Today is quiet and calm.

It’s lovely and peaceful. 

But when we think about the year ahead, many of us are nervous. We are clinching, as if for a fight, tensing as if we know that a rollercoaster is about to start. 

There is of course the political dysfunction and division that could spiral out of control at any moment. There is the looming, incredible potentially disruptive power of AI sitting before us…as well as the vertigo of a market just a few companies have driven higher and higher. 

There are warning signs. There are unknowns. 

We could keep walking through raindrops…or the music could stop. 

We don’t know what is going to happen in 2026, but we can be pretty sure that something is. 

Will 2026 be like Seneca’s year 26, a turbulent year of exile, illness, financial setbacks, and all sorts of other brutal reminders of, as he wrote, “fortune’s habit of behaving just as she pleases”? Will it be like Marcus Aurelius’s year 126, filled with chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty? 

Again, we don’t know. 

So what should we be thinking about? What should we do? 

The Stoics say that we should think about our “chief task” in life: to identify and separate matters into what’s under our control and what isn’t. Making this distinction—then choosing to focus on what’s in your control—will make you happier, stronger, and more successful. If only because it concentrates your resources in the places where they matter.

While many people this time of year think about making resolutions about things that are only partially in their control—getting promoted, reducing stress, making more money, finding a partner—I’m focusing on these 13 things that are fully up to me…

Watching my information diet. When I’m not feeling great physically—tired, irritable, sluggish—usually it’s because I’m eating poorly. In the same way, when I feel mentally scattered and distracted—I know it’s time to focus on cleaning up my information diet. “Read not the Times,” Thoreau wrote. “Read the Eternities.” Read old books. Read philosophy. Read history. Read biographies. Study psychology. Study the patterns of history. Read ​​The Great Influenza​​ to be informed about pandemics. Read ​​All The King’s Men​​ and ​​It Can’t Happen Here ​to be informed about the demagogues of this moment. Read ​The Moviegoer​ to understand your listless teenager. Read ​The Years of Lyndon Johnson​ to study power and ambition. ​Read the Stoics​. Read Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book on the market crash of 1929. Read Morgan Housel’s great book of anecdotes and musings on the constants of human nature and history. Read Holocaust survivor Dr. Edith Eger’s wonderful book about not only enduring unimaginable suffering but finding meaning in it. And definitely, definitely, definitely, read ​Zweig’s biography of Montaigne​ (​which I talk about here​).

Challenging myself. “We treat the body rigorously,” Seneca said, “so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.” We toughen ourselves up because life is tough. That’s what Stoicism is—physical and mental challenges we subject ourselves to so that, no matter what life has in store for us, we’ll be able to say as Epictetus said we need to be able to say: “This is what I trained for.” This is why I’m a big believer in having a physical practice. It’s why I take cold showers even though I hate them. And it’s why every year since 2018, I’ve started the year with The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It’s 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges, weekly live calls with me, a private challenge community, and the chance to do hard things alongside people—CEOs, writers, artists, parents, professors, students, founders, athletes—from around the world. (Only a week left to sign up to join us in the 2026 Challenge—get all the details here). In any case, we must challenge ourselves, we must treat ourselves rigorously, so that whatever happens in 2026 and beyond, we can say, “this is what I trained for.”

Making a positive contribution every day. For a long time, my writing habit was all-or-nothing—either I wrote a lot of words or I didn’t. Over time, I’ve lowered the stakes: now the question is simply, “Did I make a positive contribution to my writing today?” Sometimes that means writing, sometimes editing, adding, deleting. Sometimes I’m home and it’s in my office, sometimes I’m on the road and it’s on a plane or in a hotel room. Sometimes it’s a big contribution, sometimes it’s a little contribution. In ​Discipline Is Destiny​, I write about the practice of Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Always finding some way to make a little progress. Focusing on the joys of getting a little bit better every day. 

Doing what only I can do. Something that’s happened with Daily Stoic over the years is as it has grown, so has the number of copycats. And so we’re constantly asking, what can only we do? What can only we write? What can only we create? With the bookstore, for example, we’re lucky to have authors constantly passing through to record the podcast. While they’re here, they sign books. Sometimes we do live events with them. Those books, those experiences—you can’t get them anywhere else. This has always been good advice, but with these AI tools making it easier and easier to copy and replicate and reproduce, it’s more important than ever to find and focus on the things only you can do. There’s a lot a lot of people can do, but there’s some stuff—particularly where you live, with your family, with your skills etc–that only you can do. Do that. 

Competing only with myself. Epictetus quipped that, “You can always win if you only enter competitions where winning is up to you.” The bestseller list? That’s up to the New York Times. Winning a Grammy? That’s up for the Recording Academy. A Nobel Prize? That’s up to the folks in Stockholm. Even competitive goals like being the fastest person in a race or the richest person in the world—these depend on what your competitors do. What is in my control is showing up, giving maximum effort, following my process, sticking to my principles, pursuing what lights me up. Could I write about something with more mass than an obscure school of ancient philosophy and sell more books? Could I get into crypto and make more money? Could I do what other podcasters do—platform anyone, no matter how ridiculous or toxic, just because controversy drives downloads—and get more attention? Maybe. But philosophy is what I find endlessly fascinating, crypto is something I know nothing about, and getting attention is not my goal. So I’m tuning those things out and focusing on what I can do, what I know, what gets me excited, and what I value. If that translates to on the field success, great—in fact, it almost always does. If that translates into career recognition, awesome—and again, it usually does.

Discarding anxiety. Some people are anxious about politics. Others about flying. Others about their kids. The one thing all causes of anxiety have in common? US! The airport is not making you anxious. You are making yourself anxious in the airport! Marcus Aurelius talks about this in ​Meditations​. “Today I escaped from anxiety,” he says. “Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.” It’s a little frustrating, but it’s also freeing. Because it means you can stop it! You can choose to discard it.

Raising my kids well. One of my favorite things to do each day is sit down and write the ​Daily Dad email​. It’s one piece of wisdom—drawn from history, science, literature, and other ordinary parents—that goes out to about 100,000 parents around the world (sign up here). But really, I’m writing it for myself. I’m reading, researching, and collecting the best ideas because I want to be a better parent. I want to be more patient. I want to set a good example. I want to give my kids the wisdom and resilience they’ll need to navigate the world. Raising kids is the most important thing I’ll ever do. So I study it the way I study philosophy, history, or business—because I want to do it well. If you want to have a multi-generational impact, if you want to make the future better—raise your kids right.

Using my platform to support what I think is important. I have a platform, and I want to use it well. That means amplifying ideas, voices, and causes that matter—not just whatever gets the most clicks or makes the most money. Every year over at Daily Stoic, we skip the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales—huge revenue opportunities—and run a fundraiser for Feeding America instead. This year we surpassed our $300,000 goal, providing well over 3 million meals for families across the country! Epictetus talked about how every situation has two handles. I could pick up 2025 by the handle of everything that went wrong, everything I didn’t like, everything that disappointed me. Or I can pick it up by the handle of what we accomplished, the money we raised, the people we helped, the good we did. I’m choosing to focus on the second handle.

Thinking long term. One of the things you get when you “read the eternities” as Thoreau said, is a longer term perspective. Do you know how long the Antonine Plague lasted? 15 years. Ok, what about the “Decline and Fall of Rome” which some people think America is in the middle of right now? Some 300 years! We need to zoom out. We need, like that famous Zen story, to “wait and see.” And we need, as Jeff Bezos likes to say, to “focus on the things that don’t change.” A lot of people will spend 2026 fixated on trends, fads, and momentary crises. I’m focusing on what will still matter in five, ten, fifty years. Character. Discipline. Patience. Wisdom. Hard work. These are constants—no matter who’s in office, no matter what’s happening in the headlines. The world will always be chaotic. There will always be noise. The only way to stay grounded is to focus on what actually matters in the long run.

Treating people well. I don’t control the cruelty in the world. I don’t control how others act, how unfair or thoughtless or selfish they can be. But I do control how I run my team. How I show up for my family. How I treat strangers. The world will always have its share of rudeness, dishonesty, and indifference. That doesn’t mean I have to contribute to it. Kindness, patience, fairness—these are always within my control.

Having fewer opinions. It’s possible, Marcus Aurelius said, to not have an opinion. Do you need to have an opinion about the scandal of the moment—is it changing anything? Do you need to have an opinion about the way your kid does their hair? So what if that person is a vegetarian? “These things are not asking to be judged by you,” ​​Marcus writes​​. “Leave them alone.” Especially because these opinions often make us miserable! “It’s not things that upset us,” Epictetus says, “it’s our opinions about things.” The fewer opinions you have, especially about other people and things outside your control, the happier you will be.  Of course, this is not to say that we shouldn’t have any opinions at all, but that we should save our judgments for what matters—right and wrong, justice and injustice, what is moral and what is not. If we spend our energy forming opinions about every trivial annoyance, we’ll have none left for the things that actually matter.

Contributing to my community. America’s communities have been hollowed out. Big box stores replaced small businesses. Digital replaced physical. So much of modern success is subtractive—extracting, optimizing, squeezing more for less. I’m trying to do the opposite. In 2021, my wife and I bought ​Tracy’s Drive-In Grocery​, a little place that’s been in business in our small, rural town since 1940. We also opened ​The Painted Porch​, a small-town bookstore down the street. Neither of these are the most rational business decisions—it’s risky, expensive, and deeply local. But what’s the point of success if you only spend it trying to be more successful? We like these things because they matter. Because they are real.

Not letting the sonsofbitches turn me into a sonuvabitch. This might be the hardest task in the world right now—to not let assholes turn you into an asshole. To not let cruelty harden you, to not let stupidity make you bitter, to not let outrage pull you down to its level. “The best revenge,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in ​Meditations​, “is to not be like that.” I am disappointed by some of the things people I know are saying and doing; I am more focused on making sure I don’t follow suit.

As I said, I start each year by doing ​The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge​. There’s only A WEEK LEFT to sign up to join me in the 2026 Challenge.

We create a new one every year and to meet the unique demands of 2026, this year’s challenge is 21 days of challenges—presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy—designed to set up life-changing habits for 2026 and beyond. It’s over 20,000 words of exclusive content that I don’t post anywhere else, weekly live Q&A Zoom calls, a private challenge community for accountability, and a lot more. 

It’s one of my favorite things I do each year, and I really enjoy interacting with everyone in the challenge. Would love to have you join us—click here to learn more.

The 2026 Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge starts January 1, 2026. Learn more and sign up today at dailystoic.com/challenge!

Here we are…past the halfway point of the 2020s. 

With another year looming before us, I’ve been thinking, if I could flash forward to December 2026, what would it take for me to look back and call it a good year? What challenges will I have taken on? What changes will I have made? What will I have learned? What good will I have done?

I don’t know what 2026 has in store, but I do know that if it’s going to be a good year, it won’t be an accident. It won’t just happen. It will take work. “First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be,” Epictetus said, “then do what you have to do. For in nearly every pursuit we see this to be the case. Those in athletic pursuit first choose the sport they want, and then do that work.”

Here are some habits, some best practices, some of the work I am going to do to try to make 2026 a good year. Many of these were inspired by The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge, which starts on January 1st . It’s a big part of my year each year—kicking things off with something that challenges me—and I hope you’ll join us on January 1st. (Sign up here, and learn more about the challenge below).

Protect The Best Part Of Your Day

This is where it all starts: with how you spend the best part of your day. The novelist Philipp Meyer​ (whose book ​​The Son​​ is an incredible read) told me on the Daily Stoic podcast, “You have to be very careful about to what (and to whom) you’re giving the best part of your day.” Well-intentioned plans fall apart as the day progresses. Our willpower evaporates. The world makes its demands. So it’s key that we prioritize the important things and that we habitualize doing them early. Personally, I fiercely protect my mornings—family first, then writing. My assistant knows not to schedule anything before mid-morning because early calls and meetings don’t just take time—they sap the energy needed for the essential work. I want to give my best self to my most important things. Everything else can come after.

