📚 Life lessons from 2024, $2 Million Treasure Hunt, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular posts you may have missed:

• This might be the best writing tip I’ve ever heard.

• 6 Reading tips from bestselling author Austin Kleon.

• Psychologist Jordan Peterson on how to read more books.

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🤓  Quick Thank You

Thank you to everyone who joined The Art of Reading, we passed 600+ students!

As promised, I’m doing a free 15-minute Q&A call with everyone who bought the course (if you’re a past student, I’m happy to do a call with you as well).

Simply reply to this email and we’ll figure out a time that works for us both.

⭐️ Life Lessons:

Instead of a book summary this week, I wanted to share 3 life lessons from this year.

Hopefully at least one is valuable but if not we’ll be back to our regular book newsletter next week.

📖

1) The Harder The Task, The Greater The Treasure

If you’re trying to achieve something hard, take pleasure in the fact that the more difficult the task, the fewer people will do it, and the greater you’ll be rewarded for it.

For example, last month I signed up for a 4:34am workout with bestselling author and Navy SEAL Jocko Willink.

The event was free so technically anyone could attend.

That morning I woke up at 3am and drove over an hour to the event. It took place outside at a Walmart parking lot and the temperature was around 38°F (AKA cold).

Jocko said that 800+ people had signed up for the event but only around 150 showed up. That means roughly 82% of those who planned to attend, didn’t.

“While they’re sleeping in their warm comfy bed, we’re out here getting stronger and better,” yelled Jocko into the crowd.

We did push-ups, burpees, jumping jacks, and sit-ups on the cold, rough asphalt for an hour. It sucked in the moment, but I felt great after it was done.

After the workout, people lined up to meet with Jocko (here’s a cool shoutout he did for me).

So whenever you’re doing something difficult, take pleasure in the fact that most people aren’t doing the work and that you’re getting ahead.

For example, The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average person working 45 hours per week earns 44% more pay.

In other words, if you work 13% more hours you’ll earn 44% more money.

I’d guess that working longer hours leads to more overtime, raises, and promotions.

So whether it’s staying longer at work, in the library, or at the gym, your hard work will pay off.

And even if it doesn’t pay off immediately, you can look back and be proud of yourself for accomplishing something difficult.

📖

2) Be Happy If Something Is Your Fault (That Means You Can Fix It)

Earlier this year I tore my ACL playing basketball.

It required surgery and the road to recovery was incredibly painful.

About a month ago, it felt like my knee wasn’t getting better and I thought something was wrong.

I thought that either my physical therapist wasn’t doing a good job or my surgeon messed up my surgery.

Instead of taking responsibility, I immediately blamed them and wondered if I should consider suing them for malpractice.

Looking back, that was a ridiculous thought since my physical therapist has 10+ years of experience and my surgeon has 20+ years of experience, and both have worked on hundreds if not thousands of ACL cases.

I asked them both for their thoughts and they asked me how many times I was working out my leg.

“Once a week,” I told them, “that’s what my insurance approved me for.”

They both said the same thing–insurance companies try to save as much money as possible so even though they only approved one physical therapy appointment a week, I should be doing the exercise at least 1-2 times at home or at the gym myself.

This was both good news and bad news.

I was glad that there was a clear path to strengthening my leg, but my ego was upset that I was the problem.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault except my own.

Ever since I learned this new information, I've been consistently doing the exercises at home or at the gym 2-3x a week and have started to make more progress with my recovery.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t happy with the way things are going, take a minute to do a hard reflection and see if it’s possible that you’re at fault.

And if you are, be happy that you have an opportunity to make things better.

📖

3) Always Make The Effort To Meet In Person

Not all forms of communication are created equally:

• It’s 10x better to call someone than to text them.

• It’s 10x better to Facetime someone than to call them.

• And 10x it’s better to meet in person than to Facetime someone.

If there’s someone you really want to connect with or learn from, it’s worth making the effort to meet them in person.

There’s a bestselling author that I admire and had a Zoom call with earlier this year. The call went well and we got to know a bit about each other.

Then a couple of months later, the author messaged me saying he was in NYC and asked if I wanted to get food with him in an hour.

I originally had plans to join my friends for dinner but I messaged them that this was a great opportunity to meet the author in person and they encouraged me to go meet the author. So, I hopped on the subway and made my way to midtown to meet with him.

We spent 2 hours chatting and at the end of the night, it felt like we became friends–which is extremely hard to do if you only talk to someone through video.

He also shared insider knowledge about the publishing industry, new marketing tactics, and his next book that he hadn’t yet publicly announced.

I can almost guarantee that he wouldn’t have shared as much information if we talked through text or on a call. Successful people tend to be extremely careful with what they say online, in emails, or on calls because they never know if someone is recording what they’re saying.

So, if you want to form a stronger connection with someone or get the real inside scoop on what’s going on in a person’s industry, make the trek to meet them in person.

It will almost always pay off.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Do more hard things. You don’t want to look back on your life and see that you never got out of your comfort zone or didn’t live up to your potential.

2) Be happy if something is your fault because that means you can fix it.

3) If there’s someone you want to form a personal or professional relationship with, make the effort to meet with them in person.

💎 Weekly Gem:

A Bitcoin millionaire wrote a book about treasure and then left clues inside it to 5 hidden treasure chests worth over $2,000,000.

The treasure chests include rare Pokémon cards, shipwrecked gold, unique gems, and even a Bitcoin.

To find the loot, you’ll need to read the book and solve the puzzles and maps inside it.

The book is appropriately titled “There’s Treasure Inside”–good luck everyone!

PS: If you didn’t get The Art of Reading, I’d love to hear from you so I can make it better or create a new product that will help you become a better reader.

Please vote in the poll below (you can add comments after voting):

Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.