19 Biggest Lessons From Reading 100 Books

I started reading non-fiction after hitting my rock bottom. I found people to look up to and saw that they were reading and learning constantly to better themselves. This inspired me to develop a reading and self improvement habit that I have continued for more than 10 years.

No single book has the ability to change your life. But the things you do, good or bad, over time, compound to extraordinary changes.

Here are some things that have stuck with me. (In no particular order)

1. Become interested in other people.

Once you start to see things from someone else’s view. You will have more empathy for other people. Connecting with others is what life is all about. You will not be successful in life or business without this.

2. The safe route comes with a lot of risk.

Go to college. Add to your 401k. Work a 9-5 until you are 65. This seems like the safer route. But there are a lot of risks in taking the normal path.

3. Personal development is the best way to save a relationship.

You can’t change other people. Start by reading non fictions books to discover solutions to your problems. Get your body in order. Your finances in check. Take control of your health. Start dressing nice around the house. Check in to life.

4. Feeding into sexual instincts makes you crave novelty.

Your animal self wants to mate with a variety of partners. When you reach sexual satisfaction, a cascade of events starts happening that turns you away from your partner. And make you crave novelty. If not a new partner, then some other stimulus to chase.

5. Beat procrastination by just doing the thing.

There is no answer to “How do I start?” or “What do I do next?”. You just need to clear the way for your brain to do it’s job. Open up your canvas and just begin.

6. Leaning into pain will set you free.

We are constantly running from pain and towards pleasure. In order to maintain homeostasis, your body will build tolerance and your pain/ pleasure set points will get all jacked up. Doing hard things is the only way to reset this balance.

7. Just be happy.

We can spend years seeking for answers, wanting and craving more, being unhappy with our situation. They day will never come when things are just right. Let go and just decide to be happy.

8. Take ownership of EVERYTHING.

There is no point of blaming others. To be a leader, you need to own everything. Even stuff that is not your fault.

9. Your mind is very good at getting things to happen that you want to happen.

Once you get out of your own way, you can accomplish great things. Do not underestimate your ability to figure things out.

10. Train your brain to focus by doing less.

Your ability to focus is greatly effected by your ability to let things go. Less is more in this case.

11. Set your goals over 3 months instead of yearly.

It’s almost impossible to plan effectively over a year. There are too many unknowns that can happen. Set shorter term goals and you will be able to plan down to the nitty-gritty details.

12. You can train a dog to do anything without being a dick.

A lot of people think you have to be mean to dogs in order to bend them to your will. Turns out, dogs will endure pain to get rewards. So not only is this ineffective, it’s downright bad for you and your dog. Have some compassion. Don’t be lazy. Do it the right way.

13. People have lived through some shitty situations.

Digging into history will give you some serious perspective. You don’t have to look far to see just how easy you have it. This perspective is essential.

14. You are the only one your kids can depend on. They constantly test you to make sure you will never abandon them.

Your child needs to know that you love them no matter what. Of course you love them but they do not always see it depending on how you act as a parent. Have compassion. You are on their team.

15. Religion is a plague on Humanity.

Belief is the most powerful force. Even more powerful than time. By default, people act according to their beliefs. And will do bad or stupid things without a second thought. We need to abandon this and be okay with not knowing.

16. Humans treat animals very poorly.

How do we have compassion for an insect or even plants in some cases? But we turn a blind eye on industries that experiment, torture, and kill animals with such great complexity? If you had a pet monkey, mouse, cow, chicken, pig, sheep, etc., you would bond with these animals and go through great lengths to make them happy and comfortable.

Is it cognitive dissonance? Fear of finding out the truth? Compassion is the most manly thing ever.

17. Don’t focus on what you can’t control.

We spend a great deal of energy and time worrying about the future or regretting the past. Start to filter out things that you have no control over. And lean into the things you can control. You will be much happier.

18. Do hard things to immunize yourself for when hard things happen.

We live comfortable lives. But things won’t always be that way. Probably for anyone. Find something hard to do. Or give up something you enjoy. Even just for a day. And when the time comes to face adversity, you will be a little bit more prepared then if you never left your comfort zone in the first place.

