Updated on 1/8/2021

If you have any book recommendations for me, please fill out the form at the bottom of the page!

Here’s what I am currently reading:

• Kings of Crypto

• Genius Foods

• Accelerate This

• Blockchain Wars

• Go Wild

• Behave

To Read List:

• Nudge

• Dreams from my Father

• Indistractable

• Normal People

• The Innovators

• Algorithms To Live By

• Tao: The Watercourse Way

Blog & Article Recommendations

• Mark Manson

  • Vulnerability

  • Self-Awareness

  • Attention

  • Why the Best Things in Life are All Backwards

  • 4 Stages in Life

  • How to Be More Productive By Working Less

  • Read Faster

• Peter Diamandis

• Alexey Guzey

• Paul Graham

Here are some books that I enjoyed and recommend!

Bolded books are my favorite of the group!

Happiness

• Joy on Demand - Google SWE teaches meditation principles

• The Algebra of Happiness - Work, money, love, relationships

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Health, wealth, & happiness

Psychology

• The Happiness Advantage - Gratitude and positive feedback loops

• The Power of Habit - Understand how to build and transform habits

• Never Split the Difference - FBI negotiation tactics

Leadership

• Extreme Ownership - Accept responsibility for everything in your life

• Principles: Life and Work - Radical honesty & radical transparency

• The McKinsey Mind - McKinsey’s approach to problem solving

• Start With Why - Focusing on WHY you do WHAT you do before HOW

Self Help

• Code of the Extraordinary Mind - Mindset to bend reality

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Redefine your priorities

• Unfu*k Yourself - Empowered mindset, reduce negative thoughts

• The Defining Decade - Your 20’s matter, intentional work & relationships

• Daring Greatly - Combating shame and embracing vulnerability

• Think Again - How to unlearn outdated/unhelpful mental models

Productivity

• So Good They Can’t Ignore You - Develop and capitalize on career capital

• Deep Work - Why Deep Work is rare and valuable & how to achieve it

• Digital Minimalism - Develop a healthy relationship with social media

• Limitless - How the brain works and how to maximize its utility

• Ultralearning - Learn how to break down and accelerate learning

Technology/Future

• Bold - Exponential technology/entrepreneurship

• Abundance - The world is getting better

• The Future is Faster Than You Think - Exponential technologies converging

• Stealing Fire - Flow revolution (Navy Seals, Google/Silicon Valley, etc)

• Enlightenment Now - The data proves the world is improving

• How to Change Your Mind - History and current state of psychedelics

• Superminds - Augmenting human intelligence with AI

• Life 3.0 - Phenomenal overview of Artificial Intelligence

• Swipe to Unlock - Tech industry and terminology briefer

Economic / Sociocultural Commentary

• Winner Takes All - Must redefine the economic system to adequately address societal problems

Climate Change

• How to Avoid a Climate Disaster - Climate change problem & solution overview

Biographies / Entrepreneurship

• Steve Jobs - Apple

• Elon Musk - Paypal/SpaceX/Tesla

• Can’t Hurt Me - David Goggins, Navy Seal / Ultra-marathoner

• The Hard Thing about Hard Things - VC Andreessen Horowitz

• Loonshots - DARPA & bridging innovation to market

• Brief Answers to the Big Questions - Stephen Hawking’s final book

• Educated - Tara Westover (BYU/Cambridge) overcomes an abusive Morman upbringing

• Shoe Dog - Phil Knight, founder of Nike

• Zero to One - Peter Thiel, Paypal & startups

• Smart Thing Should Build Things - Andrew Yang + Venture For America

• Will - Will Smith, global music and film superstar

Fiction

• Origin - Genius develops an algorithm that tells human history & predicts it future but disproves all religion and explores the fall out

Cancer

• When Breath Becomes Air - Stanford Neurosurgeon gets brain cancer

• The Last Lecture - CMU CS Professor gets terminal cancer & shares advice

Finance/Investing

• A Random Walk Down Wallstreet - Buy and hold ETFs

• The Intelligent Investor - Long term vision, prevent losses, steady returns

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich - Complete guide to automating finances

• The Psychology of Money - Wealth is a mindset, control spend, be humble

• The Bitcoin Standard - History of money and how BTC is the next step

• Rental Property Investing - Real estate buying process & rental mgmt

Health

• Breath - Breath through your nose, slow down your breathe

• Spark - Why & how exercise is critical to your mental and physical health

• Lifespan - Aging is a treatable disease caused by epigenetic info loss

Why Reading Is Important To Me

As a kid, I didn’t read much (at all). I found books boring compared to video games, playing sports, and literally anything else. The problem was that book subjects were never something I cared about and more or less forced onto me. I am not proud of this, but I used to dread reading for English class and Sparknotes-ed pretty much every book.

One day, junior year of high school, I admitted that most my problems were self-imposed. I concluded that my anxiety and time-shortage were attributed to my lack of self control and chronic procrastination. My stress stemmed from the fact that I spent more time complaining than I spent doing.

With this uncomfortable realization, I sought out to fix my debilitating habits and picked up a self help/psychology book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

I was ENTHRALLED by the abundance of useful ideas and practical examples condensed into a digestible format. Did I immediately fix my procrastination problem, start earning perfect grades, and fix all my problems? Absolutely not!

But I rediscovered the value of an overlooked activity, reading. I learned so much about my own psychology and the importance of habits in a single book. This book helped me recognize there is a difference between an education and school.

Books are the condensed lessons of someone with years of experience deliberately trying to share their knowledge. I now supplement what I learn in school with books to help me build my future.

I have a ton of respect for authors and the amount of work that goes into writing a book. I hope to have enough insights to write one one day, but for now, I will continue learning and enjoying reading books.