significant look. “Man,” he said, “you are a learner.” I stood there speechless. I’d never met this person, and he certainly had no idea I had just finished a book about learning. My conservative city garb had probably led him to think that I was a complete novice at the conga drum, the instrument of choice of the counterculture, and thus he must have been impressed by my seemingly rapid progress. Still, I was so pleased by his words that I didn’t inform him I’d played before. He proceeded to tell me that he was a sculptor who worked metal with an acetylene torch, and that he was badly stuck and had been for a year; he was no longer a learner. Now he wanted me, a learner in his mind, to come up to his place in the Los Padres, look at his work, and tell him how he could be a learner. He was leaving right away and I could follow him in my car if I wished. The invitation baffled me, but I realized it was a rare opportunity to visit the forbidden haunts of one of the legendary mountain men of Big Sur, so I immediately accepted. I followed his battered sedan up a steep and tortuous dirt road, then across a mountain meadow to a driveway that was nothing more than two tire tracks through a forest of live oak, madrone, and bay trees. For what seemed a long time, the car lurched and labored steeply upward, coming at last to a clearing near the top of the coast range. In the clearing stood several wooden structures: a two-room cabin, a tool shed, a crude studio for metal sculpture, and something that might have been a chicken or rabbit coop. At one point during my visit, I spotted a slim young woman with flowing blonde hair and a long dress standing like a ghost near the edge of the clearing. He never mentioned her. The mountain man showed me into a sturdily built cabin with a large front window looking 4,000 feet down to the Pacific, now shining like a sheet of metal in the late afternoon sun. We sat and made disjointed conversation for a while. I found myself somewhat disoriented. But for the presence of several conga drums, we might have been sitting in an early nineteenth-century pioneer’s cabin. It was all like a dream: the unlikely invitation, the rugged drive, the mysterious woman, the expansive gleam of the ocean through the trees. When the mountain man announced that we would now go and look at his work so that I could tell him how to be a learner, I dumbly followed him out, having no idea of what I could possibly say that would be of any use to him. He walked me through his sculpture chronologically, showing me the point at which he had lost his creative spark, had stopped being a learner. When he finished, he fixed me with his eyes, and repeated his question one more time. ‘Tell me. How can I be a learner?” My mind went absolutely blank, and I heard myself saying, “It’s simple. To be a learner, you’ve got to be willing to be a fool.” The mountain man nodded thoughtfully and said “thanks.” There were a few more words, after which I got into my car and went back down the mountain. Several years were to pass before I considered the possibility that my answer was anything more than a part of one of those slightly bizarre, easily forgotten sixties episodes. Still, the time did come when ideas from other places—all sorts of ideas—began to coalesce around my careless words of advice, and I began to see more than a casual relationship between learning and the willingness to be foolish, between the master and the fool. By fool, to be clear, I don’t mean a stupid, unthinking person, but one with the spirit of the medieval fool, the court jester, the carefree fool in the tarot deck who bears the awesome number zero, signifying the fertile void from which all creation springs, the state of emptiness that allows new things to come into being. The theme of emptiness as a precondition to significant learning shows up in the familiar tale of the wise man who comes to the Zen master, haughty in his great wisdom, asking how he can become even wiser. The master simply pours tea into the wise man’s cup and keeps pouring until the cup runs over and spills all over the wise man, letting him know without words that if one’s cup is already full there is no space in it for anything new. Then there is the question of why young people sometimes learn new things faster than old people; why my teenage daughters, for example, learned the new dances when I didn’t. Was it just because they were willing to let themselves be foolish and I was not? Or you might take the case of an eighteen-month-old infant learning to talk. Imagine the father leaning over the crib in which his baby son is engaging in what the behaviorist B. F. Skinner calls the free operant; that is, he’s simply babbling various nonsense sounds. Out of this babble comes the syllable da. What happens? Father smiles broadly, jumps up and down with joy, and shouts, “Did you hear that? My son said ‘daddy.’” Of course, he didn’t say “daddy.” Still, nothing is much more rewarding to an eighteen-month-old infant than to see an adult smiling broadly and jumping up and down. So, the behaviorists confirm our common sense by telling us that the probability of the infant uttering the syllable da has now increased slightly. The father continues to be delighted by da, but after a while his enthusiasm begins to wane. Finally, the infant happens to say, not da, but dada. Once again, father goes slightly crazy with joy, thus increasing the probability that his son will repeat the sound dada. Through such reinforcements and approximations, the toddler finally learns to say daddy quite well. To do so, remember, he not only has been allowed but has been encouraged to babble, to make “mistakes,” to engage in approximations—in short, to be a fool. But what if this type of permission had not been granted? Let’s rerun the same scene. There’s father leaning over the crib of his eighteen-month-old son. Out of the infant’s babble comes the syllable da. This time, father looks down sternly and says, “No, son, that is wrong! The correct pronunciation is dad-dy. Now repeat after me: Dad-dy. Dad-dy. Dad-dy.” What would happen under these circumstances? If all of the adults around an infant responded in such a manner, it’s quite possible he would never learn to talk. In any case, he would be afflicted with serious speech and psychological difficulties. If this scenario should seem extreme, consider for a moment the learnings in life you’ve forfeited because your parents, your peers, your school, your society, have not allowed you to be playful, free, and foolish in the learning process. How many times have you failed to try something new out of fear of being thought silly? How often have you censored your spontaneity out of fear of being thought childish? Too bad. Psychologist Abraham Maslow discovered a childlike quality (he called it a “second naivete”) in people who have met an unusually high degree of their potential. Ashleigh Montagu used the term neotany (from neonate, meaning newborn) to describe geniuses such as Mozart and Einstein. What we frown at as foolish in our friends, or ourselves, we’re likely to smile at as merely eccentric in a world-renowned genius, never stopping to think that the freedom to be foolish might well be one of the keys to the genius’s success or even to something as basic as learning to talk. When Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, was quite old and close to death, the story goes, he called his students around him and told them he wanted to be buried in his white belt. What a touching story; how humble of the world’s highest-ranking judoist in his last days to ask for the emblem of the beginner! But Kano’s request, I eventually realized, was less humility than realism. At the moment of death, the ultimate transformation, we are all white belts. And if death makes beginners of us, so does life—again and again. In the master’s secret mirror, even at the moment of highest renown and accomplishment, there is an image of the newest student in class, eager for knowledge, willing to play the fool. And for all who walk the path of mastery, however far that journey has progressed, Kano’s request becomes a lingering question, an ever-new challenge: Are you willing to wear your white belt?

