I’ve collected thousands of quotes over the past 10+ years.

Here are the best ones I’ve found about taking action, including insights from top thought leaders in entrepreneurship, productivity, philosophy, and habit formation...

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears. Clarity doesn’t come before action. It comes from action.” -Rumi

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” -Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it.” -Steve Jobs

“Nothing happens until after you commit.” -Dan Sullivan

“Don’t be afraid to act. Be afraid of living a life that seems more like a resume than an adventure.” -Noah Kagan

“In crisis, it’s often only after you take the first step that the path emerges.” -Simone Stolzoff

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” -Leonardo da Vinci

“The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.” -Marc Andreessen

"We're taught that you need a publisher to write a book, a studio to make a movie, or a gatekeeper to deem you worthy. But the truth is, the tools to create and share have never been more accessible. The only permission you need is your own." -Austin Kleon

“Many a false step was made by standing still.” -Fortune cookie

“Inspiration unused is merely entertainment. To get new results, you need to take new actions.” -David Bach

“Your entire life can change with one year of focused daily effort.” -Sahil Bloom

“Life rewards action, not intelligence. Unfortunately, the smarter you are, the better the excuses. You can analyze forever, or you can take action.” -Giacomo Falcone

“We are the prison guards of the jail that we’re complaining about.” -Chris Williamson

“Working on a problem reduces the fear of it. It’s hard to fear a problem when you are making progress on it—even if progress is imperfect and slow. Action relieves anxiety.” -James Clear

“I got my start by giving myself a start.” -Madam CJ Walker

"Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow…If you're good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure." -Jeff Bezos

“Anxiety feeds on idleness. You’re feeling stuck and anxious because you’re not doing anything. When you take action, you starve the anxiety of the oxygen it needs to survive.” -Sahil Bloom

“Most people never pick up the phone, most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail.” -Steve Jobs

“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” -Paulo Coelho

“I’ve realized that the key to being successful is not how good your ideas are. It’s how good you are at being able to find quick, cheap, and easy ways to try your ideas.” -Marc Randolph

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” -Friedrich Engels

“In a world overflowing with information, the true challenge is not gathering more insights but deciding to take that first, crucial step.” -Pat Flynn

“You are never stuck. That’s a lie you tell yourself. You can leave a job, a relationship, a living situation, a date, an interview, or a conversation anytime you want to.” -Mel Robbins

“There is usually an inverse relationship between how much something is on your mind and how much it’s getting done.” -David Allen

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“Whenever you are stuck searching for the optimal plan, remember: Getting started changes everything.” -James Clear

“Actions produce information. If you’re stuck on a problem or a decision, just do anything. If it turns out to be wrong, you can adjust, and you’ll reach the right path much faster than if you wait for certainty.” -Giacomo Falcone

“Even 30 minutes spent actually doing the thing today are more valuable than hundreds of purely hypothetical hours in the future.” -Oliver Burkeman

“There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.” -Steven Pressfield

“Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over.” -Jeff Bezos

“Initium est dimidium facti” (Once you’ve started, you’re halfway there.) -Old Latin proverb

“Action expresses priorities.” -Gandhi

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

“Your business heroes are average people who took a lot of action.” -Justin Welsh

“When you’re coming up, you kind of have this sense that somebody at some point will be like, ‘Now it’s your turn.' And it doesn’t ever happen like that...There’s no man behind the curtain who goes, ‘ok, your turn now.’ You have to make your own turn. You have to will it into existence.” -Greta Gerwig

“Most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.” -Seth Godin

“The wise does at once what the fool does at last.” -Jewish proverb

“Just start. You’re trying to map out the whole nine innings. Just throw the first pitch.” -Ryan Holiday

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” -General George Patton

“At the end of the day we are accountable to ourselves—our success is a result of what we do.” -Catherine Pulsifer

“With movement comes clarity.” -Thaddeus Bradley

"People think they'll do something later. They think they'll have more time in the future than they do today, as if later is a magical time when everything will happen. Forget the whole notion of the future. There is only today. If you want to do something, do it now. If you don't want to do it now, then you don't want to do it at all, so let it go." -Derek Sivers

“Five years from now you will wish you had started today.” -Kevin Kelly

“Lots of people want to be the noun (writer, entrepreneur, etc.) without doing the verb (writing, inventing, etc.).” -Austin Kleon

“Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources.” -Ryan Holiday

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” -George Eliot

“I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing, and I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.” -Jeff Bezos

“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” -Andrew Carnegie

“Better to take a risk, try something, and distill the answer from experience rather than from navel-gazing. Action leads to insight more often than insight leads to action.” -Chip and Dan Heath

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” -Henry David Thoreau

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I’ve been working in Learning & Development (L&D) for eight years. Essentially, my job is to find ways to get information into people’s brains.

When I first started in L&D, I discovered that people have a lot of opinions about how they learn best, but very few of those opinions are grounded in reality.

“A great deal of what we think we know about how to learn is taken on faith and based on intuition but does not hold up under empirical research.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

It turns out that there is a lot of research about what works and what doesn’t, but the answers are buried in research papers and obscure books.

The best myth-busting book I’ve found is called Make It Stick by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel. The book summarizes years of data behind how people learn, including the five takeaways below:

1. You don’t have a “learning style.”

“The popular notion that you learn better when you receive instruction in a form consistent with your preferred learning style, for example as an auditory or visual learner, is not supported by the empirical research.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

This is the most common learning myth. Since the time you were a child, you’ve probably been told that everyone learns in a different way, and people learn better when the mode of teaching matches their preferred style.

But that theory has not been validated by research.

Cognitive psychologists Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Bob Bjork conducted a study in 2008 to determine whether there’s sufficient evidence for the learning styles theory.

Their research uncovered several studies that outrightly contradicted the theory and virtually no studies that supported it.

They found that people learn best when the style of instruction matches the subject being taught. Geometry should be taught visually, poetry should be taught verbally, and so on.

Functionally, everyone learns the same way. The best teachers recognize how to teach their topics and use whatever teaching mechanisms best support the subject at hand.

People indeed have preferences for how to learn, but those preferences don’t line up with how people actually learn.

This means that if you’ve always considered yourself to “not be a reader” and think you don’t learn that way, you’re probably wrong. If you think that you learn best kinesthetically (e.g. doing something physically with your body), that’s probably because everyone learns that way for the subject you’re trying to learn. It’s impossible to learn archery by sitting in a classroom. You can’t learn to dance by reading a book. Ensure that the teaching mechanism lines up with the material that you are trying to learn.

The learning styles myth is predicated on the idea that people learn best by doing something they enjoy — something that comes easy.

In fact, the opposite is often true, which brings us to our second takeaway about how we learn…

2. Experiencing difficulty can help you learn better.

“[S]ome difficulties that require more effort and slow down apparent gains…will feel less productive at the time but will more than compensate for that by making the learning stronger, precise, and enduring…our judgments of what learning strategies work best for us are often mistaken, colored by illusions of mastery.”
-Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

Did you know that when written text is slightly out of focus, readers remember more of the material? The brain is forced to perform more work, so the information sticks better.

Similarly, if a professor’s lecture strays from the order of material presented in the textbook, students have higher recall of the information. The students are forced to discern the key insights and connect those to what they remember from the textbook.

We assume that what comes easily will stick in our brains more readily than things that come difficult, but the opposite is often true.

This is another reason why the learning styles theory is so inaccurate. If you have a preferred way to learn, it’s probably best to do the exact opposite! Experiencing difficulty while learning helps our brains approach the material from a different perspective. The authors of Make It Stick call this “desirable difficulty.”

Desirable difficulty is one of the reasons cited for why many dyslexics have gone on to build incredible businesses. Richard Branson (entrepreneur and philanthropist), Barbara Corcoran (real estate mogul), and Charles Schwab (investor and financial executive) have all credited dyslexia for playing a role in their success. The additional effort they had to expend to learn made their knowledge more robust.

“There are still many dyslexics out there, especially young people, who feel held back by their condition. I used my dyslexia to my advantage and learned to delegate those tasks I wasn’t so good it. This freed me up to look at the bigger picture, and is one of the main reasons I have been able to expand the Virgin brand into so many different areas.” -Richard Branson

When you’re learning something new, be patient. Expect difficulty. Difficulty is a sign that your brain is wrestling with something foreign, exploring how it fits into your existing assumptions and mental models.

3. Self-quizzing is better than re-reading.

“One of the best habits a learner can instill in herself is regular self-quizzing to recalibrate her understanding of what she does and does not know.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

I can remember situations back in college when I re-read a portion of a textbook several times until I was very familiar with the text. I got to the point where my eyes would scan the beginning of a paragraph, and I’d think to myself, “Oh yeah, I remember that. I’m gonna nail this test.” Then I’d skip that paragraph and go on to the next.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize a few things about how our brains learn:

Awareness ≠ Understanding
Familiarity ≠ Fluency
Recognition ≠ Knowledge

My familiarity with the text did little to help me recall that information later. When it came time for the test on that material, I was often surprised that I couldn’t remember information that “I knew so well.”

What I should have done was quiz myself more frequently on the material. Self-quizzing identifies places of hidden ignorance. It also helps our brains get better at retrieving the information we have stored:

“[R]ecalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier for you to recall in the future. In effect, retrieval — testing — interrupts forgetting.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

The next time you’re trying to learn something new, look for an opportunity to test yourself on what you’ve learned. Rather than reading and re-reading the material to develop familiarity, look for a way to gauge your places of hidden ignorance.

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4. “Massed practice” is ineffective.

“Massed practice gives us the warm sensation of mastery because we’re looping information through short-term memory without having to reconstruct the learning from long-term memory. But just as with rereading as a study strategy, the fluency gained through massed practice is transitory, and our sense of mastery is illusory.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

Years ago, I advised my company’s client services team to batch similar work for new hires so they could learn how to solve one type of problem before moving on to the next type of problem. I was inclined to educate new hires through massed practice — repetition of a single task until that task is mastered.

Then I read Make It Stick and realized I had given crappy advice. Massed practice is not how people learn best.

To explain why massed practice doesn’t work, let’s look at an example from the world of baseball…

Let’s say you are a hitting coach who wants to improve your team’s batting average. You’re not sure how best to do this, so you divide your batters into two groups to run an experiment. As part of the experiment, every hitter will get 45 practice pitches.

The batters in the first group will get 15 fastballs in a row, then 15 curveballs in a row, then 15 changeups in a row.

The batters in the second group will get 45 random pitches. They don’t know what’s coming.

Which group do you think will become better hitters?

Before answering that question, I’ll tell you who will enjoy batting practice more: the first group! They know what is coming. They will crush pitches during batting practice because they know what to expect. But that doesn’t make them perform any better during a game because real life doesn’t work like that.

The second group (the one that received 45 random pitches) will become better hitters. Their practice mimicked what they’ll face in a real game-time situation.

The Cal Poly baseball team actually tried the experiment above for six weeks. Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel share the team’s conclusion:

“Those who had practiced on the randomly interspersed pitches now displayed markedly better hitting relative to those who had practiced on one type of pitch thrown over and over.”

Massed practice is ineffective because it doesn’t mimic real life. Real life is messy. It doesn’t comport to tidy rules.

Pitchers don’t throw 15 changeups in a row. Changeups are only effective because they are unexpected. They catch hitters off balance. No pitcher in a game-time situation would throw that many of the same pitch in a row.

Similarly, client services teams don’t get 45 of the same cases in a row. Sales reps don’t face the same objection 45 times in a row.

When you’re learning something new, it’s best to practice different tasks back-to-back rather than batching similar tasks together. Create an environment similar to the one you’ll face when performing that task later. Don’t inflate your ego with the illusion of mastery by hammering 15 curveballs in a row.

5. Reflection is a powerful learning tool.

“Reflection can involve several cognitive activities that lead to stronger learning: retrieving knowledge and earlier training from memory, connecting these to new experiences, and visualizing and mentally rehearsing what you might do differently next time.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

What feels more productive after you’ve finished reading a book: beginning to read the next book in your stack or taking notes on the book you just finished?

To me, it always feels more productive to move on to the next new thing. But our brains often need time to reflect upon what we have learned.

Reflection helps us establish new mental models and form new connections between disparate facts.

“The learning benefits from the various cognitive activities that are engaged during reflection (retrieval, elaboration, generation) have been well established through empirical studies.” -Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel

Once you’ve finished learning something new, take the time to jot down a few notes about that topic. Write notes in the margins of your books. Journal about the TED talk you just watched. Talk to a friend about the Coursera class you just completed. Harness the power of reflection to retain new knowledge.

There are many myths about how we learn.

If you’ve committed to becoming a lifelong learner, it’s imperative to understand how your brain actually retains knowledge.

Rather than falling for popular learning myths, remember these five takeaways:

1. You don’t have a “learning style.”

2. Experiencing difficulty can help you learn better.

3. Self-quizzing is better than re-reading.

4. “Massed practice” is ineffective.

5. Reflection is a powerful learning tool.

Keep learning, my friends.

Today I turn 39. Each birthday, I reflect on what life has taught me. (Read my prior lists here: ages 35, 36, 37, and 38.)

This year’s lessons loosely cluster around a few core themes:

1. Growth Mindset: Anyone can learn anything. You are malleable—but only if you choose to be.

2. High Agency: You can choose whether to take action or be acted upon.

3. Stoicism: Control what you can control. Don’t waste time worrying about the rest.

4. Learn, Curate, Simplify, & Share: Spotlight the best stuff you’re learning so others can learn too.

5. Candid & Kind: Speak up. And when conflict arises, assume positive intent.

Without further ado, here are the 39 biggest lessons I learned this past year:

Growth Mindset → You Can Learn Anything

Don’t get jealous—learn. I sometimes look at others and think, “Dang, look what he has accomplished…and he’s younger than me!” That type of comparison is destructive when it pushes me toward jealousy, bitterness, or excuses. But I’ve learned it can also be constructive if it leads me to deeper introspection and learning, like “Strategy X worked for them. Maybe I should try that.” The key is to focus on learning, not jealousy.

Believe in your ability to solve problems. Don’t hide behind excuses like “I’m not a math guy” or “I’m not a creative person.” Each of us is given a different default setting for how easy it is to acquire particular skills, but everything is ultimately learnable.

“Optimism is not the belief that there are no problems. Optimism is a belief that we can fix the problems.” -Shawn Achor

Spend time with living trees (nature) and dead trees (books). You’ll immediately become happier and more relaxed. (Shout-out to for this framing.)

Exhibit mental liquidity. Be willing to defend your passions but equally willing to listen to others. Aim for strong opinions, loosely held. (HT: Morgan Housel)

Choose truth over being right. Egocentric people care about being right, but lifelong learners care about getting it right. Be the latter.

“There are two types of people: Those who want to know more and those who want to defend what they already know.” -Morgan Housel

High Agency → Take Action

When you’re feeling stuck, ask yourself, “What would a high agency person do in this situation?” Doing so can change your mental frame and help you begin generating potential solutions.

One of the best ways to accomplish something is to lower the bar for getting started. When I tell myself I should start writing the next chapter of my book, I hesitate to do anything because it seems daunting. But when I tell myself I want to open my writing platform and “just play around a bit,” I end up writing a chapter. To accomplish more, lower the barrier to entry.

Don’t get constipated with learning. Consuming information (books, articles, YouTube videos, etc.) is great. But there comes a point when you need to ACT. Decide today to take imperfect action with what you know so far. Never use learning as a delaying technique for doing the real work.

“Your entire life will change when you stop gathering information and start acting on the information you already have.” -Sahil Bloom

Just make a decision—any decision. It’s tempting to wait until you have full information before making a decision, but that’s often the worst thing you can do. Instead, choose a path and start walking down it. Often, you can iterate later anyway.

“Actions produce information. If you’re stuck on a problem or a decision, just do anything. If it turns out to be wrong, you can adjust, and you’ll reach the right path much faster than if you wait for certainty.” -

Action eases anxiety. Most of the time when I’m feeling nervous about something, I realize I’m only anxious because there’s some action I could take that I haven’t yet (e.g., practice a speech, study for a quiz, do more research). As soon as I act, I feel better.

You can just do things. Rather than waiting for a gatekeeper or authority figure to tell you what’s possible, pursue what you want. Or, as puts it, take permissionless action.

“Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is, everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” -Steve Jobs

Live with a maniacal sense of urgency. Tomorrow is better than next week, and today is better than tomorrow. If a task will take five minutes or less, just tackle it now.

“Urgency is the best predictor of personal success.” -Shane Parrish

Be a nonfungible human. Own your weirdness. It’s not only the best way to be remembered, it’s also the only way to live a truly authentic life.

