Highlights
I love to read, and this is my corner of the Internet
where I share notes and highlights from the books I read.
These are just highlights, and not my own interpretations, opinions,
or summaries.
Disclaimer: none of these notes are AI-generated.
10x is easier than 2x
10x goals are easier than 2x goals for many reasons. 10x goals are less competitive. 10x goals require you to focus on very few things rather than many, whic...
You Can Negotiate Anything
Negotiation is a field of knowledge and endeavor that focuses on gaining the favor of people from whom we want things. It is the use of information and power...
The Manual
There are things that are within our power, and things that fall outside our power. Working within our sphere of control, we are naturally free, independent,...
Rework
You need less than you think. Less time, less money, less people, less of everything. David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried have built a multi-million dol...
The Effective Executive
The core insight of this book is that "being effective is a skill and it can be learned". Here, I've collected some of the nuggets of wisdom from this timele...
Creativity Inc
The thesis of this book is that there are many blocks to creativity, but there are active steps we can take to protect the creative process. My aim at Pixar...
Blue Ocean Strategy
The main idea of this book is to get out of a red ocean of bloody competition and into a blue ocean of uncontested market space characterized by new demand a...
Programming Pearls
This books contains Jon Bentley's essays from his column in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery. It describes practical programming tec...
Draft No. 4
John McPhee shares his advice on the process of writing. I really liked this essay as it emphasizes the importance of re-writing. As with refactoring in prog...
Purple Cow
The essence of this book is that your product or service must be remarkable. It's about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable. “Transform your busine...
The Secrets of Consulting
Consulting is the art of influencing people at their request. It's always been a mysterious profession, at least to me. This book takes you behind the scenes...
Shape Up
This book is a guide to how 37signals (creators of Basecamp and HEY) does product development. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in y...
Unix: A History and a Memoir
Bell Labs, where Unix began, was a remarkable institution that produced many good ideas and capitalized on them. This book offers a fascinating history into ...
The Age of Absurdity
The book covers a broad range of topics from philosophy, spirituality, literature, psychology, and neuroscience for common ideas on fulfillment and happiness...
This is Marketing
Your marketing has to resonate with the listener, to tell them something they've been waiting to hear, something they're open to believing. It has to invite ...
On Writing
Although I have never read any of Stephen King's novels, I have heard about the man enough to respect him as a writer. So when I found out that he wrote a bo...
The Elements of Style
The classic text on writing. It offers practical, highly useful advice on improving your writing. Whether you're a professional writer or an amateur, this bo...
Show Your Work
If you work on something a little bit every single day, you end up with something that is massive. One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a ...
The Art of War
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not atta...
Known
Being known is not the same as being famous. It’s not about having millions of fans and red carpet appearances. Being known is about having the proper author...
Why We Sleep
Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day. I won't list the benefits of sleep. Instead, you need to know...
Write Useful Books
This book offers a different way to plan, write, test, and refine non-fiction books that are useful. Its central theme is this: Write a book so startlingly u...
Demand-Side Sales
Demand-side selling is understanding what progress people want to make, and what they are willing to pay to make that progress. Our product or services are m...
The Gift of Fear
Intuition is always right in at least two important ways: It is always in response to something, and it always has your best interest at heart. Your intuitio...
Jobs To Be Done
A job is essentially the progress that a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance. When we buy a product, we essentially hire something to get a...
101 Things I Learned In Engineering School
This books presents the fundamental ideas from physics and engineering in an accessible way. I found that a lot of its lessons apply equally to life, busines...
E-Myth Revisited
You can be the entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician. All in one. You don't have to be an employee or have employees. You can be the one-person busin...
Brain Rules
Every brain is wired differently. Exercise improves brain health and cognition. We're designed to never stop learning and exploring. Memories are volatile. S...
Are Your Lights On?
We often try to come up with solutions before taking the time to define the problem being solved. Even experienced solvers, when subjected to social pressure...
Copywriting Secrets
Copywriting is a specific form of writing with the purpose of compelling the reader to take a specific action. No matter what you do, effective writing is a ...
Building a StoryBrand
Humans love good stories. This book is about effective marketing via storytelling. It explains the essential elements of a good story and relates them to you...
Deep Survival
This book is less about outdoor survival and more about life. Its lessons go far beyond the wilderness and help you not only survive, but thrive with the cha...
A Wealth of Common Sense
This book offers a simple framework for making investment decisions. It doesn't delve into maths, complex formulas, or guilt you into saving money on lattes....
The 1-Page Marketing Plan
Marketing is the strategy you use for getting your ideal target market to know you, like you, and trust you enough to become a customer. This book teaches th...
Skin In the Game
Nassim Taleb's Skin in the Game is one of those books I find myself returning to again and again. It's full of practical, hard-hitting wisdom. His words lite...
Deep Work
The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence...