Books I’ve Read
Preface
I did a quick summary of all the books I’ve read over the last few years and figured I’d give you a basic review.
I may look into rating these and possibly add notes in the future, but in the meantime, I’ll just give you some quick overviews of each.
If you really want notes, Derek Sivers is doing a great job of that. He rates them as well.
90% of these were done via Audible, while I’m driving or cleaning, so I’ve done a terrible job of notetaking so you’d be better off getting notes yourself or through someone else.
That said…
Self Improvement/Business Development
How to Read a Book– How ironic I listened to it on Audible. Very deep, which is also code for boring. But I know it’s good for me because it’s definitely a little above my level. At least with my level of A.D.D.
- Skim through a book first, then go back and read it again over and over if it’s a good book.
- A great book can always give to you until you finally outgrow it.
- Some books are so good you’ll never be able to leave them.
- It’s best to read novels all the way through as closely as you can.
- If you can’t put together points made by the author in your own words, then you don’t understand it.
- You should have a conversation with the author and question and debate things with him.
- Read many books on the same subject and let those authors debate each other in their own way. It doesn’t matter what century each is from.
- Always read above your level. It’s the only way you’ll grow.
- Read slowly and highlight the things that you don’t fully understand. Not the points you really agree with.
- Write down all the points you agree with though.
- Write down 10 things you learned from every book you read. Stole this from James Altucher.
The Definitive Book of Body Language– Will help a lot with sales, dating, and endless other things. A must-read. I’m already analyzing so many interactions throughout the day. So fun.
- Arms crossed is never good.
- Feet point to the interest of the person.
- Arms behind the back show confidence, but if clutching the other arm could mean holding back frustration.
- Women generally let me know if they’re interested, though the man thought he made the first move.
- Look for 3 signs in body language to get a definitive read on a person. A person with arms crossed could just be cold.
- People leaning on things are showing possession.
- Having someone hold something is a good method to end closed off body language. Why panhandlers get you to hold the CD before they ask you to buy it.
- Palms down is authoritarian, such as Nazi salute or finger-pointing.
- Palms up is submissive.
- Rubbing the neck indicates someone is a pain in the neck.
- Liars typically do a gesture near their mouth while lying.
Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts – So many great takeaways. I listened to it twice and took notes. A must-read.
- Building an email list is the most important thing you can do.
- The best price is the lowest you can possibly do. Free is a great incentive.
- Use one media to build sell your other. Rappers make the least money off their actual music.
- Before you start something do a little bet. Don’t start a novel if the premise isn’t even an interesting dinner conversation.
- You can only be innovative on so many things. Don’t try 5 different crazy things, too weird.
- Get lots of feedback.
- The industry isn’t looking to build you up. It wants you already polished.
- The things you’re most scared of doing is probably the thing you need to do for marketing.
- Go for the purple cow effect. In a giant pasture of cows, the purple one will stand out.
- Be the only one doing what you’re doing. Only is better than the best.
- The best way to market yourself is to make more great stuff.
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty -Great for guys to get better at dating, especially for guys that are so off. But they’ll never heed any advice. The biggest thing I took was women are either not interested, neutral, or very interested. Don’t waste your time on the first category, even if you convert it’s not worth the effort. And go to the places that have the type of women you’re interested in. The best thing to do is wield some power in that place. Such as being the head of that organization or a strong player in it. Spielberg meeting with his wife would be a great example of that. Weinstein would be a bad example of that. Also, men need to learn to be vulnerable.
- Vulnerability is attractive
- Go to the places where the type of women you want to attract are
- Become a high ranking member of that scene, or even better, start or lead the scene
- Women are either not interested, neutral, or very interested. Don’t waste time with the former, latter is the best.
- Women never stay in a neutral position long.
- Best to be your true self to filter through the wrong women quicker.
- Older you are the more status and money you’re expected to have. The less of that you have, the more attractive you need to be. Less attractive and money you have, better your behavior needs to be.
- It’s always the man’s job to take action.
- Women hate to reject men, so they’ll do it subtly to not offend.
- If you’re not interested in a woman, don’t flirt with her. Friends used to push me to do this to get me out of my shell and get experience. But you’re just leading them on and you feel bad afterward.
- Everything that is attractive is polarizing
The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help – It was okay. I really struggle with asking for help so I needed to read it but I can’t say I really enjoyed it. More of a biography than a how-to book.