A fun, practical guide to meditation and mindfulness, written by a former Google engineer who is also one of the funniest people I know.

In terms of the dark self-doubt and negative space, there a few things that I’ve found very helpful. Because we all experience that, or most humans do. There are maybe some mutants out there who don’t, but I’ve spent time with a lot of successful people. You know some very successful people, obviously. And everyone, I think, has moments of self-doubt and negative spirals. So a few things that help me tremendously. The first is a book with a terrible title and great content, but it’s called How to Stop Worrying and Stop Living by Dale Carnegie, that is not his best-known book, but I think one of his most helpful.  How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Also a huge winner. I haven’t listened to it, but I’ve read it several times. It is on my bookshelf about 12 feet to my right. It sits there as a constant reminder. It’s kind of a “break glass in case of emergency” book. via #170: Shay Carl — From Manual Laborer to 2.3 Billion YouTube Views I'm a big fan of a lot of his work, in particular not the How to Win Friends and Influence People, but How to Stop Worrying and Stop Living, which I think is a fantastically well written book on anxiety. There’s a bit of material on the physiology and so on that’s outdated but the vast majority is fantastically well done.

Tim Ferriss: "I highly recommend the book, Grit. It's really about teaching your kids to focus on hard work and not intrinsic capability." Tobi Lutke: "Great book." Keith Rabois: "Although the title may make it appear intuitive, the reading is much more insightful and applicable than you might guess."