“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.” -Paul McCartney

Commit to the bit. Life is more fun when you lean into the crazy moments. Two examples: If you’re singing karaoke, stand on a chair and belt it out. Or if you’re playing games with your nieces or nephews, go all-in on the imaginary world they’re creating, just like a kid would. Think like an improv comedian: commit to the bit. Don’t hide the fullest parts of yourself.

Clarity = Speed. In work and life, the greater clarity you have, the faster you’ll be able to move. This is especially true in leadership. If your team knows what’s expected of them (e.g., clear job descriptions, defined expectations), they’ll move much faster.

Stoicism → Control What You Can Control

Choose optimism. When I was 17, I met two bankers at a community event. One told me he had a boring, stuffy job pushing papers. The other told me she had the best job in the world: she got to help people buy their first homes. I looked them up on LinkedIn afterward, and they both had the exact same job. Perspective is everything.

“I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” -Martha Washington

Realize that you’ve always held the key. Most of the time when I struggle to complete something, the issue is internal—not external. I am my own biggest problem. The issue is my own lack of courage, initiative, or creativity. I hold the key.

“We are the prison guards of the jail that we’re complaining about.” -Chris Williamson

Don’t complain. Find a way. It’s easy to wallow when life doesn’t go the way you want. When that happens, give yourself five minutes to wallow, then get back to work. It’s possible that the challenge you’re facing just opened up a new opportunity for growth or a new vector of attack you can use.

"There are those who see what should be, and complain that they do not get their due. And then there are those who see what is, and figure out how to use it to their advantage. Or at the least, overcome it." -James Islington (The Will of the Many)

Everything comes back to Intention and Obstacle. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin says Intention and Obstacle drive every memorable movie: someone wants something, and something is standing in their way. But that’s how life works too. In life, gain clarity on what you want and what challenges you’ll have to overcome to get there. Be honest.

Seek out intimidating foes. Winners become winners by training against difficult opponents. That’s not just true in athletics; it’s also true in life. Volunteer for the tough project at work. Challenge yourself with a home improvement project beyond your current skills. Sign up for a Spartan Race, even if you aren’t sure you can finish.

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

Live with centered ambition. It’s okay to have massive career goals, but you shouldn’t let those goals drown out more important aspects of life: family, friends, etc. Set massive goals but draw constraints for yourself of what you are (and aren’t) willing to sacrifice to achieve them. (HT: Barrett Brooks)

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Learn, Curate, Simplify, & Share

Writing and speaking are just forms of public thinking. They’re downstream from many, many hours of thoughtful preparation. That means making a great speech is more about private preparation than public eloquence. If you’ve put in the time to brainstorm, outline, and prepare, the end product will be solid.

“All good public speaking is based on good private thinking.” -Scott Berkun

…And your private thinking is a result of what you choose to consume. That means one of the most important things that will govern your life as an entrepreneur, artist, writer, pastor, teacher, leader, or musician is the books, podcasts, movies, and social media accounts you allow into your brain.

“Almost every idea you have is downstream from what you consume...The person who creates better information flows gets better thoughts.” -James Clear

Breathe in, breathe out. Consuming and creating are both necessary for anyone who wants to put a mark on the world. Consuming is like breathing in: you inhale good ideas from others through the books you read, the podcasts you listen to, and the conversations you have with thought-provoking people. But then, you must breathe out: exhale the lessons you’ve learned by sharing them with others.

Speak more about failures than successes. Stories about wins tend to be boring. (It’s hard to cheer for someone who’s tooting their own horn.) Your most powerful and engaging stories will be the ones you earn through your mistakes. They’re humanizing and will make others want to root for you.

Quantity → Quality. Many creators debate whether quantity or quality is paramount, but that argument is a false dichotomy. Often, the best way to create something of quality is to create a lot of stuff.

The specific is the universal. The surest way to connect with a crowd is to tell a personal story, and the best way to inspire someone to donate is to talk about a single person in need. To appeal to the masses, find the most specific example you can.

Think small to go big. In a world of social media and mass marketing, it’s tempting to think the best way to sell something is to blast it out to the masses. But the best way to drive an initiative is often to start with one-on-one conversations. Focus on individuals, not the masses.

Candid & Kind

When sharing feedback: heart first, mouth second. People can always tell whether your heart is in the right place. If it is, you’ve won half the battle already. And the more you care, the harder you can go with your message.

In an argument, the more you can empathetically feel why someone else is frustrated, the more you can tamp down your own frustration toward them. If two people are upset with each other, they’re usually coming at a problem from different angles. Once you understand their angle and can feel what they’re feeling, it’s easier to empathize and begin finding common ground instead of getting mad at them.

Disagree without being disagreeable. Doing so is the highest bar for communication. If you can do that, everyone will want to work with you: colleagues, clients, etc.

Say what others refuse to say. Ask the question that others are scared to ask. Speak truth and avoid political games.

“The easiest way to be interesting is to be honest.” -Scott Berkun

Tough conversations are worth the stress. Most relationship issues derive from a hesitancy to say something that needs to be said. Feedback is often one minute of scary for months of benefit.

“Conflict avoidance slowly rots your whole life, and many people are about eight awkward discussions from a much-improved existence.” -Sasha Chapin

Ladder up to vulnerability. Small talk sucks, but too often, we get stuck in it because no one is willing to make the first move by saying something honest and vulnerable—something that breaks the script. Something that leads to a real conversation. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could be that person?

“Connection starts the moment someone decides to stop protecting themselves and make it safe for others to do the same.” -Francesca Tighinean

Misc.

Don’t pinch pennies while flushing nickels. Too many people try to save money on small things while not realizing the bigger picture.

Give others skin in the game. People care most about a task when they have ownership over it. This is one of the most important lessons in leadership.

“Good leaders give their teams a reason why they might want to do things that they want done. Make sure your vision and your goals are not just yours, but theirs too.” -Prakash Iyer

Use time to buy money until you can use money to buy time. Early in a career, it’s natural to work more hours to make more money. But as soon as you’re able, flip that dichotomy: spend money to buy back time (e.g., paying for food delivery, hiring a neighborhood kid to mow your yard). Use your time leverage to invest minutes in the things you care about most, like spending time with family and friends, pursuing a hobby, or developing a new skill.

Flip the arrow of money. For almost my entire life, I’ve viewed a job as a necessary means to make money. But I’m trying to reverse that mindset: to make enough money to pursue the type of work I most enjoy—the work I feel called to do.

“Is the purpose of work to make money? Or is the purpose of money to be able to do one’s work?” -Jim Collins (What to Make of a Life)

Remember that emotion guides decisions, and rationality justifies them later. Don’t forget that people buy out of emotion—and this applies to not only products but also things like ideas and worldviews. The best way to convince someone is often to speak to their heart, not their head.

Those are the 39 top lessons I’ve learned this year.

What has life taught you recently? I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a comment below.

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I’ve collected thousands of quotes over the past 10+ years.

Here are the best ones I’ve found about building habits...

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” -Gustave Flaubert

“Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.” -Shane Parrish

“Almost every result you get is a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. So, your physical fitness is a lagging measure of your training habits. Your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your productivity is a lagging measure of your prioritization habits.” -James Clear

“Routines are a godsend when it comes to doing something hard.” -Angela Duckworth

“Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)” -Austin Kleon

“We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can...The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.” -William James

“Behaviors that get immediately awarded get repeated, and behaviors that get immediately punished get avoided.” -James Clear

“Commit to your habits to make them rituals. If it’s not important, never do it. If it’s important, do it every day.” -Derek Sivers

“Decide what you want or ought to do with the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.” -W.H. Auden

“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” -Jerzy Gregorek

“One of the best rules I’ve heard as a writer is that the way to write a book is by producing ‘two crappy pages a day.’” -Ryan Holiday

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not.” -Octavia Butler

“People do not decide their futures. They decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” -F.M. Alexander

“People don’t reach their potential on accident. The secret to success can be found in people’s daily agendas.” -John Maxwell

“Protect the process and the results will take care of themselves.” -Dan Brown

“The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits.” -Steven Pressfield

“The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.” -Kevin Kelly

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

“We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” -James Clear

“What we do on some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.” -H.P. Liddon

“You absolutely need habits to function. You cannot solve every problem in life as if it is the first time it’s thrown at you.” -Naval Ravikant

“You need ritual, not inspiration. Every day, no matter what, you must practice. Your practice ritual is your highest priority—an unbreakable commitment. Stubbornly protect this time against the demands of the world. Once you get momentum, never stop. It’s easy to continue, but if you stop, it’s hard to start again. Never miss a day.” -Derek Sivers

“Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.” -Twyla Tharp

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.” -John Maxwell

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” -W. Somerset Maugham

“If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line. Are you spending less than you earn each month? Are you making it into the gym each week? Are you reading books and learning something new each day? Tiny battles like these are the ones that will define your future self. Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.” -James Clear

Unlike most people, I didn’t get addicted to reading because it’s fun (even though it is). I got hooked when I realized books could help me improve many aspects of my life.

Countless times, I’ve read about a topic one day, only to have that knowledge immediately help me solve a problem a day or two later. That immediate feedback loop is invigorating, and it’s kept me coming back for more.

That’s one of the biggest reasons why I read much more nonfiction than fiction. I love learning new principles I can apply to my life and work. But the only way to harness those kinds of meaningful insights is to read deeply, which is the purpose of this post.

Here are 10 tactics to get more out of what you read:

1. Read with a pen in your hand

"A great reader respects the book by NOT respecting the book." -Ryan Holiday

I used to treat my books no differently than a library book. It felt wrong to deflower the pages with my scribbles, so each margin remained milky white. But then I heard that many of the top readers throughout history took copious margin notes, so I gave it a shot. My reading comprehension skyrocketed. Writing in the book helps you fully immerse yourself in the text and signals to your brain what’s important.

2. Use the book’s back cover to create a one-page cheat sheet

“Never read without taking extracts.” -Pliny the Elder

After I started underlining books and writing in the margins, I took it a step further. Now, for the past decade, I’ve also been writing notes in the back cover. I jot down my top takeaways, along with their respective page numbers (as depicted below). This creates a powerful one-page cheat sheet I can reference later whenever I want to refresh my memory about that book. Now, whenever I want a two-minute refresher on a book, I just pull it off the shelf and open the back cover. Voilà!

3. Write timelines to put events in context

"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of the lessons that history has to teach us." -Aldous Huxley

In many nonfiction books like biographies and historical books, it’s helpful to write a short timeline in the back cover so you can keep track of what happened when. This can also help you memorize a few important dates, in case you want to reference those later. (For example, in the picture above, you can see that I boxed a few of the critical dates I want to remember in the timeline.)

4. Argue with the author

"Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you." -John Wooden

As an intellectually independent and curious person, it should be uncommon for you to agree with every single thing an author says. Approach everything with healthy skepticism and critical thinking. When you find yourself disagreeing with an author’s point, jot a note in the margins. Engage in literary discourse with the author through your marginalia.

5. Choose at least one idea to put into practice immediately

“Action without information is chaos, but information without action is a waste. The key to unlocking our full potential lies in finding the perfect balance between the two.” -Pat Flynn

Effective reading is like breathing: you must breathe in and breathe out. You inhale ideas and exhale action. Just like in real life, it doesn’t work to only inhale and never exhale. You must enact what you learn so it doesn’t leave you bloated with unapplied knowledge and facts. Pick at least one practical idea from each book that you can immediately apply in your life.

6. Don’t read while lying down

“…the feel and appearance of a book when combined with a literate person in a straight chair can create a spiritual condition of priceless depth and meaning. This form of meditation…may be the greatest treasure at the core of our civilization.” -Kurt Vonnegut

In college, I fell asleep every time I read my assigned books. My persistent napping convinced me that books must be boring. Like an idiot, it took me years to realize that I was only falling asleep because I was reading while laying on my bed. After I kicked that habit and began reading at my desk, I stopped napping. (Btw, sitting at a desk also helps enable better note-taking. Win-win.)

7. Physical books > e-Books

“Though many people find they can read faster on a device, the distractions, like social media scrolling, advertisements, and email notifications, often hinder memory retention. Physical books provide an immersive experience, resulting in readers who absorb and recall the content more effectively.” -Heather Rose Artushin MSW, LISW-CP

As a big Barnes & Noble fan, I remember excitedly buying the Nook Color e-reader as soon as it launched. I joyfully downloaded a few books and pounded through them, thankful to have avoided adding more tomes to my already-cramped bookshelves. But shortly afterward, a couple of friends asked me what I had been reading lately, and I realized that I couldn’t remember a lick of what I had read. Sure enough, a 2024 article in Psychology Today cites research that indicates reading comprehension is 6-8 times better when reading physical books compared to e-books. If you’re hoping to remember what you read, trust paper.

8. Summarize what you’re reading

"While we teach, we learn." -Seneca

Almost every day, my wife and I discuss what we’re each reading. I’ve noticed that my first synopsis of whatever I’m reading is often clumsy and disorganized. It takes me a while to distill the book’s themes and takeaways in my own head, so the ideas come out jumbled. But then, a few days later, friends or colleagues will ask me what I’m reading, and each successive synopsis gets more crisp. This act of discussing and synthesizing book takeaways is helpful for the learning process. Look for more opportunities to discuss what you’re reading to crystallize your takeaways.

9. Save quotes and stories in a commonplace book

“Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters — just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. In its most customary form, ‘commonplacing,’ as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations.” -Steven Johnson

A commonplace book is a collection of ideas, quotations, or anything else you want to reference later. You can collect such information in a journal, second brain app, or even a box of notecards. Especially if you’re someone who frequently creates presentations, speeches, articles, books, sermons, lessons, or anything else that depends on saved knowledge, I highly recommend starting a commonplace book.

10. Experiment with new genres

"It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything." -Joseph Brodsky

It’s healthy to peruse other genres beyond your favorite genre. Doing so helps you develop a well-rounded perspective on the world—and it also can help you make connections between disparate worlds. More times than I can count, I’ve accidentally stumbled across the same person or event in multiple books around the same time, and the experience gave me a fuller understanding of that topic.

Example: President Lyndon B. Johnson came up in a book I read about social justice (because he signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act), then he also popped up in a U.S. history book, then I read an entire biography about him, then he came up again in a historical novel. The result was a latticework of information about LBJ that helped me understand him from multiple angles.

It’s okay if you don’t remember a bunch of facts after finishing a book. After all, the purpose of reading isn’t memorization, it’s osmosis. The concepts later ooze out of you in unexpected ways—taking the form of ideas, philosophical perspectives, or even changes in character.

The ten practices above will improve this osmosis process while also aiding your overall reading comprehension. Give them a shot to see which tips help you most!

*This post was originally published on .

I’ve collected quotes for many years. My database now contains thousands of them, and every month I add the best ones I find in books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Btw, many of this month’s quotes come from ’s awesome book You Can Just Do Things. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should!

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

“We read to know we are not alone.” -William Nicholson

“Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is, everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” -Steve Jobs

“Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active — of those who can correct their mistakes and put them right.” -Ingvar Kamprad

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” -Rumi

“Violent consistency is the only path to quality.” -

“People who get an unusual amount of work done are maniacal about removing things from their lives that others tolerate.” -Shane Parrish

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which more than anything will affect a successful outcome.” -William James

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” -Voltaire

“There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.” -Mark Twain

“All good public speaking is based on good private thinking.” -

“If you love ideas, speaking and writing are natural consequences. You know about history’s great thinkers because they either spoke or they wrote.” -Scott Berkun

“Optimism is not the belief that there are no problems. Optimism is a belief that we can fix the problems.” -Shawn Achor

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” -Winston Churchill (HT: )

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” -Attributed to Epictetus

“It is better to surround yourself with people who are better than you, so you can learn from them.” -Warren Buffett

“We’re taught that you need a publisher to write a book, a studio to make a movie, or a gatekeeper to deem you worthy. But the truth is, the tools to create and share have never been more accessible. The only permission you need is your own.” -

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” -Bobby Kennedy

“Tactics are many, principles are few. The person who understands principles can choose their own methods.” -Attributed to Harrington Emerson

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” -Judy Garland

“The Mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” -John Milton

“We work on ourselves in order to help others, and also we help others in order to work on ourselves.” -Pema Chodron

“Whatever you are not changing, you are choosing.” -Laurie Buchanan

“Writing is humanity distilled into ink.” -Unknown

“This feels hard because it is hard, not because you’re failing.” -Dr. Becky Kennedy

“If busyness is your drug, rest will feel like stress.” -Ian Simpkins

“On the days you only have 40%, and you give 40%. You gave 100%.” -Jim Kwik

“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.” -Seth Godin

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” -Benjamin Franklin

“The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.” -Marc Andreessen

“War and Christianity are not compatible.” -Leo Tolstoy

“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.” -Paul McCartney

“An idea is not worth much until it is shared. It is the sharing of ideas that propels society forward.” -Sir Ken Robinson

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” -Leonardo da Vinci

“There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence—and in the end, you make it look like a quantum leap.” -James Dyson

“Quality beats quantity, but the path to quality is paved with quantity.” -Jay Yang

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” -Pablo Picasso

“Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.” -François de La Rochefoucauld

“Money’s greatest intrinsic value—and this can’t be overstated—is its ability to give you control over your time.” -Morgan Housel

“Part of what is happening when you spend 7 hours reading a book, is you spend 7 hours with your mind on the topics in the book, grappling with them, drawing connections, having thoughts you would not otherwise have had. And so without that process of grappling, without those hours inside that book, it doesn’t get inside you. It doesn’t impress itself upon you. It doesn’t change you. What reading and writing and processing information is supposed to do is change you.” -

Read more of my favorite quotes:

I was always better at buying journals than using them.