19. We may not have as much Free Will as we think.

Imagine Osama Bin Laden’s son becoming anything other than what he is. When and where you were born. Who you were raised by. And life circumstances greatly impact who you are, the way you think, and how you behave. We aren’t in as much control as we think.

But all is not lost. Understanding this will give you compassion not just for others, but for your own shortcomings as well.

If you made it this far…

Please consider giving me some feedback. I want to become a better writer and help others grow along with me. Feedback is invaluable for this goal.

Thanks for reading!

4 Ways to Quit caffeine

The cycle of caffeine addiction can be vicious. Just like any other drug.

The cycle goes like this:

Caffeine causes a variety of pains and withdrawal symptoms. > You use caffeine to relieve these pains and withdrawal symptoms. > Caffeine causes pains and withdrawal symptoms.

Unless you can break this pattern. You will be trapped in this cycle forever. How do you break the cycle?

Here are 4 options for breaking the cycle. Along with the benefits and drawbacks for each.

1. Cold turkey - dealing with the pains and withdrawal symptoms. (Suck it up!)

This options requires mental toughness and discipline. If you take this path. You are fed up with caffeine and are all in on quitting. You may have had an event that pushed you over the edge. You’ve had enough.

You may also realize that trying to wean off may be harder because you are feeding the addiction cycle.

You are immediately stepping out of the cycle. This is the fastest way to quit. But many relapse when the pressure is too great to continue.

2. Tapering - slowly lower your dose so that the cycle fades away without noticing. (Easy does it!)

This option lets you continue to live a normal life. If you have to function at work or at home (or both), this may be a good option. You pick a time frame. Whether it be a few days, or 6 months. Pick an option that you think you can stick with.

This option may, however, lead to “serial tapering”.

This is where you do a good job weaning for a week or a few days or whatever. But then, due to normal life circumstances, you have a stressful day, a short deadline, a bad night of sleep, or a combo of many different things. And you default to solving this problem with caffeine.

Your dose ends up being reset to where you started, or worse, higher.

3. Replacing routines - finding other ways to resolve the pain. (Now we are talking!)

In the book “Atomic Habits”, the author explains the cycle of cue, craving, routine, reward. The cue is the thing that triggers the craving, which leads to performing a routine, which is what gets you the reward. For caffeine, this could look like:

Cue = You are tired, but you need to get stuff done at work.

Craving = You start to crave caffeine.

Routine = You take caffeine.

Reward = You feel “Energy” and get your work done.

With replacement theory, you replace the routine, to get the exact same reward.

Cue = You are tired, but you need to get stuff done at work.

Craving = You crave caffeine.

Routine = You go on a run.

Reward = You feel “Energy” and get your work done.

The trick is, finding a routine to replace caffeine can be difficult. Because there are actually so many factors in the cue to begin with.

In my experience, a caffeine-cycle withdrawal cue looks more like this:

Cue = You have anxiety, are slightly down, have brain fog, you feel pressure to get work done, or chores, dealing with back pain, lack motivation, etc.

Craving = You crave caffeine.

Routine = You take caffeine.

Reward = All of the cues, which are just a myriad of withdrawal symptoms, paired with normal life stress, are temporarily resolved.

Which leads me to the best option..

4. A combination of all three (Super Saiyan!)

How can you combine cold turkey AND tapering? Well, by definition you can’t. But if you merge the two, you dramatically shorten the time frame of your taper. I believe this could give you some serious momentum. Let’s break down this combo, as well as adding routine replacement:

1. Meet in the middle of cold turkey and tapering to do a short, two week taper.

2. Find new replacements for all of your cues.

During your two week taper, write down a list of all of your cues. Then write 2-3 ideas on how to solve them.

Here are some examples:

These may be different for you. But the point is, relentless pursuit of actually solving your problems, and living a fulfilling life. Instead of masking issues with caffeine.

I think this option is the best bang for your buck. As you are not negating the impact that withdrawal has on your life, but still dealing with any underlying problems you may face when fully caffeine free.

Notes on the half life of caffeine.

The average half life of caffeine is 5 hours. This means, if you consume 500 mg of caffeine, in 5 hours you will still have 250mg of caffeine in your system. 5 hours after that, you will have 125mg. Screw it, i’ll make a chart:

The half life of drugs can be misleading. Just because the half life is 5 hours, doesn’t mean that the drug will be clear in 10 hours. As you can see, a single dose of caffeine can technically still be in your system more than 40 hours later. And that’s just accounting for the average half life.