Tim Ferriss: "I’ve been loving [Extreme Ownership]. Trust me. Buy it." Marc Andreessen: "I hand out more copies of this book than any other. How to take responsibility for yourself and for those around you. Modern Stoicism, as applied in the military, business, and life." Michael Mauboussin: "Great book by two remarkable men. You want these guys on your side." Casey Neistat: "My favorite Jocko book"

Great advice from the book Essentialism "Instead of asking 'How much do I value this item?' we should ask, 'If I did not own this item, how much would I pay to obtain it?' ... Don't ask 'How will I fell if I miss out on opprtunity?' but rather, 'If I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrfice in order to obtain it?' Similarly, we can ask, 'If I wasn't already inovled in this prodject, ho hard would I work to get on it'?

If you’ve ever wanted to beat the system, get off the grid, or become an escape artist, this is your manual. I find the topics endlessly fascinating.

This is one of the best books about non-fiction writing that I’ve ever read. Be forewarned that it skips the hand-wavy platitudes and gets straight to the nitty-gritty details, as all McPheesian stories do. From the official description: “Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising―and revising, and revising.”

I’ve been a fan of Cal’s writing for a long time, and his latest book, Deep Work, is no exception. Cal argues that the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task is one of the most valuable skills in our economy, and one that is becoming increasingly rare. He offers practical advice on how to cultivate this skill and how to integrate it into your daily routine. Whether you’re a writer, an entrepreneur, a student, or a professional, you’ll benefit from reading this book and applying its insights.

. . . here’s the first paragraph of the back copy, “Buy as many lattes as you want.” That’s a reference to people who recommend you cut back on all these things like a latte. “Spend extravagantly on the things you love. Live your rich life instead of tracking every last expense.” via #371: Ramit Sethi — Automating Finances, Negotiating Prenups, Disagreeing with Tim, and More I think Bird by Bird is a fantastic book. via Ep 41: Rolf Potts on Travel Tactics, Creating Time Wealth, and Lateral Thinking Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which is an incredible book on contending with frustration in the creative process, particularly as it relates to writing.  It’s a great book and very hilarious, and very good therapy for people who are going through tough spots when trying to do anything entrepreneurial or creative. Rereading Bird by Bird when I doubt/loathe/chastise myself, deadlifting, and doing sprint workouts.

My guest today is James Clear. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram, @jamesclear. James is a writer and speaker, focused on habits and continuous improvement. He is the author of the number one New York Times mega bestseller, I’m adding the mega, Atomic Habits, which covers easy and proven ways to build good habits and break bad ones. The book has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 50 languages. On average, Atomic Habits has sold one copy every 15 seconds since it was published. By the time I finish reading this intro, two or three copies will have been sold. James is also the creator of the 3-2-1 Newsletter. That’s three, dash, or I suppose, hyphen, two, hyphen, one newsletter, which is one of the most popular email newsletters in the world and has more than two million subscribers. Each issue contains three short ideas from James, two quotes from other people, and one question to consider that week. We’re going to talk a lot about questions, in fact, shortly with James. You can sign up for free at jamesclear.com. He is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies and his work is used by players and coaches in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. In college he was an academic all-American baseball player and he is an avid weightlifter. For those who cannot see the video, we seem to go to the same stylist. We’ve got the same handsome bald look and the same long sleeved dark shirt look. You can find James at jamesclear.com and, as mentioned, on Twitter and Instagram @jamesclear.