From the ages of 10 through 25, every time I saw a cool-looking journal at Wal-Mart or Target, I’d snag it with the optimistic intention of starting a journaling habit. After all, I’d always heard that journaling was a good way to self-reflect and that “When I was old someday, I’d be thankful to have those memories” (as the octogenarians at my church frequently told me).

So I figured I could propel myself into the habit by buying a kick-ass journal.

But alas, every time I tried to start journaling, my effort resulted in the same sad output: a notebook that contained 5–10 scribbled pages of boyish enthusiasm followed by 200 blank pages that reminded me how much I sucked at this whole journaling thing.

And so it went.
Journal after journal.
Year after year.

The only thing I had to show for my efforts was a bookshelf of awesome journals filled with not-so-awesome blank pages.

By the time I turned 30, I figured I wasn’t a journaling person.

The Journaling Challenge

Then, about seven years ago, my company ran a wellness challenge incentivizing every employee to practice self-reflection by journaling every day for two months. While discussing the challenge, my friend Christoph mentioned he had started using a system called “bullet journaling” (BuJo).

I learned that bullet journaling had a cult following online. Hundreds of Instagram accounts repped #bujo journaling products while thousands of people posted pictures of the fancy lettering and hand-drawn designs in their journals.

Those concepts didn’t appeal much to me, but something about BuJo did sound appealing. Christoph talked about how the system was flexible and could be tailored to suit many different preferences.

During my previous forays into journaling, one of the biggest issues I had encountered was that I couldn’t figure out a good way to group similar notes together. I’d write down an idea on page 2 of my journal, then think of something else to add onto that idea when I was on page 6. But I didn’t have any good way to string those notes together or find them quickly.

Christoph explained that BuJo had multiple solutions for that problem. He outlined a few of the basics and what had been helpful for him, so I decided to give it a shot.

Bullet Journaling (BuJo) Basics

I learned that the BuJo framework could be broken down into five core components:

1. The Index: A quick reference guide showing which page(s) contain each key topic

2. The Daily Log: Your catch-all log of what happened each day

3. The Monthly Log: Your list of activities going on this month

4. The Future Log: Your list of activities going on beyond this month

5. Collections: Random records of anything you want to track

BuJo creator Ryder Carroll describes BuJo as much more than a journaling practice. He calls it “a mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system. It helps you organize WHAT you’re doing while keeping you mindful of WHY you’re doing it.”

Carroll provides an excellent overview of his system in this 4-minute video:

Modifying BuJo to Fit Your Needs

As I mentioned, I think the biggest benefit of BuJo is its flexibility. As an example of that flexibility, I don’t even use one of the core components mentioned above: the Future Log. I tried it for a while, but it didn’t work well for my workflow, so I axed it.

I’ve also modified all of the other components to align with my preferred note-taking style and how I get things done. I encourage you to do the same.

Let’s take a quick look at each one of the four core BuJo elements I use and walk through how each can help you organize your thoughts.

#1: The Index

In my previous journals, it was a nightmare to find specific notes later—or, at least, it would have been if I ever wrote more than 20 pages in each journal before quitting. Any time I jotted down a meaningful note that I wanted to reference later, I didn’t have a good way of signaling where it could be found.

Enter the Index. Bullet journalers usually reserve the first 2–4 pages of their notebook for the Index. This section is used to jot down the relevant page number(s) of any important notes, collections, etc.

Here’s a quick peek at the index of one of my past journals:

Now, whenever I want to locate notes from my last meeting with one of my mentors, add another movie to my list of film favorites, or refer back to an idea about the book I’m writing, I can quickly locate the relevant page number.

#2: The Daily Log

The Daily Log is where most of the action happens in the journal. It’s where you write down your random observations, thoughts, events, and memories from the day.

Now, before you can truly understand the power of the Daily Log, you first need to understand the BuJo concept of “signifiers.” A signifier is any little symbol or notation that helps you separate various types of notes.

I use a BUNCH of signifiers because I’ve found them to be a useful way of quickly tracking down the type of entry I want to find at a given point in time.

Unlike most bullet journalers, I put my signifiers in two different columns depending on what type of note they pertain to. I reserve the far-left column for strategic notes (e.g., big-picture ideas, projects, lessons learned) and use the second column for tactical notes (e.g., daily minutiae, gratitudes, new vocabulary words).

Here are the signifiers I use:

You don’t need to understand what all this stuff means. These signifiers are meant for me—not you. But the general principle here is that you can create symbols to indicate the various types of entries you plan to jot down in your journal, then use those symbols to quickly find notes later.

Here’s how it all comes together in a Daily Log page:

There’s a lot going on here, and you don’t have to pay attention to most of it. I’ll just call your attention to a few key things numbered above…

1. Beginning of Daily Log: Near the lower-left corner of the picture, you’ll see a headline that says “1/24/22 Monday.” That’s the format I use to begin each day’s log. I try to start most of my entries with three gratitudes, signified by the up arrows. You’ll also see a little stick figure, which is my signifier for exercise.

2. Standard Note: In the upper-right part of the page, you’ll see my standard type of note. I use an asterisk as my top-level note and a dash as my sub-level note, so all of the indented dashes are basically bullet points of the top idea.

3. Quotes: I love quotes, so I pepper them throughout my journal. The quotes you can see in the picture are from the book I was reading at the time: One Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. (Btw, that book is excellent, so you should check it out.)

4. Weekly Goals: Now that we’ve reviewed a couple of the basic entries I use, direct your attention to the upper-left part of the picture. Every week, I set personal goals for things I’d like to accomplish. I usually try to set goals for books to read, friends to reconnect with, things to learn, etc.

5. Vocab Words: Lastly, in the middle of the left-hand page, you’ll see a weird symbol that looks like a backward pilcrow (¶). That’s the signifier I use to indicate new vocabulary words I stumble across when I’m reading.

In case you couldn’t tell, I put a bunch of random types of notes in my journal—yes, even nerdy vocab words.

Here’s a brief sample of the types of things I record:

• Notes/takeaways from MasterClasses, TED talks, and conferences

• Topics I realize I don’t know much about that I want to investigate further

• Ideas for future articles or books

• Inspirational sayings

• Action items

Whatever is important to YOU should go in your journal. If you want to primarily use it for recording what happened in your day, that’s great. But if you also want to pepper in other notes, ideas, quotes, observations, or anything else, go for it! Make it your own.

The “bullet” part of bullet journaling refers to speed. One of the reasons BuJo is such an easy way to build a journaling habit is because it’s based on jotting down quick thoughts (like bullet points) rather than rambling paragraphs.

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#3: The Monthly Log

The traditional way of writing a Monthly Log in BuJo is to simply record a list of the events going on that month and the action items you want to complete that month.

As with every other aspect of my bullet journal, I’ve modified the standard BuJo format to my needs by making several changes.

My Monthly Log always covers a two-page spread. On the first page, I record a list of everything I have going on that month. It looks like this:

Note: I’ve blurred out some items to protect the confidentiality of a couple of my friends and specific events from that month.

At the start of every month, my Monthly Log begins as a blank list of numbers — one row for each day of the month. Then I gradually fill in a few of the upcoming events and details for the month.

But in addition to adding events in advance, I often add notes to a day’s record afterward to memorialize specific things from that day I may want to remember later. For example, there’s a random note on the 14th for “Walk in the rain” because that ended up being an unexpected highlight of my Monday.

And here’s what the second page of my Monthly Log looks like each month:

This page is based on the “don’t break the chain” productivity concept commonly attributed to Jerry Seinfeld. Here’s how comedian Brad Isaac described the concept:

[Seinfeld] said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”

I realized I could track a dozen of the habits I most wanted to build and record X’s for how many days I actually practiced that habit, which would give me visibility into how my habits were developing over time.

My habit list contains everything from getting 7 hours of sleep per night to walking 10,000 steps per day.

Relationships are also super important to me, so on the far-right side of this Monthly Log page, I track the people with whom I got to spend quality time each day.

If you decide to incorporate this type of grid into your journaling practice, your habit list will look very different than mine. That’s great! Use it to track the things that are important to you.

#4: Collections

You can use BuJo Collections to track lists of anything you want. I’ve used Collections to track quarterly goals, topics I want to write about, ideas for book titles, lessons learned from past jobs, and a host of other things.

Here’s an example of what a Collection looks like:

I love reading books about psychology and behavioral economics, so I used this collection to track a list of psychological biases I read about in various books. Someday I’ll probably use this list to write an article about the topic.

And here’s another example of a Collection:

You’ll notice that I ran out of room on the page above. Before I stumbled across the BuJo system, that sort of thing would have really bothered me because I never knew how many pages to allocate to a specific list or topic, so I’d either end up with (A) blank pages in my notebooks or (B) disjointed pages in different parts of my notebook that both referred to the same topic.

But with BuJo’s Index system (described earlier), I don’t have that problem anymore.

When I start a collection, I allocate a single page to it. Once that page fills up, I start writing another page—wherever I am in the journal — and simply add that page number to my Index.

So, for example, when I kick off my annual goal planning at the start of each year, I can rest assured knowing that if I think of additional goals later, I can simply add those new Collection pages to my Index, as shown below:

Collections are one of my favorite parts of the BuJo system. They’re extremely versatile, and thanks to the Index at the beginning of each journal, they’re also really easy to find later.

Applying BuJo to Work

Many of my same BuJo mechanisms carry over to my work notes. For example, I use the same signifiers. (As you may have noticed in my signifiers picture earlier, I draw diamonds to denote action items. I color in the diamond once I complete the action item, which provides a nice little dopamine hit as I complete my work.)

But there are two key elements I incorporate into my work notes, distinct from my personal notes.

The first is that I’ve sometimes found it useful to draw a physical calendar in my work notebook to track my most important daily action items and weekly projects. Here’s a past calendar from June 2022:

And the second thing I’ve tried in work notes is dog-ear a page once I’ve completed all of the action items on that page. I picked up this trick from an old boss of mine (thanks Annie!), and it works like a charm. Since I started doing this, I’ve hardly forgotten a single action item for years.

As you can see in the images below, it’s really easy to tell which pages have uncompleted action items. So I can quickly scan the non-dog-eared pages to see which items are still outstanding and determine whether any of them are high enough priority to tackle that day.

Conclusion

As I’ve tried to express throughout this post, there are a million different ways to modify the BuJo concepts to your personal preferences. The specific mechanisms mentioned in this article have worked really well for me, and you’ll need to find the mechanisms that work best for you and your workflow.

But in general, I’ve been amazed by how useful BuJo has been in my life. It’s helped me reflect more on my life, keep track of what’s going on, and document what I’m doing in ways that make me far more mindful and present than I’ve ever been.

If you have any follow-up questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. Or, if you’ve already been using BuJo or another journaling practice in your own life, please share your tips!

Happy journaling, friends.

On average, recruiters look at a resume for less than seven seconds. That’s how much time you have to make an impression. Wild, but true.

And even though that amount of time sounds ruthless, it makes much more sense once you see the massive stack of applications that come in for an average position. I’ve worked in companies that routinely received 200+ applications for each open role.

If you’ve recently been searching for a job, I’m guessing you’ve noticed the jaw-dropping (and depressing) number of applications listed for some positions on LinkedIn. That application tally is a good indicator of how intense a job search can be.

After more than a decade as a manager and HR leader, I’ve read countless resumes and participated in hundreds of interviews. I’ve also had the chance to help many friends and colleagues with their resumes and job searches.

Here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned to make your resume stand out:

1. Remember that recruiters want to minimize risk

One quick logistical note because it’s important to understand…
Each company’s interview process looks a bit different, but for many companies, you can loosely think of the process in five-ish stages:

1. Application Phase: The recruiter or an automated system called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) scans through the applications and resumes. Most people don’t make it out of this stage.

2. Phone Screen: The recruiter has a brief phone call (often 15–30 minutes) with the candidates who cleared Stage I.

3. Interview #1: Candidates who make it through Stage II earn a longer interview with someone else — often the Hiring Manager for the role (your future boss), future colleagues, or other company leaders.

4. Interview #2: Same as above. Most companies have at least two interviews, but some have more (potentially even a half-dozen).

5. Job Offer: Whoever stands out in the interviews earns a job offer. There are often other aspects of this stage, including negotiating salary, reference and/or background checks, etc.

Note: Some companies include other steps like requesting a work sample.

As described above, a recruiter often runs Stages I and II. And their job isn’t only to surface the best candidates — it’s to filter out the worst ones.

But because it’s often hard to tell who would be worst in a role, many recruiters use riskiest as a proxy for worst. That means the recruiter’s first pass through the application stack is usually an effort to weed out any risky candidates.

Now, put yourself in their shoes: If you were a recruiter, you wouldn’t want to pass through a candidate that could make your boss or a hiring manager question your judgment or think you weren’t vetting candidates appropriately. So from that perspective:

For this reason, a lot of “safe” candidates make it through the first stage of weeding out applications: Ivy League grads, candidates who’ve done that same job for 5–10 years, ex-Google and ex-Microsoft people, etc. Those people may or may not do a good job in the role, but they’re definitely safe for the recruiter, so they often make it through to the phone interview.

A recruiter’s risk aversion means that you need to do anything possible to de-risk your resume and application, which leads to this next tip.

2. Connect the dots for the recruiter

The best way to de-risk yourself is to show the recruiter you’ve done something similar to this specific job before. Show them you’re someone whom they’ll look smart for passing along to the next stage.

Think of your job as trying to solve a problem for the recruiter. They have a position they need to fill, and they need qualified candidates to fill it. They want someone who can solve that problem.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make on resumes is to list jobs they held previously without connecting those jobs back to the role they’re applying for.

This is easy to do when your last role was the same as this new one (e.g., you were a Product Manager and you’re applying to be a Product Manager). It’s tougher when your last role was only somewhat related.

For example, let’s say you’ve been a Customer Success Manager (CSM) for three years but you want to move into product management (PM), so you apply for a PM role. If you just list the normal tasks you did as a CSM, you won’t get anywhere.

Your resume will scream “RISKY,” and you’ll be tossed into the dump bin. Your only chance is to connect the dots:

• Explain that your customer service experience helped you build great relationships with clients — the same type of relationships that a PM needs to build with clients.

• If you once partnered with the PM team to integrate your largest client’s feedback into the newest version of your company software, include a bullet point for that.

• If you previously coordinated a cross-department project to gather client quotes and testimonials, mention that too.

Rack your brain to think of any and every time you’ve done a PM-related task or project in your CSM role. Show the recruiter that this is a tiny baby step from your last role — not a giant leap into new territory.

3. Use standard job titles

Another mistake I see people make all the time is to include weird job titles in their resume.

It’s been trendy in tech companies recently to create unique job titles like “Recruitment Rockstar,” “Tech Guru,” or “Sales Rainmaker” to make roles sound more sexy or interesting. That’s fine within the four walls of your company (where people understand what that role is), but it’s not going to resonate with recruiters from other firms.

A recruiter’s job is hard enough. Imagine trying to evaluate someone’s entire career by looking at a single sheet of paper for a few seconds. Now imagine that paper has goofy shit like “Tech Guru” on it. As a recruiter, can you see why that would make your job harder?

You wouldn’t know whether that abstract person on the other end of the resume had been working in IT, software development, product management, or something else. And you darn sure wouldn’t feel confident they’d be a great fit for the open job you’re trying to fill.

This is why it’s important to use standard job titles in your resume. Take out the guesswork for the recruiter.

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When I’ve coached friends and acquaintances to do this, some have wondered, “But wait…is it lying to say a different job title?” Great question. And no, it’s not as long as you represent your role fairly and accurately.

If you were a Customer Success Manager (CSM) and you put down that you were a Product Manager, that is 100% NOT okay. But if your company called your position “Customer Happiness Representative” (or some other trendy title) and you were actually a CSM, then list the standard title of CSM which every recruiter will understand.

The point of doing this is to remove guesswork (which is good) — not to falsify a job title (which is bad).

4. Show, don’t tell

The number one mistake job searchers make on resumes is TELLING what they can do rather than SHOWING what they’ve accomplished.