The high end can be up to 9.5 hours. This means, it can take more than 72 hours for caffeine to fully leave your system after a single dose.

But wait, there’s more..

Each subsequent dose adds to the amount of caffeine in your blood system. You are likely going to start some form of mild withdrawals at the 24 hour mark. And most of us have a daily caffeine habit. This means at 24 hours, if you take another 500mg of caffeine, your new starting point is 515mg.

If you take caffeine daily, you ALWAYS have caffeine in your system.

I don’t want to do anymore math, but as you can see, your caffeine levels will drop more rapidly the higher the dose. So your tapering, in theory, could get faster without feeling the same withdrawals from lowering a higher dose.

Keep that in mind.

Caffeine is Destroying You

Look at this bird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUngLgGRJpo

Any substance that gives you a lift follows the same journey as the bird in the video. You start out at a healthy balance. But before you know it. You are trapped in an addictive cycle.

DISCLAIMER: YOU MAY NOT FEEL ANY NEGATIVES OF CAFFEINE UNTIL YEARS OF USE!!

Or.. you may not associate the negatives that are currently happening with caffeine. This is because there is a disconnect with the immediate response to caffeine and the negatives it brings.

Here’s how it goes:

1. You take caffeine through your medium of choice. (Some even go for the suppository… Coffee ENEMAS anyone?)

2. You think, “Caffeine is great”. Look at all your new “energy, adrenaline rush, tomato!”.

3. You wake up the next morning. Dreary and weary. Can’t get out of bed. Let’s get some of that caffeine to make you feel better.

And the cycle repeats. You associate your dreary wearies with getting old. Your lack of sleep is because you just suck at sleeping. Your fits of irritability are just your personality.

Your joint pain is your poor posture, not the fact that you no longer have the energy to maintain a good posture, because caffeine is sucking the life out of you.

Take a look at this advertisement from 1924 mentioned in Eugene M. Schwartz’s famous book “Breakthrough Advertising”:

WHY MEN CRACK.. .

An authority of international standing recently wrote;

“You have overeaten and plugged your organs with moderate stimulants, the worst of which are not only alcohol and tobacco, but caffeine and sugar . . . “

You know them. Strong men. Vigorous men, robust men — men who have never had a sick day in their lives.

They drive. They drive themselves to the limit. They lash themselves over the limit with stimulants. They crack. Often, they crash.

You have seen them afterwards. Pitiful shells. The zest gone, the fire gone. Burnt-out furnaces of energy.

“He was such a healthy-looking man “

He was. His health was his undoing. His constitution absorbed punishment. Otherwise he might have been warned in time.

“For every action there is an equal and contrary reaction.” You learned the law in physics. It applies to bodies.

For every ounce of energy gained by stimulation, by whipping the nerves to action, an ounce of reserve strength is drained . . .
But repeated withdrawals exhaust any reserve.

Physical bankruptcy. Then the crash . . .

It’s time to get back to normal, to close the drafts, to bank some of the fires…

Avoid stimulants. What is good for the boy is good for the man . . .

Borrowed Energy Must Be Repaid!

Two million American families avoid caffeine by drinking Postum.

And two million American families are better

off for it. . .

People knew this was a problem 100 years ago. Yet, we are all still addicted.

Caffeine is the #1 ignored factor when it comes to health.

Here is the “advice” we see over and over again in regards to taking control of your physical health:

• Cut carbs.
• Cut out blue light.
• Don’t eat past 6.
• Don’t eat uncooked spinach.
• Eat only meat.
• Stop eating unsoaked almonds.
• Take this supplement.

80% of Americans consume some form of caffeine daily. I’ve seen mothers give their toddlers Mountain dew! Almonds are the problem? What world are we living in?

We are so obsessed with minor details that we miss the obvious. Seriously, anyone who is recommending putting butter in your coffee for optimal health has no clue what optimal health is.

People are clueless about caffeine. Why?

Because it’s “Normal”.

It’s a problem that is hard to see before it’s too late.