- You can pretty much live off of fan support with little money.
- There’s a market for everything. Her music is definitely not for everybody.
- Her audience gave her 10x what she asked for on Kickstarter. That’s the power of an audience.
- There was a huge backlash from all the money she got off Kickstarter because she didn’t pay her musicians unless you count hugs and alcohol.
- You can constantly feel guilt from things. She felt that from her marriage to a successful writer Neil Gaiman.
- You can’t be stalked if you don’t keep yourself private.
- When you accept help, you’re often helping other people. My biggest takeaway from the book.
- Don’t focus on getting customers, focus on making friends.
- Don’t just think of crowdfunding, think about crowdsourcing.
- With strong audiences comes strong responsibility. She sicked her fans after a rude piano store owner and felt guilty about the aftermath.
The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster: Why Now Is the Time to #Join the Ride -Fun stories and lessons. This guy is the real deal and was obviously meant for this type of job.
- Work on your strength until lit becomes a weakness. Goes against every other book I’ve read but okay.
- Fire yourself
- Sales are everything
- Hire only the best of the best.
- Always track progress.
- Extremely hard. If you don’t love it, have fun with it, obsessed with it, you’re going to fail.
- If you saw Oprah, Bono’s schedule, you wouldn’t think 95% of it was that glamorous at all. Endless meetings, lawsuits, rehearsals, schedules, etc.
- Everything you do is going to suck 95% of the time.
- Use a stopwatch and time yourself when you’re actually doing work. You’ll be surprised how little serious work you actually do.
- Don’t get involved in circles you’re not strong or competent at. You’re wasting your and their time.
- If you’d rather be anywhere than doing your job on a Saturday than you’re in the wrong field or wrong mindset.
- The most successful restaurant is McDonald’s. It’s not about being the best.
- People will sell you on how much they’re not a salesperson.
- No 1. Strategy in sales. Empathy
- Bad dates talk about themselves the whole time. The bad salesperson does that very thing.
- Best skill to learn in sales. Ask better questions.
- Selling candy bars by the bar, vs boxes. Selling to individuals vs organizations.
- A-player employees pay for themselves.
- Great employees set you free from jobs you don’t want to do.
- Don’t hire on enthusiasm, hire off the evidence.
- Don’t teach people to be successful, hire successful people.
- Always be the Dumbest person in the room.
- Those who won’t delegate are narcissists.
- Email is the mailroom. Don’t work in the mailroom.
- Get enough sales so you can get others to do all the annoying shit you hate doing.
- More than 3 priorities, means no priorities.
- Warren Buffet says no to 99 out of 100 opportunities.
- Make $10K, spend that on personal development, make $20K the following year.
- Reading 32 books don’t mean shit if you don’t follow them.
- Keep doing things you fear until you fear it no longer. Then you can move on to another.
The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It -Great book, that I actually broke down on my fitness blog and made a video about it. So good I read her other book the Upside of Stress.
- Willpower is limited. Your willpower is like a life bar in a video game or battery on your phone. It’s only going to last so long. That’s why you make a worse decision as the day goes by.
- Heart rate variability. Studies show that those that have a higher heart rate variability turn down temptations better. So slow your breathing to 5-6 breaths per minute for around 10 minutes and you’ll make a better decision.
- Working out adds willpower. When you start fixing one problem the momentum helps in other areas. Plus healthier people feel better and make better decisions too. That’s why I’m so great.
- Morning meditation Mess Up. Suck at meditation? Great. The fact you notice yourself messing up and trying to constantly get back on track will stick with you throughout the day as you catch yourself constantly getting distracted.
- Seeing yourself do it. If you can see yourself doing something it makes it much easier to actually do that. See yourself or plan to do the task first, then you’ll much more likely do it.
- WANT makes WILL. If you don’t have a strong enough WANT you’ll never have the WILLpower. Losing weight to feel better is not as strong a want as making your ex jealous.
- Good person rationalization. Many people feel so good after doing one good thing that they feel they can justify their next fuck up. You donated money so you can talk down to your waiter. That’s why you see so many people in fast-food restaurants in their gym clothes. They think they earned it.
- Your identity. Think about how many things you do because you feel that’s what you’re supposed to do. Esquire and GQ market around the identity that makes men think they’re James Bond. ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’ stopped littering around the identity of gritty tough state pride. Think about how to make an identity around the things that will actually benefit you.