Get rid of subjective statements like “proven problem-solver,” “hard-working sales rep,” or “energetic people-person.” Those statements are meaningless. I’ve read hundreds of resumes, and everyone says those things about themselves — regardless of whether they exhibit those traits.

For this reason, I’m not a huge fan of listing “skills” on your resume, like this resume example below:

That type of list means nothing. Anyone can say they’re a strong leader or an organized person.

Instead, show what you did by sharing concrete facts of what you accomplished in each role, similar to the examples on the right below:

5. Add metrics to show the results you achieved

Similar to what’s depicted in the image above, you need to identify precise metrics you achieved in each of your past roles. This is arguably the most impactful thing you can do to improve your resume, but it’s also probably the most difficult.

Every person I’ve ever helped with their resume thinks that one or two of their previous roles would be impossible to convey with objective metrics. But thankfully, every one of those people has been wrong. After spending 10–30 minutes discussing their roles, we’ve been able to find quantitative metrics they can use to demonstrate success.

Again, this process is not easy, but it’s extremely important.

Let’s look at two example roles:

1. Guest Service Representative at a retail store (a “blue-collar job”)

2. Financial Analyst at a tech company (a “white-collar job”).

If you’ve been working as a Guest Service Rep at a retail store like Walmart or Target, it can be tempting to think there’s nothing quantitative you’ve achieved in your role. For that reason, many people resort to just TELLING what they did in their role: stocked shelves, sorted products, tagged inventory, etc. But as we’ve already discussed, those descriptions don’t help land you a job. Recruiters want to see tangible results.

Here are a few example metrics you may have achieved that you’ve potentially forgotten about:

• Helped my store earn a 95% customer satisfaction rating by providing fast, friendly, and efficient service to all clients

• Scored the 3rd-fastest average checkout lane time in my store by quickly ringing guests up at the checkout lanes

• Showed up to every shift on time with zero callouts and zero compliance violations

I’ve also heard knowledge workers like Financial Analysts bemoan that they can’t think of any metrics to include on their resume. Some white-collar jobs are easy to quantify (like sales because everything is quota-driven), but others are a bit more tricky.

But after chatting with these individuals, they often remember that they’ve achieved multiple goals like the ones below:

• Generated over 100 financial reports each quarter for the company’s executive team and board of directors

• Cut the company’s standard month-end close time in half by writing several Python scripts and Excel macros that saved 8 hours every month

• Closed 1,000 cases in the team finance queue (the highest figure on the team) by working efficiently and effectively every day

Regardless of which prior jobs you’ve had, there’s a 99 percent chance you can pull something quantitative out of them. And those metrics will help you demonstrate you’re someone worth hiring.

6. Showcase your distinctive advantage

Every candidate has something that makes them unique, but you often have to self-reflect to unearth that uniqueness.

One acquaintance of mine had been applying to jobs for months but hadn’t received many interviews. This person (we’ll call her “Tina”) wondered if her resume was to blame.

After we walked through Tina’s resume and I asked her a few questions, I realized she had buried her hidden superpower at the bottom of her resume. Tina had lived and worked in multiple countries and spoke four languages, but that information was only a footnote on her resume.

She was applying for trainer positions in international companies, and all of those businesses would have loved to have a multilingual, multicultural person in that role. But it would take a recruiter way too long to figure out Tina’s superpower, so many of them had been sliding her application into their “no” pile.

So Tina moved her distinctive advantage way up in her resume and mentioned it in the very first paragraph to ensure every recruiter would see it right away.

As a personal example, two of my differentiators are that I’ve led teams as large as 160 people and I’ve built onboarding and training programs from scratch at multiple companies, so I’ve called out those distinctive advantages at the top of my resume:

In the words of Meryl Streep, “What makes you different or weird, that’s your strength.” Don’t bury your uniqueness at the bottom of your resume. Shout it out at the top.

7. If you took a career break, explain why

COVID seems to have caused two favorable changes in the way recruiters view resumes:

• Many recruiters are now more understanding of layoffs because so many companies have done them recently.

• Recruiters are also much more accustomed to seeing career breaks (time away from work) for things like medical leave, caring for a sick loved one, wanting to spend more time with family, etc.

If you have gaps in your resume, these two winds of change are quite favorable for you.

But you also don’t want the recruiter to have to guess why you left a company or what you’ve been doing with your free time. For that reason, I’d recommend calling out exactly why you left your last firm and/or explaining what you’ve been doing in your time away from work.

For example, here’s the note I included in my resume after I was laid off from a prior employer:

I didn’t want recruiters to see a job gap and think I was fired for cause or bad performance, so I decided to eliminate that question from their minds entirely by mentioning I had just received a promotion, then the company had to lay off about 40 percent of employees one month later.

Depending on your situation, you may want to call out why you left your last job: laid off, changed career direction, took a career break, etc.

And if you’ve taken a long career break, consider listing that your job for the past year has been “stay-at-home parent,” “new mom/dad,” or “world traveler.” Don’t make the recruiter guess. Own it.

Note: Resumes are inherently subjective. You’ll receive different recommendations from different people, so take all of my advice with a grain of salt and determine what is best for your situation. I think you’ll find the greatest alignment on the first six tips I shared, while this seventh tip is probably the most subjective one of the bunch.

Resumes are tricky business. I know because I’ve been in your shoes. And I’ve also had to comb through stacks of applications to find the gems that are worthy of garnering a phone screen or interview.

These seven tips will give you a good chance of standing out from the herd:

1. Remember that recruiters want to minimize risk

2. Connect the dots for the recruiter

3. Use standard job titles

4. Show, don’t tell

5. Add metrics to show the results you achieved

6. Showcase your distinctive advantage

7. If you took a career break, explain why

Best of luck in your job search, and feel free to ask any follow-up questions in the comments. I’ll respond to every question.

Have you been wanting to write a book, run a marathon, or accomplish some other massive project, but you haven’t been getting anywhere?

Psychology professor Robert Boice says you’re probably approaching it the wrong way. Boice spent years studying the writing habits of college professors to see what routines led to greater productivity and success. What he found is surprising.

After reviewing his findings, Boice concluded that the most productive writers actually focused on writing less. Rather than trying to blitz through their books and research papers, the most productive writers worked in short spurts — between 10 minutes and 4 hours at a time. On average, they produced less per day but more overall.

In 1994, Boice published his findings in an awkwardly titled book How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency. While the book didn’t exactly vault to the top of the bestseller’s list — to this day, it only has 39 ratings on Goodreads — Boice’s research recently resurfaced in Oliver Burkeman’s smash hit Four Thousand Weeks.

Radical Incrementalism

Burkeman leverages Boice’s research and gives it the catchy phrase “radical incrementalism.” Ever since I read that phrase, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

“So if a certain activity really matters to you — a creative project, say…the only way to be sure it will happen is to do some of it today, no matter how little, and no matter how many other genuinely big rocks may be begging for your attention.”
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For years, I’ve left a number of big projects on the back burner because they felt too daunting to get started. The most glaring example was a book I’ve wanted to write.

Years ago, I started jotting down ideas for this book, but it remained unwritten. The very idea of writing a book felt MASSIVE, and it seemed like I didn’t have the time. I naively assumed that at some later time, I would (magically) have time to write the book.

So, guess what happened? The seeds of my book remained unwatered in the dark pages of my journal and never saw the light of day.

And, if not for radical incrementalism, they probably would have stayed that way. But then I read about Boice’s research and realized the key was to take one small step.

That small step would be ridiculously inadequate and shockingly imperfect…but that’s precisely why it would help. Because success on mammoth projects is all about incremental progress — not perfection.

Start with Step 1

“Far too often, we don’t start because we can’t get our minds around the entire thing. We don’t take the first step because we can’t figure out the seventeenth step. But you don’t have to know the seventeenth step. You only have to know the first step…Start with 1.” -Rob Bell

In the vast majority of creative projects, we won’t know the later steps of the process. Heck, we probably won’t even know the third step. For my book idea, I didn’t know what to title the book, how to position it, how to market it, or a host of other things.

But those things didn’t really matter. What mattered was Step 1. And I knew Step 1: start writing.

So I set the microscopic goal of writing for 10 minutes per night. I figured that some nights, I’d put in my 10 minutes, then call it a day. But on other nights, I’d probably want to keep writing.

Sure enough, my hypothesis proved true. After three weeks of embracing radical incrementalism, I wrote eight chapters of my book (when I had previously made hardly any progress on it for several years).

Fast-forward to today, and the book is now three-fourths done.

“One of the best rules I’ve heard as a writer is that the way to write a book is by producing ‘two crappy pages a day.’” -Ryan Holiday

I share this personal example because it’s tangible and illustrative of the type of battle we all face with our seemingly MASSIVE projects. Whether it’s writing a book, running a marathon, learning a new language, composing a symphony, or simply cleaning out your garage, projects often loom larger in our brains than they are in reality.

Out on the horizon, we see a foggy image of our project, and it looks enormous. We can’t make out its full form, which makes it seem scarier. Because we can’t picture the whole thing, we allow the blurry edges of the project to expand and take on a monstrous quality. It seems ferocious, daunting, difficult to conceptualize.

If you feel like that about something in your life right now, you’re not alone. But just like the oft-repeated adage, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The key is to identify the first step, then move boldly in that direction. Just start small on something big.

Step 1 is often ridiculously small, knee-knockingly scary, and disproportionately powerful. Here are a few examples of what Step 1 could look like for your project:

• If you want to run a marathon -> Set your alarm for tomorrow morning and set out your running shoes by your bed.

• If you want to learn a new language -> Download an app like Duolingo and arrange it prominently on your phone’s home screen.

• If you want to clean out your garage -> Block out 30 minutes in your calendar to get started, then keep that appointment with yourself.

What’s Your First Step?

What project has been sitting dormant in your journal, brain, garage, or sketchbook?

Does it feel enormous?
The most important things always do.
That’s how you know they’re important.

And if you feel scared or overwhelmed, I totally get it.
I feel the same. Everyone does.
But you don’t need to figure out the full thing. You just need step 1.

What’s step 1? You probably already know.
I’m guessing it’s something small but still daunting.
Now you just need to decide to take that step.

In the words of author Nick Bilton, “Most people go through life thinking that tomorrow they’re going to do something great.”

Don’t be that person. Today, start small on something BIG.

Today, we’re taking a peek into personal values. I’ve been drafting a list of life rules for the past decade or so, and whenever I stumble across a new principle that resonates with me, I add it to my list.

Life rules are a personal thing. Some of mine may resonate with you, but others definitely won’t. I share this list to inspire you to reflect upon which principles guide your own life.

Here are 70 of my linchpins for living:

1. Completely own who you are. There’s no force more powerful than someone fully embracing their uniqueness. Harness your version of weird. It’s a superpower.

2. Define your own version of success. Some of the saddest people have fat wallets and big houses. Riches, fame, and power don’t bring happiness. Instead, aim your arrow at fulfilling relationships, passion-fueled hobbies, and meaningful work.

3. Never lose your childlike sense of wonder. Kids never lose sight of the little things: they gleefully run through sprinklers, pick up rocks to search for creepy crawlies, and view every snowfall as a chance to resurrect last year’s snowman. Most adults could benefit from an extra dose of that mentality in their lives.

4. Always be a student. School should be the beginning of learning, not the end of it. Make it your goal to learn something new every day.

5. Drink deeply from good books. They’re a chance to get mentored by dead emperors, business titans, and Olympic athletes. People whom you could never normally ask for advice are as close as your local library or Kindle account. You have wisdom on tap, waiting for you, whenever you’re ready. (HT: John Wooden)

6. Exhibit confident humility. Have the modesty to understand whether you’re the best person to make a particular decision. Learn from others when they’re the expert. Act with boldness when you’re the expert.

7. Assess yourself with third-party objectivity. Whenever you find yourself in a conflict, ask yourself what an unbiased journalist would write about the situation. What are the facts? How did you contribute to the mess?

8. Less certainty, more inquiry. Doubt yourself. As Bertrand Russell says, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” (HT: )

9. Operate in permanent beta. Your personal operating system is still an early model. Many more upgrades are on the way, but only if you watch for them. (HT: Reid Hoffman)

10. Follow your curiosity. Curiosity doesn’t just point to areas of intrigue; it points to areas of potential competitive advantage. The people who succeed are often those who work the hardest, and those who work the hardest are often the ones who love what they’re doing.

11. Hypothesize and test, then repeat. Thinking is usually the worst way to learn if something works. The best way? Just trying it out. Rather than thinking your way out of problems, experiment your way out of them. (HT: )

12. Create your own weather. Choose to never have a bad day. Will Arnett puts it like this: “If you say, ‘Things are gonna be hard for me,’ then guess what? Things are gonna be hard for you…My starting point is: I’m happy no matter what. I create my own weather…How you feel is a direct result of what you think about. The only thing you can control is what you think about.”

13. Love all seven days. Don’t live for the weekend. If you only enjoy two out of every seven days, you’re sacrificing 71 percent of your life. Figure out how to love Mondays—either by shifting your perspective, finding the right workplace, etc.

14. Find perfect in the average. Even if you’re not on a beach sipping on a Piña colada, there’s a good chance you can inject a few perfect elements into your average Monday, like enjoying a beautiful sunset, taking a peaceful walk, or catching up with an old friend over the phone.

15. Be hyper-present. If you’re out to dinner with a friend, be out to dinner with a friend—not answering texts or scrolling social media. Live in the current moment by prioritizing the person in front of you.

16. Take joy in others’ success. The zero-sum mindset of “I win, you lose” leads to unnecessary competitiveness. Instead, embrace a positive-sum mindset. Cheer on other creators, entrepreneurs, and artists. If they win, we all win.

17. Focus on the smooth water while paddling. Kayakers are more likely to wipe out if they look at the rocks they’re trying to avoid. Similarly, you’re more likely to botch a presentation or interview if you’re focused on what can go wrong. Instead, focus on the smooth water: how well you’ve prepared, what’s in your immediate control, and what can go right.

18. No bad beats—focus on the process. Hang around a poker room for five minutes and you’ll hear several players complaining about their “bad beats” (poor luck). Don’t be that guy. Sometimes the odds will fall your way, and sometimes they won’t. Either way, focus on what you can control.

19. Use setbacks as alternative fuel. Rejections can be constructively molded into a chip on the shoulder. It’s not bad to have something to prove. Use those setbacks as fuel in the tank—to learn, to grow, to overcome. Here’s a perfect example from , who went on to publish the Amazon bestseller You Can Just Do Things:

    

20. Ask “What can I learn from this?” Every challenge in life is an opportunity to practice a virtue. Treat every event as neutral. It’s not “good” or “bad.” It’s just something that happened, and now you get to decide how to respond.

21. Widen the space between stimulus and response. When someone pisses you off, it’s easy to lash out. But remember, there’s a difference between a reaction and a response. The former is emotion-driven and instinctive. The latter is a chosen move. Five deep breaths can be the difference between one versus the other.

22. Use fear as a compass. It’ll show you which option will teach you the most. If a project or challenge looks scary, don’t run from it. Instead, run toward the fire. You’ll learn more than you imagine and become known as someone who can solve any problem.

23. Choose dreams that scare you. Be willing to pursue goals that are so big, you’d be embarrassed to share them with 90 percent of the people in your life. (HT: )

24. Identify the first step. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when thinking about a big project like writing a book, starting a business, or running a marathon. But that overwhelm generally comes from thinking about Step #50, and you don’t need to know Step #50 right now. Just identify Step #1…and do it.

25. Start with rubbish. The best way to work up the gumption to tackle Step #1 is to lower the bar. Rather than sitting down to “write a bestseller” (a daunting proposition) on the first day of your writing project, tell yourself you’re just going to “jot down some thoughts.” By so doing, you’ll avoid procrastination, get out of your own way, and begin actually making progress.

26. Practice radical incrementalism. If you want to do something BIG, just bite off a tiny bit each day. Big things get accomplished through small, consistent actions. Follow the Latin adage of festina lente: Make haste slowly. (HT: )

27. Prepare for a long road. Meaningful accomplishments take longer than you think: finishing your novel, finding the right job, breaking through with your business idea. Because of this, it’s important to do three things:

    1. Set reasonable expectations for yourself.

    2. Start today.

    3. Enjoy the journey.

28. Fall seven, rise eight. The victors in any arena of life are determined by those still standing at the end, not those who avoided falling along the way. (HT: Japanese proverb)

29. Be the bull in the china shop. Do you know someone who can be given any project and they’ll figure out a way to succeed? Make it your goal to become that person. Develop the ability to run through walls. It’s the most hireable skill on the planet.

