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📚 Welcome back to The Reading Life!
The main book recommendation I have for you tonight is The Great Rat Race Escape, by MJ DeMarco, a great book about (realistically) going from wage-slavery to wealth in 5-10 years by starting and growing an extremely profitable business.
It’s also the Book of the Month inside Wealth Creators, my private book club where we take one nonfiction book per month and relentlessly apply its key lessons and principles to our lives and work.
You can absolutely become extremely successful without joining a group like this, to be clear. I’m improving and upgrading the community all the time, and I care a lot about the success of my members, but you can totally succeed on your own.
It’s just faster and more fun to get there with friends.
So join here if that sounds like something you might be interested in.
My latest YouTube video also just went live: I Read 12 GREAT Books Last Month (Including My 1,500th Book)
And I’ve also heard about a few cool new books coming out soon too:
This one looks good (though I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t say for sure).
Vanessa Van Edwards has a new book coming out that I’m really looking forward to, and same with Codie Sanchez.
Now, before our coffees get cold, let’s hit the books!
1. This book about memory (and how to remember everything) is surprisingly incredible. Seriously, I had no idea: Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer
2. This is one of the first personal development books I ever read, and it got me absolutely hooked on success and achievement (but, you know, in a healthy way): Earn What You’re Really Worth, by Brian Tracy
3. This is one of the best books on learning that I’ve ever read, about how to learn most of what you need to know about any skill in the first 20 hours: The First 20 Hours, by Josh Kaufman
4. This book explains why politics makes people fucking crazy, and how you can stay sane: The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt
5. The first ~400 pages of this book about the decline of human violence is absolutely sickening, but then it gets a lot more hopeful and optimistic: The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker
6. I honestly don’t know what’s more surprising here: that a guy would write a book about why happiness is overrated…or that he actually kinda has a point: Against Happiness, by Eric G. Wilson
7. Okay, so maybe happiness isn’t all bad. Here’s a phenomenal (and beautiful) book about how to be happier: Solve for Happy, by Mo Gawdat
8. Get this book to help you deal with the jerks in your life: The Civility Solution, by P.M. Forni
9. I read this book/play out loud to myself and it’s one of the most astonishing works of art I’ve ever experienced: Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
10. Ironically, Dostoevsky paid off his gambling debts with his royalties from this book: The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Every recommendation here is from my Reading List, which lists every single book I’ve read cover-to-cover since 2014, separated by year. For my complete notes and summaries of each book, click here. Happy reading!
Besides having one of my favorite book covers in recent memory, this book goes deep into the lives of 250 of America’s wealthiest people, detailing their book collections, weird hobbies, time in jail, philanthropic efforts, and more. More in-depth and wide-ranging than any mere podcast! (Buy on Amazon)
“Will you be happy with a life that you didn’t choose?”
“Because change is constant, so is opportunity!”
Inside my private business mastermind, Wealth Creators, we’re tackling one nonfiction book per month and relentlessly applying its lessons to our lives and businesses.
This month’s book is The Great Rat Race Escape, by MJ DeMarco, a great book about (realistically) going from wage-slavery to wealth in 5-10 years by starting and growing an extremely profitable business.
Click here to join our business book club for educational entrepreneurs!
John Ulsh is easily one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and his book is awesome. It’s the story of the horrible car accident that nearly claimed the lives of his entire family, his (and their) recovery process, and how he came back stronger than ever. More importantly, it’s about how YOU can come back stronger than ever too. No matter what you’ve faced in the past or what you’re facing now. (Buy on Amazon)
Alex & Books: My friend Alex writes a wonderful newsletter where he shares a new summary of an awesome book every week. Sign up to his newsletter and receive a list of 100 of his favorite books!
Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn: My friend Ravi is one of the best, most well-read, and genuinely intellectually curious book reviewers on the internet. Sign up to his newsletter for impactful lessons from his favorite books, inspiring passages, reading tips, and more.
The Spark: My friend Jay is an absolute force of nature, and easily one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. Sign up to his newsletter for timeless ideas on strategy and life.
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 1,512 books, including 58 books so far this year, and if you’re interested, here’s my full Reading List.
Everything You Need to Read Smarter and Grow Faster is Inside:
*Exclusive Access to 150+ Premium Book Breakdowns
*My Detailed Study Notes from 1,500+ Books
*Personalized Book Recommendations from Me
*Three (3) Free Downloadable Published Books
*Early Access to New Courses and Book Content
*And a Lot More (With New Content Added All the Time)
“Never live within the parameters of someone else’s opinion unless you want to live within the parameters of their existence.”
This book blasphemes against the current economic religion of the world, which tries to convince people that it’s a good idea to work and slave away at jobs they hate, just so they can maybe, hopefully be free fifty years later when – and if – their investments mature, and they can enjoy their money from the safety of the nursing home.
That sounds like a waste of a perfectly awesome life to me, and M.J. DeMarco teaches how you can avoid that fate by starting a business and taking advantage of the internet gold rush that we’re currently experiencing.
That being said, one of the things I appreciate about him so much is that he refuses to peddle easy answers and impossible guarantees. He says straight up that starting a business will be the hardest thing you ever do; growing it will be the second hardest.
Entrepreneurship is obviously not for everyone, and I would never try to tell anyone that there’s something “wrong” with working a regular 9-5 job for your entire life.