“But caffeine is not a problem for me.”

Any amount of stimulants in your body is a problem. It’s effecting you today. If you want to feel breadth of emotions again, have unlimited energy throughout the day, have healthy joints, be able to recover fully from exercise, have the most creative thoughts you can possibly have…

You need to quit caffeine. Plain and simple. You are not living the life you are fully capable of.

Studies showing caffeine is “Healthy”.

Really think about it. Would you believe studies about cocaine funded by cocaine dealers or done my cocaine addicts that think cocaine gives them a positive lift?

There is a billion dollar industry that thrives off of you believing this nonsense. And the mildness of the drug and normalization make many people never second guess it.

The science is not as bleeding edge as we think. Especially when it comes to nutrition. Caffeine is not a vitamin. We need to start relying a little bit more on human intuition then studies funded by big caffeine and drug addicts.

Is caffeine stopping us from living the lives we truly want?

Here’s the #1 post on Reddit regarding caffeine:

It’s Not Withdrawal. Your Career Just Sucks

I’m a software developer, about a year and a half caffeine-free. Immediately after quitting, my productivity at work plummeted. It hasn’t returned to pre-caffeine levels since.

I have realized that this is not due to withdrawal, but rather because I cannot, as a human being, sit in front of a screen all day, toiling away at meaningless work for a soulless corporation. Caffeine played a pivotal role in hiding this reality. With caffeine, I can slog through all manner of tedium and even have fun. Without it, I feel a strong attraction to a “stop and smell the roses” mode of living. I go on long walks, look at trees, write poetry, and I don’t get jack shit done at work.

I can breathe. My sleep is perfect. My digestion is perfect. My livelihood, however, is in jeopardy. I just wanted to put this out there, in case anyone has quit caffeine but is struggling with productivity or lack of motivation: It’s not withdrawal. You’re a spiritual creature in a cold, mechanical system, and now there’s no hiding.

There is something deeper going on here. Is caffeine used as a form of control? I mean, the Nazi’s gave prisoners soup, bread, and coffee for a reason right?

Caffeine is a worker bee drug. It makes you a slave and complacent. It numbs your prefrontal cortex just like any other drug.

This screws with your ability to delay gratification and makes you seek out more short term rewards to numb the pain.

I go over the pain-pleasure balance in my Dopamine Nation summary. So I won’t re-hash it here.

But the pain-pleasure balance is important to understand. Once you do. You will realize that putting anything in your body that is not food or water is making you miserable.

Caffeine is a gateway drug.

Imagine this..

You are anxious, on edge, irritable, depressed, have trouble sleeping. You think this is just you. You reach for alcohol or weed or Kratom or whatever to take the edge off. You were only in that state because of caffeine.

This scenario may not have happened to you yet. But I guarantee it has happened to millions of people who have turned towards drugs to numb the pain.

Caffeine kills people, tips people with deadly heart disease over the edge, plays a factor in road rage car accidents, causes vitamin and mineral deficiencies, cardiac arrhythmia, perpetuates drug addiction, and much more.

It’s poison.

When are we going to wake up?

Nat Eliason's SEO course

Things I learned from Nat Eliason’s SEO Course

Leveling up

• Start with an easy keyword
• Over time, adjust article for harder and harder keywords
• Long tail keywords with low competition
• Can change meta title for google to the harder keyword later
• Can only change the meta title unless there is something the content is missing that the broader keyword asks for.
• At first, pick something under 5,000 searches

You don’t need to spend time building backlinks. You can rank for keywords that aren’t even IN your articles. You don’t need to focus on keyword density. Focus on intent.

Google analytics and keyword planner are all that’s needed. They are completely free.

How to think about SEO

Google is for answering people’s questions Google knows more that SEO experts about how Google works Any ranking trick will be fixed

Your goal: Answer questions better than anyone else on the internet.

Step 1: Topic Research Step 2: Keyword research Step 3: Writing Content that Ranks Step 4: Promoting Content Step 5: Increasing Ranking in the Future

Topic Research

Is this something people are searching for? If Yes -> Existing Topic If No -> New Topic

Existing Topics

• High SEO Potential
• High SEO Competition

• Make sure to look at your rankings in incognito mode or it will show you searches based on your own browsing history.
• You can rank on words with high competition.