Think Small

The writer James Clear talks about the idea of “atomic habits” (and has a really good book with the same title—it was actually the first book someone bought from The Painted Porch). An atomic habit is a small habit that makes an enormous difference in your life. He tells the story of how the British cycling team transformed themselves by focusing on 1% improvements in every area—tiny adjustments that, over time, added up to extraordinary results. It’s a simple but powerful concept: small actions, done repeatedly, accumulate into something significant.

Accept Mediocrity 

It’s counterintuitive but having high standards can be the enemy of improvement, causing you to avoid or abandon everything that feels beneath those standards. As Churchill said, another way to spell “perfectionism” is p-a-r-a-l-y-s-i-s. One of the best rules I’ve heard as a writer is that the way to write a book is by producing “two crappy pages a day.” It’s by carving out a small win each and every day—getting words on the page—that a book is created. Hemingway once said that “the first draft of anything is shit,” and he’s right (I actually have that on my wall as a reminder). Jerry Seinfeld once said that if he were to teach a writing class, “I would teach them to learn to accept your mediocrity. You know, no one’s really that great. You know who’s great? The people that just put a tremendous amount of hours into it.” It’s the same with self-improvement. The first draft of a new habit, a new discipline, a new you—it’s going to be clumsy and awkward and imperfect. Accept that, and focus on just making a little progress each day.

Do Less, Better

When I talked to the great Matthew McConaughey on the Daily Stoic podcast, he told me the story about a moment a few years ago when he realized he was doing too much. “I had five proverbial campfires on my desk,” he said. He had a production company, a music label, a foundation, his acting career, and his family. “What I did was I got rid of two of the campfires.” He called his lawyer and shut down the production company and the music label. “I was left with the three things that were most important to me. And those three campfires turned into bonfires…I had been making C’s in five things, but when I concentrated on three things, I started making A’s.” Marcus Aurelius talked about how doing less brings a double satisfaction: you get to do less and you get to do those things better. As we enter 2026, consider what you might need to say “no” to in order to say “yes” to what matters most.

Figure Out Your Defaults

Another one from James Clear. On the podcast, we were talking about in-between moments in life. The lulls. The waiting in lines or between meetings. The extra time you weren’t planning to get. What do many of us do in these moments? We get occupied by mindless and meaningless distractions. We check email. We look up at the TV. We gossip. We just sit there waiting for it to be over. Which is why we have to have “good defaults,” James said. “The way I sometimes phrase it is, What do you do when you have nothing to do? … What I’ve really tried to do—I’m still working on this, I definitely don’t have this figured out—is have a better answer to, what do I do when I have nothing to do?” My default is reading. I carry a book everywhere. Yours could be meditating. Or stretching, taking a walk around the block, or calling a friend. Whatever it is, figure out what you do when you have nothing to do. Because those in-between moments? They’re not insignificant. They are your life! It’s time, time you won’t ever get back. So use it. Because it adds up, shaping not just our days but our lives.

Don’t Be Ashamed To Ask For Help

Whenever I speak to military groups, I like to share one of my favorite lines from Meditations: “Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” I love how Marcus Aurelius delivers that line—with a shrug. So what? There’s no shame in needing help. Whether it’s therapy, asking for advice, or hiring someone to support you, seeking help is often the key to breakthroughs, growth, and success. Tim Ferriss has a great question that ties into this: What would this look like if it were easy? Often, the answer involves creating support systems or finding the right kind of help. Building habits, achieving goals, or even just making progress isn’t something you have to do alone.

Use Commitment Devices

At a critical moment in The Odyssey, knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist the sirens, Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship. In doing so, he became the first to hear them without steering and crashing into the rocks—where countless sailors before him had been lured to their deaths. On the podcast, behavioral scientist Katy Milkman talked about this as the original example of what’s known in behavioral science as a “commitment device”—a way of deliberately constraining ourselves to help us achieve our goals. What made Odysseus different from every other sailor who had been lured by those beautiful Sirens was not that he had more willpower or discipline. It was that he was wise enough to know he didn’t. He understood that in the moment, with those beautiful voices calling, he’d be just as weak as everyone else. So he came up with a way to protect himself from himself.

