Summaries and key insights from books I've read.
Tim Ferriss
A highly tactical “choose-your-own-adventure” manual for rapidly redesigning your body—fat, muscle, strength, sex, sleep, and longevity—by using the minimum effective dose, aggressive self-tracking, and short, repeatable experiments.
Elaine Pofeldt
A practical guide to building a lean, high-revenue solo business by combining your real interests with market demand, using automation and outsourcing to scale, and managing cash, time, and energy ruthlessly so the business actually supports the life you want.
Scott Young
Ultralearning is a self-directed, intense approach to mastering hard skills quickly by mapping the territory (metalearning), focusing deeply, practicing directly, drilling weaknesses, testing yourself, seeking sharp feedback, retaining what you learn, building intuition, and constantly experimenting.
James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg
A roadmap for how individuals can thrive as nation-states weaken, technology decentralizes power, and society transitions into the Information Age.
Walter Isaacson
A driven, often ruthless engineer-CEO, Elon Musk uses first-principles thinking, insane urgency, and a mission to change humanity’s future (internet, sustainable energy, and space) to build world-changing companies—while leaving a trail of broken timelines, burnt-out teams, and personal chaos.
Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
This book argues that many of our biggest problems—housing, energy, health, science, and infrastructure—are the result of chosen scarcity, and that a “liberalism that builds” can replace this with an abundance of the things that actually make life better.
Eric Jorgenson
This book distills Naval Ravikant’s philosophy on how to build wealth, think clearly, and cultivate lasting happiness by combining specific knowledge, leverage, judgment, and inner freedom.
Adam Grant
Hidden Potential is about how ordinary people can achieve extraordinary growth by building character skills, surrounding themselves with the right scaffolding, and creating systems of opportunity that let effort compound over time.
Marshall B. Rosenberg
Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a practical framework for expressing yourself honestly, listening with empathy, and resolving conflict by focusing on feelings and needs rather than judgments, blame, or demands.
Michael E. Gerber
This book argues that most small businesses fail because their owners think like technicians, not entrepreneurs, and shows how to build a systems-driven “franchise-style” business that serves your life instead of consuming it.
Annie Duke
Quit argues that the real skill in life isn’t grinding forever, it’s knowing when to walk away from the wrong path so you can double down on the right one.
Michael Lewis
The rise and spectacular fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX—a story of genius, hubris, and the dangers of effective altruism taken to extremes.
Michael Lewis
A handful of outsiders saw the 2008 housing crash coming—betting against the American dream while Wall Street remained willfully blind to the subprime mortgage disaster.
Nick Maggiulli
The best investment strategy is simple: save what you can, invest consistently in diversified assets, and don't try to time the market—just keep buying.
Tim Ferriss
Escape the "deferred life plan" by designing a lifestyle that frees you from the 9-5 through automation, outsourcing, and the 80/20 principle—retire now, not at 65.
Morgan Housel
While the future is unpredictable, human behavior and the timeless principles that drive it remain constant—understanding what never changes is more valuable than predicting what will.
Noah Kagan
Start a business this weekend by validating before building—find three customers willing to pay, then iterate from there instead of spending months on a product nobody wants.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
We are blind to the role of luck and randomness in life, systematically attributing success to skill and failure to bad luck—an error that leads to poor decisions.
Ali Abdaal
Sustainable productivity comes from feeling good while working—energize yourself through play, power, and people rather than forcing yourself through guilt and pressure.
Peter Attia
A longevity physician's comprehensive guide to extending both lifespan and healthspan — revealing how to prevent the "Four Horsemen" diseases that kill most people and maintain physical and cognitive function into old age.
Shane Parrish
The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life—master your defaults, create space between stimulus and response, and build systems that support good judgment.
Michael Lewis
A firsthand account of the excess, greed, and absurdity of 1980s Wall Street that exposed how Salomon Brothers and the bond market worked—and eventually imploded.
Marty Cagan
The best product teams discover products worth building through continuous experimentation, deep customer understanding, and empowered engineers—not by building features from roadmaps.
Spencer Johnson
Change is inevitable—those who adapt quickly and look for new "cheese" thrive, while those who resist and complain get left behind.
William H. McRaven
Lessons from 37 years in Navy special operations—stories of courage, leadership, and the human side of military service from the admiral who oversaw the Bin Laden raid.
Joseph Parent
Golf mastery is mental mastery—through mindfulness, acceptance, and presence, quiet the inner critic and play your best.
Georg Tacke & Madhavan Ramanujam
Most new products fail because companies design first and price later—willingness to pay must drive product design, not follow it.
Robert Greene
A comprehensive guide to acquiring, maintaining, and defending power — distilled from 3,000 years of history into 48 timeless laws that reveal how power really works in human relationships, business, and life.
Bob Rotella
Golf performance is 90% mental—embrace your mistakes, trust your routine, and free yourself from perfectionism to play your best.
Brian Tracy
Do your most important, challenging task first thing in the morning—"eat the frog"—and the rest of the day becomes easier.
Robert T. Kiyosaki
The rich don't work for money—they make money work for them through assets like real estate and businesses, while the poor and middle class stay trapped in the rat race.
Steven Pressfield
The moment we turn pro is the moment we decide to take our work seriously, show up every day, and commit fully—leaving behind the amateur's excuses and self-sabotage.
James Clear
A practical guide to building good habits and breaking bad ones through small, incremental changes — arguing that 1% improvements compound into remarkable results, and that identity change is more powerful than goal-setting.
Annie Duke
A practical toolkit for making better decisions under uncertainty — teaching you to separate decision quality from outcome quality, think in probabilities, and overcome the cognitive biases that lead to poor choices.
Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
Most business advice is wrong—you don't need investors, business plans, or an exit strategy; you need less: less meetings, less features, less people, and more focus on what matters.
Neal Stephenson
A cyberpunk classic that predicted the metaverse—Hiro Protagonist battles a virus that affects both computers and human minds in a privatized, fragmented America.
Martin Gurri
The digital age has empowered ordinary people to challenge elite institutions—but this revolt expresses itself through negation, not coherent alternatives.
Felix Dennis
Getting rich requires ownership, obsessive dedication, and the willingness to fail repeatedly—no salary will make you wealthy; only equity in a business you control.
Daniel Pink
Regret is not something to avoid—it's a universal emotion that, when processed correctly, can make us better decision-makers and more fulfilled humans.
Phil Knight
The Nike founder's memoir of building a global brand from nothing—a story of near-bankruptcy, legal battles, and relentless pursuit of a crazy dream.
John Carreyrou
The true story of Theranos—how Elizabeth Holmes fooled investors, patients, and the world with blood-testing technology that never worked, and the reporters who exposed the fraud.
Annie Duke
Better decisions come from thinking in probabilities rather than certainties—separating decision quality from outcome quality and constantly updating beliefs based on new evidence.
Robert Cialdini
Six universal principles of persuasion—reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity—drive human compliance and can be used ethically or exploitatively.
Will & Ariel Durant
Human nature and the patterns of history repeat endlessly—understanding these lessons helps us see our own time more clearly.
Matt Ridley
Human prosperity has increased exponentially because trade and specialization allow ideas to "have sex"—combining and recombining to create innovation that benefits everyone.
Jim Collins & Jerry Porras
Visionary companies that outlast competitors don't rely on great ideas or charismatic leaders—they build enduring organizational architecture around a core ideology and a culture of continuous improvement.
Peter Thiel
The most valuable companies are built by creating something entirely new (going from 0 to 1) rather than copying what exists (going from 1 to n)—and this requires contrarian thinking about secrets, monopolies, and the future.
Dan Bilzerian
Dan Bilzerian's memoir of excess, military training, poker, and social media fame—an unapologetic look at pursuing pleasure and building an outrageous lifestyle.
Bradley Birkenfeld
A Swiss banker turns whistleblower, exposing massive tax evasion at UBS—and the U.S. government's shocking response of prosecuting him while protecting the bank.
Timothy Gallwey
Golf improvement comes from quieting Self 1 (the critical, controlling mind) and trusting Self 2 (the body's natural learning ability) through awareness rather than forced technique.
Greg Mckeown
After Essentialism teaches what to focus on, Effortless shows how to make the essential easier—not through more effort, but through better approaches that reduce friction.
Mike Isaac
The inside story of Uber's rise and Travis Kalanick's fall—a cautionary tale about toxic culture, growth at all costs, and what happens when "hustle" goes too far.
Yuval Noah Harari
Homo sapiens conquered the world not through physical superiority but through our unique ability to believe in shared fictions—myths, religions, nations, and money—that enable mass cooperation.
Harper Lee
Through the eyes of Scout Finch, we witness her father Atticus defend a black man falsely accused of rape in 1930s Alabama—a timeless story about courage, justice, and moral integrity.
Ernest Hemingway
The Lost Generation wanders through 1920s Paris and Spain, seeking meaning through alcohol, bullfighting, and doomed love in the aftermath of World War I.
Ernest Hemingway
An aging fisherman's battle with a giant marlin becomes a meditation on dignity, endurance, and what it means to be defeated but not destroyed.
Chuck Palahniuk
A savage critique of consumerism and modern masculinity—when a depressed narrator meets Tyler Durden, everything he thought he knew about himself falls apart.
Neil Gaiman
Gods live among us, brought by immigrants to America—but new gods of technology and media are rising, and a war between old and new is coming.
Erich Maria Remarque
Young German soldiers discover that the glory of war is a lie—what remains is mud, terror, and the systematic destruction of an entire generation.
Amor Towles
Confined to a luxury hotel for decades by Bolshevik decree, Count Rostov discovers that a meaningful life can be built within any walls—it's the people, not the places.
Tim Ferriss
The quality of your life depends on the quality of your questions—these 17 questions help cut through fear, clarify priorities, and unlock unconventional paths.
Reeves Wiedeman
WeWork's spectacular implosion—how Adam Neumann convinced investors a real estate company was a tech company, raised billions, and crashed spectacularly before IPO.
Nat Eliason
A novel exploring relationships, success, and finding yourself in the modern age of endless possibilities and social media comparison.
Kim Scott
The best managers care personally about their team while challenging them directly—anything less leads to ruinous empathy, obnoxious aggression, or manipulative insincerity.
David Heinemeier Hansson & Jason Fried
The frantic pace of modern work culture is a choice, not a necessity—calm companies protect their people's time, attention, and sanity while still succeeding.
Ramit Sethi
Personal finance is 85% behavior, 15% knowledge—automate your money, spend guilt-free on what you love, and stop worrying about lattes.
Gordon Pitts
Lessons from Atlantic Canada's business elite—how entrepreneurs from a small region built global companies through grit, relationships, and maritime values.
Morgan Housel
A refreshingly simple guide to wealth-building that argues financial success is less about intelligence and more about behavior — revealing how psychology, emotion, and personal history shape our money decisions far more than spreadsheets ever could.
Matt Mochary
A tactical guide for startup CEOs—personal productivity, goal-setting, meetings, hiring, and feedback from top Silicon Valley coaches.
David Allen
Key insights and lessons from Getting Things Done—practical wisdom distilled from David Allen's work.
David Deida
Key insights and lessons from The Way of the Superior Man—practical wisdom distilled from David Deida's work.
Gary Provost
Practical tips for clearer, more engaging writing—from sentence structure to storytelling, in bite-sized lessons.
Michael Pollan
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.—64 simple rules that cut through nutritional confusion and return eating to common sense.
Sun Tzu
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting—through superior strategy, knowing yourself and your enemy, and exploiting circumstances.
Victor Frankl
Those who have a "why" to live can bear almost any "how"—meaning can be found even in the worst suffering, and the search for meaning is our primary drive.
Amor Towles
In 1938 New York, a chance encounter changes everything for Katey Kontent—a novel about class, ambition, and the choices that define who we become.
Daniel Coyle
Key insights and lessons from The Culture Code—practical wisdom distilled from Daniel Coyle's work.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The American Dream is beautiful but hollow—Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of wealth and Daisy leads only to tragedy, revealing the moral emptiness beneath the Jazz Age glitter.
John Doerr
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) focus organizations on ambitious goals with measurable outcomes—a system used by Google, Intel, and the Gates Foundation to achieve extraordinary results.
David Epstein
In a world that increasingly rewards specialization, generalists who sample broadly, develop diverse skills, and connect disparate ideas often outperform specialists in complex, unpredictable domains.
Allan Dib
Marketing success comes from a simple one-page plan covering three phases: before (getting prospects), during (acquiring customers), and after (maximizing lifetime value).
Ryan Holiday
The true story of Peter Thiel's secret, decade-long plan to destroy Gawker Media through funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit—a modern tale of power, revenge, and patience.
Benjamin Dreyer
A witty, practical guide to writing better English—from a legendary copy editor who shows that good grammar serves clarity, not arbitrary rules.
Victor Cheng
Revenue growth is systematic—the right acquisition system, multiplied by customer value optimization, creates predictable and sustainable business growth.
Dale Carnegie
The key to winning friends and influencing people is making others feel important—through genuine interest, appreciation, and seeing things from their perspective.
Richard Feynman
Nobel physicist Feynman's adventures in physics, art, safecracking, and bongo drums—a celebration of curiosity and unconventional thinking.
Robert Greene
A collaboration between Robert Greene and rapper 50 Cent that distills one ultimate law of power: fearlessness — arguing that the greatest obstacle to success is not external but the fear that lives inside us.
Meg Jay
Your twenties are not a throwaway decade—the decisions you make about work, relationships, and identity during this time will disproportionately shape your entire adult life.
John Maeda
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful—ten laws for achieving simplicity in design, technology, and life.
Daniel Kahneman
Key insights and lessons from Thinking, Fast and Slow—practical wisdom distilled from Daniel Kahneman's work.
Seth Godin
Marketing is about change—finding the smallest viable audience, understanding their worldview, and creating something they'll be proud to spread.
Kevin Maney
Products must choose between fidelity (quality experience) and convenience (ease of access)—Kevin Maney explains why trying to be both usually fails, with examples from Netflix to Starbucks.
Daniel Pink
Timing isn't an art—it's a science, and understanding the hidden patterns in our days, projects, and lives can dramatically improve decisions and performance.
Bea Johnson
The 5 Rs—Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot—can dramatically minimize household waste and simplify your life without sacrificing quality.
Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
Leaders must own everything in their world—there are no bad teams, only bad leaders, and the best leaders take complete responsibility for outcomes.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Optimal human experience—flow—occurs when we are fully absorbed in challenging activities that match our skills, leading to both peak performance and deep fulfillment.
Sean Ellis
Growth hacking is cross-functional, data-driven experimentation focused on the entire customer journey—from acquisition through retention and referral.
Robert Greene
Master your craft through apprenticeship, creative practice, and embracing challenges—Robert Greene reveals how history's greatest masters achieved excellence through deliberate practice and deep immersion in their fields.
Mark Manson
True attractiveness comes not from tactics or techniques, but from living with honesty, vulnerability, and a lifestyle aligned with your values.
Stephen King
Good writing comes from reading a lot, writing a lot, and telling the truth—kill your darlings, avoid adverbs, and let the story lead you.
William Zinsser
Good writing is clear thinking made visible—strip away clutter, write with humanity, and rewrite relentlessly.
Ray Dalio
Life and work principles from the founder of Bridgewater Associates—Ray Dalio shares his framework for radical transparency, idea meritocracy, and systematic decision-making that built the world's largest hedge fund.
Robert Greene
A comprehensive guide to strategic thinking — translating military principles from 3,000 years of warfare into frameworks for navigating conflict, competition, and daily life.
Rolf Dobelli
We are predictably irrational—understanding the 99 cognitive biases that distort our thinking is the first step to making better decisions.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Rare, unpredictable events—Black Swans—have far greater impact than we imagine, and our tendency to explain them in hindsight blinds us to future uncertainty.
Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle
Bill Campbell coached Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Google's founders with the same principles: people first, trust above all.
Cal Newport
In an economy that rewards rare and valuable skills, the ability to perform distraction-free, cognitively demanding work—deep work—is becoming both increasingly valuable and increasingly rare.
Ryan Holiday
Ego—the unhealthy belief in our own importance—is the enemy at every stage of life, blocking learning when we're aspiring, creating blind spots during success, and preventing recovery during failure.
Gabriel Wyner
Learn languages faster by training your ear first, using spaced repetition with personal connections, and never translating—think directly in the new language from day one.
Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler
Outbound sales at scale requires specialization—separate prospecting from closing and create a predictable pipeline through systematic cold outreach.
Rolf Dobelli
Fifty-two practical mental tools for a good life—from Stoicism to behavioral economics, these shortcuts help you think more clearly and live more wisely.
Ben Horowitz
There's no formula for the hard decisions every CEO faces—this is a brutally honest guide to the struggles of building and running a company when there are no good options.
Timothy Gallwey
Peak performance comes from quieting the judgmental "Self 1" mind and trusting the intuitive "Self 2" body—the same mental principles apply to tennis, golf, music, and life.
Steven Pressfield
Resistance is the invisible enemy that stops you from doing your creative work—defeat it by showing up every day and treating your art like a professional treats their job.
Daniel Pink
We're all in sales now—whether or not we realize it, we spend our days persuading, influencing, and convincing others, and the best approach is to serve rather than manipulate.
Robert M. Pirsig
A philosophical journey exploring Quality—what it means to care about your work and life, bridging the gap between rational analysis and romantic intuition.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Some things benefit from shocks—they are antifragile; our goal should be to position ourselves and our systems to gain from disorder rather than merely survive it.
Michael Pollan
Building a small writing house becomes a meditation on architecture, craftsmanship, and what it means to create a space of one's own.
Hermann Hesse
Coming of age is breaking free from inherited morality to discover your own nature—guided by the mysterious Demian, Sinclair learns that light and dark are both part of wholeness.
Jocko Willink
Discipline is the path to freedom—by controlling yourself, your time, and your habits, you gain the freedom to achieve what matters most.
Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson
Cognitive dissonance drives us to justify our decisions, maintain our self-image, and blame others—understanding this mechanism is crucial for admitting mistakes and growing.
Ryan Holiday
Creating work that lasts requires focusing on timeless ideas, obsessive quality, and relentless promotion—most marketing happens before you even start creating.
Hermann Hesse
True wisdom cannot be taught—Siddhartha's journey from Brahmin's son to wealthy merchant to ferryman teaches that enlightenment must be experienced, not learned.
Jill Konrath
Today's overwhelmed buyers make snap decisions—to succeed in sales, you must be Simple, iNvaluable, Aligned, and Priority-focused.
Austin Kleon
Nothing is original—all creative work builds on what came before, so embrace your influences, copy what you love, and through the synthesis, your own voice emerges.
Al Ries & Jack Trout
Marketing success comes from owning a word in the prospect's mind—being first in a category is more powerful than being better, and perception is reality.
Robert Greene
Key insights and lessons from The Art of Seduction—practical wisdom distilled from Robert Greene's work.
Ryan Holiday
The Stoic philosophy of turning obstacles into opportunities—using perception, action, and will to transform adversity into advantage.
Tim Ferriss
Distilled wisdom from 200+ world-class performers—the tactics, routines, and habits they use to achieve extraordinary results.
Matthew Walker
A neuroscientist's comprehensive exploration of sleep science — revealing why sleep is the foundation of physical and mental health, how modern life destroys it, and what happens to your brain and body when you don't get enough.
Jordan Peterson
A blend of psychology, philosophy, mythology, and self-help that offers 12 practical rules for navigating the chaos of life — arguing that meaning comes from taking responsibility, confronting suffering, and pursuing what is meaningful rather than what is expedient.
Cal Newport
Intentional digital tool use—keeping only what truly serves your values and discarding the rest—is essential for a meaningful life in the age of attention engineering.
Mark Manson
Hope is the source of both our greatest achievements and our deepest suffering—true contentment comes from accepting life's inherent meaninglessness and choosing to engage anyway.
Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
Leadership requires balancing opposing forces—confident but humble, aggressive but prudent, disciplined but not rigid—and the best leaders find the equilibrium for each situation.
Daniel Pink
Traditional carrot-and-stick motivation fails for creative work—true motivation comes from autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Greg McKeown
Success comes from doing less but better—by deliberately choosing what is essential and eliminating everything else, we make our highest contribution.
Dale Carnegie & Associates
Carnegie's timeless principles of human relations—making others feel important, showing genuine interest, and avoiding criticism—remain essential in the digital age where connection is both easier and more difficult.
Charlie Munger
Wisdom comes from building a latticework of mental models across disciplines—and applying them to make better decisions while avoiding stupidity.
Stanley McChrystal
In complex, fast-moving environments, traditional command-and-control hierarchies fail—success requires creating a "team of teams" with shared consciousness and empowered execution.
Charles Duhigg
Habits are loops of cue, routine, and reward—you can't eliminate bad habits, but you can change them by keeping the cue and reward while inserting a new routine.
Mark Manson
True happiness comes not from avoiding problems but from choosing better problems to have—and accepting that life's meaning comes from what we struggle for, not what we achieve.
Neil Strauss
A journey from sex addiction through therapy to understanding that real intimacy requires facing yourself—not running from commitment into conquest.
Derek Sivers
Business can be an expression of your values and creativity—stay small, help people, and remember that it's about making you happy, not maximizing profit.
David Goggins
Most people only tap into 40% of their potential—by embracing suffering, building mental calluses, and taking brutal self-inventory, you can push far beyond your perceived limits.
Michael Pollan
Psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD, long dismissed as dangerous, are showing remarkable therapeutic potential for depression, addiction, and end-of-life anxiety by temporarily dissolving the ego and enabling new perspectives.
Nir Eyal
Distraction is not about your environment or technology—it's about escaping discomfort; becoming indistractable requires mastering internal triggers and designing your life for focus.
Chris Voss
The best negotiators use tactical empathy and calibrated questions to understand the other side's perspective and guide them toward your desired outcome without direct confrontation.
Malcolm Gladwell
Success isn't just about individual talent—it's about hidden advantages, cultural legacies, timing of birth, and the 10,000 hours of practice that prepare you for opportunity.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Asymmetry of risk—people making decisions without bearing consequences—is the root of fragility, unfairness, and bad judgment in systems from finance to politics.
Gary Halbert
A legendary copywriter's letters from prison to his son—raw, practical wisdom on direct response marketing, writing copy that sells, and living a good life.
Atul Gawande
Even experts make mistakes—simple checklists dramatically reduce errors in surgery, aviation, and any complex field by ensuring basic steps aren't skipped.
Robert Greene
A deep exploration of the hidden forces that drive human behavior — teaching you to decode the motivations behind people's actions, understand your own nature, and navigate social dynamics with clarity and strategic awareness.
Tim Ferriss
Life advice from 100+ world-class performers—their morning routines, book recommendations, habits, and the wisdom they wish they'd known earlier.