You Should Read These 12 Books Every Year
The Amplified Impact Podcast
February 20th, 2023
In this episode of Amplified Impact, Anthony discusses the fallacy of believing that reading more books automatically leads to success and self-improvement.
He argues that it’s not the quantity of books you read that matters, but rather the quality and what you do with the information you gather.
Anthony shares his personal experience of shifting his focus from reading as many books as possible to reading fewer books of higher quality and re-reading them.
He provides a list of 12 books that he considers worth re-reading every year, which include books on philosophy, mindset, and investing.
Rethink your approach to reading and listen in as Anthony provides practical advice on how to focus on the most valuable books to achieve success.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“If you’re not taking the information that you’re consuming, if you’re not letting it change your behavior, then you’re not really learning, right?” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey, what’s up? All you beautiful people. Welcome back to the podcast. I have a bit of a confession to make today. See, the truth is, in years past, I used to be a bit of a book slut. I, and what I mean by that is I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I was a, hmm, the more, the better type of person.
Anthony: And truthfully, I, I still really love books and I love reading. It’s one of the things that brings me a lot of joy. But one of the things I discovered along the way is that I was reading a lot of the time to get this sense of progress as though I was learning, I was growing, I was accumulating information Somehow that was making me better as a result.
Anthony: And in one year, I think back in 2016 or 2017, I think I read like 140 books. That’s like three books per week. That’s, that’s crazy. When I think back on it now, it’s like that’s a ridiculous quantity. And you hear people say all the time, like the average c e o [00:01:00] reads 52 books in a year. That’s like a book a week.
Anthony: And I think generally that’s even skewed. I don’t think that’s true, but there is like this. Uh, this pedestal stool that we like to put reading books up onto as though if you read more than you are going to be better for it. And what I’ve come to realize is that it’s just, it’s not true because if you’re not taking the information that you’re consuming, if you’re not letting it, Change your behavior, then you’re not really learning, right?
Anthony: Like you’re consuming and you’re stockpiled some information. But if you’re not doing anything with that information, if it’s not fundamentally changing how you move through the world, then you didn’t actually learn. And if you didn’t learn, you didn’t grow. And if you didn’t grow, then what was the point?
Anthony: It is. Often, especially in the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, it will be very easy to fall into the trap of just consuming information, whether that’s reading a book, watching a YouTube video, or listening to a podcast like this, there’s this belief like, if I just have more information, I’m not quite ready yet.
Anthony: I just need a little bit more. [00:02:00] Or, this thing might finally give me a new perspective. It might be the unlock that I needed to finally get outta my way and start taking action and, and what I’ve discovered is, There is no such thing as like the best book or the best system or the best whatever. There’s simply the system that you will commit to using because here’s the weirdest thing I’ve come to, I’ve come to discover, um, and it, it’s not something I, I revel in, but the truth is like pretty much any system consistently applied will lead to a success eventually on a long enough timeframe.
Anthony: So it doesn’t even matter in a lot of cases what you do, as long as you commit to doing the thing and doing it consistently over a period of time, like you’re probably going to be successful. And so with that in mind, like if your goal is to make money or to build a successful business or to, you know, earn back your time so that you can live life on your terms, like reading in a lot of cases isn’t going to be the highest leverage activity that you can do.
Anthony: Or at least trying to read for more and more and more quantity. [00:03:00] Instead, like a couple years back, maybe this has been maybe two years, I, I made a conscious commitment that I was going to read less but better. And what I mean by that is instead of reading. , you know, a hundred books in a year. In trying to take a little piece from each one of those, I decided I’m going to read the best books and I’m going to reread them.
Anthony: The books that I’m like, that was life changing. It was impactful. It was just, there’s so much value in this. Instead of going out there and then reading another book that might be mediocre. Might be okay, might be great. I’m just going to keep rereading. The books that I already know are really. And I’m going to focus there.
Anthony: I’m going to focus all my time and energy, and that’s what I’ve been doing. And it’s been super helpful because these books that are fantastic, the books that are at the top of the heap in terms of the quality and the value that they give, and the perspectives that they share, they’re so deep. That every time you read them, you uncover just a new piece of information, like a new angle that hits you differently and you realize like, oh, I [00:04:00] totally missed this the first time.
Anthony: And it’s only upon like the third to fourth, the fifth readthrough of some of these books where you really start to master the concepts and that’s, that’s really what’s going to accelerate your path towards success. Isn’t taking on ever more complexity and more information, it’s just stripping down to the fundamentals, the basics, and mastering the simple.