It’d be wonderful if we always did what we know we want or need to do. But that’s not how the world is. It is filled with temptations, distractions, and forces tugging us toward the rocks.

We need commitment devices. We need constraints that protect us from our weaker selves, that keep us on the right course. 

In 2018, we ran the first Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It was packed with challenges and exercises inspired by Stoic philosophy. Even I, the person who designed the challenge, found it transformative. Why? Because being part of a group, all working together, created a sense of accountability and momentum. Knowing others were pushing themselves alongside me made it easier to stay committed and go further than I might have on my own.

As we kick off 2026, we’re doing another Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge—a 21-day program to build momentum for the rest of the year. If you’re looking to improve your habits, consider finding a similar challenge. It doesn’t matter what it’s about or who’s doing it with you; what matters is having a structure and a community to support you.

Do It Now

Seneca said that it’s the one thing fools all have in common: they are always getting ready to start. It’s pretty funny actually, we see this every year. Starting in early December, we start talking about the ​Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge​, but you know what day—year after after—always has close to the most sign ups? January 1st…after it’s already started! Our customer service team spends the first 3-4 days of the year filtering through emails from people saying something like, “I know I’m late but I’d love to do this. Can you still let me in?” (So if you’re considering joining us in this year’s Challenge, don’t wait, sign up now!)

To procrastinate is to be entitled. It is arrogant. It assumes there will be a later. It assumes you’ll have the discipline to get to it later (despite not having the discipline now). It’s not going to be any easier later. It also might not be that difficult right now. That’s the funny thing you find about the stuff you put off—when you finally get around to it, you realize you’ve been dreading something that was actually pretty simple, that only took a few minutes. So in 2026 and beyond, constantly remind yourself: Later is a lie. It’s only going to get harder the longer you wait. Stop putting it off. Do what you need to do. Not Later. Now. 

Make Time For Strenuous Exercise

Adopting a new habit, making a change, doing anything challenging always seems daunting at first. As I write about in Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave, we can’t just hope to be brave when it counts. Courage has to be cultivated. To do the big things that scare you, start with smaller things—start with developing the ability to push yourself to do stuff you’re reluctant to do. To be able to endure the cold reception of a bold idea, start with enduring a cold shower. To be able to step forward when the stakes are high, regularly do that when the stakes are low. To be able to embrace the discomfort of a major life change, accustom yourself to minor discomforts. We treat the body rigorously, Seneca said, so that it may not be disobedient to the mind. We push ourselves in little ways so the big ways stop seeming quite so big, quite so out of character. We minimize fear by making the act of overcoming it routine. We test ourselves to prepare for the tests of life. By methodically and deliberately exposing ourselves to small challenges, what once seemed daunting becomes manageable, even routine.

Go The F*ck To Sleep

All the other habits and practices listed here become irrelevant if you don’t have the energy and clarity to do them. We have to follow the advice of a book I love to read to my kids: Go the F*ck to Sleep! What time you wake up tomorrow is irrelevant…if you didn’t get enough sleep tonight. In the military, they speak of sleep discipline—meaning it’s something you have to be good at, you have to be conscious of, something you can’t let slip. We only have so much energy for our work, for our relationships, for ourselves. A smart person knows this and guards it carefully. A smart person knows that getting their 7-8 hours of sleep every night does not negatively affect their output, it contributes crucially to their best work.

Get Back Up When You Fall

The path to self-improvement is slippery, and falling is inevitable. You’ll sleep in and not be able to read that page, you’ll cheat on your diet, you’ll say “yes” and take on too much, or you’ll get sucked into the rabbit hole of social media. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You’re only a bad person if you give up. 

It’s wonderfully fitting that in both the Zen tradition and the Bible, we have a version of the proverb about falling down seven times and getting up eight. Even the most self-disciplined of us will stagger. 

All of us have fallen short in the last year…and the years before that. We broke our resolutions. We lost touch with people we care about. We made the same mistakes again and again. We were “jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances,” as Marcus said. But now it’s time to pick ourselves up and try again. It’s time, Marcus continues, to “revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better group of harmony if you keep on going back to it.”

