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- This Book Will Convince You to Go ALL-IN on Your Dreams
This Book Will Convince You to Go ALL-IN on Your Dreams
Matt Karamazov
November 15, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 19 minutes
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I was speaking at a book conference last weekend and shared a stage with Steven Pressfield (who just happens to be one of my favorite authors of all time), and it really brought home to me the power of going ALL-IN on your dreams.
I actually got a chance to tell him this story in person as I walked him to the elevator (as a way to be respectful of his time). Briefly, I told him about the period of my life, years ago, when I was working a minimum-wage overnight security job that allowed me to have between 6-10+ hours each night just to read books.
For years and years before anyone ever heard of me, I’d quietly show up to work each night with a tray of coffees (all for myself haha) and a stack of books, and just read.
Over the course of the ~10 years I held that job, I ripped through every single book I could find, buy, borrow, download…whatever. I inhaled it all.
Everything from Plato and Marcus Aurelius, to Nietzsche and Tolstoy. Ursula K. Le Guin, Hemingway, Camus, Henry James, John Milton, Goethe, Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, Don DeLillo, Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins…just on and on.
I read classics, I read science fiction, I read philosophy, and I read business and leadership. Poetry, literary fiction, self-help and psychology. And of course…Steven Pressfield.
My story wasn’t this long when I told him this in person, I cut some things out, but thanks for sticking with me! The bottom line, though, was that I always KNEW that books would be my “thing.” I KNEW I could make a living at it. And not just scrape by, but really live.
I thought I could achieve my dream in just a few years, but it turns out I was wrong.
I didn’t make it. Through setback after setback - challenge after obstacle after barrier - I never quit though. I never stopped trying to make books my business.
Fast forward to today, and my little “book business” just crossed $5K per month, and any month now could be my first $10K month. I grew my audience to more than 170,000 followers across platforms, and I spoke at the same event, on the same stage, as Steven Pressfield(!!), who was one of the authors who inspired me all those years ago.
Although of course I absolutely recommend checking out all of his books, specifically The War of Art, Turning Pro, and The Artist’s Journey, tonight I want to recommend a different book, called Burn the Boats, by Matt Higgins.
Because you see, the only thing that having a Plan B does for you is distract you from Plan A. The title “Burn the Boats” comes from the age-old practice of all the great conquerors of literally setting fire to the ships they arrived on and forcing complete focus on winning no matter what.
Your Plan B should be to succeed at Plan A, and this is the playbook.
You’ll find my full summary of Burn the Boats as well as all of my notes and takeaways below, but I also want to show you the thirteen books I either bought or was given while I was in Boston!
I also haven’t published any YouTube videos since leaving for Boston (partly because I was stuck at Logan airport for 20+ hours on my journey home), but here’s my latest, where I share all the top takeaways from a book that will show you, step-by-step, how to build a $10,000,000 business.
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
Lately, I’ve been using a book app called BookGenius to help me remember more of what I read. Quizzes and podcast summaries help you retain knowledge effortlessly, and I even host my own book club on the app. Check it out for yourself here, and if you sign up through my link you can get 56% OFF the annual plan! (Sponsored)
“One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.”
“Wheelchairs don’t fit in the trunks of Lamborghinis.”
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 Millionaire Fastlane, by MJ DeMarco, a great business book about building a profitable business around the C-E-N-T-S Framework, and a book that helped me leave a dead-end job in my twenties and never look back.
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 1,429 books, including 77 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
“To accomplish something great, you have to give yourself no escape route, no chance to ever turn back. You throw away your backup plans and you push forward, no longer bogged down by the infinite ways in which we hedge our own successes.”
Matt Higgins was a high-school dropout caring for his sick mother in Queens, New York, before burning his own boats and eventually (and I do mean eventually) becoming an investor on Shark Tank, a lecturer at Harvard Business School, and a serial entrepreneur with a billion-dollar portfolio of some of today’s most iconic brands.
He lives an all-in life, and he holds nothing back here. Not his expert advice, not the harsh truths that we all need to hear, not the painful episodes from his own life. Nothing. It’s all here. And for that reason, Burn the Boats doesn’t read like other “success” books out there. There’s something special about this one.