30. Choose alive time over dead time. In most situations, you can either wait for something to happen or you can take action. I bet you can guess which usually works out better. (HT: Robert Greene)

31. Close every loop. If you say you’ll do something, follow through. The size of the task doesn’t matter. And as soon as you complete what you promised, close the loop by telling the person it’s done. Simple actions like this build trust.

32. Die on the treadmill. One of the most inspiring quotes I’ve found:

    “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple, right?” -Will Smith

33. Be worthy of remark. “Remarkable” hits differently when you think of it as “something worthy of remark.” How can you embrace that principle in your own life? How can you become so good that others can’t help but notice and share it?

34. Expand your job beyond its official boundaries. The best way to earn a promotion is to start living into that role today. Want to become a manager? Act like a leader. Want to run a big project? Make yourself helpful by coordinating group tasks.

35. Be efficient with processes and effective with people. Efficiency is meant for computer programs and job tasks—not interactions with humans. For people, effectiveness is key: doing the right things, not the fast ones. Examples: building early buy-in for a project, hearing everyone’s opinions, etc.
    

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36. Respect those not in the room. The easiest way to prove you’re trustworthy is to avoid speaking poorly of people who aren’t around. The least trustworthy person is the one who backbites the guy who’s not in the room.

37. Impatient with actions, patient with results. Big changes often take time. Don’t get worked up if you don’t see instant successes, but do demand instant effort.

38. Talk about emotions without getting emotional. Emotions aren’t bad, but not being able to control them is. In many situations, the one who keeps their cool will prevail. Examples: negotiations, sports, debates, etc. (HT: Mollie West Duffy and Liz Fosslien)

39. Be loving, candid, and assertive. It’s possible to be both candid and kind. If you can master those two skills, you’ll have a successful career as a leader and communicator.

40. Disagree without being disagreeable. This represents the highest bar of communication. Avoid the two extremes of passivity and aggressiveness. Find the middle ground of assertiveness: sharing your perspective in a courageous, respectful way.

41. Facts > Interpretations. The fastest way to derail a conversation is to label someone with a term like “lazy” or “entitled.” Interpretations are controversial; facts are not. In tense situations, stand on the firm footing of facts.

42. Assume positive intent. When people do things we don’t understand, it’s easy to jump to conclusions about their intelligence, work ethic, or character. But you’ll never go wrong by first asking yourself, “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing?” (HT: Crucial Conversations)

43. Find common ground. “Us vs. Them” thinking is a surefire path to lose-lose decisions. Whenever you’re negotiating with someone, look for opportunities to use “we” language (like “We both want…” or “We can probably agree that…”).

44. Strong opinions, loosely held. Courageously defend the things you care about, but be willing to admit when you’re wrong. Or, in the words of John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

45. Relentlessly single-task. As Steve Uzzell once said, "Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time." Do one thing at a time, and do it spectacularly.

46. Make time for walks and nature. If you’re cranking away on a big problem and can feel yourself getting tense and stressed, unplug and go outside. A light walk can often jostle big ideas from the brain.

47. Pre-make your decisions. Roy Disney said, “When values are clear, decisions are easy.” To expedite your future decisions, determine the rules you want to guide your life: “Whenever [this situation] arises, I’m going to [take this action].”

48. Put in the work to become an overnight success. Inevitably, any time someone’s career skyrockets “out of nowhere,” when you dig into the details, you’ll see they’ve been preparing for that moment for years. What are you doing today to prepare for your moment five years from now?

49. Write with your pen, not your mouth. It’s way easier to talk about something than it is to do it. But as Ryan Holiday says, "Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources." Instead of talking about something you haven’t done yet, be the person who works in humble, quiet isolation, then emerges from hibernation having completed something of substance.

50. Life is about direction, not speed. Don’t get worried about not achieving your dreams fast enough. Instead, focus on whether you’re working on the right things. (HT: )

51. Improve by being boringly predictable. Success is more dependent on consistency than flashiness. It comes from daily singles and doubles, not weekly home runs.

52. Find your plus/minus/equal. To become great requires finding a mentor to guide you (+), a mentee you can guide (-), and someone at your level who will challenge you and make you better (=). (HT: Frank Shamrock)

53. Desire less. Contentment is the real path to happiness. Or, as Naval Ravikant says, "Every desire is a chosen unhappiness."

54. Use failure as a cue to try harder or differently. Failure can be a powerful teacher, but only if you have the humility, curiosity, and grit to learn from it.

55. Take ferocious self-accountability. Be willing to hold up a microscope to your own behavior. Doing so can be impossibly difficult but also life-changing. (HT: Elizabeth Gilbert)

56. “Be a river, not a reservoir.” When you learn something, immediately share it with others. By teaching, your knowledge will only grow, not diminish. (HT: John Maxwell)

57. In the long term, the slow way is the fast way. Working too quickly leads to mistakes, which cost time and money. Counterintuitively, the best way to move quickly is often to slow down. Effectiveness leads to efficiency, or as the Navy SEALs say, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

58. Compare you against you. The most meaningful yardstick in life is who you were yesterday versus who you are today. As Hemingway said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

59. Believe in Wilson’s Law. If you prioritize knowledge and intelligence, money will inevitably follow. (HT: )

60. Make a decision, then take imperfect action. There are always a hundred ways to do something. If you try to work out the perfect answer in your head, you’ll find yourself living in a purgatory of analysis paralysis. Instead, choose a path, commit to the path, and take immediate action on that path. (HT: )

61. Use comparison as teacher, not torture. There are two ways to view a peer’s accomplishments: inspiration or jealousy. Which do you think will make you better? (HT: Mel Robbins)

62. Compare little things, not big ones. James Clear puts this well: “To improve, compare little things: marketing strategies, exercise technique, writing tactics. To be miserable, compare big things: career path, marriage, net worth. Comparison is the thief of joy when applied broadly, but the teacher of skills when applied narrowly.”

63. Balance ambition and contentment. You always have a choice between one of two focuses: (1) what you want and (2) what you have. To live a great life, build your house in Camp #2 with occasional glimpses at Camp #1.

64. Push through the dip. Anything worth doing will have lumpy results. Most creative ventures hit a bone-chilling dip, where you question everything and aren’t sure if anyone cares about your work. This is when most people give up. Don’t be most people. (HT: Seth Godin)

65. Seek to express, not impress. When talking to others, you have the choice of whether to speak vulnerably or arrogantly (trying to impress them). “Impress” mode is the surest way to torpedo a conversation, whereas “Express” mode forges genuine relationships. (HT: )

66. Love the questions. Many important topics in life don’t have easy answers: religion, politics, relationships, etc. Instead of seeking black and white answers, fall in love with the questions themselves—and find others who also love pondering those questions. (HT: Rainer Maria Rilke)

67. Don’t hunt small game just because it’s easier to kill. It sure feels good to cross items off a to-do list, but most tasks don’t move the needle in a meaningful way. Instead of attacking 100 tasks that ultimately don’t matter, target the one that will make a difference.

68. Exhibit a next-play mentality. Okay, so you struck out this time. So what? Success hinges on what you do next. (HT: )

69. Focus on others. The more you're paying attention to yourself, the less you're paying attention to others. That means that the more comfortable you are being yourself, the closer you can get to other people. (HT: Tim Grahl)

70. Fear being stupid, not looking stupid. The best time to ask a dumb question is today. (Trust me, it will look way dumber tomorrow.)

The most powerful life rules are the ones you choose for yourself. May these serve as inspiration for drafting your own “linchpins for living.”

*This article originally appeared as a guest post on .

I’ve collected quotes for many years. My database now contains thousands of them, and every month I add the best ones I find in books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

“You will rarely outperform your self-image.” -James Clear

“Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it was beautiful.” -Attributed to Dr. Seuss

“I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” -Martha Washington

“Good leaders give their teams a reason why they might want to do things that they want done. Make sure your vision and your goals are not just yours, but theirs too.” -Prakash Iyer

“Often we fail to improve our lives simply because things don’t get bad enough. If your new job is hell, you’ll leave it, but if it’s just unsatisfying, you’ll likely grind it out. Thus, small problems often threaten our quality of life more than big ones.”
- Bhogal

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” -Gustave Flaubert

“The solutions you seek lie in the population you serve.” -Samantha Gadd

“Before opening up, most of us wait for the other person to make connection feel safe. But the research suggests it works the other way around—you opening up is what makes it feel safe for them.” -Francesca Tighinean

“Inspiration unused is merely entertainment. To get new results, you need to take new actions.” -David Bach

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” -Ram Dass

“Connection starts the moment someone decides to stop protecting themselves and make it safe for others to do the same.” -Francesca Tighinean

“Your entire life will change when you stop gathering information and start acting on the information you already have.” -Sahil Bloom

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” -Abraham Lincoln

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” -Roger Bannister

“Logic makes people think and emotion makes them act. Uncover what motivates, why it’s in their best interest, and how they will be happier.” -Dan Weedin

“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” -Coleman Cox

“Why would I (use AI to write)? It’d be like hiring someone to have sex for you. For anything creative, why would I want to use it when it’s the very creative language that I like? I suspect we’ll tire of that quickly. I’d rather read a bad short story by a human than a good one by a computer. What you want in art is connection. It’s connection with another human being.” -Yann Martel

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“The single most important distinction in life…is to distinguish between an opportunity to be seized and a temptation to be resisted.” -Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

“Many a false step was made by standing still.” -Fortune cookie

“Every next level of your life will require a different you.” -Leonardo DiCaprio

“Rather than argue with reality, learn the rules so you can shape it to your wishes.” -Dan Sullivan and

“It is not shortage of time that should worry us, but the tendency for the majority of time to be spent in low-quality ways...The 80/20 principle says that if we doubled our time on the top 20 percent of activities, we could work a two-day week and achieve 60 percent more than now.” -Richard Koch

“Most people don’t aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit.” -Bob Moawad

“A fool is known by his speech, and a wise man by silence.” -Pythagoras

“Getting into action generates inspiration. Don’t cop out waiting for inspiration to get you back into action. It won’t!” -Robert Evans

“I consider the need to know the news every day a form of mental disorder.” -Michael Oakeshott

“A good rule of thumb when you’re making a decision is to ask yourself: What makes the better story?” -

“When (AI) tells you your unconventional idea is bad, it’s not evaluating your idea. It’s telling you that your idea doesn’t resemble the data it was trained on. That’s not intelligence. That’s pattern-matching with a confidence problem.”
-

“It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare.” -Bear Bryant

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” -Simone Weil

“If you want different luck, start walking into different rooms.” -James Clear

“No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.” -Mary Kay Ash (paraphrase)

“Success is attaining your dream while helping others to benefit from that dream materializing.” -Sugar Ray Leonard

“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.” -Cherilyn ‘Cher’ Sarkisian

“The answers you are looking for are in the silence you’re avoiding.” -Unknown

“Urgency is the best predictor of personal success.” -Shane Parrish

“Anything that truly improves your life is going to be difficult—difficulty is the price of admission. If you avoid it, nothing changes.” -

“You risk so much hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss.” -18th Century French monk (Unknown)

“If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.” -Rachel Carson

“Entrepreneurship isn’t hard because the work is necessarily hard. It’s hard because you’re never quite sure what the work even is. You feel confused more often than you feel certain.” -

“The best revenge is not to be like that.” -Marcus Aurelius

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.” -W. H. Murray

Read more of my favorite quotes:

*This post is from the archives. I wrote this back in April 2022, during my seventh solo retreat. I just got back from my 15th retreat, which is why this old post was top-of-mind.

If your computer or WiFi stops working, your resident IT guru will encourage you to unplug or reset the device. Supposedly, the system needs to go offline for a minute so it can then come back online and begin functioning properly.

That’s easy enough for computer hardware, but what’s the solution when you are the device that stops functioning properly?

If you feel like you’re swimming through an endless sea of emails, Slack messages, and daily minutiae, you’re not alone. More than ever, our lives are dominated by a cacophony of digital tweets, chirps, alerts, and notifications. The sheer number of these digital disruptions can make it hard to find a free minute alone in silence.

Against this backdrop of nonstop busyness, back in 2016 I decided to embark on my first “solo retreat.”

What is a Solo Retreat?

I had read about Bill Gates doing an annual “Think Week” and decided it would be worthwhile to try something similar. So I talked to a mentor of mine who had a cabin in the woods and asked if I could crash there for a couple of nights. He agreed, so I packed a weekender bag to spend two days in the mountains by myself.

I spent the weekend going on long walks, thinking, praying, reading, and journaling. It felt strange to be away from the rest of civilization, but I quickly realized that I enjoyed the feeling.

That weekend, I experienced many new sensations:

• Hearing complete silence

• Ambling on a nature walk without worrying about the time

• Putting my phone on airplane mode and forgetting it even existed

• Gawking at a sky of twinkling stars unaffected by light pollution

The weekend was unique, life-giving, and therapeutic. I decided right away that I wanted to incorporate frequent solo retreats into my life.

Fast-forward to today: I’m now on my seventh solo retreat. This time I find myself on a sleepy little island off the coast of Seattle: Vashon Island.

I’m staying in an Airbnb that consists of one open room with a bed, fireplace, desk, couch, and countertop (pictured in the featured image above).

This morning, after sleeping in until 9 A.M., I trekked two hours to a nearby lighthouse and wandered through walking trails and neighborhoods.

When I go on hikes like this during solo retreats, I try to embrace the childlike enthusiasm of a five-year-old. I stop to stare at moss-covered trees, stoop to touch slimy slugs, traipse down trails that look adventurous, and keep a watchful eye for wildlife.

“Spirited curiosity is an emblem of the flourishing life.” -Epictetus

This morning, I stumbled on a deer that was as interested in me as I was in her. We held eye contact for about 30 seconds before she heard a noise that prompted her to resume her voyage.

These solo retreats have been so fulfilling that I’ve now begun to schedule them twice per year — spring and fall. I’ve already booked my next one for this September at a small cabin near Mount Rainier in Washington.

Why Should You Take a Solo Retreat?

I’ve been amazed by how much I benefit from the simple activity of spending a couple of nights in the woods.

Here’s what you’d get from the experience:

1. The chance to think

The nonstop go-go-go of our daily lives leaves little time to think about anything other than work, kids’ soccer practice, and home improvement projects. It’s rare to get five minutes of silence because there’s always something to do or somewhere to be. Spending a weekend away can give you the chance to strategically evaluate what’s most important to you.

2. The chance to self-reflect

How do you want the world to be different as a result of the life you led? (And when’s the last time you asked yourself a question like that?) It’s tough to reflect on the bigger aspects of life when the world is moving a mile a minute. A solo retreat is an exercise in self-discovery and reflection. After all, you’re the only person around to talk to.

3. The chance to unplug

I’m in my 30s, but my stance toward social media is closer to a 70-year-old Boomer than a tech-savvy Gen Y. I think it’s a travesty that the average person spends 2.5 hours on social media every day. Taking a solo retreat can be your chance to experience the “joy of missing out” (JOMO).

4. The chance to relax

When I take solo retreats, I let myself do whatever will feel most relaxing—including just resting. I’ve meditated, taken naps, and sat on a stump to watch birds for 15 minutes. That type of relaxation is a breath of fresh air for the body and mind.

5. The chance to redefine yourself

Whenever I meet someone new, one of the first things they tell me is their job. It’s a gut reflex for most of us: “My name is Bobby and I’m a [role] at [company].” I don’t know about you, but I want to have a personal identity outside of my employer. I want to know who I am and what I stand for. And sometimes the only way to dive into that deeper “heart knowledge” is to get away from the rest of the world to get to know yourself.

How to Make the Most of the Experience

When I talk to friends about my solo retreats, they often express interest in the idea but don’t know where to start.

Honestly, you can handle your retreat however you want. The key is to do something that works for you. There’s no right way to do a trip like this, so please take my advice as mere considerations — not gospel. But here are a few ideas to take under advisement:

Pick a weekend on the calendar. Even if you have to book it five or six months from now, pick a weekend and schedule it. Pull up Airbnb, set a couple of search filters for what you’re looking for, and pull the trigger.

Choose somewhere remote. To get the benefits mentioned above (unplugging, relaxing, etc.), I’ve found it’s often best to go somewhere off the beaten path. Avoid big cities. Choose a small town in the mountains or near a lake.

Limit your usage of technology. Don’t spend your retreat doom-scrolling on Instagram or TikTok. I still bring my laptop and phone, but I limit my usage to things like writing, research, and an occasional call or text to my wife.

Don’t go in with a “to-do” list. I consider myself to be a hyper-productive person. I create a personal goals list every week that connects back to my annual objectives. But despite my relentless focus on productivity, I give myself a pass on these retreats. Sure, I still make progress on big projects (e.g., I’m working on a book proposal this weekend) but I don’t set out rigid goals because doing so could impede my relaxation and reflection.