In other words, when you mess up, come back to the habits you’ve been working on. Come back to the ideas here in this post. Don’t quit just because you’re not perfect. No one is saying you have to magically transform yourself in 2026, but if you’re not making progress toward the person you want to be, what are you doing? And, more importantly, when are you planning to do it?

I’ll leave you with Epictetus, who spoke so eloquently about feeding the right habit bonfire. It’s the perfect passage to recite as we set out to begin a new year, hopefully, as better people.

“From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember…The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.”

As I said above, I’m starting 2026 with The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. It’s 21 days of challenges—presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy—designed to turn you into Olympic-class material. Sign up here before it starts on January 1st.

Each day you’ll get an email from us with instructions for the day’s challenge. These will all be exercises and routines you can begin right away to spark personal reinvention. We’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, and why it works. We’ll give you strategies for maintaining this way of living, not just for this challenge or for this coming year, but for your whole life.

This challenge is my favorite way to start the New Year. Head over to dailystoic.com/challenge and sign up NOW!

For roughly five thousand years, humans have been writing things down in books. 

You can, at the snap of your fingers, talk to the wisest people who ever lived.

Sadly, too many people are not taught how to read well, how to actually extract something usable from the books available to us, how to dive into the rabbit hole of knowledge to master a topic.

That’s what I want to talk about in this email: some rules for reading that great readers follow, that I try to follow in my own practice, given that I am effectively a professional reader (that’s what you do as an author and bookstore owner).

These 31 rules by no means make a complete list, but if you implement even a couple of them, I’m comfortable guaranteeing you’ll not only be a better reader for it, but a better person too.

–It is not enough that you read. You have to read well. You have to read the right books. You have to figure out how to process and retain and of course apply what you read. As Epictetus said, “I cannot call somebody ‘hard-working’ knowing only that they read.” He said he needed to know what and how they read. He needed to know that their “efforts aim at improving the mind.” Because then and only then would he call you “hard-working.” Then and only then would he give you the title “reader.”

–You should always be carrying a book. Phone, wallet, keys (as Adam Sandler says) and book. If you bring one, or have one loaded on your phone, you’ll read it…instead of using your phone. I’ve read at the Grammys, before surgery, on planes, beaches, in cars, lines, helicopters (see above), at the White House, as I waited for the anesthesiologist before a surgery, at the DMV, backstage before talks, while waiting for a table at a restaurant, in waiting rooms, and on and on. Use every pocket of time you get.

–If you’re not reading with a pen, you’re not really reading. And if you’re not finding something to note or mark up…it says something about what you’re reading. Reading is a conversation. Great readers underline and make notes in the margins. They ask questions. They put the author on trial. They talk back. They put books through the wringer.

–Books are not precious things. It should look like you’ve read the book. Mark it up. Fold pages. Beat them up. Books are not precious things. As an author, I love it when people hand me a book to sign that has had real miles put on it. When people hand me a pristine copy and tell me it’s their favorite, I assume they are just flattering me (or lying). It’s obvious what my favorite books are…because they’re falling apart (here’s my copy of Meditations for instance).

–Spilling food on a book is a sign of respect. Some of the best meals of my life occurred over a book…and the stains prove it (lol, here are some pictures.) I love to read while I eat, especially when I am alone. 

–Forget the news, the best way to understand what’s happening in the world is by reading books…usually old books. As Truman said, “the only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” Find a book about a similar event in the past. Or read a really great author that writes fast. 

–A lot of people read, not enough people re-read. Don’t just read books, re-read books. There’s a great line the Stoics loved—that we never step in the same river twice. The books don’t change, but you do.

–Re-reading is the best way out of a reading slump or dry spell. I’m always able to get back into a groove by re-reading some of my favorite novels. What Makes Sammy Run? The Great Gatsby. Ask the Dust. The Moviegoer.

–Don’t be a book snob. I find myself sometimes reluctant to read the latest super popular book. That snobbishness never serves me well. More often than not, when I get around to those bestsellers I kick myself—they were bestsellers for a reason! They’re great! 

–Never read without taking extracts. Pliny the Elder said that 2,000 years ago. Keep a commonplace book. Capture any quotes, stories, ideas, and observations that strike you. (Here’s a video on my commonplace book method).