- Opportunity Only. Studies show many people will do things only for the opportunity but not actually do it. You’ll go to a restaurant because of the healthy options but not actually order them. Such as McDonald’s Big Mac going up in sales after they added low-calorie foods to the menu. Just like I like living in a city like Austin with so many things to do, but I just stay home. I like the idea of being able to things.
- Tomorrow I will be able to do it People think of tomorrow as in it will be a much better day to do it. They’ll be a stronger person, the day will be full of open time. That day will never come.
- Dopamine vs Seratonin. People like quick dopamine boosts. Checking email and Facebook, watching quick video after video on YouTube, it’s like high calorie, low nutrition food. When you do the things that actually make you feel good and give you serotonin such as completing a big project you wonder why you don’t do this more often. It’s because the body discounts the rewards that you have to wait for. They did an experiment with Chimps and humans. The Chimps outdid the humans on waiting for bigger rewards by a severe margin. So even if you think you’re above average at waiting for rewards, you’re only good for a human.
- Are you as Excited as an Electrocuted Rat? Rats were stimulated in the part of the brain that gives you excitement if they ran on the electric bars in their space. They ran on those bars until they couldn’t physically do it anymore. As cruel as this experiment was, it shows that excitement is more rewarding than the actual reward.
People are much more excited about a lottery win than savings through a stock index fund. It’s much more exciting to think of what could happen than what will happen.
Hard to get that excited about a slow fat loss process. Much more exciting is Papa John’s on it’s way to your door. - Hooks. That thing that has you constantly looking for a new notification. That next text, that Instagram like. These are the hooks that people who make apps and video games base their entire model.
It can work for your good as well. Apps that teach coding, foreign languages and calorie counting are trying to implement this. - Stress Terror Management. People naturally indulge to relieve stress. That’s why companies love advertising during the news. All that scaremongering makes people want to buy.
People buy nice cars or vacations to deal with bad relationships. People buy expensive TV’s and video game consoles to deal with being in debt. People eat to get over being fat. - Ask yourself while you’re fucking up. While you’re fucking up ask yourself during what leads to this and you can find your trigger behavior. Because you didn’t get sleep? Because you were starving? Because you’re overworked? Because of the people, you hang around? Because you were around the birthday cake?
- Wait 10 minutes. Much like controlling your breathing for heart rate variability, waiting 10 minutes usually sets your mind in a better decision-making mode.
- Fuck up upon sight. People can much more easily make better decisions when the temptation is not in your direct sight. So stay away!
- Burn your ships. Like the famous story of Cortes burning his ships so they couldn’t retreat, make it so that you can back out of your goal. Announce a big proclamation on Facebook or wager a bet that you’ll donate to the KKK if you don’t follow through. Unless you support the KKK, then you should donate to Black Lives Matter.
- You vs Future You. People think of the future them as a stranger. You put off things for the future and give all the work to them like an asshole. Think of them like you and you’ll be much nicer to yourself. Send out an email to yourself that won’t come until a much later date and see how different you are actually. Do I want this ice cream sandwich now vs do I want to deal with the repercussions later?
- Too farsighted is a problem. Some people don’t indulge enough and save money forever or stay away from bad food all the time and never actually enjoy life at all (me?). They actually need to make indulging a goal to do every now and then.
- Out of shape infection. There’s an infection that can affect people without knowing it and is scientifically proven. People that are out of shape make everyone around them become out of shape. And vice versa. So think of who you surround yourself with and they will begin to shape you. The closer they are to you the worse.
- Social Norms. As a follow up to the last point, most people cheat on their taxes so you shouldn’t feel bad. Well, that’s not really the case but it’s a belief and the fact it’s a popularly held belief gives many people the okay to do so. Same thing when all your friends are fat or lazy or negative.
- Shame Vs Pride. Self-shaming only makes your willpower weaker and more susceptible to giving in. Which is why shaming doesn’t work. Researchers have found that pride works the other way and more people are willing to stay strong out of the want for pride. So go ahead and be prideful. Never mind those Seven Deadly Sins.
