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Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask. After all, conscious thinking is largely asking and answering questions in your own head. If you want confusion and heartache, ask vague questions. If you want uncommon clarity and results, ask uncommonly clear questions.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
If you’d like to see all of the recommended books in one place, including a list of the top 20 most recommended from this book and Tools of Titans, you can find all the goodies at tim.blog/booklist
Samin Nosrat IG: @ciaosamin FB: /samin.nosrat saltfatacidheat.com
the thing that will always get me unstuck is jumping into the ocean. It’s been that way ever since I was a kid. I’ve always loved the ocean, and now, whenever I can, I’ll go to the beach to swim or surf or just float. Nothing else resets me like the ocean.
Steven Pressfield TW: @spressfield stevenpressfield.com
What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? I’m probably hopelessly out of date but my advice is get real-world experience: Be a cowboy. Drive a truck. Join the Marine Corps. Get out of the hypercompetitive “life hack” frame of mind. I’m 74. Believe me, you’ve got all the time in the world. You’ve got ten lifetimes ahead of you. Don’t worry about your friends “beating” you or “getting somewhere” ahead of you. Get out into the real dirt world and start failing. Why do I say that? Because the goal is to connect
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Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.
The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We’re like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep.
Susan Cain TW: @susancain FB: /authorsusancain quietrev.com
Kyle Maynard IG: @kylemaynard FB: /kylemaynard.fanpage kyle-maynard.com
Dune by Frank Herbert The Stranger by Albert Camus The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
If happiness is just above the status quo, bliss is what makes you feel most alive. Expect it will take courage to follow your bliss, and expect it will suck at times. Expect you’re going to have to take risks for it. Expect others won’t necessarily understand. And also expect that what gives you bliss today may not be what does tomorrow. Just follow it all over again.
Terry Crews TW/IG: @terrycrews FB: /realterrycrews terrycrews.com
Terry released his autobiography, Manhood: How to Be a Better Man—or Just Live with One.
The truth is that you need the success of everyone in your field in order to achieve your own success.
Debbie Millman TW/IG: @debbiemillman debbiemillman.com
If we use busy as an excuse for not doing something what we are really, really saying is that it’s not a priority.
Naval Ravikant TW: @naval startupboy.com
Total Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti. A rationalist’s guide to the perils of the human mind. The “spiritual” book that I keep returning to.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A history of the human species, with observations, frameworks, and mental models that will have you looking at history and your fellow humans differently.
Everything by Matt Ridley. Matt is a scientist, optimist, and forward thinker. Genome, The Red Queen, The Origins of Virtue, The ...
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The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. Cultivate that desire by reading what you want, not what you’re “supposed to.”
Matt Ridley TW: @mattwridley mattridley.co.uk
Two books that have greatly influenced my life are The Double Helix by James D. Watson and The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Bozoma Saint John TW/IG: @badassboz
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Tim Urban TW/FB: @waitbutwhy waitbutwhy.com
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand,
I think humans can only feel real hatred of people they’re able to dehumanize in their heads. As soon as someone is exposed to reality and reminded of the full humanness of someone they hate, the hatred usually fades away and empathy pours in.
By focusing inward on yourself as a writer instead of outward on what you think readers will want to read, you’ll end up creating the best and most original work, and that one-in-a-thousand person who happens to love it will end up finding their way to you.
Janna Levin TW/IG: @jannalevin jannalevin.com
Ayaan Hirsi Ali TW: @Ayaan theahafoundation.org
The assassin left a death threat for her pinned to van Gogh’s chest. This tragic event is chronicled in her best-selling book, Infidel. She is also the author of Caged Virgin, Nomad, and most recently the bestseller Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.
Adopting an attitude of critical thinking is most crucial in learning anything.
Graham Duncan eastrockcap.com
Sam Barondes’ book Making Sense of People has had a big impact on my thinking,
The model is called the “Big Five” or OCEAN: open-minded, conscientious, extroverted, agreeable, neurotic. The academics who developed the model clumped every English adjective that could be used to describe someone into categories and reduced them to as small a set of factors as they could.
Robert Kegan’s model of adult development. Kegan argues adults develop—and make sense of reality—in five discrete phases. He lays out his theory in the 1994 book In Over Our Heads. The title is a reference to how the vast majority of adult Americans are at the “socialized” stage of development.
it’s critical to remember you can always choose to course-correct and swim toward structure or chaos, apprenticeship or freedom, depending on what you need at that moment, what tempo and phase of your career you want to be in, which riverbank you’re coming from and where you want to go.
Mike Maples Jr. TW: @m2jr floodgate.com
The best advice I have seen comes from people who don’t try to tell me the answer . . . instead they give me a new approach to thinking about the question so that I can solve it better on my own.
The five whys is a good way of slowing down and improving decision quality. The most important thing is that it lets me get into a mental space about “what” is going right or wrong rather than “who” is right or wrong.
Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right.
Soman Chainani TW: @SomanChainani IG: @somanc somanchainani.net
Make sure you have something every day you’re looking forward to. Maybe it’s your job, maybe it’s a basketball game after work or a voice lesson or your writing group, maybe it’s a date. But have something every day that lights you up. It’ll keep your soul hungry to create more of these moments.
Dita Von Teese TW/IG/FB: @DitaVonTeese dita.net
Jesse Williams TW/IG: @iJesseWilliams jessehimself.tumblr.com
Dustin Moskovitz TW: @moskov asana.com
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman.