Anthony: Foundational tactics. And so what I wanted to share today is as we, you know, look forward, what are the books that I like to reread every year that have been really impactful for me? So I’m going to share with you guys today 12 books that I think are worth rereading every single year. And they have been books that have served me incredibly well.
Anthony: Some of ’em are philosophy, some of ’em are mindset, some of ’em around investing. There’s a wide gamut here. So it’s a little bit for. But these are the books that I consistently come back to and think, wow, that was amazing. And so I hope they serve you. Book number one, you’ve heard me say this before, is [00:05:00] Meditations by Marcus Aures.
Anthony: This is the book that I gift the most frequently because this book has had the most profound effect on my life personally. It is the personal journal of Marcus Aurelius, who was the last emperor philosopher of Rome over, I think it was like 2000 years. And he didn’t write this for anybody else? He did.
Anthony: He wrote it for his, his own purposes. It was his personal journal where he’s wrestling with what’s it mean to be a good human. And the things that he wrestled with are still the issues that we wrestle with today. And so I find this to be a timeless classic. Book Number two is The Almanac of Naval Racon.
Anthony: This is a fairly new book. It was done by Eric Jorgenson, who this, this is really interesting. He just went, and this guy Eric, he just went out, got all of the podcast that Naval was on, all the blogs that he had done, all the tweets. Collected them and put them into a book, an almanac so that we can easily consume some of Neal’s most poignant thoughts.
Anthony: And I, I think Naval is one of the greatest thinkers, [00:06:00] one of the great thinkers of our current era. He’s, uh, for those that don’t know, he founded Angel List. He’s just a angel investor who just brilliant, just a brilliant thinker. Not just on the topic of how to make money, but also on the topic of like the more important stuff, like how to be happy.
Anthony: And so this book is, It’s so good. It’s a, it’s a treasure chave of one-liners. It doesn’t read like a narrative. Naval did not sit down and write a book around this, so it’s going to be a little bit disjointed, but I do believe that this is one of the best books, uh, that you, you can grab. And it’s, it’s a nice one because you could also kind of flip through it like an almanac.
Anthony: You don’t have to read it front to back. You can just open it to a page, consume a couple paragraphs, and have a, a pretty tasty little nugget to chew on for the, the rest of. Book number three is Anti-Fragile by Naim Teeb. I love this book. I love Nasim Teeb. He actually features on this list a couple of times because I think he is the type of thinker who is so different from the mainstream that when you read [00:07:00] it so it’s so counterculture, you think, how, how does somebody like this exist?
Anthony: But he’s, he talks in a way that can be very abrasive. So revelatory where you take these concepts like risk and probability, and you apply them not just to the world of investing or entrepreneurship, but just to your life in general. And you start to realize like you’ve, you’ve probably never thought very deeply on the topics of probability and, uh, risk and what’s it mean to live an asymmetric life.
Anthony: And so I find this. It’s really, really fantastic. The, the, in particular anti-fragile is a very interesting term that Nasim coined, which, you know, when you think about it, it’s not, Just being resilient or robust, right? Like when you think about the word fragile, like what’s the opposite of being fragile?
Anthony: It’s not being resilient, it’s not being robust. It’s to be anti-fragile, which means that you, you don’t just bounce back from shock. You don’t just resist [00:08:00] shock, which is resilience and robustness, but in fact, you are improved by shock and trauma and chaos. And so you think about like your muscular system or your.
Anthony: These are things that are strengthened over time through trauma, right? When we work out our muscles, um, and we, you know, enter more stimulus into the system than the muscle can take, then it tears the muscle and in the rebuilding of the muscle it comes back stronger. So our muscles are bones, we’re anti-fragile.
Anthony: They actually improve with trauma. And if we can live our lives in a way where chaotic things that could happen in the world around us actually improve us and strengthen us, rather than making us fragile or weakening us. Well, that’s what it means to be an, uh, truly anti-fragile. So I think it’s a really revelatory concept that’s a lot of fun to think about.
Anthony: Uh, the next book on our list is The One Thing by Gary Keller. This is all about the idea of essentialism and just getting down to the fact that you can only have one priority at a time. Like if there is a list of a hundred things that you have to do, one of those things. Is the most [00:09:00] important and your job as an entrepreneur, as a high level individual, just trying to be in pursuit of less but better, your job is to figure out.