- No White Bear. Tolstoy’s older brother asked him to stay in a corner until he couldn’t stop thinking about white bears. He came back much later to see him still in that corner. When you tell your mind to stop thinking about something, it doesn’t receive the NOT part. Only the subject. DON’T eat chocolate. Becomes EAT CHOCOLATE. Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
- Accept Thoughts. You will feel anxious, frustrated, mad, sad, tired, and will probably try to suppress the emotions. I don’t know what you’ve heard about suppression, but the general idea is that it’s NOT GOOD. Accept those feelings. You’re only human. Accepting those thoughts doesn’t mean you have to act on them. But accepting them and thinking about them makes it much easier.
- Surf the Urge. When you find yourself wanting to give in, and especially while you give in. Ask yourself what brought you to this point, what is it like. What does it feel like? Are you tense? Where? How do you feel emotionally? This will help you in the future or help you get out of a bad state. Because the best way to not fuck up, is to fuck up, and then ask yourself why.
- EGO. People who think they have the most willpower are likely to have the least.
The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It – Stress is actually a good thing. If you believe it to be so. If you don’t, it’s not. If you’re not stressing, you’re not growing. The best lives have a lot of stress. The worst lives, avoid stress.
- Stress can be either good or bad depending only on how you view it.
- Those who avoid stress are the most depressed.
- Those who seek stress have the most fulfilled lives.
- U-stress makes you a stronger person.
- Severely bad things can give you Post Traumatic Growth.
- Many things in life will make you stronger, though you still wish they never happened.
- If you’re not being stressed, you’re not growing.
- You can channel stress into energy to get excited and perform better, rather than trying to relax. Don’t tell someone to relax, tell them they do better under pressure.
- Don’t view others as competition. Not good stress. View yourself as community, goals bigger than yourself make you do things you’d never do for just yourself. Like what a mother would do for children.
- Maids lost weight by just being told cleaning loses weight. Maids not told that lost no weight.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard – You can only control a habit so much. You need to try hacking the system.
- Make a tiny goal and let it take over. Clean a room for 2 minutes, you’ll probably not stop there and go on a cleaning rampage. Trick your brain by focusing on just a small task.
- Rider on an elephant is you and your willpower. You can steer and tell it what to do, but when it gets hungry, tired, scared, or angry… you’re just along for the ride.
- The elephant is the one that does things, good or bad. The rider is the one who thinks it out, often over-analyzing and doing nothing.
- Start with the vision of what you want, then it’s 10 times more possible.
- Laziness is often just exhaustion.
- Resistance is often lack of specificity. If you don’t know exactly what you need to be doing, you’ll go around in circles.
- People’s problems are often just situation problems.
- Big changes happen more often because something speaks to both the elephant and the rider.
- The rider can make great plans to make the elephant do what’s necessary. Such as my brother learned by just leaving his guitar out in his room instead of storing it in the closet. Even though he comes home tired from work he never misses a night of practice now. Now he plays every day and had grown tremendously.
- Giant goals may be exciting but are often overwhelming and cause many to give up.
- Never forget to reward yourself along the way. Change is not one big thing but many, so you’re actually making lots of victories along the way and not realizing it.
- Elephants hate to fail, but all change will involve lots and lots and lots of failure. How to get past this? Expect lots and lots of failure and let the elephant know this.
- Using your brain all day to stay away from food, or cigarettes, or porn exhausts your brain which makes it easy to give up and do something bad in another area.
- Big problems often need small solutions. The risk for diabetes, obesity, joints hurt, high blood pressure… cut down on processed food. Want to be a comedian but scared to go on stage, go to a tiny open mic and expect to bomb. Want to be a writer, write one bad page a day.
- Bad is stronger than good. Of 24 emotions, only 6 are positive. People will often remember bad things about people over the good.
- Too many decision cause decision paralysis.
- Use SMART goals- Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Timely.
- Direct the Rider(make a clear goal). Follow the bright spots (Focus on what’s working well, not all the flaws). Script critical moves(choose the few key 80/20 moves that make the difference). Point to the destination( a visual, often literal visual, of the goal). Motivate the elephant. Find the feeling. Shrink the change. Build Habits. Rally the herd. Grow your people. Shape the path. Tweak the environment
- Big buckets of popcorn mean people eat more popcorn. Even though it was bad. All environment. Shrinking popcorn buckets easier than telling people how bad popcorn is for you.
- Have a checklist.
- What’s working and how can you do more of it.
- Most people think they have more willpower, leadership skills, and charisma than they actually have. HS students only 2% thought they had below-average leadership skills.
