📚 Best 2024 Books, ⛓️ Don’t Break the Chain, and 🤔 Why We Need Problems
PROGRESSION: 2025, Vol 1
Last call! Today is the final day to enroll in my course, Become Unconquerable in 2025. I’ve made several tweaks since I originally announced. Because your situation is different for others, I've intentionally designed an experience that blends self-directed learning, personal accountability, and one-on-one coaching sessions with me.
Click here for more details and let me know by end of day (nhtanner@gmail.com) if you’d like to join.
Don’t Break the Chain
11 years ago I was challenged to read 30 books in a year. Completing the challenge had a massive impact on my life. So I set a goal to read 30+ every year.
In 2024, I barely hit my goal, reading 17 in the last three months. While there are many takeaways from hitting this goal (benefits of reading, self development, etc.), the key insight, at least for me, is that STREAKS MATTER.
Once you've created a habit and get a streak going, the last thing you want to do is see it end. See Seinfeld's Don't Break the Chain principle.
Momentum is a powerful force. There's nothing significant about 30 books, but there was no way in heck I was going to let that 11-year streak come to an end.
Set a goal. Build a habit. Create a system. In time, your momentum will propel you forward.
Don't break the chain.
Best Books of 2024
📚 As promised, here are the best books I read in 2024. Rather than share a list of my favorite 5-10 books, I'll share them by category.
Best Leadership Book: The Motive by Patrick Lencioni
Best Fitness/Triathlon book: How Bad Do You Want It?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind over Muscle by Matt Fitzgerald
Best Parenting Book: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Bad Therapy also very insightful)
Worst Book: Right Thing, Right Now by Ryan Holiday (I love you Ryan, but there was an air of smugness throughout)
Most Inspiring Book: Chase the Lion by Mark Batterson
Book I Couldn't Put Down: Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell
Best Book I Wrote: The Unconquerable Leader (couldn't resist! 😉)
Book That Most Challenged My Thinking: Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
Best Biography: Hero of the Empire (bio of Winston Churchill) by Candice Millard
Most Persuasive/Insightful Book: What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies by Tim Urban
What are some of the best books you’ve read recently?
What I’m Learning
“Lacking real problems, a lot of people immediately stress out about fake or minor ones. It's like there's a minimum level of stress that they require.” —Morgan Housel
This is spot on. I’ve seen this in myself and loved ones.
Reminds me of a favorite quote from Michael Easter: “Fewer problems don’t lead to more satisfaction, they lead us to lower our threshold for what is considered a problem.”
“The important thing to tell a student entering college or high school: Read.” —Peggy Noonan
I believe that reading consistently is one of the most important habits we can create. More from Noonan:
“Reading deepens. Social media keeps you where you are. Reading makes your mind do work. You have to follow the plot, imagine what the ballroom looked like, figure the motivations of the characters—I understand what Gatsby wants!
“All this makes your brain and soul develop the habit of generous and imaginative thinking. Social media is passive. The pictures, the reels and comments demand nothing, develop nothing. They give you sensations, but the sensations never get deeper. Social media gets you stuck in you. Reading is a rocket ship, new worlds.”
Gratitudes
I’ve found power in regularly expressing gratitude so I’ll continue the habit. I’m grateful for new beginnings. The new year is a great time to make change. So is your birthday. Quite frankly, so is any other day. We can always start over and begin again. A major pet peeve of mine is the “Your new year’s resolutions are going to fail so why bother” messages we regularly here. Don’t listen to them. We can always start again. I’m grateful for new beginnings.
One last call for my new course—Become Unconquerable in 2025. Click here for details. Today is the last day to enroll.
If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.
All the best,
Nathan
Read my book, The Unconquerable Leader | Learn about coaching
If this was forwarded to you and you'd like to sign up, click here