Bring a journal. Hopefully, you’ll learn a lot about yourself during this time away from “real life.” Take notes about your experience and what you’re learning.

Soak up nature. Go on a hike or a long walk. Sit on a park bench and watch life happen around you. Roam the beach and watch the waves caress the sand. Scientists and early studies have even suggested that spending time in nature can improve concentration and attention. (It’s called “attention restoration theory.”)

Take pictures. Even though I’m a cyber curmudgeon at heart, I see camera phones as a huge upside of modern technology. When I go on long nature walks, I flip my phone into airplane mode but still bring it with me so I can take pictures of beautiful landscapes and animals.

Allow yourself to be blown by the wind. Half the fun is stumbling upon random things. Follow your feet wherever they want to go. I’ve had multiple times that I turned a corner on an aimless trek, only to find an incredible view of a shimmering lake or a creature that I’d never encounter in my urban neighborhood.

Spend a lot of time in silence. Although it’s tempting to pop in headphones to listen to a podcast or music, I’ve decided to spend most of my solo retreats in silence. Use the quiet time to think, meditate, pray, or journal.

I hope this post offers the necessary encouragement to book your first solo retreat. Enjoy the experience and may it help you recharge, reflect, refresh, and reconnect with yourself.

If I can help with anything as you plan your first retreat, please let me know in the comments or drop me an email.

My friends know me for something a bit odd.

Whenever I’m facilitating a training or meeting, I’m the guy who asks the group a question and then waits and waits and waits until someone responds. I don’t bail people out. I make them sit with the silence until someone cracks.

I’ve learned to do this after leading hundreds of trainings and thousands of meetings over my career, and I do it for a few reasons:

1. I know someone will speak up if I wait long enough. (I’m not afraid to sit in awkwardness.)

2. Silence gives people time to think.

3. Often, it takes people a while to get the courage to speak up—even if they have something thought-provoking to say.

4. Because many of the trainings and meetings I lead are virtual, I’ve learned that it takes people longer than you’d think to unmute their mic and get ready to talk.

I’ve been surprised by the power of silence, and it’s a skill I think everyone should learn. (I also wish I had learned this skill much earlier in my career, especially for one-on-one coaching conversations.)

Because I’m a huge nerd, I dug up the best quotes I could find about silence and why it’s an important communication tool. You’ll find the top 25 gems below.

“Silence is the only way to hear quiet wisdom.” -Derek Sivers

“A fool is known by his speech, and a wise man by silence.” -Pythagoras

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” –Abraham Lincoln

“Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.” -Robert Benchley

“Silence is like the white light of sound.” -Joy Harjo

“I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid.” -Cato the Younger

“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.” -Chaim Potok

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact.” -George Eliot

“He who knows how to speak, knows also when.” -Archimedes

“It is better either to be silent or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at Hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.” -Pythagoras

“Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” -Publilius Syrus

“Let silence be your goal for the most part; say only what is necessary, and be brief about it. On the rare occasions when you’re called upon to speak, then speak, but never about banalities…” -Epictetus

“Most men talk too much. Much of my success has been due to keeping my mouth shut.” -J. Ogden Armour

“Silence is so freaking loud.” -Sarah Dessen

“My advice to anyone who wants to connect with others is to get comfortable with silence and learn to let it become an exclamation point for things you say.” -John Maxwell

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” -Will Rogers

“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” -Benjamin Franklin

“Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs into output. That lack of interruption helps you flow.” -Derek Sivers

“Silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation.” -Rumi

“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.” -Charles de Gaulle

“The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.” -Robert Greene

“The silent man is the best to listen to.” -Japanese proverb

“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.” -Baruch Spinoza

“Silence is not a bad thing. Silence is the noise thinking makes.” -Bobby Powers

Yeah, you caught me. Like an arrogant fiend, I threw in one of my own quotes at the end. But I happen to really like that one. ;-)

I hope one of these quotes inspired you to harness the power of silence in your own life somehow this week. And if a particular quote jumped out to you (or if I didn’t include one of your favorites), I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a comment below.

I used to think classic literature was boring, so I steered clear of it. I’m guessing you may do the same. But once I realized that the sour taste in my mouth was residual from required reading in school, I decided to give the classics another chance.

I’m glad I did because I ended up falling in love with a bunch of old books. In fact, now I’m even working my way through a list of the Top 200 Books of All Time.

If you’re hesitant to read classic lit, this post is for you.

I’ve read some literature duds, but these 15 are the best ones I’ve found. Each one is engaging and well worth the time—even if you’ve already seen the movie or think you already know the story.

I sorted the list by author’s last name and included a brief description of each. I also included the number of pages (so you can get a feel for the time cost of reading each one), along with my subjective measure of readability, which I based on the complexity of the language, the intricacy of the storyline, and the length of the book.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

• # of Pages: 480

• Readability: Medium

As a guy in his late 30s, I pre-judged this book and figured I wouldn’t enjoy it. If it came out today, I think the publisher would have given it a different title so readers would understand it’s a book for everyone. But regardless of title, this book is fantastic. Alcott’s classic tale about Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy Marsh is meaningful, fun, and inspiring.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

• # of Pages: 256

• Readability: Easy

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the first books that taught me classic literature can be fun. I was immediately sucked in by Bradbury’s dystopian world that turns the role of “firefighter” on its head. (In the bleak world of this story, the government has banned all books, and society’s firefighters are government agents tasked with burning any books that are discovered.) Protagonist Guy Montag wrestles with his role as a book-burner.

The Master and Margarita by Alexander Bulgakov

• # of Pages: 448

• Readability: Difficult

Bulgakov’s classic novel served as a scathing critique of the political and religious oppression in Stalinist Russia. The devil comes to earth and wreaks havoc in Russia alongside his motley crew of a black cat, a tall man with broken glasses, and a hitman. I’m still trying to process the allegorical layers because there’s so much to unpack.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

• # of Pages: 160

• Readability: Medium

Short book with tons of depth. Sailor Charles Marlow decides to join an ivory trading firm. After joining, Marlow keeps hearing stories about a powerful and enigmatic man named Kurtz. His obsession with Kurtz grows until he finally meets the man. Marlow meets Kurtz much later than I expected, and the story’s conclusion brilliantly connects back to the book’s title in multiple ways.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

• # of Pages: 192

• Readability: Easy

I’ve watched the old Gene Wilder movie multiple times (as well as the subpar Johnny Depp version), but reading the book gave me the chance to experience the joy anew when Charlie unwraps the chocolate bar containing that glorious golden ticket. Dahl is one of the best children’s authors of all time, and this book is a must-read for both kids and adults. It’ll help you rediscover your childlike wonder and whimsy.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

• # of Pages: 1,312

• Readability: Difficult

Simply put: the most epic revenge story of all time and my favorite novel I’ve ever read. It’s girthy but so worth the time that I’ve actually read it twice. Everyman Edmond Dantès is condemned to prison for a crime he didn’t commit—a plan masterminded by two men Dantès thought were friends. When he emerges from prison, he strives to enact his vengeance. You’ll read this book not only cheering for Dantès but feeling like you’re right alongside him.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• # of Pages: 208

• Readability: Easy

The Great Gatsby relates the emptiness of fortune and the pangs of love better than any novel I’ve read. It’s also a lurid portrayal of the Roaring Twenties that will make you want to suit up and talk your way into one of Gatsby’s lavish parties. At roughly 200 pages, this is a quick read and another one of my favorite novels of all time.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

• # of Pages: 336

• Readability: Easy

Such a fascinating premise: A group of boys turns Darwinian after getting marooned on a small island. Their time away from their mommies and daddies originally seems fun, but things turn violent after divisions form within the group. This 1954 book seems to have spawned many other stories of children placed in horrible situations, such as the 1999 book Battle Royale (and its 2008 American copycat The Hunger Games), along with TV series like The Wilds (2020–2022).

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• # of Pages: 336

• Readability: Easy

Easily one of the most heartbreaking books I’ve ever read. I assume you’re familiar with this story by now and have likely at least watched the award-winning movie. But even so, you should read the book. It’s a powerful depiction of racism in 1930s America with sprinkles of optimism and hope for humanity.

1984 by George Orwell

• # of Pages: 304

• Readability: Medium

Orwell’s classic dystopian novel lives up to the hype. It was the origin of the phrase “Big Brother,” the name Orwell gave to the fictional dictator in Oceania. Just like any good dystopian fiction, 1984 holds up a magnifying glass to the present day, calling into question any form of government surveillance, censorship, and propaganda.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

• # of Pages: 200

• Readability: Easy

“Jekyll and Hyde” is such a popular concept these days that I didn’t realize how late in the book Stevenson reveals the truth about those two characters. It was fun to read the story with today’s knowledge and consider how shocked UK readers must have been in 1886 when they read Stevenson’s epic reveal.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

• # of Pages: 512

• Readability: Medium

Stoker uses journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings to tell this iconic story, making it one of the most unique stories I’ve ever read. Dracula is a touchstone of Gothic horror: a spooky setting, weird stuff happening, a mysterious count who seems to be behind it all, and supernatural creatures that pose an existential threat to humankind.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

• # of Pages: 320

• Readability: Medium

Bilbo Baggins gets more than he bargained for when he opens his door to find a wizard and a collection of dwarves. Bilbo leaves his slow-paced life in the Shire to set out on a mythical quest with his new retinue, kicking off arguably the most famous fantasy series of all time. I loved the characters and the entire epic world that Tolkien paints. Read this one first, and if you like it, I’d definitely recommend the entire Lord of the Rings series.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

• # of Pages: 128

• Readability: Easy

H.G. Wells broke new literary ground with this book, which popularized the concept of time travel and became the first modern-day science fiction novel. Wells explores fascinating questions about the potential future of humanity as the gap between the rich and the poor expands. This one is easy to read, fast-paced, and intriguing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

• # of Pages: 304

• Readability: Easy

The core concept behind this book is enough for it to warrant a spot on my list. A young man sells his soul for eternal youth, but his portrait continues to age, revealing Gray’s physical (and moral) deterioration. But the book is so much more than that. It’s also a story of forbidden love in a society that disallowed homosexuality. Tragically, Wilde’s novel was even used in court as evidence against him in an indecency lawsuit.

*Honorable Mention: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

• # of Pages: 1,232

• Readability: Difficult

My list wouldn’t be complete without this book. Although it is massive and took me forever to read, it became one of my favorite novels of all time because it contains several of the best examples of unconditional love I’ve ever read. It’s also a great primer on the June Rebellion of 1832 in Paris, shortly after the French Revolution. (I’m listing it as only an Honorable Mention because it’s daunting and not the first one to tackle on this list if you want to dip your toes in the water of classic lit.)

Note: If you buy this book, be sure to get the Norman Denny translation. The translation matters a TON for this book.

I hope you enjoy these great books. Each one includes an affiliate link from Bookshop.org. (If you buy one, you’ll support me as well as local bookstores. Win-win!)

*This article originally appeared as a guest post on .

My reading nerd-dom has reached the level that I’m now researching upcoming nonfiction books and getting pre-excited about what I’ll read next. (Yep, that’s how you know it’s bad.)

I’ve been tracking release dates in my knowledge management system Obsidian, but I know many of you also get excited about this stuff, so I figured I’d share my list here.

Here are a few of the books I’m excited about that are coming out in the next few months. Because the publishing industry has busy cycles, you’ll notice a couple of big launch dates, including May 5th (today) and September 15th.

May 5

Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by

Malcolm Gladwell says this book is Epstein’s best yet, which is high praise considering Epstein’s earlier work, like Range. In his new book, Epstein explores how limits can stimulate creativity and innovation—including how we can create self-imposed boundaries to push ourselves to greater success.

The Power of Beliefs: How Strengthening Seven Core Beliefs Predicts Greater Success and a Better Life by Shawn Achor

While most researchers focus on somewhat depressing aspects of human psychology, Achor has made a career out of studying positive psychology: how to flourish and create a life worth living. His books The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential were huge inspirations for me. This new one drops today, and it’s all about how “the greatest predictor of your future is the beliefs you hold about the world.”

Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way to Boost Your Health and Longevity―One Step at a Time by Courtney Conley and Milica McDowell

I’m already a big believer in the power of walking, and I’m sure this book will make me even more obsessed. Conley and McDowell talk about the optimal number of steps you should get per day (it’s not 10,000), how walking can decrease joint pain, and how it can even be a predictor of overall health and lifespan.

May 12

I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything and Replace (Almost) Everyone by Joanna Stern

Journalist Joanna Stern decided to turn over the keys to her life to AI for a year. She says, “The results are both hilarious and unsettling.” I’m curious to see where this book goes. (Also, isn’t this book cover great??)

May 19

How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University by Theo Baker

The New York Times named this one of the most anticipated books of the year, and I can see why. In 2023, as a 17-year-old college freshman at Stanford, Theo Baker began writing for the school newspaper. Then he started researching school president Marc Tessier-Lavigne and got more than he bargained for. The publisher’s write-up for this book is pretty legit:

Steve Jobs in Exile by

Everyone knows about Jobs’s eventual crowning as a tech genius, but most biographies of his life skip over the little-known “wilderness years”, when Jobs was ousted from Apple and founded NeXT. Journalist Geoffrey Cain pulls back the covers on that period of Jobs’s life to reveal how he became such an iconic leader.

Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story. by Robert Hardman

Hardman is the only biographer who has interviewed the entire Royal Family, and he’s well-versed on British royalty from researching his prior books The Making of a King and Queen of Our Times. This new biography comes out on the 100th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth.

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May 26

Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad...and How Great Companies Stay Great by Eric Ries

You may know Ries from his earlier book The Lean Startup, which helped kick agile software development into the mainstream for tech companies everywhere. His new book has testimonials from some heavy hitters like Mark Cuban, Daniel Pink, Ari Shapiro, Kim Scott, and Seth Godin. Good company! In this new book, Ries unpacks why the structures and systems within companies sometimes push them toward behavior that’s much more insidious than their espoused values.

June 2

Don’t Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again by

Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist changed the way hundreds of thousands of people think about creativity. Now he’s back with lessons to help readers “rediscover the joy of creating” based on seeing how his two sons interact with the world around them.

July 21

You Can Just Do Things by &

power couple Cate Hall and Sasha Chapin are two of my favorite writers on the platform. Now they’re applying their literary prowess to a full book on how to become a more high-agency person. I’ve already preordered my copy, and I can’t wait to check it out this summer.

September 15

Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body by Andrew Huberman

I didn’t even know Huberman’s name until a year or two ago, then it seemed like he was everywhere. His podcast Huberman Lab has become the world’s leading health podcast, and now he’s coming out with his first book—about how to improve physical and mental health, along with overall performance.

The Perilous Fight by Colin Kaepernick

Kaepernick’s life changed forever when he took a knee during the national anthem on September 1, 2016. I’m not going to dive into the politics of that decision in this post, but I admire anyone willing to take a principled stand like that. In this memoir, Kaepernick explores what led him to that decision, along with his experience growing up as a Black man in America.

Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Du Mez’s earlier book Jesus and John Wayne is a hard-hitting book about masculinity and militarism in the American church. It’s one of the books that helped me understand why religion is (unfortunately) now so closely connected with politics. Her new book dives into the evangelical view of femininity, consumerism, and prosperity.

Simplify: Do 50 Percent More with 50 Percent Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, Roy Schwartz

VandeHei, Allen, and Schwartz co-founded the media company Axios, which gained a fast following with short and impactful articles. The founders called the writing style “smart brevity,” and they wrote a book of the same name to help business leaders communicate more simply and powerfully. Now the trio is back with a book about how to eliminate distractions and identify important tasks that will move the needle.

September 29

The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell conducted a six-part series on gun violence in his podcast Revisionist History. Now he’s expanding that research into an entire book that investigates what sets America’s lethal violence apart from other nations (and what can be done about it).

The Steps by Sylvester Stallone

When I first watched the movie Rocky as a teenager, I had no idea that Stallone wrote the script himself. When I learned that later, it made me much more interested in Stallone and his work. In The Steps, he unpacks his difficult upbringing and what eventually helped him break through in Hollywood.

I hope you’re as excited about these upcoming books as I am. :-)

And if you decide to pick up any of them, the affiliate links I’ve included above ensure that you’ll support me as well as local bookstores (at no extra cost to you). Win-win!

