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The most successful people in the world use worldclass tools, resources, and books to perform at a high level.
Over the years, we’ve been extensively testing things in our own lives and businesses.
Not only is this list battle-tested by us personally, but these tools are also recommended by countless experts and entrepreneurs.
Wealth Building/Saving Apps 💰
Note: We are not financial advisors. This is just what we use and do and are describing what has worked for us.
- Wealthfront: Automate your investing and wealth creation. There is a high interest “Cash” account with no minimum and has one of the highest interest rates (if not the highest) around. No fees, ever!
Wealthfront is also great for its automated investing. Their sophisticated models help invest your money for you. Using our link, you’ll get a free $5k managed and even when you do have to pay fees it’s lower than many other solutions and is worth the time saved in our opinion. You can even use it to manage your Roth IRA.
Our favorite feature of Wealthfront is the ability to automate your savings and investing. Don’t even need to think about it, just watch your money grow over time! - Robinhood / Webull: Most of you probably already know about these. If you have particular opinions about the world or companies, this is where you’d go to invest. No fees AND they both give you free stocks for joining using our links (in some cases depending on the promotion they’re running, up to $1k in stocks).
No reason not to get both just to get the free money, to be honest. - Raise: Make your money go further. Buy discounted gift cards (often 10+% off). If you’re already going to pay anyway, might as well save that money! Signing up from our link will get you a free $5 to snag a gift card!
Learning Tools 💡
These are great tools to help you increase your rate of learning.
- RemNote: The best notetaking app we’ve seen. Incredibly powerful learning tool that allows you to connect ideas together and help you store information in a much better way. 1000x better than Evernote and similar to Roam Research. You can also automatically make to-do’s, templates, and flash cards directly from your notes with no extra work.
- Audible: Listen to books in all situations (while walking, doing chores, cleaning, etc.). Get a free book using this link!
- Blinkist: The largest library of book summaries for your learning
- Trends: Get all the best business ideas and analyses delivered to your inbox every week. These guys do incredibly in-depth breakdowns of new and interesting businesses and industries. People have built really incredible million-dollar businesses through this newsletter. A must-read for me every week. (The link gives you a big discount)
- Lunchclub: The ultimate networking tool. Get matched to other hustlers who want to network, for free, every week. Top investors, entrepreneurs, builders, and just great people in general use this to grow their networks.
Books 📖
It’s hard to recommend books that will be applicable to everybody given the wide variety of interests of people who read this blog, but we will try to give some good general learning books along with some more specialized ones for some of our more popular topics.
General Books
Books that are generally good reads and will make you smarter, more curious, and more creative:
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: This is one of the best books on decision-making there is, backed by research and great studies.
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini: The bible for networking, friendship, persuasion, and more. If you want to learn sales and marketing, this is the book that has survived the test of time.
- Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson: A detailed biography of one of the most creative and brilliant minds who ever lived.
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: Understanding humans and how we behave and think is critical to long term success. Sapiens is a long read about human history, but you’ll come out with a new understanding of society, economics, and more.
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: Another powerful psychology book to understand how humans think (and how to hack your own mind)
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss: A bible on negotiation from a former FBI hostage negotiator
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Another great book for decision making from Taleb with great research and studies.
- Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson: A fantastic biography of Benjamin Franklin. He was so ahead of his time and you’ll learn what made him so ahead of his time.
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: The bio of a legend.
Business Books
This is your virtual MBA (for like 0.1% the price). Here are books you can read to learn everything you need to know about business.
- The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael M. Lewis: A powerful story of early Silicon Valley. Read between the lines to pick up gems of lessons
- Good to Great by Jim Collins: A detailed breakdown of which companies stay mediocre and which ones make the leap to greatness.
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh: The story of creating Zappos, a masterclass on great customer service and company culture
- The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz: If there’s one lesson to pick up in starting a company, it’s that shit will hit the fan. There’s no better book about how to deal with that than this book.
- Console Wars by Blake Harris: The amazing battle between video game consoles.
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight: Hands down one of the best business books ever written. The founding story of Nike, from the founder himself.
You can also look at the bestseller lists for business books for a good up-to-date look at book recommendations in the business category.
Other Stuff For Productivity And Learning 🤓
Kindle: One of the best investments for on-the-go reading. You know why so many people fail to read? It’s hard to carry around a book. Well with a Kindle, you literally have infinite books in your hand (and Kindle books are cheaper than physical)
Solar Charger: I carry around a spare charger everywhere. If you’re doing business or bouncing around, your battery is bound to die, both your computer and your phone. Have a good quality solar charger can make a big difference and give peace of mind.
Quality Notebook: A quality journal is the difference between writing on it all the time and not writing at all. Personally, I like having a notebook that feels good to write on and carry around. You can use it for ideating, jotting down notes, meetings, and more. In fact, I’ve noticed there an element of status as well when people see you pull out a really nice notebook in a meeting.
Book summaries, notes, interviews, and more!
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