📚 Welcome back to The Reading Life!
Before we get into tonight’s book, I just want to stop what I'm doing and thank everyone for the support on my latest YouTube video.
It's called How I Get Paid to Read Books All Day (And How You Can Too), and as you can see below, it's getting a TON of views right now, with no sign of slowing down!
You see, I take great satisfaction in being one of the "good guys" of the internet, and so I never sell unattainable dreams or quick and permanent fixes in my videos.
With me, you get the straight truth about what it takes to succeed, what real success even looks like, how to get there faster, but also how to enjoy yourself along the way.
This video's no different.
It took me years to get to the point where I never have to leave my house for any reason unless I choose to do so (like going to the library haha), and make great money talking about books on the internet.
But I did it. It's possible. And this video shows how you can (realistically) do it too.
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
“The only way to change your expressions of life is to change your consciousness. For consciousness is the reality that eternally solidifies itself in the things round about you. Man’s world in its every detail is his consciousness out-pictured.
You can no more change your environment, or world, by destroying things than you can your reflection by destroying the mirror. Your environment, and all within it, reflects that which you are in consciousness.
As long as you continue to be that in consciousness, so long will you continue to out-picture it in your world. Knowing this, begin to revalue yourself. Man has placed too little value upon himself.”
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
Inside my private business mastermind, Creator Launch Academy, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and implementing its lessons inside our businesses.
This month’s book is The Compound Effect, by Darren Hardy, a great book about the power of compounding and how seemingly insignificant actions can lead to massively positive results over time.
Click here to claim your free trial, and join our business book club for educational content creators!
After achieving my (somewhat meaningless) goal of reading 1,000 books before I turned 30, I set a new (also meaningless but cool) goal of reading 10,000 books. As of today, I’ve read exactly 1,464 books, including 10 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
"On my sixty-eighth birthday, I decided to give my young adult children some advice.
I am not a frequent advice giver but soon I was able to write down 68 bits. To my surprise, I had more to say than I thought.
So for the next several years I wrote down a batch of advice on my birthday, and shared it with my family and friends. They wanted more.
I kept going until I had about 450 bits of advice I wished I'd known when I was younger. I am primarily channeling the wisdom of the ages. I am offering advice I have heard from others, or timeless knowledge repeated from the past, or a modern aphorism that matched my own experience.
I doubted any of it is truly original, although I have tried to put everything in my own words. I think of these bits as seeds because each one of them could easily be expanded into a long essay.
Indeed, I have spent most of my time writing by compressing these substantial lessons into as compact and tweetable forms as possible. You are encouraged to expand these seeds as you read to fill your own situation.
If you find these proverbs align with your experience, share them with someone younger than yourself."
Just because you're old doesn't mean that you automatically have much valuable wisdom to share. Some people haven't really lived 10,000 days, they've just lived the same day 10,000 times. Kevin Kelly, however, is an exception, and it turns out that the brilliant and insightful tech innovator gives excellent life advice.
For anyone hearing about Kelly for the first time, he is the co-founder of Wired magazine and a highly-praised futurist and author whose optimistic outlook on the next chapter of human history has inspired a generation to think bigger and to advance confidently into the next stage of human evolution.
As Kelly says in the quote that began this summary, the life advice presented in this book was originally intended for his young adult children to help them navigate the hazardous future we all find ourselves hurtling towards.
But the very act of writing them down caused him to realize that he had much more to offer than he thought he did when he began, which resulted in him eventually compiling this wonderful collection of 450 wise, practical, and incredibly valuable aphorisms.
The range of subjects they cover is as wide and deep as life itself, and so you'll find here advice about setting ambitious goals, cultivating peace of mind and equanimity, dealing with loss, organizing your life around adventure and spontaneity, dispelling anger and sadness, minimizing regret, and so much more.
Now, in a book with hundreds and hundreds of wise, practical aphorisms, my choices about which ones to expand on and which ones to ignore likely say more about me than they do about whether they're the "best" aphorisms or the "most useful" ones.
As you read the book and filter this life advice through your particular worldview, situation, and understanding, you're probably going to disagree with at least a few of them, or find them irrelevant or silly, etc. But which ones those are will change depending on who you are. That's part of what makes books so magical!
That being said, if it's true that your quality of life is roughly equal to the quality of the 20-30 people who give you the best advice, then you'd be wise to include Kevin Kelly in that group.
“Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist, you don't have to ignore the multitude of problems we create; you just have to imagine how much our ability to solve problems improves."
“The more you are interested in others the more interesting they'll find you. To be interesting, be interested."
“You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”
“When you give away 10% of your income, you lose 10% of your purchasing power, which is minor compared to the 110% increase in happiness you will gain."
“When you are young, spend at least 6 months to 1 year living as cheaply as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent. That way, any time you have to risk something in the future, you won't be afraid of the 'worst-case' scenario."
“Shorten your to-do list by asking yourself 'What is the worst that will happen if this does not get done?' Eliminate all but the disasters."
“Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get.”
“You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.”
“When you get invited to do something in the future, ask yourself: Would I do this tomorrow? Not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter."
“When a child asks an endless string of 'Why?' questions, the smartest reply is 'I don't know, what do you think?'"
“When someone tells you something is wrong, they're usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're usually wrong."
“To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed."
“When you feel like quitting, just do five more: 5 more minutes, 5 more pages, 5 more steps. Then repeat. Sometimes, you can break through and keep going, but even if you can't, you ended five ahead. Tell yourself that you will quit tomorrow, but not today."
“If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?"
“Your goal is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself."
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
There’s also my YouTube channel, where I publish book reviews, reading updates, and more each week.
And if you want to learn how I’ve built an audience of 180,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2025, join us inside Creator Launch Academy and that’s exactly what I’ll teach you — we’d love to have you in the community!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your day!
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you:
Creators: Book a 1-1 strategy call with me and I’ll show you how to reach $5K/month in revenue by following a custom plan that we’ll build together.
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