Anthony: What are the priorities? What is the one thing, the singular thing, that when you do that, it will have the biggest ramifications on everything else? And when you can get really clear on that and you can live your life in alignment with, I’m only going to focus on the thing that really moves the needle the most.
Anthony: Then you start to realize some really incredible results by doing what we talk about all the time at Beyond the Apex, which is to do less better the next. , you’ve heard me guys talk about this one so much is fantastic. The psychology of Persua. Influence, actually, I think it’s called influence, the psychology persuasion.
Anthony: That would make more sense. You do the title first and then the subtitle. Anyways, but this is my Robert Cini. This is the best book on the title, on the topic of persuasion and of influence that I’ve ever read. I think it’s hands down the best book on the topic. So if you want to learn how to be more influential, more persuasive, [00:10:00] this is the book for you.
Anthony: And even if you’re not a salesperson, even if like the idea of persuasion kind of, uh, strikes you as being dirty, I want you to think about it outside of sales context and the fact that you have countless conversations every day with friends, family, loved ones, coworkers, employees, vendors, and every conversation is some sort of.
Anthony: Negotiation, trying to get your thoughts from your head onto the other person to impact their behaviors and their thoughts and how they move through the world to see it, right? So the more persuasive and influential that you can be, then the more likely that you’re going to succeed in being heard in what it is that you desire, which I think if you have ever been in a room where you felt invisible, you didn’t feel heard, nobody’s listening to you, then you get why influence and being persuasive.
Anthony: Could be very powerful because there’s really no worse feeling that I can think of than being in a room of people and feeling utterly ignored and visible and alone. So this book will help you with that. The [00:11:00] next book is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and I. This is a great book for just understanding the inherent biases that we all have as humans, that the things aren’t just cultural or environmental or genetic like these are the things that all of us as human beings, we have pre-wired.
Anthony: Biases that influence how we move through the world, how we interact with others. And by understanding these biases, we can more, um, consistently avoid them because, you know, we, we each move through the world with a very unique. Perspective, a, a singular lens through which we see everything playing out.
Anthony: And it is not the full totalitarian total totality of what’s happening in reality, right? Like you’re only seeing it from one angle. And that’s what biases do for us is, you know, it makes it very quick and easy to look at a thing and have a snapshot judgment. So we can move quickly through the world. But a lot of times those snapshot judgments are not accurate.
Anthony: And so the more that we. [00:12:00] Live a life of intentional reflection and not just move reactionary reactively, that’s probably the better word there, moving reactively. Once we see a stimuli, then we’re going to improve the quality of our life, because we’re now just not just a monkey, you know, responding to being poked and prodded, like we’re actually moving with intention.
Anthony: And that’s, that’s a key for a good life. I, I. My next book is Man’s Search for Meeting by Frank. Wait, no, what’s his name? Victor Frankel. No, not Frank. Man’s Search for Meeting is a deep, heavy book. It’s written by a guy who lived through the Holocaust. He was in the concentration camps and went through all sorts of horrific experiences and through it all.
Anthony: Through it all in that horrific environment, he was still able to live a life of meaning and purpose, and by doing that, he was able to survive. And what he found was that the people who were able to maybe not survive through, you know, the, the horrible period, because sometimes like a lot of ’em were just murdered and they, they, [00:13:00] they didn’t have a choice in the matter, but the ones who were able to like maintain.
Anthony: Gratitude or their purpose, they, they, they had this larger meaning that they ascribed to their life even in suffering. And I think that there are so many very deep, profound nuggets and pearls of wisdom in this book that for wherever you are in your life, you’re probably pretty cozy and comfortable in the grand scheme of things if you’re listening to this podcast.
Anthony: And it’s very, very helpful to read from the perspective of somebody who had everything stripped away and yet still. Purpose, meaning and dignity in life. And I think that’s something that we can. We can all benefit from applying to ourselves. Another book, the Most Important Thing by Howard Marx. This is a great primer for people wanting to learn about investing, not just investing in the stock market or real estate, but just like the, the high level macro concepts of what you need to think about when it comes to being a good investor.
Anthony: Because so much of investing is not about. Rolling the dice and like making the [00:14:00] bet. It’s how you think about things. It’s how you go through the decision making process. And if you can improve your judgment, your ability to make good decisions, even by like one, two, 3%, that can have massive implications over the life of your entire investment career.
