A Moratorium on Business Books for 2023

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As I wrote this article, I was on vacation at the serene Bethany Beach in Delaware. My mind clear and thinking about big picture stuff as my kids napped, I thought about how I’m consuming content.

In preparation for this trip, I made a decision: that I was going to stop reading business books for the rest of the year. Here’s the Tweet (Xeet?)

Why?

Well, they’re basically all I read. I’m pretty terrible at reading fiction books, and most of my non-fiction content I get from podcasts.

But after my conversation with Tim Stoddart on the podcast, I felt I should expand my horizons a little.

There are three other reasons:

  1. I’m kind of tired of stoping every few pages to highlight and take notes.
  2. Reading business books without taking action is wasted time.
  3. They are all starting to sound the same and as a result, they’re kind of unhelpful.

Kind of like the scene in the Matrix where Neo realizes his powers and can see the very code making up the Matrix, after reading dozens of business books, it’s easy to see where they’re going.

Plus, any homogenous reading defeats the purpose of reading: to introduce new ideas.

Thankfully, my request for recommendations was fruitful and I have plenty to get through now.

At the beach, I read Upgrade by Blake Crouch. I loved Recursion, and read both of them super quickly. I couldn’t put them down.

Now I’m reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, then The General and the Genius — a story about Oppenheimer that was selected for a book club I’m a part of.

I’m excited to see what kind of new ideas reading non-business books sparks; I’ve made a promise to not read anymore until at least January.

What are you reading? Let me know!

What’s Upcoming for this Membership

Some of you have noticed that I’ve been making continuous changes to the membership over the past few months.

It’s part of a strategy of rapid experimentation to see what works and what doesn’t. So far, the new $10/mo tier that includes this newsletter and more automation content has been working.

But I’ve always wanted to do more build in public and experimentation for my members.

Last week, I published a paid review on Uscreen and said this was the best platform for all of my needs. That’s absolutely true and I’m working on a plan to combine this membership with Podcast Mastery.

There’s a new tier that including a community and monthly community events, live on the site this week.

But don’t upgrade yet; I’m working on a plan for current members.

As for current benefits, the Automations Database is getting a big upgrade soon as I add more of what I’ve been working on to it.

As always, I’d love feedback from you. What do you want to see more of?

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