The focus on not rushing is one I think is very important, at least for me. And that, for me, luxury in a way more than anything else is the feeling of being unrushed, right? And I think that as a goal of sorts, as a litmus test, has many, many ripple effects that are beneficial, which come out of that, and there’s a book I’m reading right now, I’m not done with it yet, but called Already Free, which I suspect is probably quite similar to some of Michael Singer’s work. Already Free is the name, and it combines Western psychotherapy with Buddhist practice and concepts from Buddhism, which if you’d told me 10 years ago what I just said, I would have vomited a little bit into my mouth and said, “Yeah, I’ve been to those bookstores too, with all the crystals and the dream catchers, and there are thousands of those books and I just don’t have time to sort through what is bullshit and what might have validity.” But this book was recommended to me by a top tier therapist who has, she would never say this, but she’s saved the lives of hundreds or maybe thousands of people. She’s incredibly adept and she recommended this book to me because she has found it compelling. and I’ve found this book to be very actionable and very compelling and one of the—apologies to the author if I’m misremembering this—but one of the practices or steps that he will often take with clients is something along the lines of the following. If they complain that say their boss never recognizes them, therefore they have struggles with self-worth and this, this, this, this, and this, and that is a complaint that they have, something they’d like to fix that comes up continually in therapy, is he will try to get to them to the point where they are willing to accept that they could have that feeling for the rest of their lives unresolved. And will guide them through thought exercises and hypothetical scenarios. So they get to the point where they’re willing to accept that as a possibility. They will never get rid of that. And what often seems to happen, and I’ve noticed this for myself, is that they’re then able to let out this big exhale, because it’s no longer mandatory that they push this boulder up a hill and fix the problem, and all of a sudden their experience changes. And that, at that point, they become able to think more clearly and respond less reactively because they’ve accepted that if that were to happen, they’re going to survive, there will still be moments of joy. They can still build other valuable relationships. And it just reframes the whole thing. So I have found that to also—and it is a close cousin to a lot of the fear-setting, but I think that that type of reframe can be very, very powerful. And for me, a lot of it comes back to good questions, right? Which is why I collect questions, why I enjoy asking questions, why I enjoy borrowing questions from other people. And I would say also looking back at the last 10 years for my entire life, I viewed self-love, I think, as self-indulgent in the sense that I felt it would be narcissistic and selfish and unproductive to feel or embrace or cultivate self-love in any way. And in fact, the way to drive myself was to constantly pick apart everything I was or did in a very brutal fashion in terms of internal monologue. And I think that is part of what drove me so close to the edge in college is that incessant abusive inner voice, and I got a lot done, you know, I did a lot of things and at the end of the day, who the fuck cares really, right? Like in 200 years we’re all dust. No one’s going to remember us. It doesn’t matter. Right? So, great. I got a better grade on my junior term paper. Who the fuck cares? Right? At the end of the day, that voice almost drove me to extinguish myself. So what I’ve also found is that looking back at the last 10 years, like how you treat yourself in some way influences how you treat other people. So if you are violent and angry towards yourself, there will be an element of violence and anger towards other people. Whether it comes out really obviously or it comes out in the form of like resentment and complaining and passive-aggressiveness, it’s going to manifest. So spending time with Jack Kornfield has had a huge impact on me and this was a few years ago when I first met Jack. He’s a very famous meditation teacher, wonderful human being, walks the walk. There are a lot of poseurs in the mindfulness meditation world. A lot of people who really are of the “Do what I say, not what I do” school, if you look under the hood. Jack is so adept and has such an incredible tool kit, also is a clinical psychologist for helping veterans, and adolescents who are self-harming and cutting. He’s very skilled. And we had a conversation at one point and he said something that stuck with me, and I’m going to paraphrase it because the exact words aren’t important, but the gist is, and that is: If your compassion doesn’t extend to yourself, it’s incomplete. And that seems so obvious, right? But I do think that a lot of people who pride themselves on being achievers spend the vast majority of their time whipping themselves. Kevin Rose: I mean I think everyone has that internal dialogue and some days it can be more intense than others in terms of being critical or for me it’s not so much critical of myself as it is just ruminating on certain thoughts and over and over again, I’ve had a lot of that. How did you break out of that? Is it something that you still struggle with today? Like if someone’s listening to this and they’re like, “Oh, my God, that describes me to the T, I’m constantly so harsh on myself,” what are the steps that someone would take? Tim Ferriss: Well, some are easier to recommend than others. I’ve done a lot of really wild stuff and some very, very aggressive stuff. And it’s not to say that all tools will work for all people, but I do think that there are certain books that have had a large impact on me that have helped other people. And in fact, now that I think about it, I believe that one of them, Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, was recommended to me by Darya, which surprised the hell out of me because Darya is very sharp, scientifically minded, very skeptical, and at least back in the day, my experience with Darya was that anything remotely woo-woo or hand-wavy, she was just like “Talk to the hand; not interested.” Right? So when she recommended this book, very generic title and the subtitle, I can’t remember at the moment, but Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, and I thought, “Oh my God, has Darya had a frontal lobotomy?” Like, what happened? Kevin Rose: Yeah, she hasn’t. Yeah. Tim Ferriss: I don’t know how this book would make it through her filter. And it was incredibly helpful. So radical acceptance, self-acceptance, making peace with parts of us, aspects of ourselves, emotions we have grown to believe are negative or unwanted. You know, reconciling, re-integrating yourself, in a way, is a worthy goal. And I think I’ve largely succeeded. I still have my moments where I beat myself up, but it is less than five percent of what it was five or six years ago.

