📚 Virtual + NYC Reading Parties, 366 Daily Laws, and more.

🙏 Support:

This week's newsletter was made possible by Tiago Forte’s Second Brain Summit.

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You’ll also get a free digital swag bag worth $4,799 with your summit ticket.

Grab your ticket here before the price goes up on August 21st!

👋 Hey everyone,

People have enjoyed my reading parties so I’m hosting another in-person event AND I’m hosting the first virtual reading party!

1) NYC Reading Party: Aug. 27th 🏙️

This is an in-person reading event (only 23 spots left).

2) Online Reading Party: Aug. 29th 💻

This is a virtual event (100 spots available).

📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “The Daily Laws” by Robert Greene.

This was the most clicked book in last week’s newsletter so I’m doing a longer summary on it. In the book, Greene shares 366 lessons on power, seduction, mastery, strategy, and human nature.

Here are 3 lessons from it:

📖

1) How To Find Your Calling

One of the best ways to find your calling is to look into your past–specifically your childhood passions.

Robert shares that ever since he was a young boy, he loved reading books and knew he wanted to become an author.

However, after graduating college, he thought becoming a writer was impractical and unlikely.

He felt lost in life and tried to find his purpose by traveling across Europe.

He worked as a construction worker in Greece, taught English in Barcelona, worked as a hotel receptionist in Paris, and was a tour guide in Dublin.

Eventually, he came back to the US and worked several jobs in the film industry.

In total, he worked about 60 different jobs by the time he was 36 years old.

And yet, none of them felt right or called to him.

That same year, he went to Italy for another job and met a man named Joost Elffers who worked as a book producer and packager.

One day on a walk, Joost asked Robert if he had any ideas for a book.

Robert replied that he was constantly reading history books and was interested in a book about power and how people used power to manipulate and influence others.

Joost loved the idea and said that he would pay Robert to live while he wrote the book.

That book eventually became “The 48 Laws of Power” and has since sold millions of copies worldwide.

Although it took Robert over 25 years to rediscover his childhood passion, once he did, his life took off.

To date, Robert has written 7 books and made millions of dollars doing what he loved as a kid–reading and writing books.

📖

2) The Two Kinds of Failure

The first kind of failure comes from never trying out your ideas because you are afraid or because you are waiting for the perfect moment.

This kind of failure you can never learn from and won’t help you in life.

The second kind of failure comes from being bold and trying new things even if you don’t succeed.

If you fail in this way, the hit that you take might sting for a little, but you’ll gain experience, wisdom, and have an interesting story to tell (like how Robert worked odd jobs across Europe when he was young).

When people are asked on their deathbed about their regrets in life, they tend to regret the things they didn’t do much more than the things they did.

In other words, you’ll regret not trying something new much more than doing something and failing at it.

Right now you might be afraid of starting a business or moving to a new city because it seems like a big jump. But the truth is that either you’ll love it, or if it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to what you were doing before.

It’s really not as scary as you think. So don’t fear failing, fear never trying.

📖

3) Why You Can’t Shortcut Greatness

When people think of a creative artist, they usually picture an artist who is tortured by their genius or constantly does drugs to discover brilliant ideas.

But Robert argues that’s an exaggerated cliché. You don’t need to be mad or do drugs to do great work, you simply have to work hard.

The truth is that the vast majority of writers, artists, and musicians, spend years practicing their craft before hitting it big.

Robert tells a story about Toni Morrison who worked at the same publishing house as him.

Morrison would either wake up at 4 am to work on her book before her kids woke up or at 11 pm after her kids went to sleep. She repeated this routine for years until she finished her book.

That’s the kind of discipline and dedication you need to have to create something great.

Another example is J.K. Rowling.

At 32, Rowling was a single mom on welfare, struggling to make ends meet.

One day, while stuck on a delayed train and daydreaming, the idea of Harry Potter came to her.

But she spent the next 5 YEARS meticulously planning the 7-book series before writing a single word.

Whether it’s writing a book, creating art, or producing a song, you can’t shortcut greatness or buy it at a discount. You need to pay for it at full price with effort, sacrifice, and dedication.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) To find your calling, reconnect with your childhood obsessions:

• Think about your childhood and try to remember what you loved doing or what subjects you were obsessed with.

• It also helps to ask your parents or older relatives.

2) Don’t fear failing, fear never trying:

• Choose one idea or goal you've been scared about doing and take a concrete step towards it this week.

  • Remember that even if you don't succeed, you’ll gain wisdom from the experience.

3) Seek out discipline, not drugs:

• Dedicate 1 hour a day for doing deep work on a side project you’re passionate about.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Product: The Brick 

If you constantly find yourself doom scrolling or spending too much time on your phone, this product is a legitimate game-changer.

You tap your phone on the Brick and it will block distracting apps (Instagram, TikTok, etc.) on your phone so that you can’t open them until you tap the Brick again.

It’s helped me decrease my screen time from 5 hours a day to 3 hours. That’s 14 hours of my life I get back each week. Highly recommend getting one or at least trying it out.

Use code “ALEX” to save 10% on your Brick.

Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.