I’ve collected quotes for many years. My database now contains thousands of them, and every month I add the best ones I find in books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

“If you want to be happier, spend more time with living trees (nature) and dead trees (books).” -Alex Wieckowski ()

“Whatever anyone else thinks about me is none of my business.” -Michael J. Fox

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

“If you can train yourself to ask ‘is there a better way to do this?’ at random intervals ten times a day, you will become unstoppable.” -

“Surround yourself with people who fight for you in rooms you’re not in.” -Unknown

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” -George Bernard Shaw

“The highest form of peace is having no desire to be seen, validated or understood by anyone.” -Unknown

“Is the purpose of work to make money? Or is the purpose of money to be able to do one’s work?” -Jim Collins

“Conflict avoidance slowly rots your whole life, and many people are about eight awkward discussions from a much-improved existence.” -

"I know how to spot real confidence. Look for people who are fluid with status—who allow themselves to be the butt of a joke, or accept criticism, but also avoid false modesty, and inhabit the spotlight when it falls on them. One might call this a balance between dignity and humility." -Sasha Chapin

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“Actions produce information. If you’re stuck on a problem or a decision, just do anything. If it turns out to be wrong, you can adjust, and you’ll reach the right path much faster than if you wait for certainty.” -

“Life rewards action, not intelligence. Unfortunately, the smarter you are, the better the excuses. You can analyze forever, or you can take action.” -Giacomo Falcone

“Does an idea belong to those who use it or those who find it? I’ve decided to think that ideas belong to those who use them, thus to everyone.” -Blek le Rat, French graffiti artist

“Productivity is not effort x time — if you want one quick way to burn out, it’s believing that you just need to crank harder in circumstances where your effort is not efficiently creating results.” -Cate Hall

“It is easy to charm a person who talks too much: all you have to do is listen.” -Patrick Radden Keefe

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” -Albert Einstein

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare

“Not all time in life is equal. Some moments count more than other moments, when what you do in that moment has an outsized impact on the trajectory of a life.” -Jim Collins

“The people who have taught me the most in life do not view themselves as teachers, but rather as perpetual students, always eager to learn more and always open to changing their minds.” -Rachel Held Evans

“Always assume there’s someone in the room who knows more about the topic than you do.” -Daniel Jonce Evans

“Acting is my way of investigating human nature.” -Meryl Streep

“You see, the point is that freedom is choosing your responsibility. It’s not having no responsibilities; it’s choosing the ones you want.” -Toni Morrison

"Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and pay more respect to the judgment of others." -Benjamin Franklin

“You cannot straighten out the road behind you.” -Jim Collins

“Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done.” -Jim Collins

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” -Steve Uzzell

Read more of my favorite quotes:

Over the past few years, I’ve experimented with numerous tactics for getting more out of each book while finding more enjoyment.

Here are five tactics I’ve found that will spice up your reading life:

1. Music Mixing: Listen to songs that align with what you’re reading

I often listen to movie soundtracks or playlists that align with whatever I’m reading. Here are a few recent book/music pairings I’ve enjoyed:

• While reading Robert Caro’s biography about President Lyndon B. Johnson (The Path to Power), I listened to the soundtracks from each season of the political drama “House of Cards.”

• While reading about the life of film composer John Williams, I listened to a dozen or more of his movie soundtracks.

• While reading Ursula Le Guin’s sci-fi classic The Left Hand of Darkness, I listened to otherworldly soundtracks like “Interstellar” and a Spotify playlist called “Atmospheric Sci-fi Soundtracks.”

Each of these musical pairings gave me a deeper appreciation for what I was reading, allowing me to engage a second sense (listening) as part of my reading experience.

You could try this with an endless array of book/audio combinations. Listen to Hans Zimmer’s “Gladiator” soundtrack while reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Put on an ominous soundtrack like “Gone Girl” or “The Village” while reading a page-turning thriller like The Silent Patient. Or queue up a summer vibes playlist while enjoying your latest beach read.

2. Media Mashing: Check out other media about your topic

In addition to listening to related music, seek out other media that pertain to whatever you’re reading. This is especially pertinent to nonfiction but can also be applied to fiction.

For example, I recently read David Grann’s The Lost City of Z about Percy Fawcett’s exploration of the Amazon rainforest. The book made me wonder what the Amazon is really like, so I watched a couple of nature specials and YouTube videos about it to gain a deeper appreciation for the deadly challenges Fawcett faced (mosquitoes, piranha, bullet ants, etc.).

Podcasts are also great for this type of “media mashing.” If you’re reading a true crime book, search for related podcast episodes. Or if you’re reading a book about personal development, the author probably did a media blitz and recorded several podcast interviews or YouTube talks. Listening to related interviews will further cement the book’s takeaways in your mind because the author will inevitably recap the most salient points they want readers to remember.

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3. Altered Angles: Approach one topic from multiple perspectives

One of my favorite reading tactics is to read multiple books about the same topic, all written from different perspectives. (Ryan Holiday calls this “swarming.”) When I do this, I often read both fiction and nonfiction about the topic I’m trying to learn.

For example, I recently went on a WWII kick, so I read the following books:

• The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larsen (Nonfiction / History)

• Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman (Graphic Novel)

• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Nonfiction / Biography)

Larsen’s book is a fact-based narrative that focuses on WWII from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s perspective, while Spiegelman’s novel is jarring in its cartoonish portrayal of Nazis as cats and Jews as mice. And Frank’s diary layered on an all-too-real perspective of a 13-year-old peering out of an attic hiding place upon the barbaric world around her. It was enlightening to read about the same events through such varied lenses.

I’ve also paired other books together to examine a topic from multiple examples. As one additional example, I read the following books when I wanted to learn more about America’s structural racism:

• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (Nonfiction / History)

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Novel from 2016)

• The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Nonfiction / Essays)

• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Novel from 1952)

• A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan (Nonfiction / Historical Thriller)

Every time I’ve tackled a topic from multiple angles, the process has given me a more robust understanding of the issue than if I had just read a single book (or even if I had only read nonfiction books about the topic).

4. Dinner Discussions: Summarize the book for family or friends

The best way to learn something is to teach it, and I’ve found that I often don’t understand a book well enough until I’ve explained it two or three times to others.

The first time is usually choppy — I struggle to articulate the core theme and aimlessly bounce from one interesting tidbit to the next. But the more I discuss what I’m reading, the more eloquence I develop and the more I understand what I’ve read.

If you’re meeting up with a friend for coffee, ask them what they’ve been reading recently. They’ll likely ask you the same question, which will give you an avenue for not only teaching them what you’ve learned but also solidifying the knowledge in your own brain.

5. Short Summaries: Write quick recaps of what you’ve learned

In addition to talking about what you’re learning, build the habit of writing about it. This can take many different forms:

• Write an article with your takeaways

• Send a short email or Slack message to friends or colleagues with your favorite three things you learned

• Share a quick summary post on Substack or LinkedIn, like the example below

Writing your lessons learned will help cement them in your memory. Plus, it offers the added benefit of teaching others and building a culture of learning in your team or friend group.

If you’re looking for ways to spice up your reading life, try one or more of the tips above.

Happy reading!

Anytime a publication rejects one of my writing submissions, I gain a bigger chip on my shoulder. I want to prove those organizations wrong for doubting me. I want to show them what they’re missing.

This same perverse motivation has fueled creative professionals for years.

As a young writer, Stephen King pounded a nail into his bedroom wall to collect the rejection slips he received from publishers. Every failed submission became fuel for his writing.

“By the time I was fourteen (and shaving twice a week whether I needed to or not) the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.” -Stephen King

James Patterson kept a list of the 31 publishers who rejected his first novel.

Similarly, literary phenom J.K. Rowling put her first rejection letter for Harry Potter on her wall to remind her that she was now just like her favorite authors who had also been rejected. (Rowling would receive eleven more rejections from publishers before Bloomsbury accepted Harry Potter.)

As surprising as this may sound, facing obstacles can give us more energy to do our creative work.

It’s easy to feel good about your work when you hear a bunch of positive feedback. But negative comments or setbacks can be equally motivating if we can find a way to harness the energy from them.

The question is: How do we harness this energy? How can we use our challenges as an alternative fuel to drive us further?

Three techniques I’ve found:

1. Mentally prepare for difficulty

It’s easier to overcome challenges when you know they’re coming.

Rather than expecting smooth seas on your creative journey, it’s much better to expect tidal waves and typhoons.

“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not,” writes author Steven Pressfield. “He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.”

When I read the above quote in Pressfield’s book The War of Art, I realized I could either view that quote as depressing or empowering. I chose the latter — even going so far as to write that quote on the inside cover of my writing notebook (depicted below).

By preparing for stormy seas, we become better sailors.

2. Use your rejections as a rallying cry

We can view any rejection or setback in one of two ways:

• Career-ending OR life-changing

• Discouragement OR inspiration

• Suppressant OR fuel

• Death march OR rallying cry

Our perspective determines whether an obstacle becomes a negative thing or a positive one. We get to choose.

Which do you choose?

3. Write down your struggles

When I began taking my writing seriously, one of the first things I did was set aside two pages in my writing journal to document my writing rejections.

I left room for two full pages because I wanted to prepare myself for how many rejections I would face.

I take pleasure in looking at the initial entries on that rejections page. The list reminds me that initial rejections don’t mean much. After all, my first two articles on that list were later published elsewhere, and a large publication featured both articles.

That rejection page also reminds me that I have the courage to persevere. It’s an implicit reminder that I’m the type of person who gets pushed down, only to rise back up.

What type of person are you?

How can you use your struggles as alternative fuel today?

I’ve read over 1,000 books in the past 15 years. If that doesn’t grant me nerd status, I don’t know what would.

Books are a really big deal in my life, and one of my greatest joys is helping others develop a deeper passion for reading. What I’ve found is that many people aspire to read more, but they fall short of their own goals for one reason or another: too busy, not a priority, unsure what to read, don’t get much from what they read, etc.

My goal with this article is to help you overcome those objections. If you’re hoping to read more and soak up more knowledge from what you read, this article is for you.

Here’s what you’ll find in this ultimate guide to bookishness:

1. How to Pick Great Books to Read

2. How to Read More

3. How to Save Money on Books

4. How to Remember What You Read

5. How to Take Amazing Margin Notes

6. How to Keep Track of What You’ve Read

How To Pick Great Books to Read

With all of the millions of books out there, how do you know where to start? It can definitely be overwhelming to choose, but thankfully, there are some great sources out there to help you increase your “hit rate” of finding the right books.

The most reliable (and underrated) recommendation source I’ve found is books that are referenced within other books that I love. Almost every nonfiction book contains a heap of book recommendations, and many fiction books reference other books too.

For example, I noticed that several of my favorite books all recommended the book Mindset by Carol Dweck. So I picked up Mindset, and it was awesome. Same thing with Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. I hadn’t heard of that book until it came up in numerous other books I read, so I went straight to the source and read Kleon’s work (all of it, in fact). His stuff is amazing, which wasn’t a surprise because I already knew he had influenced several other authors I admired.

Just like everyone else, I also pick up book recommendations in conversations with friends. But I’ve noticed that everyone has a different threshold for which books are worthy of recommending. Some people hesitate to share recommendations because they think their literary taste is unique and others won’t enjoy the same books. Others throw out recommendations willy-nilly, eagerly recommending anything they’ve ever read, rather than only referring the absolute best books.

Because recommendations are inherently subjective, I’ve started to use a little system to sort through the wheat from the chaff. I generally make the time to check out a book if any of the following things happen:

• Multiple people recommend the same book

• Someone talks about how a specific book tangibly impacted their life

• Someone who I know reads a LOT of books says that a certain book was the best book about [X topic] that they’ve read recently

If someone shares a recommendation that doesn’t rise to the level of any of the things on the list above, I make a quick mental note about that book and go about my day. Life is too short to read books that aren’t amazing, and we all only have a limited amount of time to read, so it’s important for all of us to relentlessly prioritize what we choose to read.

Lastly, I spend a lot of time in bookstores, thumbing through books on the shelves. This is one of the trickiest ways to find book selections because you’re heavily dependent upon the bookstore’s curation and which books they decide to feature in prominent locations that catch your eye. But I’ve still found that it’s helpful to scan the aisles and stumble upon new books.

If I find a random book in a bookstore that sounds interesting and I haven’t heard anything about it, I usually rely on a few shorthand methods of determining if the book will be worth the time:

• I read the synopsis and sometimes the first page of the book. Often, you can tell whether you like a writer’s writing style remarkably fast. If you don’t want to keep reading after the first page, set the book down.

• I check out the list of recommendations that are generally on the back cover of the book. If one of my favorite authors has recommended the book, that’s a pretty good sign.

• I flip through the book. Many of my favorite nonfiction books have pleasant formatting. The authors not only know how to express their ideas with words, but also with images, graphs, and blockquotes. Sometimes you can get a good read off a book just by how much care the author put into the formatting and presentation of their ideas.

“Of course you can judge a book by its cover — that’s why books have covers. They’re designed to catch people’s attention and draw them toward the work — and away from all the other works that stand equal on the shelf.” -Ryan Holiday

But again, the best way to find books is to read the ones referenced by the authors that you already love. The people who influenced them are probably worth reading!

How to Read More

When people find out how much I read, they immediately assume I’m a speed reader. I’m not. I read about as fast as the next person. I just spend a massive amount of time reading.

On average, I read a couple of hours every night. This means that I spend much less time on social media, television, and news than most people.

Why do I spend so much time reading? Because I believe in this quote:

“What you will become in five years will be determined by what you read and who you associate with.” -Charles ‘Tremendous’ Jones

In five years, you won’t remember the Instagram photos you liked, the memes you re-tweeted, or the TikTok videos that made you laugh. But you will remember the books that influenced your life. The memoirs that helped you empathize with someone else’s struggle. The novels that taught you why forgiveness is better than revenge. The biographies that inspired you to dust yourself off after a bad breakup, layoff, or betrayal.

Once you personally experience the potential in books to change your life, you’ll want to find more time to read as well. The best way to read more is also the simplest way: make more time for it. Cut out other things in your life. Prioritize reading over other tasks that don’t move the needle.

Specifically, I’ve used these seven tactics to read more:

1. Set reading goals

Goals have a way of orienting our brains to know that a given task is really important. Setting a goal also has the mysterious power of marshaling more forces to your aid.

“At the moment of commitment, the entire universe conspires to assist you.” -Goethe

For over a decade, my personal goal has been to read 70 books each year. That breaks down to about six books each month, or one every five days.

If I’m 20 days into a month and I’ve only read two books (instead of four), I know I’m behind my goal. When that happens, I try to carve out a little more time to read.

Your goal will be different than mine. Perhaps it’s five books per year…or 100. You set your own pace.

For example, one of my friends told me partway through 2019 that he had already read four books, which was more than he had read in all of 2018. That was a huge win. He was elated, and I was elated for him. The important part is setting the right goal that works for you.

2. Set aside solo time every day

I think solo time is really important. In fact, I even go on solo retreats twice a year to get away from the busyness of life and get to know myself a bit better.

Almost everyone I’ve talked to agrees that carving out solo time is difficult, but possible. Life doesn’t make space for us to do important things, so we need to relentlessly seek out time to do what’s important to us.

Do your darndest to find some quiet time amidst your crazy schedule. For you, that may be early in the morning before your kids are awake, or during lunch at work, or right after you get home. For me, it’s every night between 9:30 pm and midnight after my wife goes to bed. Evenings are my time to read, write, journal, and think.

Find the time that works for you, then jealously protect that time. Make it a priority.

3. Read multiple books at the same time

Many people believe that you should read the same book from start to finish before starting the next book. I vehemently disagree.

I’ve found that I read WAY more books when I have two or three books going at the same time. At any given time, I’m usually reading one fiction book, one nonfiction book, and one spiritual book. I do this because it helps me have a book for any mood.

For example, I was reading a business book last week, but then I didn’t feel like reading about business anymore. So I picked up a novel and enjoyed that for a bit. If I had only been reading one book at a time, I would have dropped the business book and jumped into a different (and probably lesser) form of entertainment: social media, TV, etc.

Reading multiple books at a time is like stocking your pantry with a host of healthy snacks rather than a bunch of junk food. If an apple doesn’t sound good, and all you have in your pantry are apples and Oreos, you’re going to find yourself neck-deep in the Double-Stuffs. But if you have apples, bananas, and trail mix on hand, you may opt for healthier fare instead, even if you don’t feel like an apple.

By keeping a few books going at one time, you’ll have books for each of your moods and preferences throughout the course of a given week.

4. Don’t give in to the social pressure of grabbing your phone or watching TV

“Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it. Once weaned from the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading. I’d like to suggest turning off that endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life…” -Stephen King

For some reason, it seems like it’s more socially acceptable for people to whip out their phones than to pull out a book. For example, I’ve noticed that when my wife and I are hanging out with family during the holidays, people tend to turn on the television or surf the web on their phone once the conversation starts to lull at the end of the night.

I feel like a weirdo for grabbing my book, but I’ve decided that I’d rather be a productive weirdo than an unproductive lemming.

If you want to do something on your phone, that’s totally fine, but don’t give in to the social impulse to jump onto a device just because everyone else is doing it. Have the courage to pick up a book. You’ll get done a lot more reading and waste a lot less time.

