These are some of the best resources out there that shaped my thinking, worldview, and aspirations. If you resonate with them, we’d probably get along! Feel free to reach out! :)
updated @May 3, 2023
🤔 Thinkers
Highly recommend going through all their work, content, interviews…etc
Derek Sivers
Derek had a range of unique experiences as a musician, entrepreneur, author, circus performer…etc. He writes in a simple yet thought-provoking way. He challenges conventional beliefs and represents a way to live a life driven by curiosity and active exploration. A lot of my big mindset shifts in life came from him.
I was lucky to meet up with him in New Zealand last year! People say you shouldn’t meet your hero because they’d disappoint, but it didn’t at all!
Check out:
- 📝 You don’t have to be local
- 📝 Everything is my fault
- 🎙️ Derek Sivers: Innovation Versus Imitation [The Knowledge Project Ep. #88]
- 📖 Hell Yeah or No: what’s worth doing
- 📖 How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion
Mark Manson
I first read Mark’s book in high school and it blew my mind and got me started my nonfiction journey. Mark writes in a playful yet practical way, it’s so good.
Check out:
- 📖 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (the book was so good they are making a movie… from a nonfiction book!)
- 📝 The Most Important Question of Your Life
- 📺 How to Get Ahead of 99% of People (Starting Today)
David Perell
David inspires me in so many ways, especially his path. His ideas got me started with writing in public and completely reframed the way I approach my learning and career. I took his writing course Write of Passage twice, and out of all the cohort based courses I’ve taken, WoP has the highest quality, community, and long term effect! (there’s a scholarship you can apply)
Check out:
- 📝 The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online (ahhh all you need to read to get started)
- 📝 Audience-First Products
- 📝 Hugging the X-Axis
- 📺 David’s YouTube
Naval Ravikant
Naval completed changed the way I look at happiness and how I’d approach my career. So good.
Check out:
- 🐦 How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)
- 🎙️ Happiness: a skill that can be cultivated
- 📖 The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness
Shane Parrish
Shane’s blog Farnam Street is one of my fav blog of all time. It got me into the rabbit hole of mental models, decision makings, learning how to learn… meta skills. His podcast The Knowledge Project is also gold. One of the few podcasts I consistently tune in.
- 📝 Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (~100 Models Explained)
- 📝 Accelerated Learning: Learn Faster and Remember More
- 📝 Reading Better: Retaining and Applying What You Read
- 📝 How to Make Smart Decisions Without Getting Lucky
☺️ on meaningful life
📝 How to Increase Your Luck Surface Area
📝 How Do You Measure Your Life?
📝 Your Life is Driven by Network Effects
📺 What I learned from 100 days of rejection | Jia Jiang
📖 The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life
📖 The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck
🚶🏻♂️on the human condition, feelings, self-image, purpose
📝 crushes are often just misplaced ambition: what the people we're drawn to tell us about ourselves
📝 how to avoid half-heartedness
📝 courage: why are we so wimpy?
📝 commitments: how do you frame freedom for yourself?
📝 closeness is rare: against people pleasing
🫂 on meaningful relationships
see full list 🎍FriendshipsFriendships
📝 Vulnerability: The Key to Better Relationships
📝 How to make friends over the internet
📺 The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown
🎨 creativity & craft
📺 Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon at TEDxKC
📺 How to build your creative confidence | David Kelley
💼 on meaningful career
📝 How to Create the Luck Required for a Successful Career
📝 Deliberate Practice:What It Is and How to Use It
📝 Pmarca Guide to Career Planning: Opportunity
📝 How to become high-potential
📝 How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably
📖 So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
✍🏻 on writing
📝 The Ultimate Guide to Writing Online
📝 The Day You Became A Better Writer
📝 Writing is Thinking: Learning to Write with Confidence
📝 Good things come to those who write
📝 Write for Yourself, and Wisdom Will Follow
📝 How To Start Writing Online: The Ship 30 for 30 Ultimate Guide
📖 On Writing Well
📖 Several Short Sentences About Writing
💡 ideas
zoom out zoom out zoom out. and you can see the insignificance of your problem. we are a tiny little dot in the vast vast universe.
we are a bunch of atoms and sells interacting randomly with each other. everything is just human concepts in our mind. reminder to not take things too seriously.
the most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. period. you are the only person, quite literally, that accompanys you from the day you are born till the day you die.
who we are is the average of 5 people we spent most time with. 5 ideas we most think about. 5 pieces of media you consume the most.
🎤 quotes
see full list at 💬 Great Quotes Great Quotes
Whatever will be, will be.
When the going gets tough, tough gets going.
Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right
Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is StupidWhether you think you can or you can’t, you are right
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”― Lao Tzu
“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
“Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
“Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
“And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity or true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
“Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.’”
— General Douglas MacArthur
💫 spirituality
📝 Religion for the Nonreligious
📖 Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
🧘🏻 mindfulness
Here are things I’ve tried, explored, and want to try. If anything resonates lmk!!!
mental health
- journaling
- therapy
- working out
meditation
- breathwork (check out Othership)
- guided meditation: body scan
- guided meditation apps (The Honest Guys, Headspace, Waking Up)
- silent meditation
- metta (love & kindness) meditation
- sound bath
- mindful walking
- chanting
- kirtan
yoga
- Sudarshan Kriya, Pranayama Yoga, through The Art of Living Center
- Bhakti Yoga / kirtan & chanting meditation, Krishna Consciousness
- Kundalini Yoga
- Hot Yoga
to try:
- movement
- somatic therapy
- hypnotherapy
- calisthenic
- psychedelics
- Vipassana
- Transcendental Meditation
🎬 movies
Everything Everywhere All at Once → on the absurdity of life
About Time → a heart-warming movie on romantic and family love
500 Days of Summer → ahh watch this after your first relationship
Inception
Interstellar
Good Will Hunting
Soul
Inside Out
Your Name
📚 books
see 📚 books garden for full list
- 📖 The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck
- 📖 Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
- 📖 How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion
- 📖 The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness
…
wow thanks for making all the way to the end ! don’t forget to say hi 👀