📚 Welcome back to The Reading Life!
I’ve got five great books to tell you about tonight, but first I want to share two other things I’ve been thinking about recently, that have each made an incredibly positive difference to my life in the last few weeks.
Hopefully they’ll do the same for you.
You’ve probably heard of the Pareto Principle before, also known as the 80/20 Principle, which states that 80 percent of your results will come from 20 percent of your actions.
There are many varied applications of the rule, places where it shows up, etc. (wealth inequality, for instance), but it occurred to me recently that it also applies to your thoughts.
Perhaps 20 percent of the thoughts you think each day are making up 80 percent of the happiness you experience, the breakthroughs you come up with, etc.! These numbers are approximate, of course, and maybe it’s 5 percent of your thoughts leading to 95 percent of the good results in your life.
The takeaway though is to identify what those thoughts are, where you mostly are when you’re thinking them (and who you’re with), and see if you can’t consciously think that way more often. You almost certainly can.
Imagine if 51 percent of your thoughts were positive and uplifting, taking you where you want to go in life, and you made an effort to increase it by 1 percent each day! Imagine where you’d end up after a month, two months, or more!
It’s worth thinking about!
The second thing that’s made a positive difference in my life recently is making up a list of every single “open loop” I have going on right now, and working to close as many of them as I can.
This means unanswered emails, unfinished tasks, updating my website(s), organizing my documents and files…I ended up with a list of more than 100 open loops that were subtly draining my mental energy. Craziness!
Having them all listed in one place is key. Then you know exactly what you’ve left unfinished, and what’s currently dragging down your attention.
I’ve spent the last few days deleting hundreds of photos from my phone, emails from my inbox, responding to messages, and taking care of things on the backend of my business that I’ve let pile up for a long time.
The increase in energy, clarity, and mental focus I’ve been experiencing lately after doing this is unreal. 10/10 would recommend.
Now, tonight, I’m sharing my complete notes and summaries of each of the following Five Great Books:
In This Issue of The Reading Life, We’ve Also Got:
📖 What I’m Currently Reading
📕 Books I’ve Finished This Month
📜 The Book Quote of the Day
🎥 You’ll NEVER Change Your Life - Until You Do This
✍ My Latest Medium Articles
✅ New Book Releases Coming Soon
📚 Tonight’s Five Main Book Recommendations
🏅 Earn Rewards for Referring This Newsletter
Let’s not wait for our coffees to get cold…let’s hit the books!
The Arabian Nights, translated by Richard Burton: Thousands of years later, The Arabian Nights still has a hold on our collective imaginations. Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin, and so many other stories you’d likely recognize in here. It’s just a spectacular read, and the Richard Burton translation is one of the best!
The Library, by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen: My main takeaway from this book so far? Books can be burned, libraries can be destroyed, knowledge can be lost, and wisdom can be forgotten......but reading ALWAYS comes back!
The Library is a history of, well…libraries…and it’s fantastic so far. It traces their history from the earliest collections of printed material, up through the first, most rudimentary book collections, right up through the present day. Highly recommend!
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 1,467 books, including 13 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“You can’t be looking for the good and be negative or unhappy at the same time. Your subconscious mind can only hold one thought at a time, either positive or negative. If you deliberately choose to hold positive thoughts and dwell upon them, the negative thoughts simply can’t get in.”
You’ll NEVER Change Your Life - Until You Do This: Once you understand how the Compound Effect works, your life will never be the same.
But you have to do more than just understand it. You also have to let it work long enough for it to actually work its magic. And yes, it really is one of the closest things to magic that exists in this world. [Watch Time: 3:42]
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How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: This lost self-help book from 1908 holds the key to owning every hour of your day.
Michael Jordan’s Personal Trainer Wrote This Book to Help You Become RELENTLESS: Read it if you want to leave “average” behind forever.
The 12 Best Business Books I Read in 2025: Including how I’m applying each one to scale my business faster than ever.
