I might steal the 2 non-fiction one-fiction formula from you Joel. Funny thing is I eschewed fiction for most of my life until fairly recently, but now I'm writing about technology and innovation using some fiction and a lot of narrative emphasis.
Thanks for this, Joel. I, too, am an avid reader. Fiction choice is easy for me. On the non-fiction side, my previous process has been if a recommendation resonates, read reviews, buy the Kindle version. The problem is, right now I have about 8 books in queue and I can't remember where to start. this will be very helpful.
This is great. This is very close to what I do, but I don’t really read fiction very much. I tell gpt a list of my favorite books, why I like them, which books were too boring or uninteresting and why. I tell it that I really like paradigm changing books and give examples of what I mean. Then I either say “what are some gaps in my learning based on my good reads list and what I’ve told you?” Or, more often, “give me some new books ideas that slightly overlap with what I’m already enjoying, but slightly push into new areas I haven’t read much about.” That way I already am kinda interested and it pulls me into something new. Also, I exclusively listen to audiobooks and am in a unique position to listen to them most of the day every day at the moment. So I like a little overlap because I’m not sitting there super paying attention and trying to absorb any one book 100 percent. I get most of it while listening and triangulate info from similar books and ask GPT questions constantly when a book makes me connect something to another thing I read. I think of it like a giant page of Venn diagrams and trying to find the gaps
Totally agree on being deliberate.
Working on your leadership intentionally also means being honest about where you’re weak.
The best leaders I’ve interviewed preferred fiction, biographies, and real human stories to spark ideas for their own journeys.
I wrote a post recently on this too: https://millennialmasters.net/p/reading-stories-not-advice
Yes I’ve seen that as well, lifelong learners succeed. Awesome, I’ll check out your post as well!
I might steal the 2 non-fiction one-fiction formula from you Joel. Funny thing is I eschewed fiction for most of my life until fairly recently, but now I'm writing about technology and innovation using some fiction and a lot of narrative emphasis.
Regarding the AI tool, how do you model positive versus negative book feautres?
It just looks for commonalities to look for in the books you like and ones to avoid from the books you don’t like
Love this. I track everything in my work with Notion and automation/AI, but my reading has been totally haphazard to say the least.
Notion for tracking my books has been amazing, especially now that I can use Claude’s MCP and ask it to make al updates for me, haha!
That’s the life hack right there :)
Yes! Kick back and let the tech do its work haha
I do learn to learn from you on adding Make.com to my workflows
Yesss! They’re all just tools at our disposal 🙌 Love it.
Fantastic article Joel. And seriously thanks for giving me permission to ditch those books that 'everyone' reads but which I just can't get through! 🙏
I feel that same pressure! I get you :)
Thanks for this, Joel. I, too, am an avid reader. Fiction choice is easy for me. On the non-fiction side, my previous process has been if a recommendation resonates, read reviews, buy the Kindle version. The problem is, right now I have about 8 books in queue and I can't remember where to start. this will be very helpful.
This is great. This is very close to what I do, but I don’t really read fiction very much. I tell gpt a list of my favorite books, why I like them, which books were too boring or uninteresting and why. I tell it that I really like paradigm changing books and give examples of what I mean. Then I either say “what are some gaps in my learning based on my good reads list and what I’ve told you?” Or, more often, “give me some new books ideas that slightly overlap with what I’m already enjoying, but slightly push into new areas I haven’t read much about.” That way I already am kinda interested and it pulls me into something new. Also, I exclusively listen to audiobooks and am in a unique position to listen to them most of the day every day at the moment. So I like a little overlap because I’m not sitting there super paying attention and trying to absorb any one book 100 percent. I get most of it while listening and triangulate info from similar books and ask GPT questions constantly when a book makes me connect something to another thing I read. I think of it like a giant page of Venn diagrams and trying to find the gaps
That’s a great strategy! Have you tried asking for suggestions for hat it thinks you may like but outside of the topics you are used to?
Yes, but I'll have it gently nudge me into new topics that still have a bit of overlap so I'm still interested.
That’s a good strategy! I will implement some of that. Thanks for sharing!
I buy a book every week and read a book every month.... need to build an extension 😭
Haha 🤣 I buy about 3 books a month, but I am quick to put one down that I don’t like, before wasting more time on it