5. Build an anti-library

Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about the importance of building an “anti-library” — a collection of books that you haven’t read.

“Collect books, even if you don’t plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.” -Austin Kleon

My personal library is packed with countless books I haven’t read. Every time I look at my bookshelves, I’m reminded that I need to get my butt in gear because there are so many books I want to read.

Sometimes when I’m looking for reading inspiration, I walk into my library to gaze at all of the wisdom I want to soak up. Then I grab the next book and dive in.

6. Visit bookstores more often

Similar to the idea of building an anti-library, I visit bookstores to further ignite my reading passion. Sure, walking into a bookstore doesn’t equate to actual reading time, but it definitely offers inspiration and motivation.

Every time I visit a local bookstore, I leave with a sense that I need to prioritize reading even higher because there’s so much out there to learn.

7. Bring a book with you everywhere

If I know I’ll need to wait somewhere later in the day (getting a license at the DMV, bringing my car in for an oil change, etc.), I bring a book.

Those random minutes add up, and you want to take advantage of them. By thinking ahead, you can ensure those little pockets of time don’t go to waste.

“You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your time into ten-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.” -Ingvar Kamprad

These tactics have been game-changers for me. I went from hardly reading anything to reading 30 books per year, then 50, then 70, then 80.

By making a few changes in your life and re-prioritizing how you spend the little gaps of time in your day, you too can become a voracious reader.

How to Save Money on Books

Sometimes people tell me they’re surprised I could spend so much money on books. What they don’t realize is that it doesn’t actually cost much to have an epic reading appetite. In addition to free avenues like the library, there are dozens of cheap places to buy books.

“The literature available at your average library amounts to millions of pages and thousands of years of knowledge, insight, and experience.” -Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

For years, I used to visit thrift stores to find inexpensive books: Goodwill, Savers, Value Village, you name it. Every decent thrift store has a books section, and each book generally costs somewhere in the range of $0.50 to $4.00. I’ve walked out with armfuls of reading material more times than I can count.

Then I stumbled upon the website ThriftBooks.com, which is an online thrift store that contains thousands of used titles — many of which are priced around $5. The site also offers free shipping if you buy $10 worth of books.

Rather than spending hours visiting thrift stores, I can type a few words into a search bar and track down almost any book I want for super cheap. (Brand new books sell for the standard price, but it’s a great place to search for books that are at least a few years old.)

For someone who reads a lot, that website is a total game-changer. I’ve told many friends about it too, so now we buy most of our books on there. I’ve saved thousands of dollars on books by shopping on ThriftBooks.

By finding inexpensive places to quench your reading habit, you can ensure that cost never stands in your way.

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How to Remember What You Read

My memory isn’t great, so for the past decade, I’ve been experimenting with various tactics to remember takeaways from the books I read.

I’ve found a handful of specific tips that have greatly increased my reading comprehension. I think they’ll help you too.

1. Read physical books instead of e-books

I remember my excitement a few years ago when I arrived home from Barnes & Noble with my new Nook Color e-reader. I was sure that device would transform my reading experience.

It did, but not in the way I assumed.

One of the first books I read on my e-reader was The Maze Runner by James Dashner. After finishing the book, I raved about Dashner’s writing to a few friends. One of them had also read The Maze Runner, so we talked about the book’s chilling conclusion.

Er, I mean my friend talked about the conclusion. I couldn’t remember it. Embarrassingly, I had forgotten how the book ended.

The same thing happened to me a few other times with my e-reader. I began to feel like an idiot. My memory had never failed me like that with books before.

I turned to the all-knowing internet for answers. As it turns out, early studies suggest that people using e-readers absorb less information, get distracted by multitasking, and don’t enjoy the experience as much as those who read physical books.

“Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.” -Ferris Jabr

Although some studies have disagreed with those findings, my personal experience convinced me I should only read physical books.

2. Talk about lessons learned

Often the best way to learn something is to teach it. I’ve found that I internalize lessons from books much better once I’ve had the chance to discuss them with others.

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” -Phil Collins

My first explanation of any book is often unpolished. As the words come out of my mouth, I realize I’ve failed to digest the author’s main points. However, by the second or third time I’ve discussed a book, I’ve crystallized my understanding of the lessons, and I can finally articulate them.

3. Create a “commonplace book”

A commonplace book is a place to compile knowledge for future reference. While many people use a physical book for this practice, any cataloging system can serve the same purpose.

Many people throughout history have used commonplace books, including Thomas Jefferson, Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, E.M. Forster, H.P. Lovecraft, and Bill Gates.

I now use Obsidian for this, but you can see a picture of my old setup below, which I adapted from bestselling author Ryan Holiday, who adapted his from Robert Greene.

I bought a few packages of 3x5 cards and two batches of index card dividers, then used an old box for my storage container.

By taking the time to jot handy notes, I’m able to not only remember more of what I read, but I can also quickly track down exact quotes and data for later stories that I write. (If you’re interested, I share more details about commonplacing in this post.)

4. Refuse to borrow books

When friends discover my love of reading, they instantly offer heartfelt recommendations of books I should borrow from them.

My answer is always no.

Refusing to borrow books narrows my focus to only those books that are good enough to buy. Every book I buy is an investment in my development and a chance to build my personal library.

But more importantly, I refuse to borrow books because I can’t write in borrowed books. I can’t make them my own. Purchasing my own books gives me the freedom to take margin notes, as explained in detail below.

5. Take margin notes

I used to view books as hallowed ground. I wouldn’t consider writing in them any more than I’d consider putting a million bumper stickers on my car. (What are you people thinking?)

But then I realized that what made a book special was not its words, but what those words sparked inside me: ideas, inspiration, and action. So I began writing notes in the margins of my books. Lots and lots of notes.

My marginalia puts me in control of what I will learn from the book and how it will impact my life after I turn the final page. Writing notes in a book enables me to engage in a form of co-creation with the author. His or her work inspires me to brainstorm insights pertinent to my own life and immediately consider how I can put those ideas into practice.

“In getting my books, I have always been solicitous of an ample margin; this is not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of penciling in suggested thoughts, agreements, and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general.” -Edgar Allen Poe

Not only do my margin notes act as a cheat sheet for later reference, but the very act of writing handwritten notes helps me remember what I’ve read. Studies have routinely shown that writing notes by hand boosts memory more than typing notes on a computer.

Because margin notes are such an important aspect of remembering key takeaways from your reading, I’ve devoted the entire next section of this post to discussing marginalia in detail.

Note: While digital notes don’t aid comprehension the same way handwritten notes do, they still offer a unique benefit of searchability. If you’re a digital notes person, you may find it helpful to jot down book notes in an app like Obsidian or Evernote.

How to Take Amazing Margin Notes

I used to treat my own books no differently than a library book. It felt wrong to deflower the pages with my scribbles and underlines, so each margin remained milky white. Then I realized that what made a book special was not its words, but what those words sparked inside me: ideas, inspiration, and action.

Writing notes in a book enables you to engage in a form of co-creation with the author. Marginalia helps you transition from idea to inspiration to action. It helps you remember what you’ve learned from any book and apply it to your life after you turn the final page.

With how much I read, I need to remember what I’ve learned and put those lessons into practice, so I’ve been developing my own system of advanced marginalia.

The core of the system is extremely simple, but I’ll share pictures along the way to show how you can maximize each step.

Here are the three steps of my “SUB” system (Star, Underline, Back Cover):

1. STAR key passages to quickly find them later

2. UNDERLINE essential quotes and ideas on each page

3. Use the BACK COVER of the book to record your biggest takeaways

1. Star key passages to quickly find them later

As I’m reading a book, I place an asterisk (*) next to key passages to help me track down those ideas later when I riffle through the book.

For passages that seem really important, I circle the asterisk so I can find the material even faster. The circled asterisks are generally the items that I jot down in the back cover of the book (explained in step #3 below).

Here’s an example of a typical page of one of my books. You’ll notice a couple of stars and margin notes that will help me find those ideas quickly later.

2. Underline essential quotes and ideas on each page

As I read, I ask myself the question: “If I were to go back and skim-read this book, what few sentences on this page would I need to read to understand the core concept or the essential elements of the plot?”

The answer to that question determines what parts I underline.

Underlining or highlighting is not an exact science. Different ideas and quotes resonate with different people. Sometimes my wife reads a book that I’ve read and marked up, and she’s surprised by the types of things I underlined. They don’t make sense to her, and they’re not really supposed to. Your notes are for you — not for anyone else.

While I read, I also take note of new words I don’t know. For example, the picture above is from the book Stein on Writing by Sol Stein. Page 116 of that book contained the word “antediluvian,” which I had never heard before, so I looked it up and jotted the definition on the bottom of the page. I use a backward pilcrow (the paragraph symbol) to designate new vocab words, but you can use any symbol you’d like.

3. Use the back cover of the book to record your biggest takeaways

This is the most important part of my marginalia system. Years ago, I realized that if I wanted to thumb back through an old book to find a quote or concept, I had to scan through every page to find what I wanted.

That seemed ridiculous, and I knew there must be a better way to summarize what I had learned and where I could find it in the book, so I began using the inside back cover of every book to record my primary takeaways.

Here’s an example from Walter Isaacson’s biography Benjamin Franklin:

If you look closely, you’ll notice several different types of notes in the image above. Here’s a description of those notes from left to right:

• Favorite Quotes — The upper left corner includes page numbers of a few of the author’s best quotes.

• Key Takeaways — The main section on the left page includes a page number alongside each core insight from the book. I usually end up with about 15–25 main takeaways from every book.

• Date Finished — The bottom left corner shows the date I finished reading the book. If and when I re-read a book, I’ll write the re-read date as well.

• Book Recommendations — Most authors are insatiable readers. Many writers consume 10–50 books while researching a book, and they generally reference those books throughout the text, along with sprinkling in some of their other favorite books. I write the author’s recommendations in the upper right corner of the back cover. If I want to dive deeper into some topic from the book, those recommendations give me a great starting point.

• Personality/Character Traits — In the bottom right corner, I jotted down a few things I learned about Benjamin Franklin as a person: what made him successful, what he struggled with, etc. I’ve begun to write lists like this in biographies, and it’s fascinating to see the common character traits between successful people in diverse fields (curiosity, work ethic, etc.).

The types of things I write in the back cover of a book differ based upon the type of book I’m reading. For example, the last bullet point above about Personality/Character Traits wouldn’t make sense in a book about economics, psychology, or leadership. For those types of books, I jot down other notes, like what I plan to apply from that book to my life.

Here’s an example of my back cover notes for the marketing and communication book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath:

I also write notes in fiction books. I’ve found that the notes help me follow along with the plot and remember what happened in the story. I also usually write a character list on one of the pages of the book’s back cover.

Depending upon the type of book, I’ve also begun to write timelines in the back of some books. I primarily do this in history books, biographies, memoirs, and even some business books.

Here’s a picture of my timeline from the Benjamin Franklin biography:

Step up your reading game by using the SUB system (Star, Underline, Back Cover) of advanced marginalia:

1. Star key passages to quickly find them later

2. Underline essential quotes and ideas on each page

3. Use the back cover to record your biggest takeaways

It’s a simple system that you can use in powerful ways.

How to Keep Track of What You’ve Read

“My alma mater was books, a good library…I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” — Malcolm X

I highly recommend tracking the books you’ve read. It not only helps jog your memory of past books, but it’s fun to look back at the types of books that influenced your thinking each year.

I’ve been tracking my reading list for the past 18 years. I started by writing the list in a physical notebook, then later moved it over to Goodreads and the Recent Reads page on my blog. I take a lot of pride in that list, and it motivates me to keep pushing — to continue learning more and more.

Plus, it’s fulfilling to look back upon the literary ground you’ve covered. If you haven’t done so yet, start keeping a journal or online document of the books you’ve read.

If you’ve never used Goodreads before, I suggest starting there. They even have a yearly challenge where you can input your reading goal and they’ll track your progress throughout the course of the year. (Example below.)

Reading great books is one of the best ways to develop yourself as a person. Every minute you spend reading is a minute that you’ve invested in your future.

My hope is that you can use the tips above to reach whatever goals you have for reading and personal development. Feel free to leave your own bookish insights below. I always love hearing what tactics have worked for others.

Happy reading!

In my reading, I’m a turtle, not a hare. My pace hovers in the “slow to average” range, but I spend 2-3 hours every day reading, which has helped me read over 1,000 books in the past 15 years (mostly nonfiction).

When people hear how many hundreds of hours I spend reading, they tend to ask an important question: “Why?”

Why spend all of this time with my nose in a book?
Why not spend that time watching movies, TV shows, or YouTube videos?
Why not invest that time in golf, chess, video games, or any other activity?

This post is my attempt to answer that question. Consider it my love letter to books.

If you’re a fellow bibliophile, I hope many of these thoughts will resonate with you and that you’ll share your own list of literary love in the comments section. Or, if the very idea of an ode to books brings to mind one particular friend who’s a lovable book nerd, I hope you’ll pass this list along to them to brighten their day.

Here are 15 things I love about books:

1. Books forge friendships. I met one of my best friends by nerding out over books at a mutual friend’s birthday party. Once we realized we each ran book websites or podcasts, we swapped contact info and have been tight ever since, meeting up every couple of months to swap life stories and reading recs over dinner.

2. Books supply interesting stories to share with others. The first book I read for fun as an adult was Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. One of the things that appealed to me about that book was the trove of fascinating stories it gave me for happy hours and coffee dates with friends.

3. Books teach us how to craft more enjoyable conversations. Along with giving me tons of conversational ammo of interesting topics to discuss, books have explicitly taught me how to listen better, ask thoughtful questions, and tell better stories.

4. Reading is one of the best ways to solve problems. Struggling to give feedback to friends, family, or co-workers? There’s a book for that. Want to learn how to start a business? There’s a book for that. Same with developing grit, making better decisions, or becoming a writer. Much of my reading the past 15 years has followed the same pattern: Realize I suck at something → Find a book on that topic → Learn how to improve → Put those ideas into practice → Suck less.

5. Books build potential energy within us. They create a reservoir of knowledge, insights, and ideas to tap into whenever we need them most. As novelist Walter Mosley said, "A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.”

6. Books are a cheap way to get an education. Many figures throughout history have credited reading as their primary means of learning, including Malcom X, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Doris Lessing. School is expensive. Books are cheap.

7. Reading fiction builds empathy. Not only has early research loosely supported this theory, but you can feel its truth when you read well-written novels like The Vanishing Half, Persepolis, The Green Mile, All the Light We Cannot See, or To Kill a Mockingbird. Books transport you into the challenges of people from other cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. "Books are other lives,” says novelist Donna Tartt. “They enable us to be other people."

8. Fiction can also help us develop character. Les Misérables taught me love in all its forms: storge (familial), agape (selfless), eros (romantic), philautia (self-love), etc. Atonement showed me the power of forgiveness (and the cost of bitterness). A Christmas Carol encouraged me to approach life with joy and thankfulness.

9. Biographies show us what’s possible for humans to achieve. Reading about Hamilton’s prodigious writing output showed me I can write more than I thought possible. Biographies about Abraham Lincoln taught me how to turn enemies into friends. And reading about the life of Mister Rogers made me earnestly desire to become a better human.

10. Books give us travel visas for other worlds. You can explore the ocean depths with the crew of the Nautilus, spend years under house arrest in a Russian hotel, watch the running of the bulls in Pamplona alongside American and British expats, or explore space with astronaut Ryland Grace. Books are a portal to other countries, times, and dimensions.

11. Books help us self-reflect. In the words of my friend , “Books are mirrors, time machines, and trail markers all at once. They show you where you’ve been. They reflect who you are. And sometimes, if you’re paying attention, they whisper something about where you’re headed.”

12. Books hold powerful people accountable. They correct false records when historical events have been whitewashed and give us a peek into what’s happening in locations we can’t see with our own eyes. A few recent examples from my reading: Kill Anything That Moves, Confidence Man, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

13. Books allow us to be mentored by dead emperors, business titans, and Olympic athletes. People whom we could never normally ask for advice are as close as your local library or Kindle account. Take a second to consider how insane that is. You have wisdom on tap, waiting for you, whenever you’re ready. Just open a book.

14. Books help us refine our life philosophy. Who do you want to be? What does success look like to you? I’ve gradually developed answers to those questions by reading about the lives of many people and asking myself how I do or don’t want my life to resemble theirs. I’ve even done this with polarizing people throughout history, like Lyndon B. Johnson, Winston Churchill, J.K. Rowling, and Elon Musk.

15. A single book can change your life. Whether you’re reading fiction or nonfiction, the next book you pick up could drastically alter the trajectory of your life. What book will you pick up next? How will it change you?

If you’re a book nerd like me, I’d love to connect. Drop me a comment to say hey or subscribe to my publication below.

*This article originally appeared as a guest post on .