Beyond Belief, by Nir Eyal: I’ve read two of Nir’s books so far, and so I’m eagerly awaiting this one, which is about science-backed ways to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results. Naturally, I’ve read plenty of books on the subject already, but I know that I’m going to come away with tons more here that I can use immediately. Expected: March 10th, 2026
How to Try Again, by Steve Kamb: This a guide to help readers transform their lives by giving up more often, failing faster, and mastering the art of starting over. I read Steve’s first book, Level Up Your Life (about how to turn your life into a video game) years ago and loved it. So I’m excited for this one too! Expected: June 16th, 2026
Inside the Box, by David Epstein: This is David’s follow-up to his previous book, Range (which I really liked), and it’s about how Limits are the key to stimulating creativity, innovation, and collaboration. Essentially, adding constraints can make us better, and free us to do great work. Expected: May 5th, 2026
Protocols, by Dr. Andrew Huberman: Still a long way to go before this one comes out, but it’ll be an essential guide to improving brain function, enhancing mood and energy, optimizing your health in all kinds of ways, and rewiring your nervous system for high performance and a better life. Expected: September 15th, 2026
“Your ability to concentrate is only as strong as your commitment to train it.”
Professor Cal Newport introduced an entirely new term into the global conversation with this book, Deep Work, by which he refers to the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. As opposed to “shallow work,” which would include things like responding to emails, formatting social media posts, etc.
The former produces a body of work that will launch your career to new heights, and the latter produces…nothing. At least nothing of substance.
Deep work is a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information (which is basically the price of entry today, professionally), and produce better results in less time.
It sets you apart from virtually everyone else you’re competing against, and who are gradually losing their ability to concentrate for longer than a cat video.
Given enough time, it’ll put you so far ahead professionally that it will be impossible ever to catch up with you.
Ideally, you’d want to spend as much time per day engaged in deep work as possible, though the upper limit thought to be achievable for most people is around four hours per day. And even then it’s something that you’ll likely have to work up to. But it’s worth it.
Not only will optimizing your routine to enable deep work allow you to achieve more, and up to a higher standard, it can also be quite pleasurable, as pushing to your cognitive limit (but not beyond it) acts as a flow trigger.
What deep work looks like in practice is having all of your smartphone notifications turned off, putting a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door to your office or workspace, closing every tab that doesn’t contain the masterpiece you’re working on right now - and only that one masterpiece - and dedicating as much time as possible to the accomplishment of the highest-quality work of which you’re capable.
The ability to do this is rare, of course, and because it’s so rare, it’s also exceptionally valuable. When no one else can do what you do, you get paid more than anyone else does.
Newport also presents a rigorous training program in the book that will help you build up your “deep work” muscles, a training program that most people just won’t have the stamina or the desire to complete.
By definition, deep work is difficult. Most people simply aren’t able to do it - at least not for any significant length of time.
But if you can, it will work to your extreme competitive advantage, allowing you to dominate, demolish, and destroy your competition: those brainrot victims who can’t manage to tear themselves away from their phones long enough to look up and realize that you’ve lapped them.
“Once you decide the type of person you want to be, you can start acting like that person immediately.”
This book from entrepreneur and investor Anthony Pompliano includes 65 letters to his children, wherein he offers his best advice on how to succeed in business, invest in the stock market, invest in quality relationships, prepare for the future, cultivate resilience and fortitude, and basically just grow into a respectable, healthy, and happy human being. He covers a lot of ground, and his wisdom is world-class.
Pompliano is definitely a list-maker, just like myself, and for the first four decades or so of his life he’s been taking note of the most transformational lessons he’s ever learned.
Which I believe is such a great thing to do, because you really cannot trust your memory. I’ve been taking notes on every single book I’ve read since 2014, jotting down every fantastic memory I could think of shortly after they happened, and recording as much as possible as I’m living, to help myself thrive in the future.
Again, you can’t simply trust your memory.
How to Live an Extraordinary Life features such fantastic advice because Pompliano’s life actually measures up to the title. He’s lived in a war zone, invested in more than 200 businesses, started (and nurtured) a loving family, and much more besides.
I got the sense too that he doesn’t view his recommendations as commandments. They’re simply what’s worked for him - helped him to find happiness and success - and now he’s simply passing it along.
He didn’t invent this stuff, and he won’t be the last to discover it, but by writing this book, and letting us into his private thoughts, all our futures will likely be brighter and more extraordinary.
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times - although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage.
For each person, there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves.”
Flow is one of those foundational psychology books, revolutionary at the time, that holds the key to understanding everything from creativity, productivity, happiness, meaning, and purpose. Flow states are associated with all of those things, and this book is about how to bring more of this genuinely satisfying state of consciousness into your life.
Csikszentmihalyi (and you will not spell his name right until approximately your 100th try) was an academic researcher, and so much of the book is fairly technical, but it’s also thoughtful, deep, extraordinarily practical, and applicable to virtually everyone on earth.
