I never thought of myself as a smart person.

I always felt like in school I was always behind and I was never good at studying/ taking exams. 

I actually had an experience where someone in my IB Physics class said I don’t have a thirst for knowledge because I didn’t want to skip my lunch to watch an IB Anatomy dissection.

It fueled my fire for growth and learning. It definitely lit a fire underneath my @$$ for years to come….

I never really thought anything of it until about 2 or 3 years ago.

All of a sudden, I felt like I wanted to learn so much. I listen to thousands of youtube videos, podcasts, learning about everything finances, peoples amazing stories, inventors, people that are out to change the world in a way no one has ever seen before!

I was so motivated and just wanted to do everything!

I have so much energy and I wanted to put it to good use.

I then learned throughout the journey that it’s not really about trying to fix something aka me thinking I am not smart enough.

Now I have the ability to choose what I want instead of my relationship to it before was that I was not smart enough.

It’s interesting to see the power of what happens when you choose from a place that is intentional.

Now, my relationship to learning is at cause instead of being at effect of something else.

I play the victim card much less now. I have a choice. I have the ability to do whatever I want not what someone else wants from me.

It’s amazing to feel empowered like that!

I am writing this to you to make you question just even one thing today…

Am I doing this for myself? Or because someone wants me to?

When you know that you have the power to do what you want. The ability to accomplish and do things become so much easier and filled with intentions.

Thank you for reading this on your Holiday weekend!

Bless you all for being such all amazing beings in the world!

My favorites are highlighted in bold.

1. Tony Hsieh- Delivering Happiness: A path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
2. Pre:The Story of American’s Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine- Tom Jordan
3. The Start- Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career- Reid Hoffman
4. Rework- Jason Fried (Recommended by Mark Cuban)
5. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow- Yuval Noah Harari
6. Idea Man: A memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft -Paul Allen
7. Ray Kroc- Grinding it Out: The Making of McDonald’s
8. Getting Real: Ten Truth Skills. You Need to Live an Authentic Life- Susan Campbell, Ph.D.
9. Michael Lewis- Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
10. Phil Knight- Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the creator of Nike
11. The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation- Matthew Dixon
12. Strategic Management and Business Policy: Globalization, Innovation and Sustainability- Thomas Wheelan
13. Operations Management: Processes and Supply Chains- Lee J. Krajewski
14. The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living- Ryan Holiday
15. Peter Thiel- Zero To One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
16. Adam M. Grant- Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
17. Ego Is the Enemy- Ryan Holiday
18. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt- T.J. Stiles
19. Transform Your Life: 10 Principles of Abundance and Prosperity- Chris Lee
20. Tony Robbins: Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook
21. The Intelligent Investor. The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel- Benjamin Graham – recommended by Warren Buffet
22. Titan: The Life of John. D. Rockefeller- Ron Chernon
23. Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age- Bernand W. Carlson- Recommended by Elon Musk
24. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life- Walter Isaacson – Top 5 books of all time. (Also recommended by Elon Musk)
25. Breakpoint: Why the Web will implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in your Brain- Jeff Stibel
26. Michael Lewis- The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds.
27. Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt- Michael Lewis
28. The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story- Michael Lewis
29. The Money Culture; Michael Lewis
30. Grant Cardone- Be Obsessed or Be Average (sales related)
31. Tony Robbins- Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement
32. Tony Robbins- Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!
33. Tony Robbins- MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom. (Highly recommended for everyone. Top 5 books)
34. Essentials of Business Statistics- Bruce Bowerman
35. Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm- Kenneth Laudon
36. Introduction to Counseling: An Art and Science Perspective- Michael Nystul
37. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us:Daniel Pink
38. Organizational Behavior- Steven McShane
39. Strategic Marketing- David Cravens
40. Managing Human Resources- Susan E. Jackson
41. Management- Stephen. P. Robbins
42.  The Legal Environment of Business: Text and Cases: Ethical,  Regulatory, Global and Corporate Issues- Frank B. Cross
43. Career Anchors: The Changing Nature of Careers Self Assessment- Egdar H. Schein
44. Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management- Archie B. Carroll
45. Working with Emotional Intelligence- Daniel Goleman
46. Taming Your Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for getting out of your own way. Rick Carson
47. The E-Myth Revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it. Michael E Gerber
48. Get Clients Now! (TM): A 28- day marketing program for professionals, consultants, and coaches
49. Selling the Invisible: A Field guide to modern marketing
50. Creating competitive advantage: give customers a reason to choose you over your competitors- Jaynie. L. Smith
51. Coach anyone about anything: How to help people succeed in business and life: Germaine Porche
52. Creating Sales Velocity- Matthew Ferry
53. The Rosie Project: A Novel- Graeme Simsion
54. The Rosie Effect- A novel- Graeme Simsion
55. AskGaryVee
    One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness
    Vaynerchuk, Gary
56.  Originals: Adam Grant
57. Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1- Neale Donald Walsch
58. Journey of Awakening: A Mediatator’s Guidebook- Ram Dass
59. Coaching with Spirit- Teri E Belf
60. This Thing Called You- Ernest Holmes
61. American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road- Nick Bilton
62. The Gift of Our Compulsions: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Acceptance and Healing-
    Mary O’Malley
63. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
    Tolle, Eckhart
64. Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is and What You Can Do About It
    Pressfield, Steven
65. How Google Works
    Schmidt, Eric
66. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
    Stone, Brad
67. To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History
    Levy, Lawrence
68. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
    Manson, Mark
69. Uncontainable: How Passion, Commitment, and Conscious Capitalism Built a Business Where Everyone Thrives
    Tindell, Kip
70. Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion
    Marcus, Bernie
71. Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul
    Schultz, Howard
72. Seoul Man: A Memoir of Cars, Culture, Crisis, and Unexpected Hilarity Inside a Korean Corporate Titan
    Ahrens, Frank
73. Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invicible Through 100 Days of Rejection- Jiang, Jia
74. Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties- Beth Kobliner
75. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams
    Deepak Chopra
76. Death of a Salesman (Viking Critical Library)
    Miller, Arthur
77. Think and Grow Rich – 1937 Original Masterpiece
78. The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources
    Twist, Lynne
79. Headstrong- Dave Asprey
80. Winning the Cloud– Trong Nguyen

What are your thoughts on any of these books that you have read or the main takeaways?

I am always open to suggestions for books that you think I would like. Thanks all for taking the time to read about my amazing journey!

The picture listed above was actually sent to me from Tony Hsieh when I wrote him a nice note about his amazing book on culture.