Anthony: So this book very, very powerful for helping you with. Next book is Fooled by Randomness. By again, NA Teeb, our boy. He comes back onto the scene with yet another book. And this is great because a lot of times we ascribe in our lives. Or we miss ascribe rather events to luck or to skill. So typically when something goes right and we succeed at something, we look at it and we say, I succeeded because I did this.
Anthony: And when we fail, a lot of times we look at it and say, well, we failed because I got unlucky, because this thing outside my control. So typically our successes, we ascribe to our ability and skill and our failures to luck in randomness and. Well, the reality is like luck and chance and, and, and, um, probability they rule [00:15:00] our life to a degree that most of us are just completely unaware of.
Anthony: And so things that we can look back, uh, with hindsight and connect the dots and create a cohesive narrative are actually just our brain doing what our brain does best, which is creating meaning and structure in the world where in reality there probably. . And so this book, fooled by Randomness, I think is a really great primer.
Anthony: If you’ve never really juggled with any of these thoughts, it’s fantastic. Even if you have, it’s, it’s a really good book. All right, next up is show Your Work by Austin Cleon. This is a very short book, but it’s great for people who are creatives or they’re trying to create, uh, some kind of product to business or whatever.
Anthony: Like one of the big struggles that you probably have, like we all do, is in the beginning or even as you’re pretty far along in the journey. There’s this fear of creating and putting it out into the world and and fearing what people are going to think about it. Like, is this not very good? And so perfectionism stops a lot of us from ever launching the thing.
Anthony: But this book is all [00:16:00] about how one is better than none. How real artists ship. And if you want to succeed as a creative, you have to get out of your own way. And so this book is a very short read, but there’s a. Again, perspective shifts that might help you get out of your own way because you really are the only thing that’s stopping you from putting yourself out there into the world.
Anthony: It’s not really what other people think. It’s your fear of what other people think. Okay. And once you get over that, then you’re free to start creating, which I think is one of the highest pursuits any of us can, can. Um, Achieve in life. The, the feeling of taking something that didn’t exist and then bringing it into reality.
Anthony: I think it’s a, it’s a fantastic feeling. Alright, our, I believe this is our 11th book. This is The Great Mental Models by Farham Street. There’s two volumes. Volume one, volume two. Mental models are just frameworks that allow us to move through the world and create pattern recognition, um, at speed. And so the [00:17:00] more mental models, more n uh, frameworks that you have, more tools in your toolbox.
Anthony: The more able that you are able, you, you can take ideas from one domain, whether that’s biology, physics, economics, and apply it to a different situation, which might be like communicating with a loved one or just navigating the street as you’re, as you’re going to the bar, right? Like the more mental models that you have.
Anthony: The better perspective you’re able to to achieve. Because instead of just sitting and looking through the world through to one lens, you can superimpose yourself at different points. And imagine if I was standing on this side looking at this object, what would it look like? And that’s what the mental models allow you to do, is to project yourself and to think about things different.
Anthony: And our last book is The Power of Now by Eckert Toy, which I think it’s very. Easy to get wrapped up in living in the future or in the past, right? Like when most people are experiencing [00:18:00] anxiety or regret, it’s because they’re thinking about something that has yet to happen or they’re thinking about something that did happen.
Anthony: And all of those negative feelings of anxiety, regret, frustration, disappointment, they all exist when you’re living outside of the now. But when you live in the now, in this moment, in the singular moment of time that you. And truly, this is all you have because the past is gone. The future is not, is not a given.
Anthony: All you have is right now and how you use that time, how you live in this moment, dictates largely the quality of your life and the gratitude and the happiness and the contentment that you feel. Or on the, on the flip side of that, how much frustration and disappointment and anxiety that you feel. So the more you can root yourself in the now, in this moment, which is truly the only thing that you have.
Anthony: The better off your life is going to be. And so those are 12 books that I think are worth reading every single year. They have served me incredibly well. And I hope they serve [00:19:00] you well as, uh, as well, . I’m curious if there are books in your life that you continue to come back to that have served you really well, I’d love to hear about it.
Anthony: So find me on social media. On Twitter. I’m at Anthony Vicino on Instagram. It’s the Anthony Vicino. Shoot me a message. Let me know what books have been super impactful for you in your life. Share that with me. I’m not necessarily going to read ’em because again, less is more just trying to like dwindle, like get down to the, the fewest number of concepts and books that I can keep coming back to.
Anthony: But if it looks really good and you, and you sell me on it hard enough, I might just check it out. So guys and gals, I appreciate you being here. As always, stay hyperfocused until we see you again. Take care.
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