📚 "Read to Lead" by Ryan Holiday, 3 Book Summaries, and more.

👋 Hey everyone,

Here are a few popular book summaries you may have missed:

• “Good Energy” by Dr. Casey Means

• “Never Enough” by Andrew Wilkinson

• “Thoughts & Feelings” by Matthew McKay PhD

📚 Book Summary:

Instead of a book summary this week, I’m sharing a few lessons from Ryan Holiday’s “Read to Lead” course.

Ryan Holiday has written 10+ bestselling books and read over 3,000+ books.

Here are 3 key lessons that will help you read more books and become a more productive reader:

📖

1) Start Your Reading Habit by Reading 1 Page Per Day

Every habit starts small, the same is true for a reading habit.

If you’re just starting your reading journey, try reading 1 page per day.

Imagine if every morning, instead of picking up your phone and scrolling social media or checking email, you started your day by reading one page of a book.

Wouldn’t it be better to absorb the wisdom of a great mind than the noise of a stranger?

One book that’s filled with wisdom and can be read one page at a time is “A Calendar of Wisdom” by Leo Tolstoy.

Tolstoy spent 17 years collecting the best pieces of wisdom from ancient texts, classic books, religious scriptures, and several other schools of thought. He considered this book to be his most important contribution to humanity.

It was so insightful that the Communists banned it.

There are several books that can be read one page at a time including:

• The Daily Dad

• The Daily Laws

• The Daily Stoic

• A Poem for Every Day of the Year

But any book can do. So grab a book and go read just one page right today.

📖

2) Replace Screen Time with Book Time

Everyone says that they don’t have time to read, but that’s simply not true.

The average American adult spends about 3 hours a day on their phones. That means each week, you spend almost an entire day looking at a smartphone. That’s 45 days of phone use a year.

Think about how much time that is.

And it’s not just the small screen in our pocket that demands our attention. The big screen also steals many hours from us–the average person will spend almost three and a half hours watching TV.

Yet, how often do you think to yourself, “I would love to read more, I just can’t find the time”? The truth is, you can quite easily find the time, you’re just choosing not to accept the fact that it requires a tradeoff. You have to take time from somewhere else and put it into your books.

Imagine how much better your life would be if you replaced even 1 hour of screen time with 1 hour of reading.

Set a goal today to replace time spent watching the news, streaming movies, or scrolling through social media with reading a book.

• When you sit down with your coffee and some breakfast, don’t watch the news. Read a book.

• When you feel the urge to reach for the phone, don’t open Twitter. Open the Kindle app.

• When you’re commuting to the office, or you’re at the gym, or you’re on a run, don’t listen to music. Listen to an audiobook.

• When you’re eating lunch, don’t catch up on your social media feeds. Read.

• When you get home from work or when you have spare time on a weekend, don’t binge-watch Game of Thrones, binge-read it.

With a few simple adjustments, you can easily go from reading 0 hours a week to 7+ hours a week.

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3) Reread A Book You Love

Most people think that since reading is such a good thing, reading more books is obviously better.

But that’s not true.

It’s much better to spend time rereading an amazing book than three new books that are all mediocre.

Imagine if you found an amazing restaurant with delicious food but decided to never go back there after only eating there once. That would be just silly.

The same goes for amazing books.

You don't want to read a fantastic book once and never return to it.

You want to revisit it, review past lessons, and possibly discover new lessons that second time around.

For example:

• Founding father John Adams read Cicero’s “De Senectute” “for seventy years, to the point of nearly knowing it by heart.”

• Napoleon Bonaparte read Goethe's “The Sorrows of Young Werther” at least six times while on campaign in Egypt.

• Warren Buffett read Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor” countless times throughout his life.

We change over time and a book’s meaning changes with us.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

The same is true for the books we reread.

No man ever steps into the same book twice, for it's not the same book and he's not the same man.

✅ Actionable Advice:

If you want to dive deeper into Ryan’s reading tips and learn how to:

• Find time to read

• Digest books above your level

• Get the most out of your reading

• Take book notes like a pro from Ryan

• Find books with the potential to change your life

And more…

Check out Ryan’s reading course here and use code “ALEX” to save 10%!

💎 Weekly Gem:

Podcast: Jonny Kim. Navy SEAL, Doctor, Astronaut. The Unimaginable Path

Why am I recommending a nearly 5-hour podcast?

Because Jonny Kim is the most impressive person you’ve never heard of.

Here’s his life resume:

• Victim of domestic violence

• Watched his dad get shot by police

• Became a Navy SEAL and served under Jocko Willink

• Participated in 100+ combat mission

• Worked as a janitor to support himself while in college

• Got a college degree in mathematics in 2012

• Graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2016

• Became an astronaut for NASA in 2020

• Will be going into space in March 2025

So yes, this podcast is worth watching.

Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.