I’m obsessed with numbers, so getting a FitBit one year ago was a natural progression of my data-driven life.
What interesting information can we glean from the data?
On average:
- I spend 4,000 calories a day. Bearing in mind that FitBit doesn’t track my strength training sessions, martial arts or swimming, nor does it take into consideration the amount of energy my brain needs to keep going during those marathon brainstorming sessions at Splento, I have a sneaky suspicion that I spend north of 5,000 calories a day, but 4,000 a day is a good baseline.
- I take 18,242 steps a day (both walking and running).
- Last year I’ve travelled by foot 5,380km – the distance equivalent to that from LA to NY and then a short walk down to DC 🙂 Not a lot, so should be able to beat it next year.
- However, what FitBit doesn’t show is the number of hours I spend on my feet – that precious “me-time”, when I listen to audiobooks.
Some people prefer listening to music or radio during their “me-time”, I love audio-books. Combine that with running or brisk-walking and you get my favourite past-time.
Below is the list of books I’ve read last year during my walks and long-runs in counter-chronological order from August 2018 back to September 2017.
Some of these books, like Matt Blumberg’s “Startup CEO”, I religiously re-read year after year, as Splento grows in step with the progression of chapters in his book. To others I return in search of inspiration for particular solutions, like Ries & Trout’s “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” for marketing and Patrick Lencioni’s books for leadership and organisational health.
A few books on this list (Who: The A Method for Hiring, High Output Management, Measure What Matters, Sam Walton: Made in America), unfortunately, aren’t available in audio-format, but I’ve included them here, because they were some of the biggest revelations for me last year and are absolute MUST-READS for everyone (not just entrepreneurs).
In this list below I’ll just note down the titles and authors, without going into too much detail.
Over the coming months, I’ll group them into subjects and write short summaries about different ones topics and how every book touches upon this subject. So stay tuned.
- The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin
- Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
- High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil
- Street Smarts by Jim Rogers
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink by Daniel H. Pink
- Subscribed by Tien Tzuo, Gabe Weisert
- Radical Focus by Christina R. Wodtke
- Getting Things Done (The Art of Stress-Free Productivity) by David Allen
- Why We Sleep (The New Science of Sleep and Dreams) by Matthew Walker
- Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
- High Output Management by Andrew Grove
- Measure What Matters by John Doerr
- The Art of Startup Fundraising: Pitching Investors, Negotiating the Deal, and Everything Else Entrepreneurs Need to Know by Alejandro Cremades and Barbara Corcoran
- Straight Talk for Startups: 100 Insider Rules for Beating the Odds – From Mastering the Fundamentals to Selecting Investors, Fundraising, Managing Boards, and Achieving Liquidity by Randy Komisar and Jantoon Reigersman
- You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney
- Debt – Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
- The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
- Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness
- Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence-and How You Can, Too by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work by Marcus Buckingham
- The E-Myth Enterprise by Michael E. Gerber
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand Out From The Crowd by Allan Dib
- Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge
- The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
- The Art of Thinking in Systems: Improve Your Logic, Think More Critically, and Use Proven Systems to Solve Your Problems – Strategic Planning for Everyday Life by Steven Schuster
- Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni
- Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
- How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know by Byron Sharp
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
- Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni
- Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
- Lying by Sam Harris
- On the Shortness of Life by Lucius Seneca
- Meditations on Violence by Sgt. Rory Miller
- Free Will by Sam Harris
- Go Pro – 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional by Eric Worre
- Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
- Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable about Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business by Patrick Lencioni
- TED Talks Storytelling: 23 Storytelling Techniques from the Best TED Talks by Akash Karia
- The Three Big Questions for the Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
- Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty by Patrick Lencioni
- The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
- The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- Sam Walton: Made in America My Story by Sam Walton
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Startup CEO – Matt Blumberg
What are the business lessons learned here? We are creatures of our habits. To average 20k steps a day or read/listen 50 books a year, I don’t need to do anything extraordinary when it’s part of my daily routine.
Businesses are the same. Once you engrain certain habits (hopefully positive and productive), you can achieve zen of entrepreneurship: do more than anyone thinks possible… with less than anyone thinks possible.
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