My Reading List

Alex Hormozi on lead generation: four ways to get strangers to notice an offer, and the metrics each of them can be measured against. The long form of what his talks compress.

Ernie Chan's entry-level book: algorithmic trading as a business with capital, costs and an expected return. Contains the chapter on backtesting errors that sink most strategies.

Stefan Jansen connects machine learning to market data: feature engineering, model selection, and how to validate a model whose training data keeps shifting. Long and Python-heavy.

Ernie Chan on building individual trading strategies and the rationale behind them: mean reversion, momentum, and the risk maths of position sizing. Assumes some background.

Jorge Bucay tells, in short stories, what a therapist passes on to his patient. Each one stands alone; the book takes being opened at any page.

Carol Dweck's research on the difference between a fixed and a growth self-image, and what it means for how people react to setbacks. The source behind the term "growth mindset".

Cal Newport on focused work: the claim that undistracted depth is becoming a rare and therefore valuable skill, plus four rules for defending it against everyday interruption.

John Strelecky's story of a café whose menu carries three questions. A parable about the purpose of one's own existence, read in a little over two hours.

Goggins' second book, written after the first one succeeded. It is about what he calls the mental lab — the work that continues once the visible goals have already been reached.

Goggins tells his way from obesity to Navy SEAL and ultra runner, and argues from it that most people stop far short of their actual limit. Hard tone, heavily autobiographical.

Seth Godin on creative work as a craft rather than a flash of insight: those who ship regularly get better, and waiting for inspiration is the most expensive form of avoidance.

Branson's short account of the decisions behind Virgin: starting before the plan is finished, and treating risk as something you survive rather than avoid. More anecdote collection than method.

James Clear reduces behaviour change to four steps — make it obvious, attractive, easy, satisfying — and argues that systems carry you where goals fail. The most quoted book on habits.

Mark Manson's counter-programme to the self-help shelf: not more positivity, but deliberately choosing what is worth struggling with at all. Crude tone, serious argument underneath.

Austin Kleon's alternative to self-promotion: rather than marketing yourself, show the work while it is being made. Ten short chapters, read in an hour.