New Topics

• Something people aren’t searching for.
• Lower SEO Potential
• Low SEO Competition
• Make up a term or word to describe what you are talking about.
• (Examples: savable income, second degree dinners, stamena, etc.)
• Keyword research not neccesary

Keyword Research

Step 1: Come up with addressable keywords Step 2: Assess their keyword volume Step 3: Assess the competition Step 4: Pick your keyword

Step 1: Come up with addressable keywords

Organize information in a spreadsheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XitO95OO6q3djdnOZpESaaK9xVcGKGv791mAL3IuRl0/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0

List Possible keywords Subjectively rate how broad the keyword is

Step 2: Assess their keyword volume

Use Google keyword planner to add the search volume to the spreadsheet. View the recommended options and add relevant Keywords to your list.

Step 3: Assess the competition

New sites will be hard to rank for higher competition keywords. Ignore competition rating in Google keyword planner. Search for the keyword in Google Rank the competition in your spreadsheet based on the top sites that show up. Is there an article that directly addresses the question? If you see a lot of social media results that means there is a good chance it’s a low competition keyword.

Step 4: Pick your keyword

Don’t go after the hard keywords at first. Use the leveling up strategy to go for harder keywords. Set meta title tag for title in google You can level up just by changing the meta title, On adjust the content if the keyword calls for it Start with easy, more narrow, less competition keyword. Can level up to harder keywords multiple times after they are ranking

Part 3: Writing the Post

5 Principles of Great SEO

1. Answer their question
2. Provide the best answer
3. Provide a complete answer
4. Make it actionable
5. Overdeliver

Principle 1: Answer their Question

Answer the question Make it easy to find those answers with content menu or skimmability (Headings) Have a heading with the keyword

Principle 2: Provide the best answer

What did everyone else do to answer this? Search for the keyword and view the top results. What did they do and not do well?

Principle 3: Provide a complete answer

Figure out everything somebody could be looking for when they ask the question. Good SEO content is usually long because of this. (GOal is not to be long, it’s to fully answer the question)

Principle 4: Make it actionable

Are they going to need to go back to google for more answers? Make the reader ready to go with what they just read. What’s next? How can they do it? Add steps to doing the thing.

Principle 5: Overdeliver

Give them more than they expected when they showed up. Could be a free PDF, tools, or additional info or story in the article.

Structuring your articles for SEO

Easily readable (breaks, images, etc.) Shorter paragraphs, logical structure, fun and readable No keyword stuffing (have it in your headline) Include relevant links in the article. Link to other relevant content on your site. Link to high quality sources (research article, wikipedia, etc.) Takeaways, steps, action items at the end of your article. Make it easy for them to find what to do.

Creating Your Headline

If you don’t have a good headline then nobody will click on it. What people see when they go to google. Come up with 10-30 headlines that sound clickable and excited and also the most informative. Make sure Keyword is in the Headline

Part 4: Promotion

3 Keys to Content Promotion

• Promoting to your audience
• Promoting to others’ audiences
• Adding to your structure

Promoting to your audience

They want to hear from you Social media Email Groups you are part of (Forums, message boards) Automate as much as possible

Can automate with Zapier.

• Will share to all social media profiles automatically

Promoting to Other Audiences

Used to get an initial surge to get on Google’s radar. Reddit

• Find subreddit where your content will fit and post content there.
• Find communities that let you just drop a link.
• Can also make a discussion and provide info in the post and add links.
• Can talk about a high level overview of the article.

Message boards Emailing people mentioned or who might be interested (Hey I wrote this thing, I thought you would like it, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.) Don’t ask them to share it.

Adding to your structure

Add link to past articles that it may be helpful in. Have pages that collect themes on your site. Like a map of Content Link back in future articles (reference past articles in new ones) Add useful things.

Re optimize

Identify higher value keywords that it’s starting to rank for just a little bit. Re-word the headline to fit that keyword Repeat promotion as relevant How to identify higher value keywords

• Go to google analytics
• Go to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries
  • Can view queries that people are landing on your page by
  • Go to search console > landing pages and select the specific article and then view queries that it’s ranking for.
  • Can see position in search results here.
• Give article some time to settle in