In terms of the dark self-doubt and negative space, there a few things that I’ve found very helpful. Because we all experience that, or most humans do. There are maybe some mutants out there who don’t, but I’ve spent time with a lot of successful people. You know some very successful people, obviously. And everyone, I think, has moments of self-doubt and negative spirals. So a few things that help me tremendously. The first is a book with a terrible title and great content, but it’s called How to Stop Worrying and Stop Living by Dale Carnegie, that is not his best-known book, but I think one of his most helpful.  How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie. Also a huge winner. I haven’t listened to it, but I’ve read it several times. It is on my bookshelf about 12 feet to my right. It sits there as a constant reminder. It’s kind of a “break glass in case of emergency” book. via #170: Shay Carl — From Manual Laborer to 2.3 Billion YouTube Views I'm a big fan of a lot of his work, in particular not the How to Win Friends and Influence People, but How to Stop Worrying and Stop Living, which I think is a fantastically well written book on anxiety. There’s a bit of material on the physiology and so on that’s outdated but the vast majority is fantastically well done.

Dan Harris appears on episode #481 of the Tim Ferriss Show. After a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America in 2004, he found himself on a bizarre adventure to rein in the voice in his head, discovering a solution in meditation. A lifelong nonbeliever, meditation was something Dan always assumed to be either impossible or useless. In 2014, Dan published the book 10% Happier, which takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America’s spiritual scene and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives. In 2017, Dan followed up with Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book. In 2016, Dan launched the 10% Happier company with co-founders Ben Rubin, CEO, and Derek Haswell, VP Product. The company was rebranded to Ten Percent Happier in 2019.

I have read this book many times. It’s a wonderful and short reboot for possibility, excellent for all students of life and those who want to overcome self-imposed limitations. Here’s a snippet from the description: “Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander’s experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander’s genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment.”

I used the original Michel Thomas recordings, with Michel himself, to learn the basics of Spanish and German many years ago. I was doubtful other teachers could apply his framework well, but I was thrilled that this Korean series proved me wrong. I downloaded the first few lessons via Amazon/Audible before taking off, and instructors Derek Driggs and Jieun Kiaer do an excellent job. ​ There is no writing, note-taking, or homework of any kind. It’s pure audio. I have found the Michel Thomas Method largely superior to Pimsleur Language Programs for painlessly absorbing a good amount of grammar, though both use similar spaced repetition for vocabulary. ​ I only wish there were a beep and some time for your own responses (you learn alongside two other real-life students), which was the format for the original Michel recordings. Without that, you simply need to hit pause a lot, which is manageable but kind of a pain in the ass. ​ Here’s the official description: “For 50 years, Michel Thomas worked on decoding languages into their most essential component parts. These ‘building blocks’ are introduced sequentially so that you reconstruct the language for yourself—to form your own sentences, to say what you want, when you want. Within the very first hour you will be able to generate complete sentences instinctively, having absorbed the language and grammatical structures.” For additional resources, see my tweet here, as many of you were very kind and provided helpful options in the replies.

I looked at every Korean language textbook in a huge Seoul bookstore (Kyobo—check out the Gwanghwamun location if you visit), and these short reads were my favorites. They’re exceptionally clear and focus on the 80/20. I’m working through them one tiny chapter at a time and really enjoying the process.