–If a book sucks, stop reading it. The best readers actually quit a lot of books. You turn off a TV show if it’s boring. You stop eating food that doesn’t taste good. You unfollow people when you realize their content is useless. Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy reading. 

–The rule for quitting books is one hundred pages minus your age. Meaning: as you age, you have to endure crappy books less and less. I give books a little more time than my 95 year old grandmother does. 

–Good writers (and good books) are not hard to read. A student once bragged that he’d made his way through the tense writings of Chrysippus. You know, Epictetus told him, if Chrysippus was a better writer, you’d have less to brag about. 

–A long book must justify itself. Robert Caro earns every page (I have read 6,149 pages of him.) So does Ron Chernow (I once counted I’d read 4,626 pages of Chernow books). This is not bragging. It’s credit to the authors. It was a joy to spend all those hours with them. I’ve quit many long books because life is short and the writer should have done their job better. 

–“What’s a book that changed your life?” is a question that will change your life. Ask people you admire for book recommendations. Emerson’s line was, “If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.”

–Cool titles usually make for crappy books (I wish this wasn’t true but it is). Conversely, some of the best books have terrible titles (we just did a video on this of some of my favorites).

–Don’t judge a book by its cover…but also you kinda should. Especially newer books. It tells you something about the author. It tells you something about the leverage they had with their publisher. It tells you who they think will like this book.

–Look for wisdom, not facts. We’re not reading to just find random pieces of information. What’s the point of that? We’re reading to accumulate a mass of true wisdom—that you can turn to and apply in your actual life.

–When great readers read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?

–In every book you read, try to find your next one in its footnotes or bibliography. This is how you build a knowledge base in a subject—it’s how you trace a subject back to its core.

–When you find an author you love, read ALL the books they’ve written. 

–If you see a book you want, buy it. Don’t worry about the price. Reading is not a luxury. It’s not something you splurge on. It’s a necessity. Even if all you get is one life-changing idea from a book, that’s still a pretty good ROI.

–Speed reading is a scam. You just have to spend a lot of time reading.

–Your aim as a reader is to understand WHY something happened, the what is secondary. Before I start a book, fiction especially, I almost always find a summary to get a sense of the plot and core themes. It saves me from spending half the book in the dark, trying to figure out what’s going on.

–Your nightstand should be ambitious. Don’t just build a library, build an anti-library—a stack of unread books that humbles you and reminds you just how much there is still to learn.

–Read like a spy in the enemy’s camp. Wisdom is wisdom—take it from wherever it comes. And you should read books and writers your disagree with! 

–If you only find yourself underlining and agreeing with the authors you read, you are not reading diversely or critically enough. You should be arguing with the authors you read. You should know enough about the topic to spot when they are wrong too. 

–“Don’t be satisfied just getting the ‘gist’ of things,” is what Marcus Aurelius learned from his philosophy teacher Rusticus. Go deep!

–Good things happen in bookstores. So many of my favorite books are just random things I grabbed at bookstores. That’s what bookstores are for, what I’ve tried to build mine around. It’s a discovery engine better than any algorithm.

–Prefaces and forewords are there for a reason. Don’t skip them! They often have a ton of helpful and interesting stuff about the context around when the person was writing, who the work ended up influencing, and other tidbits that sometimes stick with you longer than even the work itself.

–If a book is really good, recommend it and pass it along to other people.

It’s the last one that I follow the most. I’m proud of the books I’ve been able to champion and turn people onto over the years. I feel like I am paying forward what the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations did for me (I loved it so much I put out my own edition you can grab here).

I love looking around my bookstore and seeing titles that I don’t see in other bookstores very often. Ann Roe’s publisher of Pontius Pilate told us they had to do another printing because we’d raved about it too much. I heard something similar about William Seabrook’s Asylum. I bought up all the remaining copies of Pushkin Press’s edition of Zweig’s Montaigne because it’s that good (I believe we sold literally 1,000 copies last year). 

That’s the job of a reader and a writer—to find great stuff and suck everything you can out of it as you read it and re-read it.

And to help others do the same.