- The best motivation is to make the people think they’re almost done with a large project rather than starting a short one.
- Elephants are easily demoralized. Give them progress reports.
- Most changes are changes in identity and many aren’t ready for that.
- Have a growth mindset. Things are hard before easy. Praise effort, not skill. Be a coach, not a scorekeeper.
Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly – Really liked this one. Showed that there’s something deeper and more complex than the rational mind can understand.
- Your results are not a direct correlation between what you want.
- The wealthiest people are not the most materialistic, those are the people who do get rich quick schemes.
- Happiness and money are not something you pursue directly, but an indirect effect of pursuing goals.
- We often create rational backstories to explain successful decisions.
- Many things are discovered completely accidentally. Penicillin, Alcohol, Columbus with America, Theory of Relativity, Computers (code-breaking in wars).
- Complex plans can’t have direct plans, you must learn as you go
- You can’t apply one model to another and expect it to work.
- Explorers didn’t find the best routes. Gold Seekers did. They didn’t find gold though.
- Have an end goal but be flexible on how to get there.
- Roosevelt once said, “Try something. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another”.
The Ultimate Sales Machine– A great in-depth system I need to go through a few more times to get everything out of it.
- Regularly train Sales Staff
- Don’t just sell items, sell your entire story. Your brand or essence should what you focus on selling, then people will buy everything you do.
- Education-based marketing is the best. You establish yourself as an expert and show them why they need you.
- 80/20 your sales by pitching to the people who make the big decisions. Instead of networking with 100 people, meet the guy that will make a huge purchase.
- Bruce Lee, he said mastering karate is not about practicing 4,000 things, but about practicing 12 things 4,000 times.
- Police these six simple steps throughout your entire staff:
#1: Touch it once
If you touch it, take action. Don’t open that email or letter until you’re ready to deal with it.
#2: Make lists
List the 6 most important things you need to do, and get those things completed each day.
#3: Plan how much time you will allocate to each task
If one or more of the items on your list is too big to accomplish in one day, then write down how much time during that day you will dedicate to it.
What important initiatives are you just not getting to because they take too much time? Do them in small chunks of time.
#4: Plan the day
Write out an hour-by-hour schedule, and stick to it.
#5: Prioritize
Put the most important task first
Get your people productive by examining how they’re prioritizing and planning their day, every day.
#6: Ask “Will it hurt me to throw this away?”
80% of all filed or stored information is never referred to again. So why hold on to it? - As long as you’re willing to pay, even just on performance, you might be shocked to find there’s someone perfect who will build your company for you as long as you share the wealth as they do so.
- When something interferes with your schedule, deal with it and then go back to your schedule!
Literature
Pigeons from Hell– As dumb as the name sounds, it’s actually one of the scariest stories I’ve ever read. And it takes place in the south, so that’s unique and hits home more.
H.P. Lovecraft– I believe I’ve read everything he’s written so far. My favorite is Whisperer in the Darkness, though there’s a small scene in Shadow over Innsmouth that really gripped me. A lot of it much more sci-fi than horror. But it does get scary at times. Way ahead of his time with the creature designs. 2 most well known 1) Call of Cthulu 2) At the Mountains of Madness aren’t scary but have a lot of lore to them.
Conan the Barbarian– I’ve read all the stories, and they’re great, but my favorite was the Red Citadel. The precursor to the God of War type of brutal antihero character.
The Overcoat– Great story but I didn’t take home what everyone else did. Very depressing but what would you expect knowing the author.
A View from the Bridge– I listened to the audio version with Al Bundy as the lead. Really great. I don’t like to read plays, I want to watch them… a good version. Those college plays ruined so many great plays.
Vampire Hunter D – Multiple Volumes. I’ll do a review of all of them later. Watch the 2 anime movies (this version of the original has the best dub, fuck that remastered version), if you don’t like them then don’t bother with the novels. If you loved them as I do, read the novels for even more world-building.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes– I chose these stories based on how much I loved the narrator from Around the World in 80 Days. And he did not disappoint. So many great Sherlock stories, Speckled Band may be my favorite.
The Willows – Lovecraft loves this author, but I couldn’t get into him. Best name for a horror writer ever though. I owe it to myself to read him rather than use an audio format, something may have been lost through narration. And there was one scary part toward the end.
The Damned– See the Willows.