His philosophy is my own, in fact. as I’ve ruthlessly eliminated any and every thought of failure or giving up from my own thoughts and I literally - literally - never even entertain the idea that my largest visions won’t someday become a reality.
It…does…not…even enter my mind.
It’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll be successful - that I’ll get everything I want in this life - and I highly recommend adopting a similar philosophy yourself.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t change directions when the evidence indicates that I should. It doesn’t mean I don’t take advice and seek mentors, differing opinions. Someone like me doesn’t read 1,400+ books because they think they know everything.
I change my methods and adapt to the situation, but I do not give up. I’m all in.
Burn the Boats is such a fantastic book, and I really do hope that you’ll read it. But more importantly, I hope that you launch that business; try out for that sports team; ask out that girl (or guy).
Laser in on the highest vision you can possibly imagine for your one and only life, lock in, gather a team of mentors, shut down the haters, and move fucking forward no matter what. And that boat in the back of your mind? Burn it.
“You don’t win when you give yourself the option to lose.”
“Yet the act of building a safety net is precisely what forces you to need one. If you’re someone who’s worried you won’t succeed, you’ve already failed.”
“I’ve seen hesitation kill more dreams than speed ever will.”
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
“Too often, we let our self-talk tear us down before the world even gets a shot in.”
“The mere act of contemplating a Plan B sets in motion a feedback loop that dramatically lessens the probability that Plan A will come to fruition. You spend too much of your emotional energy on contingency planning instead of on success.”
“Some people tell me they can’t go all in because they have to feed themselves. But they’re missing the point. Use your common sense to mitigate risk. Have a second job. Have a third job. Going all in is different from having no downside protection.
You can have money in the bank. I did when I left the Jets, absolutely. I wasn’t going to end up on the street. You don’t need to torch your relationships, sabotage your reputation, and make it impossible to ever get a job again.
You don’t need to put a second mortgage on your house, risk your child’s college fund, and live in your car. But you do have to commit. When you create backup plans, and then more plans to back up your backups, your hedge becomes your crutch.”
“What can you do today that you couldn’t do yesterday that moves you closer to what you want to do tomorrow?
If you’ve still got a pulse, then there’s always something you should want to do tomorrow. And every new thing you achieve in life puts you in a better position to secure whatever that next milestone is.
An exciting and freeing thought experiment: If you ignored the limits, and assumed you could do anything, what it is that you would do with your life?”
“Picture your highest ambition - and then take the first step. Make the call, build the website, prototype the product, write the book, give the talk, apply for the job, ask the crush on the date, whatever it is - marshal your strength, your courage, and everything in your past that has led you to this point, and start moving.”
“The key to success at the highest levels and the largest scale is to find people who are better than you at everything one could possibly need to do, and submit to what makes them incredible. It’s inspiring to be humbled every day.
It’s easy to get bored with yourself, and far more interesting to bask in the glory of others, to sit in the reflection of the awesome people around you.
This has been the single best pivot in my life, to realize that it didn’t all have to be on my shoulders, and I could instead devote myself to elevating others and then harnessing their gifts for our mutual benefit.”
“I spend no time at all lamenting my situation, and you shouldn’t either, no matter what that situation is. You are never destined to be a victim. You will always have the last word until your last breath.”
“Burning the boats is a recipe to leave no dream unfulfilled, no ambition denied. We all need to give ourselves a chance to realize the ceiling of our talents, to find the limits that we’ll never quite reach, to know ourselves and to appreciate our power to make things happen. There is simply no other higher use of my life than to help others on those journeys.”
“There are a vanishingly small number of people who truly subscribe to the idea that incremental effort, however slight, can make a disproportionate difference - but it’s absolutely true.”
“If you take anything away from the lessons here, I hope it’s my abiding belief in your infinite capacity to just figure it out. Trust me, when your back is against the wall, and there’s seemingly no way out, you will find a way. Instead of burning those boats, you might just have to sink them instead.”
“My mother, Linda, died with $100 in her bank account, but I inherited the most valuable gift a parent can give a child: limitless faith in my ability to figure anything out.”
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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 170,000+ 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 two 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.
Join Creator Launch Academy, my private business mastermind for educational content creators who want to stand out in their niche, build multiple revenue streams, and go full-time with their creative passions.
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