Andre Agassi's autobiography is a brutally honest story about a tennis legend who hated the game that made him famous. Agassi traces his journey from a harsh, obsessive childhood training regimen to superstardom, burnout, rebellion, and eventual redemption—revealing the psychological cost of greatness, the search for identity beyond winning, and how he ultimately found purpose on his own terms.

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On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. Kelly’s timeless advice covers an astonishing range, from right living to setting ambitious goals, optimizing generosity, and cultivating compassion.

Excellent Advice for Living is the ideal companion for anyone seeking to navigate life with grace and creativity:

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Some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

1. Choose to believe that the entire universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success.

2. Mastering the view through the eyes of others will unlock many doors.

3. If you can avoid seeking the approval of others your power is limitless.

4. The reward for good work is more work.

5. Don’t be the best. Be the only.

6. The urgent is a tyrant. The important should be your king.

7. Find smart people who will disagree with you.

8. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

9. The most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others the more you'll get.

10. Life gets better as you replace transactions with relationships.

11. Courtesy costs nothing.

12. Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed.

13. Cultivate an allergy to average.

14. If you repeated what you did today 365 more times would you be where you want to be next year?

15. If you are alive that means you still have lessons to learn.

16. Master something.Through mastery of one thing you'll command a viewpoint to steadily find where your bliss is.

17. Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.

18. First, always ask for what you want. Works in relationships, business, life.

19. If nobody else does what you do you won't need a resume.

20. How to apologize: quickly, specifically, sincerely.

21. You choose to be lucky by believing that any setbacks are just temporary.

22. The best way to advise people is to find out what they really want to do and then advise them to do it.

23. It is certain that 99% of the stuff you are anxious about won't happen.

24. What is important is not what happened to you but what you did about what happened to you.

25. Your golden ticket is being able to see things from other people's point of view.

26. Pay attention to who you are around when you feel best. Be with them more often.

27. To get your message across follow this formula: simplify, simplify, simplify, then exaggerate.

28. You will thrive more when you promote what you love rather than bash what you hate.

29. To be interesting just tell your own story with uncommon honesty.

30. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable.

31. Don’t measure your life with someone else’s ruler.

32. For maximum results focus on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

33. Pay attention to what you pay attention to.

There's no one like Rick Rubin. He's a legendary music producer known for his minimalist approach and relentless pursuit of greatness. This episode is what I learned from reading ⁠Rick Rubin: In The Studio⁠ by Jake Brown.

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Some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

"I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” —Rick Rubin. This episode is what I learned from reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.

Collateral⁠⁠ transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to ⁠⁠https://collateral.com

(00:00) Just one habit, at the top of any field, can be enough to give an edge over the competition.

In 2024 Brad Jacobs wrote the book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars.

The Life of Jesus as told in the book Jesus: A Biography of a Believer by Paul Johnson.

This episode was originally published on Christmas Eve 2023.

A viciously unhappy childhood causes Bruce Springsteen to retreat into work in an extreme way as he searches for success (and control). He channels his pain into focus and drive and gets everything he thought he wanted. He didn’t yet know he was lying to himself. He will find that out soon. He falls into a deep depression. One that almost leads to s*icide. With the help of his true friend Jon Landau he seeks professional help. This help helps immediately. The lie he was telling himself was that work was the most important thing in his life. What he really wanted, was what he was incapable of doing: forming a lasting and loving relationship with a woman. For that he realizes he can’t run. For that he realizes he has to stay. That thought terrifies him and is what caused him to seek help. He meets a truly singular woman and for the first time in his life he's able to have a healthy relationship with someone he loves. This realization comes almost 400 pages into Bruce’s incredible autobiography (one of the best I’ve ever read) and it is shocking. I originally thought I was making an episode about Bruce Springsteen’s extreme work ethic (one example: He wrote this book out by hand, multiple times, over 7 years. It’s almost 600 pages. He’s like this with everything btw.) But as I read, and reread this book over the last 6 months I realized that is not the most important part of the story. The work Bruce had to do to fix his mind is the heart and soul of the book. The work he did with Dr. Wayne Myers over 25 years is what allowed him to have a life. Not just a job. A life.

Christian von Koenigsegg is unapologetically in the pursuit of greatness. Koenigsegg builds some of the fastest and most expensive cars on Earth, has a cult-like following, and relentlessly seeks out challenges he can innovate on. After building his company for more than 30 years, his love and passion for his craft is still as strong as ever. This episode explores some of the most important ideas I found from studying his life and career. It's perfect for anyone that wants to live their dream.

I'm reposting one of my favorite founder stories. If you listened to this first time I recommend listening again. If you missed this before, you're about to hear one of the wildest founder stories of all time.

A few surprising things I learned from reading about Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of Red Bull:

This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of John D. Rockefeller—and nothing else.