Some regular jobs are profoundly fulfilling, beneficial to society, and totally necessary for its proper functioning. However, if a 9-5 is just not for you, there’s another way.
A few of DeMarco’s ideas make his books worth reading a hundred times over:
The first is about probability, and about how we are always stacking the odds either for or against ourselves.
Starting and growing a business carries a ton of risk, of course, but you stack probability in your favor by getting started in the first place, seeking out mentors and role models, experimenting and trying to find out what works and what doesn’t, taking enough shots and trying again and again, and applying the best ideas that the best business minds that have come before us have figured out and implemented in their own businesses. We do that here inside Wealth Creators.
Doing all these things and more makes business less “risky,” and increases your chances of success.
Another idea is his C-E-N-T-S Framework, which you can use to determine if the probability gods are likely to shine upon you.
The letters stand for Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale, and if you have all these factors on your side, then your business is much more likely to take off.
If you don’t Control your business, or if there’s no barrier to Entry for your competitors, for example, then you’re in for a tough slog. More on the C-E-N-T-S Framework below.
Another spectacular idea is that of increasing your value to society by either scale or magnitude. Scale is part of the CENTS framework, and if you can get your product into the hands of more customers you’re going to do much better financially, obviously.
But if you improve the lives of people at a greater magnitude, then you’re also rewarded extremely well financially.
You can make a million people’s lives a little tiny bit better and have them each pay you a dollar (say, for example, a candy bar that people enjoy), and/or you can create a ton of value for a smaller number of people.
Think, for example, a doctor saving a person’s life. Low scale (you’re saving a single life at a time), but huge magnitude (especially for that single person)!
I honestly can’t recommend DeMarco’s books highly enough, and if you’re at all entrepreneurially-minded, then they are absolute must-reads.
Everything You Need to Read Smarter and Grow Faster is Inside:
*Exclusive Access to 150+ Premium Book Breakdowns
*My Detailed Study Notes from 1,500+ Books
*Personalized Book Recommendations from Me
*Three (3) Free Downloadable Published Books
*Early Access to New Courses and Book Content
*And a Lot More (With New Content Added All the Time)
“If the crowd knew any better, they wouldn’t be two paychecks from broke and wasting their life in front of a television.”
“Our culture thrives on mediocrity and obedience. It is the world’s business model.”
“It’s no mistake that you are schooled Monday through Friday for eighteen years just so you can work Monday through Friday for the next fifty.”
“Whenever the rat race marginalizes time and treats it as a mathematical variable for financial freedom, you’re being propagandized.”
“Ten years is a lot of time for radical accomplishment.”
“Entrepreneurs solve big problems and offer their solutions for profit.”
“Anything that can be improved is a business opportunity.”
The C-E-N-T-S Framework:
Control – You have full control over your business and you aren’t in danger of losing everything because someone else made a decision that you can’t control.
Entry – It’s too difficult for someone else to enter the market with a similar product or service and compete with you.
Need – Your product or service is something that fulfills a genuine need that exists in the marketplace.
Time – Your profit is divorced from your time, so that you don’t physically have to be there when your product or service is sold or generates money.
Scale – Your product or service has no marginal cost of reproduction, meaning that it’s easy and cheap to make more of what you’re selling without you having to put time and money into inventory or creation.
“Your idea sucks until execution says it doesn’t.”
“A mediocre idea with great execution could be worth tens of millions.”
“The world’s insatiable appetites for wants, needs, and desires are yours for the filling.”
“The correct course of action is the shortest path to your first customer.”
“Winning formulas aren’t a secret. They’re advertised in broad daylight for all to see. Look at the best, observe, reverse engineer, and model.”
“Whatever you’re doing, approach it with these three things in mind: 1) effort, 2) pride, and 3) optimism. Do it as if it were your own.
I don’t care if you’re driving for Lyft, waiting tables, or shoveling horse manure; give it the best you have, do it well, and know you’re grinding coal to make a diamond.
What you do does not make you, but how you do it. If you’re a great dishwasher now, I’ll bet you’ll be a great surgeon later.”
“Many people caught in today’s modern economic religion are faced with the same reality. They’re empty souls on a treadmill of time, aging in indifference, consuming in hope, saving in anticipation, and dying in regret: no hope, no future, and no chance of anything changing but years on a calendar.
The thread that binds them all is a dead dream. Dead dreams are why everyone is miserable and counting down the seconds to the weekend. Dead dreams are how people stay miserably stuck in the same dismal pattern: work, pay bills, consume, and then repeat.
In fact, addiction has been weaponized to medicate misery, from the smartphone glued to our faces to the junk food spiked with sugar to the dopamine manipulating video games packed with reinforcement heuristics to the TV programs and sporting events that fill our empty lives with meaning. Unhappiness – dead dreams – is the business model of the modern world.”
Everything You Need to Read Smarter and Grow Faster is Inside:
*Exclusive Access to 150+ Premium Book Breakdowns
*My Detailed Study Notes from 1,500+ Books
*Personalized Book Recommendations from Me
*Three (3) Free Downloadable Published Books
*Early Access to New Courses and Book Content
*And a Lot More (With New Content Added All the Time)
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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 200,000+ followers across social media, became a full-time creator, and how I’m rapidly growing my audience and my profits in 2026, join us inside Wealth Creators 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.
Join Wealth Creators, my private business mastermind for educational entrepreneurs who want to stand out in their niche, build multiple revenue streams, and go full-time with their creative passions.
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