He’s not just writing for other academics; he’s more or less uncovered one of the secrets of sustained happiness and purpose, and his joy in sharing it comes across really well throughout the book. It’s not the most epic page-turner I’ve ever read, but he makes at least an in-good-faith attempt to make it entertaining and accessible.
“Flow states,” those times when we are fully and completely engaged in what we’re doing, lose track of time, and experience a near-total immersion in the moment as it unfolds, don’t just “happen.” There are preconditions that must be met, prerequisites that need to be present in order to enter a flow state. Or make entering a flow state more likely.
These include: engaging in an activity with a clear purpose, one that’s meaningful and/or interesting to you, and one that’s near the limit of your abilities, without exceeding them. Too challenging and you get frustrated (no flow), too easy and you get bored (no flow).
Retiring from all work, never struggling to achieve anything worthwhile, and letting your skills and abilities atrophy from lack of use is psychological death to human beings. Sitting on a beach for forty years with nothing to do is likely a fate worse than death.
No, you want effortful striving; a goal; something that challenges you, that calls upon the very best that’s within you. That’s where the majority of meaning can be found on this earth.
You’ll also find that what you pay attention to becomes your life.
Shaping and controlling the contents of consciousness is the key to a meaningful life, and Flow teaches you how to do just that. But again, it’s not just going to “happen.” You have to, well, consciously direct your attention and give your absolute best effort to something that lights you up. Take care of that, and flow generally ends up taking care of itself.
“Consciousness is the resurrecting power - resurrecting that which man is conscious of being. Man is ever out-picturing that which he is conscious of being. This is the truth that makes man free, for man is always self-imprisoned or self-freed.”
Reading At Your Command was my first introduction to Neville Goddard’s work, even though I had been aware of him for several years previously, and I knew that he was something of a towering figure in the field of New Thought and practical metaphysics.
What I never expected was to be so completely enamored with this book - with his writing and speaking style, his positive, optimistic, uplifting message, and the force and power of his ideas. The strength of his convictions comes across so powerfully in this book, and it made me want to read three or four more of his other books in quick succession, which I did.
Now, when I say “New Thought” and “practical metaphysics,” I want to make it clear that Neville Goddard came before a lot of the charlatans like Rhonda Byrne started scamming people with their “Law of Attraction” nonsense.
That’s not to say that people like her are wrong about everything, but I wanted to make clear the distinction between the two, because by all accounts Neville Goddard was just…a good person with a good heart.
His main “message” in his various books was that the human imagination is God (follow me on this one), and that the images held in consciousness are out-pictured into our external reality.
You can see the parallels between that and books like The Secret, but at the same time, if you go and ask virtually any Olympic gold medalist whether or not they saw their eventual victory in their mind, and replayed it over and over in their head until it became real, the vast majority of them are going to say yes, of course they did.
Neville Goddard just took it one step further when he said that, No, no, your imagination is literally God, and that whatsoever you are conscious of being - your awareness of being, as he called it - will manifest itself in external reality.
One of the main differences between Goddard and the snake oil salesman was that Neville himself was independently wealthy and used to give all his public talks for free. He never had anything to sell, nothing to push.
The only thing your new consciousness would cost you is your old one.
“Beware of the person who gives advice, telling you that a certain action on your part is ‘good for you’ while it is also good for him, while the harm to you doesn’t directly affect him.”
I’ve never read a Nassim Taleb book that didn’t fundamentally change how I view the world, and this one’s no exception.
In a sentence, it’s about why you should never trust anyone who doesn’t suffer the consequences of their own bad advice, and why a person is virtuous only insofar as they’ve taken a real risk for what they believe.
Sharing the downside risk when something goes wrong is a key component of fairness, and the strength of any system is tested by exposure to adverse events. Or, in the immortal words of Warren Buffet, when the tide goes out, you can see who’s been swimming naked.
Throughout the book, Taleb shows how accountability through risk is the only way to build trust, fairness, and long-term stability into any system.
Bankers and economists should lose something when the people who take their advice lose everything. The families of politicians should have to go to war. And academics…well, Taleb takes a dim view of academics!
Skin in the Game is also quite practical, in that it provides you with criteria you can use to determine how much you should believe people when they offer you advice. If their bad advice will never come back to haunt them, you probably shouldn’t listen to them.
It also gives you something to live up to, since you can’t call yourself ethical or virtuous if you don’t have skin in the game yourself.
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OK, that’s it for now…
I’ve got plenty more excellent book recommendations coming your way soon though!
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
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